Taylor made a face, but she backed away from my closet and went back to her three sundresses. "Fine. Have it your way, grumpy. Now, which one should I wear?"

I sighed. "The black one," I said, closing my eyes. "Now hurry up and put some clothes on."

Dinner that night was scallops and asparagus. When my mother cooked, it was always some sort of seafood with lemon and olive oil and a vegetable. Every time. Susannah only cooked every once in a while, so besides the first night, which was always bouillabaisse, you never knew what you were going to get. She might spend the whole afternoon puttering around the kitchen, making something I'd never had before, like Moroccan chicken with figs. She'd pull out her spiral bound Junior League cookbook that had buttery pages and notes in the margins, the one my mother made fun of. Or she might make American cheese omelets with ketchup and toast. Us kids were supposedly in charge of one night a week too, and that usually meant hamburgers or frozen pizza. But most nights, we ate whatever we wanted, whenever we felt like eating. I loved that about the summer house. At home, we had dinner every night at six thirty, like clockwork. Here, it was like everything just kind of relaxed, even my mother.

Taylor leaned forward and said, "Laurel, what's the craziest thing you and Susannah did when you were our age?" Taylor talked to people like she was at a slumber party, always. Adults, boys, the cafeteria lady, everyone.

My mother and Susannah looked at each other and smiled. They knew, but they weren't telling. My mother wiped her mouth with her napkin and said, "We snuck onto the golf course one night and planted daisies."

I knew that wasn't the truth, but Steven and Jeremiah laughed. Steven said in his annoying know-it-all kind of way, "You guys were boring even when you were teenagers."

"I think it's really sweet," Taylor said, squirting a glob of ketchup onto her plate. Taylor ate everything with ketchup--eggs, pizza, pasta, everything.

Conrad, who I thought hadn't even been listening, said, "You guys are lying. That wasn't the craziest thing you ever did."

Susannah put her hands up, like, I surrender. "Mothers get to have secrets too," she said. "I don't ask you boys about your secrets, now, do I?"

"Yes, you do," said Jeremiah. He pointed his fork at her. "You ask all the time. If I had a journal, you would read it."

"No, I wouldn't," she protested.

My mother said, "Yes, you would."

Susannah glared at my mother. "I would never." Then she looked at Conrad and Jeremiah sitting next to each other. "Fine, I might, but only Conrad's. He's so good at keeping everything locked inside, I never know what he's thinking. But not you, Jeremiah. You, my baby boy, wear your heart right here." She reached over and touched his sweatshirt sleeve.

"No, I don't," he protested, stabbing a scallop on his plate. "I have secrets."

That's when Taylor said, "Sure you do, Jeremy," in this really sickeningly flirtatious way.

He grinned at her, which made me want to choke on my asparagus.

That's when I said, "Taylor and I are going to go to the boardwalk tonight. Will one of you guys drop us off?"

Before my mother or Susannah could answer, Jeremiah said, "Ooh, the boardwalk. I think we should go to the boardwalk too." Turning to Conrad and Steven, he added, "Right, guys?" Normally I would have been thrilled that any of them wanted to go somewhere I was going, but not this time. I knew it wasn't for me.

I looked at Taylor, who was suddenly busy cutting up her scallops into tiny bite-size pieces. She knew it was for her too.

"The boardwalk sucks," said Steven.

Conrad said, "Not interested."

"Who invited you guys anyway?" I said.

Steven rolled his eyes. "No one invites anyone to the boardwalk. You just go. It's a free country."

"Is it a free country?" my mother mused. "I want you to really think about that statement, Steven. What about our civil liberties? Are we really free if--"

"Laurel, please," Susannah said, shaking her head. "Let's not talk politics at the dinner table."

"I don't know of a better time for political discourse," my mother said calmly. Then she looked at me. I mouthed, Please stop, and she sighed. It was better to stop her right away before she really got going. "Okay, fine. Fine. No more politics. I'm going to the bookstore downtown. I'll drop you guys off on the way."

