“I know where my damn school is,” Max said, but his eyes were smiling.

“I think,” I said then, “if you stick with me, you’ll be glad you did.”

And that’s when the Garten Verein came into view.

An arc of balloons swayed over the iron entrance gate. Alice—amateur French horn player and faculty sponsor of the fifth-grade jazz band—was already there, just inside the garden, and as soon as she saw us, she gave them the go-sign to start honking out a rendition of “Happy Birthday.” Kids filled the park, and parents stood holding glass champagne flutes, and as soon as Max arrived, they all cheered.

As Max and Babette took in the sight, she turned to me. “What did you do?”

“We did not go over budget,” I said. “Much.”

We stepped into the garden, and their daughter Tina arrived just behind us—looking svelte and put-together, as always, with her third-grader, Clay, holding her hand. Babette and Max pulled them both into a hug, and then Max said, “Where’s Kent Buckley?”

Tina’s husband was the kind of guy everybody always called by his first and last name. He wasn’t ever just “Kent.” He was always “Kent Buckley.” Like it was all one word.

Tina turned and craned her neck to look for her husband, and I took a second to admire how elegant her dark hair looked in that low bun. Elegant, but mean. That was Tina.

“There,” she said, pointing. “Conference call.”

There he was, a hundred feet back, conducting some kind of meeting on the Bluetooth speaker attached to his ear—pacing the sidewalk, gesticulating with his arms, and clearly not too pleased.

We all watched him for a second, and it occurred to me that he probably thought he looked like a big shot. He looked kind of proud of how he was behaving, like we’d be impressed that he had the authority to yell at people. Even though, in truth, especially with that little speaker on his ear, he mostly just looked like he was yelling at himself.

A quick note about Kent and Tina Buckley. You know how there are always those couples where nobody can figure out what the wife is doing with the husband?

They were that couple.

Most of the town liked Tina—or at least extended their affection for her parents to her—and it was a fairly common thing for people to wonder out loud what a great girl like that was doing with a douchey guy like him. I’m not even sure it was anything specific that folks could put their finger on. He just had a kind of uptight, oily, snooty way about him that people on the island just didn’t appreciate.

Of course, Tina had never been “a great girl” to me.

Even now, beholding the party I’d so lovingly put together, she never even acknowledged me—just swept her eyes right past, like I wasn’t even there. “Let’s go in,” she said to her mom. “I need a drink.”

“How long can you stay?” Babette asked her in a whisper, as they started toward the building.

Tina stiffened, as though her mother had just criticized her. “About two hours. He’s got a video conference at eight.”

“We could drive you home, if you wanted to stay later,” Max said then.

Tina looked like she wanted to stay. But then she glanced Kent Buckley’s way and shook her head. “We’ll need to get back.”

Everybody was setting out their words carefully and monitoring their voices to keep everything hyper pleasant, but there were some emotional land mines in this conversation, for sure.

Of course, the biggest emotional land mine was the party itself. When we stepped inside and Max and Babette beheld the twinkle lights, and the seventies band in their bell-bottoms, and the decorations, and the mountains of food, Babette turned to me with a gasp of delight and said, “Sam! It’s magnificent!”

In the background, I saw Tina’s face go dark.

“It wasn’t just me,” I said. And then it just kind of popped out: “Tina helped. We did it together.”

I’d have to apologize to Alice later. I panicked.

Babette and Max turned toward Tina for confirmation, and she gave them a smile as stiff as a Barbie doll’s.

“And, really, the whole town’s responsible,” I went on, trying to push past the moment. “When word got out we were planning your sixtieth birthday party, everybody wanted to help. We got deluged, didn’t we, Tina?”

Tina’s smile got stiffer as her parents turned back to her. “We got deluged,” she confirmed.

That’s when Max reached out his long arms and pulled us both into a bear hug. “You two are the best daughters a guy could have.”

He was joking, of course, but Tina stiffened, then broke out of the hug. “She is not your daughter.”

Max’s smile was relaxed. “Well, no. That’s true. But we’re thinking about adopting her.” He gave me a wink.

“She doesn’t need to be adopted,” Tina said, all irritation. “She’s a grown woman.”

“He’s kidding,” I said.

“Don’t tell me what he’s doing.”

But nothing was going to kill Max’s good mood. He was already pivoting toward Babette, snaking his arm around her waist and pulling her toward the dance floor. “Your mama and I need to show these whippersnappers how it’s done,” he called back as he walked. Then he rotated to point at Tina. “You’re next, lady! Gotta grab you before you turn into a pumpkin.”

Tina and I stood at a hostile distance as we watched her parents launch into a very competent set of dance moves. I spotted Alice across the way and wished she would come stand next to me for some emotional backup, but she made her way to the food table, instead.

Was Alice’s party attire jeans and a math T-shirt?

It was.

The shirt said, WHY IS 6 AFRAID OF 7? And then, on the back: BECAUSE 7 8 9.

I was just about to walk over and join her, when Tina said, “You didn’t have to lie to them.”

I shrugged. “I was trying to be nice.”

“I don’t need you to be nice.”

I shrugged again. “Can’t help it.”

Confession: did I want Tina to like me?

I absolutely did.

Would I have loved to be a part of their family—a real part of it? I would. Even if the most Tina could ever be was my bitchy big sister, I’d take it. My own family was kind of … nonexistent.

I wanted so badly to belong somewhere.

I wasn’t trying to steal her family. But I would have given anything to join it.

But Tina wasn’t too keen on that idea, which seemed a little selfish because she was never around, anyway. She and Kent Buckley were always off hosting charity galas and living a fancy, ritzy social life. You’d think she could share a little.

But no.

She didn’t want them, particularly, but she didn’t want anyone else to have them, either.

She resented my presence. She resented my existence. And she was determined to keep it that way. All I could think of was to just keep on being nice to her until the day she finally just gave up, held out her arms for a defeated hug, and said, “Fine. I give up. Get in here.”

It was going to happen someday. I knew it was. Maybe.

But probably not tonight.

After a very long pause, I said something I thought she’d like. “They adore you, you know. And Clay. They talk about you both all the time.”

But she just turned toward me with an expression that fell somewhere between offense and outrage.

“Did you just try to tell me how my own parents feel about me?”

“Um…”

“Do you honestly believe that you’re qualified to comment on my relationship with my own parents—the people who not only brought me into this world but also spent thirty years raising me?”

“I…”

“How long have you known them?”

“Four years.”

“So you’re a librarian who moved into their garage four years ago—”

“It’s a carriage house,” I muttered.

“—and I am their biological child who’s known them since before I was born. Are you trying to compete with me? Do you really think you could ever even come close to winning?”

“I’m not trying to—”

“Because I’ll tell you something else: My family is not your place, and it’s not your business, and it’s not where you belong—and it never, ever will be.”

Sheesh.

She knew how to land a punch.

It wasn’t just the words—it was the tone of voice. It had a physical force—so sharp, I felt cut. I turned away as my throat got thick and my eyes stung.

I blinked and tried to focus on the dance floor.

An old man in a bolo tie had cut in on Babette and Max. Now Max turned his attention back toward Tina and swung an imaginary lasso above his head before tossing it over at her to rope her in. As he pulled on the rope, she walked toward him and smiled. A real smile. A genuine smile.

And I—resident of the family garage—was forgotten.

Appropriately.

It was fine. I never danced in public, anyway.

That night, Max mostly danced with Babette. It was clear the two of them had done a lot of dancing in their almost four decades together. They knew each other’s moves without even thinking. I felt mesmerized, watching them, and I bet a lot of other people did, too.