The First Last Day

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  In memory of four women, much like G-Mags, who enriched my life in so many ways:

  Karen “Buffey” Barisano

  Frances Bertuccio

  Susan Giannini

  Mary Koncsol

  Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward.

  —Søren Kierkegaard

  CHAPTER 1

  I once read that the Eiffel Tower can grow more than six inches in summer because heat makes iron expand.

  When I said that to Kevin, he stopped on the boardwalk and turned to me wide-eyed, like I’d just revealed the secret plot to the next Star Wars movie. “Do you know what that means?” he asked. “If people were made of iron, you’d be five feet three—and I’d be five feet ten.”

  I straightened my back and stretched my neck. “In a really hot summer, maybe even taller.” As I let myself imagine that I wasn’t always the shortest twelve-year-old in the room, Kevin took his notebook out of his backpack and jotted something down. “What are you writing?” I asked.

  “An idea for a movie: a kid who becomes a giant every summer but shrinks back to normal size when it’s over.”

  “Interesting. But who would you get to play the giant kid?”

  As families strolled past us with dripping frozen custard cones and funnel cakes, Kevin thought for a minute. “I have a friend who’s really tall. Maybe he—”

  A ping sounded from Kevin’s cell phone, and he stopped to read the text. “It’s my mom. She and Dad just drove in from Montclair to take me home tomorrow.”

  “Please,” I begged. “Don’t say that word.”

  “Which one? I said sixteen of them.”

  “ ‘Tomorrow.’ I’m trying to forget this is our last day at the shore.”

  Kevin’s eyes gleamed as he put his phone away. “I’ve got something that’ll cheer you up. Wait here.”

  “What is it?”

  “A surprise,” he said, taking off toward his grandmother’s house.

  Knowing Kevin, I figured it could be anything from a vintage Batman comic to a moldy potato chip that looked like Spider-Man. Neither of those would cheer me up.

  The only thing I wanted that day was for summer not to end and for Kevin and me to stay friends after we left the shore.

  While I waited, the familiar sound of squawking seagulls and the smell of coconut sunscreen drifting by on a warm breeze were comforting. The sameness of summer always made me feel safe and happy.

  As soon as we left the shore, my dad was starting a new job at a big university, and we were moving to a new house. Again.

  That meant another new school. And another year of making new friends. We’d moved four times already, and each time I thought I’d found a BFF, things would change once we weren’t at the same school anymore. They’d be talking about things and people I didn’t know, and before I knew it, they’d moved on. I hoped Kevin and I wouldn’t drift apart like that when summer was over.

  Even though we’d be at different schools, he didn’t live that far away from where we were moving. And I’d already figured out that if I left the next day at noon, he and I would have spent approximately seven hundred and twenty-four hours hanging out at the shore. That kind of time together had to mean something. It was more than I’d ever spent with anyone, except my parents. And maybe some random kid I’d sat next to in school because of our last names—like Tiffany Addison, who was always asking me why I drew people instead of cats. I love cats as well as the next person, but not when they’re wearing tiaras and carrying purses, like the ones she drew all over her notebook. It was kind of demeaning to all catkind.

  I tightened the band around my frizz of a ponytail and squinted toward the beach.

  My mind’s eye made an imaginary click, click, click:

  Sunbathers lining the shore like stick figures.

  Kids guarding their sand sculptures from the incoming tide.

  And the endless line separating the periwinkle sky from the cerulean ocean.

  I was about to take out my sketchpad to capture it all when I felt something behind me. Startled, I turned to find Kevin wearing a cow costume, complete with a hood that had pink ears sticking straight out to the sides—and an udder.

  I eyed him up and down. “I see you’ve beefed up your wardrobe.”

  “Well done!” Kevin shot back. He spun in a circle. “What do you think, Hales?”