"Thanks, Mom," I said. "It'll be just Taylor and me."

Jeremiah ignored me and turned to Steven and Conrad. "Come on, guys," he said. "It'll be amazing." Taylor had been calling everything amazing all day.

"Fine, but I'm going to the arcade," said Steven.

"Con?" Jeremiah looked at Conrad, who shook his head.

"Come on, Con," Taylor said, poking at him with her fork. "Come with us."

He shook his head, and Taylor made a face. "Fine. We'll be sure to have lots of fun without you."

Jeremiah said, "Don't worry about him. He's gonna have lots of fun here, reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica." Conrad ignored this, but Taylor giggled and tucked her hair behind her ears, which is when I knew that she liked Jeremiah now.

Then Susannah said, "Don't leave without some money for ice cream." I could tell she was happy we were all hanging out, except for Conrad, who seemed to prefer hanging out by himself this summer. Nothing made Susannah happier than thinking up activities for us kids to do. I think that she would have made a really good camp director.

In the car we waited for my mother and the boys to come out, and I whispered, "I thought you liked Conrad."

Taylor rolled her eyes. "Blah. He's boring. I think I'll like Jeremy instead."

"His name is Jeremiah," I said sourly. "I know that." Then she looked at me, and her eyes widened. "Why, do you like him now?"

"No!"

She let out an impatient breath of air. "Belly, you've got to pick one. You can't have them both."

"I know that," I snapped. "And for your information, I don't want either of them. It's not like they look at me like that anyway. They look at me like Steven does. Like a little sister."

Taylor tugged at my T-shirt collar. "Well, maybe if you showed a little cleave . . ."

I shrugged her hand away. "I'm not showing any 'cleave.' And I told you I don't like either of them. Not anymore."

"So you don't care that I'm going after Jeremy?" she asked. I could tell the only reason she was asking was so she could absolve herself of any future guilt. Not that she would even feel guilty.

So I said, "If I told you I cared, would you stop?"

She thought for, like, a second. "Probably. If you really, really cared. But then I would just go after Conrad. I'm here to have fun, Belly."

I sighed. At least she was honest. I wanted to say, I thought you were here to have fun with me. But I didn't.

"Go after him," I told her. "I don't care."

Taylor wiggled her eyebrows at me, her old trademark move. "Yay! It is so on."

"Wait." I grabbed her wrist. "Promise me you'll be nice to him."

"Of course I'll be nice. I'm always nice." She patted me on the shoulder. "You're such a worrier, Belly. I told you, I just want to have fun."

That's when my mother and the boys came out, and for the first time there was no fight over shotgun. Jeremiah gave it over to Steven easily.

When we got to the boardwalk, Steven headed straight for the arcade and spent the whole night there. Jeremiah walked around with us, and he even rode the carousel, even though I knew he thought it was lame. He got all stretched out on the sleigh and pretended to take a nap while Taylor and I bounced up and down on horses, mine a blond palomino and hers a black stallion . (Black Beauty was still her favorite book, although she'd never admit it.) Then Taylor made him win her a stuffed Tweety Bird with the quarter toss. Jeremiah was a pro at the quarter toss. The Tweety Bird was huge, almost as tall as she was. He carried it for her.

I should never have gone along. I could have predicted the whole night, right down to how invisible I'd feel. All the time I wished I was at home, listening to Conrad play the guitar through my bedroom wall, or watching Woody Allen movies with Susannah and my mother. And I didn't even like Woody Allen. I wondered if this was how the rest of the week was going to be. I'd forgotten that about Taylor, the way she got when she wanted something--driven, single-minded, and determined as all get-out. She'd just arrived, and already she'd forgotten about me.

Chapter nineteen

We'd only just gotten there, and it was already time for Steven to go. He and our dad were going on their college road trip, and instead of coming back to Cousins after, he was going home. Supposedly to start studying for the SATs, but more likely, to hang out with his new girlfriend.

