“Oliver wants to go surfing this afternoon,” I told her. “I told him he has to come up with an excuse for me so that my parents won’t wonder where I am.”
“Tell them you’re spending the night at my place.” Caro shrugged, then her eyes glinted, full of mischief. “Oh, that’s perfect! Then you can go to Drew’s party tonight, too!”
“I was going to go, anyway,” I started to say, but Caro let out a guffaw that raised everyone’s attention, not just the librarian’s.
“Uh, yeah, sure,” she said, then turned to Oliver. “Do you know what her curfew is?”
I could tell that Drew had gotten to Caro and told her about how Oliver was worried about them. She had an easy smile, though, and she patted Oliver’s arm as she talked to him, like their friendship didn’t have a ten-year-long gap in it.
“I’m sitting right here,” was all I said, though.
Caro just ignored me. “Nine o’clock. In the evening. Including weekends.” Caro shook her head like she had just announced a casualty list. “Drew’s parents will probably still be backing out of the driveway at nine o’clock. She isn’t going to any party without me as an alibi.” She turned back to me, leaning up against the back of my chair. “Just tell your parents you’re coming to my place after school and then sleeping over.” She returned her gaze to Oliver. “They love me.”
“Oh, now you’re talking to me?” I asked. “I wasn’t sure. I thought I might have been invisible.”
Oliver smiled at me, then Caro. “Well, that was easy. Thanks, Caroline.”
“Caro,” she corrected him. “Nobody’s called me Caroline since the second grade. So you’re coming, right?”
“Where?”
“Drew’s party. Just show up, this isn’t a formal invite thing. BYO-whatever.”
“And by ‘whatever,’ she means ‘alcohol,’” I explained.
“You speak Caro-ese better than you do French,” she said.
“What about you?” Oliver asked her. “What’s your story for your parents?”
Caro blinked. “I’m the youngest of six. My parents stopped raising us after Kid Number Four. They don’t care where I go.”
“They care,” I interrupted her. “It’s not like you’re Eloise living in the Plaza.”
“On my island,” she sighed dreamily. “Anyway, text your parents. Tell them now.”
The bell suddenly rang, startling everyone in the room, and Oliver stood up. “I’ll ask Drew about borrowing his wet suit again,” he said. “Do you think he’ll mind?”
“Nope!” Caro said, grinning so wide that I could see her back molars. “Drew is totally fine with you and Emmy hanging out.” Then she winked. Actually winked.
“Caro,” I groaned, covering my eyes with my hands. “Stop. Please. I’m begging you.”
“See you tonight!” Caro said as Oliver hoisted his backpack onto his shoulders.
“Meet you in the parking lot?” Oliver asked me, and I nodded, my face still buried in my hands.
“You are so embarrassing,” I told Caro as soon as Oliver was safely out of earshot. “You are the worst.”
“I am the best, and here’s why.” Caro plunked herself in Oliver’s empty seat. “I just got you date number two with your childhood sweetheart–slash–tragic love story—”
“My what?” I uncovered my face to look at her.
“—and you get to go to the party afterward and hang out with both of your cool friends and Oliver.”
“Don’t call him that.”
She frowned. “That’s sort of his name.”
“No, my ‘childhood tragic love whatever’ thing you just said. Don’t say that. It’s not funny, Caro.” I hadn’t meant my words to sound that vehement, and judging from her expression, neither did Caro.
“Fine, sorry. But you know what I mean.”
I did and I didn’t. I didn’t know what any of it meant, or even if I wanted to.
“Um, Emmy?” she said, then glanced down at my now-shredded note card, pieces of je ferais still between my fingers. “What did the French language ever do to you?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
After school, Drew’s wet suit and surfboard slung into the back of my car next to mine, my parents texted about my change in plans (“have fun!! Thank u for telling me and BE SAFE!” my mom wrote back), and Oliver in the passenger seat next to me, I peeled out of the school parking lot and headed west.
“So what’d you tell your mom?” I asked him. The windows were down and the wind made it hard to hear, so I just yelled louder instead of rolling them up. The fresh air smelled good, like clean laundry and salt, a reminder that we were only a few minutes away from the ocean.
“I just said I was hanging out with you,” Oliver said. His elbow was resting on the car door, and his hand was cupped against the wind, forcing his fingers apart.
“No, you did not!” I gasped.
“What?”
“Oliver!” I screeched. “My mom talks to your mom, like, every five minutes! If she—”
Oliver grinned wickedly at me. “Kidding.”
I tried to stop a smile as I punched him in the arm. “You have a real violent streak, you know that?” He laughed, trying to block my fist as I socked him again. “Ow! Okay, uncle, I’m sorry.”