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facing the street. I’m on my feet before Zora even pulls into the driveway.

I shout back over my shoulder, up the stairs. “All right, heading out—”

Suddenly, Audrey skids into the foyer, wearing just her nightgown and socks. “You’re leaving?”

“Uh, yeah.” I catch Zora’s eye through the window, turning back to Audrey. “Okay, tell Mom I say—”

Audrey bursts into tears before I even finish the sentence.

“Hey. Oh—okay.” I drop my duffel, leaning closer. “Aud, what’s up?”

She glares up at me, lower lip trembling. “You are not ready for college.”

“Whoa. Okay. I’m... not leaving for college now. I’m just visiting.”

Audrey scrunches up her nose. “Well, obviously .”

“It’s just a trip, okay?”

“Amelia Bedelia, you heading out?” Dad calls from upstairs. “Give me one sec—I’m coming—”

“Dad, I gotta go—sorry!” I shoot Zora a quick, apologetic grimace through the window. “Text you from the road, okay?”

“You better. Hey.” He appears at the top of the stairs. “Have fun. Drive safe. Keep your phone on.”

I shoot him a thumbs-up, grab my bag, and turn back to Audrey. “Just a trip,” I say again, ruffling her hair.

“I know !” Her eyes are glassy with tears, but she makes a big show of rolling them anyway. “I’m taking your room while you’re gone.

Just so you know.”

“Try it and weep, Audrioso.” I honk her nose with my hand, pulling the door shut behind me. It’s a little unsettling, I guess.

Audrey’s no ball of sunshine, but she’s not much of a crier.

I try to shake off my disquiet, but it must be written on my face. “You good?” Zora asks.

“What? Yeah.” I buckle into the passenger seat. “Audrey’s just being a weirdo.”

“Uh-oh. Back on her Beat poetry schtick?”

“Thankfully, no.” I sneak one last glance at my foyer as Zora puts the car in reverse. “Just being dramatic about the trip.

She’s acting like I’m leaving for good.”

Zora shoots me a quick sidelong smile. “She’s gonna miss you, huh?”

“I mean.” I tip my palms up. “Can you blame her?”

It’s only when Zora pulls up to the twins’ house that the trip finally starts to feel real.

But I’m not getting out of the car. I don’t care how many times Nat claims to prefer the back seat. I don’t trust either of

those twins for a single goddamn second.

They both look so endearingly sleepy and grumpy, though, with the matching red roller-board suitcases they’ve had since age twelve.

Nat’s bag even still has its Year of the Rooster–themed luggage tag—that’s the twins’ zodiac sign, but it’s also the year they got the suitcases.

She pauses in the driveway to hoist the rainbow strap of her guitar case back onto her shoulder.

Which is my cue to fling the car door open and stretch my whole body toward her.

Just have to keep one pointed toe on the passenger seat. “Here, pass it over.”

Natalie blinks. “Um. You good?”

I follow her gaze to my shoe. “Extremely good. Just hanging on to my shotgun privileges, thank you.”

“You know you’re the only one who cares about shotgun, right?” she says.

“I know that’s what you want me to believe.”

She makes a face at me, but she’s barely even biting back a smile as she hands me her guitar case. I slide it into the center

back seat, body first, letting its neck rest on the console box. Then Nat slips away to join Mark for a round of suitcase

Tetris in Zora’s trunk.

I twist around to watch it all unfold through the window. You simply never know what kind of treasure might reveal itself

when Mark shuts the lid.

Mark shuts the lid.

Drumroll, please!

Presenting: the pinnacle of my artistic career. A masterpiece in three words. God’s own poetry in bold black serif—printed

on simple white paper and taped to the inside of the rear windshield.

Walter Holland Groupiemobile

“Yeah, no.” Mark strips it down the second he’s in the car.

“Oh, take it! Frame it. It’s fine! Because you, sir”—I reach for the short stack near my feet—“are in luck. I’ve got so many more.”

I hold up a fresh duplicate for both twins to admire. And then I press it up against my own passenger-side window. Smack-dab

in the center.

Naturally, the moment I do this, the twins’ next-door neighbor walks directly past me with Cooper, her collie. So I shoot

her a quick thumbs-up and an extremely normal, minimally unhinged smile.

Status of the woman: visibly freaked out.

Status of Cooper: oblivious. Yet regal.

Status of Natalie: eye-roll-lip-tug-slow-blink combo. Possibly my favorite type of Natalie smile.

I give her a fist bump. “Okay, DJ Nat, I’m hooking you to Bluetooth.”

“On it.” She taps into her music app, home to her ever-growing library of playlists.

I make Natalie show me the playlist title, because she always, always has one. Usually a snippet from a song lyric, and never a capital letter in sight. Our little hipster. She’s named this one:

counting the cars.

“‘America’!” I point at her. “New Jersey Turnpike.”

“Ding ding.”

I smile smugly and turn back around, tucking one leg up onto the seat. A bisexually triangular knee situation. Can’t be helped.

I still can’t believe we’re doing this.

I mean, I guess it’s not that surprising, given that I, Amelia Applebaum, am a creature of mystery and whimsy.

A freewheeling adventurer with the heart of a butterfly, open to wherever the shimmering road wants to take me.

Which will ultimately be Zora’s aunt Jojo’s house on Oneida Lake because my freewheeling butterfly heart respects Zora’s preexisting vacation plans.