  Kevin is the only person I’d ever let call me Hales. At the beginning of sixth grade, one girl started calling me Hale. Then some others gave me nicknames like Storm and Tornado. One kid even called me Acid Rain Adams. That was when I learned you have to be very careful when you let someone give you a nickname.

  “What’s up with the costume?”

  “My mom saw one of those TV shows about hoarders, and now she’s on a cleaning binge—it was in my closet back home. I couldn’t let her give away something this cool.”

  “And . . . why did you have a cow costume in your closet?”

  “Class project. Did you know a cow spends eight hours a day regurgitating and chewing her partially digested food?”

  “Ew.”

  “And, one cow produces almost two hundred thousand glasses of milk in her lifetime?”

  “Being a cow sounds tiring—and kind of gross.”

  “Being a fake cow is cool. I’ll let you try on the costume.”

  “No thanks.”

  “C’mon,” Kevin said. “I’ve only had it on for like fifteen minutes and I can already tell you something about everyone on the boardwalk.”

  Kevin’s father is a psychologist, so Kevin thinks he can figure out everything about everybody. I pointed to a guy in beige shorts and a white T-shirt, licking a cherry Italian ice. “Okay, Dr. Cheeseburger, what’s his story?”

  “Let’s see. He’s very well adjusted and can cope with change. I know that because he looked at me, smiled, and went back to his Italian ice.”

  I motioned toward a woman wearing huge sunglasses and a white lace bathing suit cover-up. “What about her?” As the words came out of my mouth, she pressed her lips together and hurried by.

  “That one has major anger issues,” Kevin said.

  “How can you know that? Maybe she’s a vegetarian . . . or lactose intolerant.”

  “How could anyone look at me wearing this outfit and not smile? I look udderly ridiculous.”

  “You do look ridiculous.”

  “Ridiculously fun!” Kevin reached into his backpack and handed me his video camera to film him along the boardwalk. Then he shouted, “Lights, camera, action!”

  I’d been helping Kevin with his science fiction movie all summer. He didn’t know what it would be about, but he wanted to be ready with a lot of footage once he decided. I walked backward as I filmed. After several near collisions, I stopped and looked up at him. “What kind of science fiction movie would have a cow in it?”

  Kevin thought for a second. “Vampire cows! It’s got Oscar winner written all over it.”

  I gave him the camera and laughed. “More like Oscar Mayer.”

  “Good one,” Kevin said, smiling.

  The first time I saw that smile was when I bumped into him, literally, at the beginning of summer. Both of us stared straight up at the sky as we walked along the boardwalk. I was studying the exact shade of b
lue, for a painting, when our shoulders smacked each other hard. “Whoa,” Kevin said. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I mumbled. Most kids would have kept going—but not Kevin.

  “You know what I was wondering?” he asked.

  Even though it was a weird question, the sparkle in his greenish brown eyes made me stop and ask, “What?”

  “If you hung on a rope from a helicopter and hovered for about twelve hours while the Earth revolved, could you end up landing in a different country?”

  I didn’t know the answer. But once we started talking, I knew this kid would definitely take the bored out of the boardwalk for me. And I was right.

  Kevin continued filming random people. Most sped by as soon as they saw him.

  After a while I put my face close to the lens. “C’mon. We need to make the rest of this day special.”

  “Okay,” Kevin said, stopping to think for a minute. “I know! G-Mags is making cannolis for tonight. Let’s help her.”

  G-Mags was the nickname Kevin and his brother gave their grandmother: G for Grandma and Mags for Margaret. She was a lot older than both my grandmothers, who live far away. I don’t see them very often, but I had seen G-Mags almost every day over the summer.

  “Sounds good to me,” I said.

  Kevin gave me that familiar grin. “Then let’s get a moooove on.” Once we crossed the street, he kicked a rock and chased it toward his grandmother’s house.

  I watched as he and his cow suit grew smaller in the distance.

