“I cheated on Noah,” she says. Angie is leaning against the sink with her arms crossed. This is not new information for her. Brooke loses herself in her tears again. I sit down next to her.
“With who?” I ask. Brooke continues to cry.
“It was her lab partner, Aiden,” Angie says. “They’ve sort of been friends all semester.”
“Aiden Harris or Aiden Schumacker?”
“Aiden Harris,” Angie says.
“We just had fun together in class,” Brooke says. “I didn’t think it meant anything.”
“What happened?” I say.
“He invited me over to study for the final,” Brooke says. “He kissed me, and for a moment, I let him.”
“That’s all?”
“I stopped him and left and I wasn’t going to ever tell Noah,” Brooke says, “but I hate keeping secrets from him.” She begins to cry again. Someone knocks on the bathroom door.
“Hey, guys,” Sasha says. “What’s going on?”
We let her in and tell her the story.
“It was just one kiss?” Sasha asks. Brooke nods.
There is a knock on the door.
“Hey,” Jamie’s voice says. “What are you guys doing in there?”
“Are you plotting something?” Alex says.
Sasha opens the door and sticks her head out.
“Look, guys,” she says, “we have a really serious situation in here, so cut it out.”
“What do you mean?” Noah says. Next to me, Brooke’s cries turn into a wail. “Hey, what’s going on? Brooke?”
“Brooke, honey, do you want to talk to him?” I ask. Brooke wipes her nose and nods. Angie and I instantly stand at attention and crowd behind Sasha.
“She wants to talk to him,” I say. Sasha opens the door just enough so we can file out and Noah can slide in. We shut the door behind him and turn to face the boys.
“We should go outside,” Angie says.
“Yeah,” I say.
“What’s going on? Is Brooke okay?” Jamie asks.
“We can’t tell you,” I say. The back door closes behind us and we walk to the edge of the pool.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re guys,” Sasha says. She, Angie, and I sit down and dangle our legs in the pool.
“Noah’s in there,” he says.
“It involves Noah,” I say.
“How does it involve Noah?” Alex asks.
“We can’t tell you that,” Angie says. I nod.
“This is stupid. She’s my cousin,” Jamie says.
“I know,” I say. “But we can’t tell you.”
“It isn’t our place,” Sasha says. All three of us nod to that.
“Are they breaking up?” Alex asks.
“Maybe,” Sasha says.
“Oh my God, I hope not,” I say.
“They won’t,” Angie says.
“Okay, this really is stupid,” Jamie says. He and Alex go and sit on the patio chairs. The girls and I begin to whisper. After a while, Noah comes out and asks for Angie. She comes out alone a few minutes later.
“Is she okay?” I ask. Angie nods.
“Yeah,” she says. “She told Noah. They’re gonna walk home and talk about it.”
We swing our legs in the water and make waves, but nobody really talks. We’ve said everything we have to say to each other, and we still won’t tell the boys. Finally, after half an hour, we gather our stuff to walk home. Alex stays behind with Jamie.
When I kiss Jamie good-bye, he does not hug me back, and he looks away afterward.
“Bye,” he says.
“Bye, love you,” I say. “I’ll call you.”
“Okay.”
***
That night we fight on the phone. Even though I cry, he still does not forgive me until I tell him Brooke’s secret. He is instantly sweet again, and we don’t talk about the fight.
At the mall the next day, Brooke tells us about her conversation with Noah while we eat in the food court. She says that Noah has forgiven her, and that Noah said he knew she was sorry and that he hated seeing her cry.
“I can’t believe how much he loves me,” she says. She looks down at her plate of French fries and smiles.
I start to wonder what Jamie would have said if it had been us, and I push the thought away. Nothing like that would ever happen to us.
14
We spend the Fourth of July at the fair in the park. Angie’s Hazelwood boyfriend is with us and we are pleased to be a complete set of four couples. We wander around the scant stalls and booths and listen to the music. Every time we see someone from school we stop so that Angie can introduce Mike. Finny and Sylvie are at the fair too, but we do not stop for them. The fair is small so we pass by them frequently. I knew they would be there, but every time I see them, the image jumps out at me like pictures in a pop-up book. We eat a meal of hot dogs and funnel cakes, and the girls decide we want to go to the petting zoo.
I fall in love with a brown baby goat, and it falls in love with me; when I picked it up, it nuzzled me and laid its head on my chest. I ask Jamie if I can have a baby goat when we get married. He says no, and then says maybe, if it means he doesn’t have to mow the lawn.
I sit on a bale of hay with Augusta, my goat, cradled in my lap like a human baby. She gazes up at me, and either she is mesmerized by the glitter of my tiara, or she thinks I’m her mother. I am singing Augusta a lullaby I have made up for her when I look up and see Finny smiling crookedly at me; Sylvie is crouched next to him looking at the pen of piglets. I stop singing and glare at him. His shoulders shake with silent laughter.
“Oh, Finn, look, it likes me,” Sylvie says. Finny turns away from me and kneels down with her. I’ve matured enough in the past few months to remind myself that I don’t really know her; maybe she’s very nice.
Jamie and the others come to stand around me. They have gotten as much enjoyment as they can out of the fair for now, and they want to go back to Sasha’s.
“But I don’t want to leave Augusta,” I say.
“You named it?” Jamie says. I nod.
“Okay, put down the goat and walk away slowly,” Alex says, both hands held out in front of him.