I went to his room to watch him pack up. He hadn't brought much, just a duffel bag. I was suddenly sad to see him leave. Without Steven everything would be off balance--he was the buffer, the real life reminder that nothing really changes, that everything can stay the same. Because, Steven never changed. He was just obnoxious, insufferable Steven, my big brother, the bane of my existence. He was like our old flannel blanket that smelled like wet dog--smelly, comforting, a part of the infrastructure that made up my world. And with him there, everything would still be the same, three against one, boys against girls.

"I wish you weren't leaving," I said, tucking my knees into my chest.

"I'll see you in a month," he reminded me.

"A month and a half," I corrected him sullenly. "You're missing my birthday, you know."

"I'll give you your present when I see you at home."

"Not the same." I knew I was being a baby, but I couldn't help it. "Will you at least send me a postcard?"

Steven zipped up his duffel bag. "I doubt I'll have time. I'll send you a text, though."

"Will you bring me back a Princeton sweatshirt?" I couldn't wait to wear a college sweatshirt. They were like a badge that said you were mature, practically college age if not already. I wished I had a whole drawer full of them.

"If I remember," he said.

"I'll remind you," I said. "I'll text you."

"Okay. It'll be your birthday present."

"Deal." I fell back onto his bed and pushed my feet up against his wall. He hated it when I did that. "I'll probably miss you, a little bit."

"You'll be too busy drooling over Conrad to notice I'm gone," Steven said.

I stuck my tongue out at him.

Steven left really early the next morning. Conrad and Jeremiah were going to drive him to the airport. I went down to say good-bye, but I didn't try to go along because I knew he wouldn't want me to. He wanted some time, just them, and for once I was going to let him have it without a fight.

When he hugged me good-bye, he gave me his trademark condescending look--sad eyes and a half grimace-- and said, "Don't do anything stupid, all right?" He said it in this really meaningful way, like he was trying to tell me something important, like I was supposed to understand.

But I didn't. I said, "Don't you do anything stupid either, butthead."

He sighed and shook his head at me like I was a child.

I tried not to let it bother me. After all, he was leaving, and things wouldn't be the same without him. At the very least I could send him off without getting into a petty argument. "Tell Dad I said hi," I said.

I didn't go back to bed right away. I stayed on the front porch awhile, feeling blue and a little teary--not that I would ever admit it to Steven.

In a lot of ways it was like the last summer. That fall, Conrad would start college. He was going to Brown. He might not come back next summer. He might have an internship, or summer school, or he might backpack across Europe with all his new dorm buddies. And Jeremiah, he might go to the football camp he was always talking about. There were a lot of things that could happen between now and then. It occurred to me that I was going to have to make the most of this summer, really make it count, in case there wasn't another one quite like it. After all, I would be sixteen soon. I was getting older too. Things couldn't stay the same forever.

Chapter twenty

AGE II

The four of us were lying on a big blanket in the sand. Conrad, Steven, Jeremiah, and then me on the edge. That was my spot. When they let me come along .This was one of those rare days.

It was already midafternoon, so hot my hair felt like it was on fire, and they were playing cards while I listened in.

Jeremiah said, "Would you rather be boiled in olive oil or skinned alive with a burning hot butter knife?"

"Olive oil," said Conrad confidently. "It's over quicker."

"Olive oil," I echoed.

"Butter knife," said Steven. "There's more of a chance I can turn the tables on the guy and skin him."

"That wasn't an option," Conrad told him. "It's a question about death, not turning the tables on somebody."

"Fine. Olive oil," Steven said grumpily. "What about you, Jeremiah?"

"Olive oil," Jeremiah said. "Now you go, Con."

Conrad squinted his eyes up at the sun and said, "Would you rather live one perfect day over and over or live your life with no perfect days but just decent ones?"

Jeremiah didn't say anything for a minute. He loved this game. He loved to mull over the different possibilities. "With that one perfect day, would I know I was reliving it, like Groundhog Day?"