  CHAPTER 2

  While G-Mags deep-fried the cannoli shells, I stirred the two cheeses—ricotta and mascarpone—in a big bowl. Kevin added sugar, a few drops of vanilla, and some lemon zest. As I swirled the dark brown drops and yellow dots into the mixture, I painted a picture in my mind of the three of us: G-Mags peeking into her pot of oil and me pushing Kevin’s hand away as he tried to dip his finger into the bowl. All of us were smiling.

  The last time I’d helped cook anything was when we put our house up for sale. Mom and I made brownies almost every day. She said the smell would make buyers like our house better. She was right. We’d sold it just before coming to the shore.

  “How are you doing with the filling?” G-Mags asked.

  “Great,” I said, looking up from the bowl.

  G-Mags placed her tongs on a spoon rest in the shape of Kevin’s hand. Her house was the complete opposite of the ones I’d lived in. She’d been there for so many years that everything Kevin and his brother, Michael, made for her was still on display: a picture of the two of them, framed in elbow macaroni, a ceramic cup with a hole that separates egg whites from the yolks, and my favorite, a portrait of Kevin that Michael had painted a long time ago. I hadn’t met Michael because he was working in New York City for the summer. But as I looked around the house, I felt like I knew him. “All done,” I said as I handed Kevin the spoon to lick.

  “Okay, you two,” G-Mags said. “I have to let these shells cool. You can go have fun.”

  “What?” Kevin said. “You mean I can’t eat one now?”

  G-Mags gave him a hug. “We’ll have them after dinner.”

  Kevin frowned and turned to me. “Hey, I almost forgot. Do you want to go to Atlantic City with my mom and dad? We’re leaving when they get back from the store.”

  “Okay.” I wasn’t sure what we’d do in Atlantic City, but there was no way I was missing my last afternoon with Kevin. Just in case things turned out like they had with my last best friend, Abbey.

  We’d been friends all through sixth grade. But toward the end of the year, Abbey got into wearing makeup and reading stuff on the Internet about fashion and famous people. I tried to act interested. One day when we were in the girls’ bathroom, she asked me for an opinion on her new lip gloss. “It’s nice,” I said.

  She shook her head at me. “You really don’t care about my new lip gloss, do you?” Rolling her eyes, she turned toward a seventh grader, who was putting on mascara, and asked for a second opinion.

  I’d e-mailed and texted her a few times after she left for camp but never got any answer. I figured she’d moved on—like everyone else.

  CHAPTER 3

  A rock I’d found on the boardwalk flew from my pocket when I tossed my shorts on the bed. I picked it up and traced the outline of a fish skeleton with my fingernail. This one was a beauty—definitely worthy of a drawing. I knew Mom would never let me keep all twenty-six fossils I’d collected, so I’d gotten into the habit of sketching them—along with everything else I couldn’t keep. No matter how many times we moved, it was never easy to leave so many things behind.

  After showering and throwing on a pair of shorts and my new DON’T WORRY, I’M AN ARTIST T-shirt that Mom bought me, I headed to the living room to show her. Dad was working at his desk. “Where’s Mom?”

  “Last time I checked, she went to take a nap,” he said without looking up.

  Mom never used to sleep in the daytime, but suddenly she was napping every day. She said it was because of the heat.

  “How’s the research going?” I asked.

  “Great,” Dad answered, changing to his Professor Adams voice. “This article on Einstein is fascinating. Did you know—”

  Before he could finish, Mom burst in from the porch. “What do you think?” she asked, holding a box filled with three small clay pots. “Will these be okay on the ride home?”

  I glanced at the carton. “I thought you were sleeping.”

  “I almost forgot about these seeds G-Mags gave me. She said if I plant them now, I’ll have a garden of herbs by the fall.”

  Mom had been acting weird all summer. One minute she forgot things and the next she acted like she was on some deadline. She put the box down. “Did I hear that you and Kevin have a date to go to Atlantic City?”