But in the meantime!

Natalie’s singing along to Chappell Roan under her breath, and Mark’s fast asleep beside her. Which is what he does in all

moving vehicles—the Metro-North train into the city, the twenty-minute limo ride to prom. Once he conked out in the back of

Mom’s car during a five-minute drive to the farmers’ market. It’s a gift.

“I love driving through here,” Zora says.

“What, the Catskills?” I peer through the windshield—open road and tree-covered mountains, as far as the eye can see.

“I think we’re near camp,” Nat chimes in from the back.

“Oh, maybe! Yeah, it’s got to be somewhere around here, right?” I squint to read a hanging sign in the distance. I’m not a

Catskills expert or anything, though I’ve been here a few times. It’s my parents who know just about every inch of the area.

“Well, we’re definitely in the Borscht Belt,” I say.

“The what belt?” asks Zora.

“Borscht, like the soup,” Nat says. “It’s just a nickname.”

“Because the old-timey New York Jews love borscht, and that’s who used to come here for the summer. Literally how my parents

met.”

“No they didn’t,” Nat says. “They met at Grossinger’s.”

“How is Grossinger’s not part of the Borscht Belt? It’s, like, the most famous resort!”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t here . That was a whole different town.”

“It’s where Dirty Dancing was filmed, right?” Zora asks, and I nod.

Nat shakes her head. “No, but the movie was set there. The setting’s based on Grossinger’s.”

I twist around in my seat. “Says who?”

She holds up her phone.

“Okay, who are you going to trust? Me, a person who literally only exists because of this place? Or Google?”

“Google,” she says.

“Is that where... you were conceived?” Mark asks blearily.

“What? No! That’s disgusting. Wow. Just—Natalie, can you hit him?”

“On it. Hey.” She swipes his arm. “You’re gross.”

Mark drifts back off somewhere around Woodstock, and Nat’s just staring out the window. So I terrorize Zora for a few minutes

by reporting on all the Instagram prom gossip. Evidently a sports guy cheated on a sports girl with two other unspecified

athletes. Full marks for messiness, with gayness scores pending.

Then somehow I end up on Walter’s page.

Every time I look at his event graphic post, there’s a whole slew of new comments. Mostly just smiles and exclamation points

and occasional pleading suggestions for future meet-and-greet locations. As always, there are a few spammy testimonials for

work-from-home business opportunities. But there’s something else, too. You could say I’m noticing a trend.

Hi Walt will Hayden be there?????

HAYDEN GUEST APPEARANCE, LET’S GO

Hayters rise up

No Hayden? ?

#walden

Hayden too pleeeease

Walter can u confirm if you and Hayden are still dating or broken up

Hayden Geller finally come out challenge!!!!!!!!

WAIT HAYDEN CAME OUT?? WHAT

you know they broke up right lmao

hayden confirmed for the blackwell event, hayteros u have nothing!!!!

U literally just made that up bro lmfao

“This is”—I shake my head—“so fucking rude. Wow.”

“Wait, someone on the internet was rude?” Natalie asks.

“Several someones! It’s the whole comment section.”

“Not rudeness in a comment section!”

“Natalie Mei Rosemann-Long, this is troll behavior. You?” I turn all the way around to point at her. “Are a troll. You’re

the mother troll from whom all other trolls are born, from whose trollish teat they suckle—”

“Not. No.” Mark’s voice comes out husky, still threaded with sleep. He rubs his eyes behind his glasses. “Not teat.”

I beam at him. “Good morning, sunshine!”

“Are we”—he yawns—“almost there?”

“Who’s being rude on the internet?” asks Zora, and I can’t help but smile a little.

Quintessential Zora: unflappable surface with a secret twitchy-brained center.

She can sit there writing a paper for hours, but only if her laptop’s plugged in—because the battery icon is too distracting.

She’s so funny to text with, too, because she edits out all her typos.

And she responds to every text separately, even if it’s just with an emoji.

Doesn’t matter how many you spam her with; doesn’t matter how many of them are keyboard smashes.

There’s simply nothing our girl hates more than a dangling conversation.

Just to put it in Simon and Garfunkel terms.

“Walter’s so-called fans.” I settle back into my seat, facing forward. “But they’re not even his fans! They’re literally just

interested in Hayden.”

“Hayden’s the smoldery one, right?” Mark says. “With the abs?”

“Is smoldery a word?” Zora asks.

“Yup. Smoldery. Abs,” I say. “I’m not saying they can’t like him. But it’s just, like—imagine going into the comments of someone’s

event announcement and saying you’ll only bother coming if a different dude shows up.”

Zora winces. “They said that?”

“Pretty much.”

“Why don’t they just go see the smolder dude?” Mark asks.

“Well, Hayden’s not touring,” I say. “Or—I don’t know—he’s not doing fan meetups right now. It’s just press for the space

movie.”

“That movie looks so bad,” Natalie says. “Looks like—not even a good Star Wars rip-off.”

“I know, but it’s Hayden. We’ve got to see it. That’s Walter’s bestie.”

“You’ve literally never talked to any of these people,” Nat says.

“Yes I—”

“Not online. In real life.”

Like I said: troll with troll teats.

I spin around to face her head-on. “Excuse me. Online and real life—”

“—aren’t! Mutually! Exclusive!” chime Natalie and Mark.

I clasp my hands together, smiling. “Exactly.”