But still I keep talking, sounding desperate even to myself. “We’ll try capture the flag,” I promise, even though each day we attempt a new game, and each day it ends this same way. “Or red light, green light. Or follow the leader! I think you’d really like follow the leader…”
Noah doesn’t say anything. He simply stands up, his face entirely blank, then brushes the grass off his knees and walks toward the parking lot.
It’s not much, but I take it as a yes. And I follow him.
* * *
At the end of every day, there’s the chaos of pickup time: a half hour of attempting to direct traffic and shepherd kids as mothers glare at the cars in front of them and nannies shout for their charges not to forget their lunch boxes and counselors do their best to make sure nobody gets hit by a slow-moving minivan.
Today, I’m in charge of keeping things running on time, which basically means standing in the middle of it all and hoping I don’t get clipped by a side mirror. It’s only 2:07, and already more than half the kids have been whisked away. The rest are sitting cross-legged under the trees in front of the entrance to the school, digging through their backpacks or trading woven bracelets or tossing things at the junior counselors.
We’re right on schedule, but I still can’t help glancing at my watch. Griffin is supposed to be picking me up at 2:30, and though everyone is usually gone by twenty after, that still leaves me only a few minutes to change. I’ve brought my favorite outfit, a pale-yellow sundress that’s probably a bit much for a trip to an arcade. But there’s no way I’ll be wearing my sweaty camp clothes when I see him again. Not this time.
By 2:18, there are three kids left: a pair of eight-year-old identical twins who match right down to their orange sneakers, and Noah, who is sitting with his back to the parking lot, tapping intently on the trunk of a tree.
Most of the other counselors have taken off. There’s only me and Alex Sanchez, a soon-to-be senior who likes to tease me about my freckles, which have been multiplying by the day, and who is generally a lot nicer than he needs to be, considering the fact that he’s a whole year older than me and the star of the football team.
But that’s the thing about summer: The regular hierarchies collapse like sand castles at this time of year. Everything shifts and settles and takes new shape.
It’s a great equalizer, this season.
Soon, the twins’ mother pulls up—full of apologies—and Alex heads off, with a sympathetic glance in my direction.
“See you tomorrow, Freckles,” he says, trotting over to his car.
It’s 2:22 and the parking lot is quiet. Noah is hunched over, still facing the tree, and through the thin cotton of his camp T-shirt I can see the knobs of his spine. The wind ruffles his red hair as he examines the fraying end of his shoelace.
Behind us, the door to the school opens and Mr. Hamill walks out with a pink Post-it note stuck to his finger. He hands it to me with a sheepish look, and I see that there’s a phone number scrawled across it.
“So I tried his mom a few times,” he says. “But there’s no answer, and I have to leave for a dentist appointment.” He points at his mouth and winces. “Broken crown.”
My eyes travel over to the entrance to the parking lot, where Griffin’s car will soon appear.
“I feel terrible about this,” Mr. Hamill says with a sigh. “But his mom’s not usually late, so I can’t imagine she’ll be long. Do you mind waiting with him?”
Noah shifts on the grass, swiveling to face us. When I glance down at him, our eyes meet briefly, and he holds my gaze for a split second before looking away again.
It’s now 2:28.
“Of course,” I say, because that’s the kind of thing I always say. “I’m happy to.”
* * *
By the time Griffin’s car—something old and loud and blue—turns into the drive at 2:30 on the dot, I’m midway through dialing Noah’s mother for the second time. I lower the phone and hang up, feeling panicked. This isn’t how it was supposed to go. Noah is now walking in circles around the trunk of the tree, dragging his fingers across the rough bark as he spins, and I think again of the small duffel bag I tucked away, full of not just a change of clothes but also deodorant and perfume and a brush, all of which I could desperately use right about now.
But there’s no time for any of that: Griffin is already walking toward me, a hand lifted awkwardly, his eyes pinging between me and Noah, who has stopped circling and is now simply staring.
“Hi,” I say, and Griffin smiles. He’s wearing the usual blue shirt and khakis, but his hair is freshly combed and still a little damp, and though it’s approximately a thousand degrees out—the air so humid it has a weight to it—he still somehow manages to look improbably cool.
Which only makes me feel like more of a mess.
“Hi,” he says.
“I’m really sorry,” I begin, even before he’s all the way across the parking lot. I gesture at Noah, then shrug helplessly. “His mom isn’t here yet, so I have to wait with him, which means I can’t—”
“That’s okay,” Griffin says. “I’ll wait with you.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I say automatically, and he raises his eyebrows.
“I know,” he says stiffly. “But I want to. Otherwise I wouldn’t have offered.”
His words linger between us for a beat too long, until I finally say, “Okay then.”
“Okay then,” he says with a nod, already walking past me to where Noah stands underneath the tree. The two of them look at each other for a second, then both immediately avert their eyes. Griffin takes a step forward, and Noah takes a step back, like two dancers practicing a choreographed routine. There’s a long pause, and I watch them, curious to see what will happen next. Finally, Griffin lifts his hand in a kind of half-wave.
“Hi,” he says. “I’m Griffin.”
Noah squints up at him, tilting his head. And then, to my surprise, he says it back: “Hi.”
It’s not that Noah doesn’t ever talk. It’s just that he rarely does so on cue. If you ask him a question, he tends to look away. If you say hello, he ignores you. If you try to include him in a game that requires singing or chanting or talking, he usually shuts down. When he does speak, it’s mostly to himself.
So now, hearing him respond to a greeting like it’s something that happens every day, my throat goes thick with unexpected emotion.
“What should we do while we wait?” Griffin asks, his eyes trained on the small, startled boy in front of him.
I hold my breath, waiting, as the silence seems to stretch on forever.
But just as I’m about to interrupt—to come to his rescue, to cut through the quiet, to help out by suggesting a game—Noah hops to his feet and says, “Basketball.”
* * *
Griffin, it turns out, is better with a basketball than he was with a bag of candy. I stand at the edge of the blacktop with the phone pressed to my ear, listening to it ring for what feels like the thousandth time, as he sinks another effortless shot from the free throw line and Noah chases after the rebound.
“I’m feeling less confident about our Pop-A-Shot competition,” I say, giving up on the call. I’ve left several messages now, and there’s not much more to be done except to wait.
“I don’t know,” Griffin says without looking at me. “Someone told me you’re insanely good.”
“Who said that?”
The corners of his mouth turn up in a half-smile. “You.”
“Oh.” I flush. “Right.”
Noah is attempting to dribble, which mostly consists of slapping at the ball with his open palms, and Griffin walks over, bending close to demonstrate how to soften his hand. I fold my arms across my chest, watching with interest. I keep waiting for Griffin to make a wrong move and set Noah off, the way I always manage to do when I touch his shoulder or speak too loudly or get too close. But he doesn’t. He seems to know instinctively what not to do, and because of it, Noah has said more to him in the last twenty minutes than he’s said to me all summer.