  “It’s not a date!” I said, louder than I wanted to. “The Damicos are here to take Kevin home tomorrow. The four of us are going to Atlantic City.” Did Mom think I liked Kevin? The way Abbey told me she like liked that eighth grader who rapped at the school talent show?

  Did I?

  “I didn’t mean that kind of date,” Mom said.

  I felt my face flush as a horn blasted from the driveway.

  Mom reached for the fruit bowl on the counter. “You should take a healthy snack with you,” she said, tossing a shiny, red apple my way.

  It hit my hand and fell to the floor. I grabbed the apple and threw it back to her. All summer long, she’d been obsessed with eating healthy snacks. It wasn’t like she used to let me eat Cheez Doodles and M&M’s all the time. But she’d suddenly gone all health foodie. The week before, she’d tried to make Dad and me eat chips made out of some dark green leaves. (I wouldn’t recommend them.)

  I patted my backpack and told Mom I had enough money for food.

  “Be careful,” Dad said as I raced toward the door.

  “And save some of that energy for packing,” Mom added. “I’ll need your help.”

  “Okay,” I yelled back. But I couldn’t help wondering what was up with Mom. Since when did she need my help doing anything?

  CHAPTER 4

  Promise me you’ll text every half hour,” Mrs. Damico said as we stood in the middle of the hotel lobby. “And don’t go outside.” She’s a behavior specialist in middle school, so she’s really good at rule making. Once she finished her list of dos and don’ts, she took off with Kevin’s dad toward the casino.

  To our left, people sat on stools in front of slot machines, hypnotized. Kevin pulled out his camera. Immediately, a stern-faced security guard barked, “No filming!”

  Kevin shoved the camera into his backpack. “That footage would have been perfect.”

  “For what?”

  “Vampire Cows Versus Zombies. Genius, huh?”

  I was about to agree when I spotted a woman in flowered pants walking up to an empty slot machine. She pulled a lever and, suddenly, bells and lights went off. “Look at that,” I said. “She won on her fir
st try.”

  “It’s probably her first try at that machine,” Kevin said. “G-Mags says most people put more money into the casino than they’ll ever take out of it.”

  “Then why do they do it?”

  “I guess it’s fun, but it sure seems boring to me.” Kevin pointed to a giant neon taco. “Hey, that place looks good.” He pulled out his camera to get a quick shot of the neon sign.

  “Don’t tell me,” I said. “Attack of the Killer Tacos.”

  Kevin tucked the camera back into his bag. “It’s like you’re reading my mind.”

  A few minutes later, we were seated at a table, looking at pictures of burritos and beans with melted cheese. “Can you believe this is our last dinner together?” I asked.

  “It’s only three thirty,” Kevin said. “G-Mags is making ragout tonight. You’re invited.”

  “It’s not about the food. It’s . . .”

  Before I could finish, Kevin had peeled the paper end off his straw and stuck the plastic in his mouth. He blew the wrapper across the table, missing me by a couple of inches. I turned just in time to see the man behind me as he twisted to find out what hit him.

  With his black hair, pale skin, and dark suit, the guy looked like he’d never been out in the sun. I leaned toward Kevin and whispered, “He could play a vampire in your movie.”

  Kevin grinned as our server approached us. Her long blond hair hung in curls, and her lips were flamingo pink.

  I ordered tacos, and Kevin asked for a chicken quesadilla. When the waitress left, I eased into another conversation about staying in touch after summer. I may have been shorter and younger than a lot of seventh graders, but I knew enough not to come right out and ask someone if they’d always be your friend. That definitely would have bought me a seat on the train to Nerd Town.

  I took a deep breath and chose my words carefully. “Don’t you wish summer would never end?”

  “It’ll be tough to go back to school,” Kevin said. “But it’ll be great to start working on my movie. My mom and dad are getting me new computer software for my thirteenth birthday, and . . . I’ll get to see Michael. How about you?” he asked. “You must be looking forward to something.”