“They’re always enthralled with her,” Pinky said, kicking a pebble, and Samir thought she was mostly just talking to herself.
“Really? And with you, they’re…”
“Exasperated.”
Samir snorted and brushed away an insistent mosquito. “No kidding.”
Pinky gave him a look that could wither mighty oak trees. “What does that mean?”
Somewhere in the distance, Samir could hear splashing on the lake. “I have a feeling you give your parents plenty of reasons to be exasperated.” He gestured to her marsupial. “Case in point.” He wasn’t her parent and even he was kind of exasperated, to be honest.
Pinky tugged the opossum away from a pinecone she was trying to eat. “Or maybe they—and you—could be inspired by me. Ever think of that?”
“Ha. Inspired by your complete lack of respect for rules?” Samir pushed a branch out of the way as they wound deeper into the woods. “Or by your affinity for dangerous situations?”
“I know you spend all your free time arranging your sock drawer by color, but out here in the real world, independence, bravery, and passion are positive traits,” Pinky said, her voice bitingly sarcastic. “Just FYI.”
For a fleeting moment, Samir considered shoving her into a small hole in the ground they were passing. “And out in the real world, bragging about your positive traits is considered a very negative trait. Just FYI.”
“I’m not bragging,” Pinky said, her jaw clenched as tight as the fist that held the opossum’s leash. “I’m just aware of my good qualities.”
Samir ducked under a tree limb and took a deep breath. “You know what? Let’s talk about something else.”
“Fine.”
They watched the opossum for a minute, the tension still thick and soupy in the air. Finally, to clear it, Samir said, “So? What are you going to name it? Her? Your opossum, I mean.”
“You can just say ‘possum’ like the rest of America, you know.”
“But technically, she’s an opossum,” Samir explained, baffled. “Why wouldn’t you want to say it correctly?”
Pinky groaned and ripped a brown leaf off a bush, crumpling it to dust in her frustrated hand. “Because! Everything’s not about being accurate and perfect!”
“I know that!” Samir said, losing his cool. Why was she so—so rude?
Pinky made a big show of breathing in and out slowly. “So. Back to your question.” She gave him a big fake smile, meant to restore the peace, he imagined. Really, she just looked like an alligator about to attack. “I have to name her?”
“Um, yeah. If you’re keeping her the rest of the summer, she has to have a name. Saying ‘that grotesquely ugly giant rat that sometimes dies’ could get strenuous.”
Pinky huffed a surprised laugh. “You might have a point there.”
As they watched, the opossum scurried over to a Tupelo tree, its tiny nose twitching at ninety miles an hour. A leaf detached from the tree and floated down in a lazy circle right in front of it. The opossum took one look at the leaf, its beady eyes going wide in shock, and suddenly fell over.
Samir and Pinky stared at it.
“Is it…?” Samir began.
“Dead again.” Pinky sighed. She walked over and sat cross-legged next to it. “I guess we’ll just wait here for her to wake up. Maybe it’ll be faster this time.”
A laugh burbled up from Samir’s throat. “Oh my God. That’s all it takes? A freaking leaf to twirl down in front of it?”
Pinky looked up at him indignantly, but her expression melted into a smile. “I guess,” she said, laughing too. “I don’t think that’s normal, though.”
“Oh, great,” Samir said, laughing even harder. “So this thing’s weird even for its kind.”
“She’s just a bit dramatic,” Pinky said. Then, her eyes shining, she added, “That’s it. That’s her name. I’m gonna call her Drama Queen.”
His irritation gone for the moment, Samir ran a hand through his hair and went to sit by Pinky. “Drama Queen. Pinky and Drama Queen. I like it. You have to wonder, though.”
“What?”
“How these things haven’t gone extinct yet.”
Pinky sighed again and shook her head.
CHAPTER 7 Pinky
Pinky turned the car off and looked at Samir. “We’re here.”
He craned his head to look at the giant red-and-white-striped brick lighthouse looming ahead of them; it was the same one he’d seen from Pinky’s property. With the bright blue sky surrounding it, it gave off a very New England–themed-calendar vibe. “Wow. This is so cool.”
Visiting the lighthouse had been his idea. Once Pinky had managed to sneak Drama Queen back into the house, Pinky’s mom had asked what she and Samir were going to be doing the rest of the day. Pinky had shrugged, but Samir had immediately popped out with, “I’d love to see the lighthouse. If Pinky wouldn’t mind taking me.”
Naturally, her mom and dad had thought that was the best, most wholesome idea ever and had enthusiastically given Pinky the keys to their rented BMW. Something they would never have done with Preston or Pistachio, btw.
Now, Pinky shrugged as they unbuckled and got out of the car. Rolling, wet heat wafted off the asphalt of the parking lot and enveloped her. Ocean waves crashed in the distance; the beach lay past some big marshland and a thicket of trees to their right. “Yeah, it’s pretty awesome. Come on, I’ll show you.”
She didn’t mind visiting the lighthouse; it was actually one of her favorite things to do on Ellingsworth. But bringing Samir here alone felt… weird. Like something you’d do on a real date. She wished Dolly could’ve come to act as a buffer, but someone had to stay back at the house and take care of Drama Queen while Pinky was away.
Samir looked around the empty lot on their way to the lighthouse trail. His buttercup-yellow polo shirt (the same color as Pinky’s mom’s cardigan—big surprise, they actually liked the same boring lawyer-y things) was already beginning to stick to his back. “I’m surprised there aren’t more people here.” Giant white seagulls screeched overhead, as if in agreement.
“I mean, it’s really hot right now.” Pinky could feel her hair expanding sideways in the humidity, this close to the ocean. “Most everyone comes at dawn or dusk. But I figured you wanted to see the inside, and it’s best to do that when you don’t have to jostle to share the view.” Plus, a lighthouse tour at dusk was just wayyyy more rom-com than she wanted to deal with.
“Good deal.” There was an actual pep in Samir’s step as he headed up the wooden stairs made of railroad ties, his big flipflop-clad feet kicking up puffs of sand. His sensible, professional-looking messenger bag bopped against his hip. The guy was like an advertisement for some spine-chilling combination of a Boy Scout and a church choir boy. “Ooh, look at this!” He was standing in front of a sign right outside the lighthouse that described its history. Pinky hadn’t realized that people under the age of sixty read those signs. “Wow. Ellingsworth Point Lighthouse was built in 1857 in a different spot. Apparently they had to move it back almost a thousand feet from the ocean in the nineties because of rising sea levels.”