Fifteenth Summer - By Michelle Dalton Page 0,2

eighteenth birthday in March. Abbie and I were bitterly jealous of it.

“It’s probably sometime next week, right?” Hannah muttered, tapping away at the phone screen. “I’m sure we’ll see them there . . . .”

“Hannah, honey,” my mom said a little too brightly, “don’t completely fill up your schedule. You know we want to spend some quality time with you this summer. I know you. Once you start classes in the fall, you’ll work so hard, we’ll never hear from you!”

“I know, Mom,” Hannah said with the tiniest of sighs.

“I think my guy is a runner,” Abbie said. “I could tell by his legs. So maybe he’ll just happen to go running on the beach while I just happen to do my two miles in the lake, and one thing’ll lead to another—”

“Abbie,” I broke in, “do you really think hauling yourself out of Lake Michigan after swimming two miles is the best way to meet a boy? Who knows what you’ll look like. You could have dune grass or seagull feathers in your hair. Yuck.”

“Plus, there’s the issue of your Speedo,” Hannah pointed out. Like all competitive swimmers, Abbie snapped herself into a high-necked, long-legged black bodysuit for her distance swims. It made her look like a slick-skinned seal. A cute little bikini it was not.

Abbie put on her cocky Supergirl face.

“You know I look hot in my Speedo,” she said.

Hannah and I glanced at each other, silently agreeing. Abbie’s arms and legs were long and lean. She had a perma-tan that made her limbs almost glow. Her waist had been whittled down by eight million strokes of the Australian crawl. And while pool chlorine turned some swimmers’ hair into yellow straw, Abbie’s long, straight hair was dark brown and silky.

Clearly just the thought of swimming made Abbie antsy. She flung her perfect legs over mine and planted her feet in Hannah’s lap.

“Hey!” Hannah and I protested together.

“I can’t help it. I’ve gotta stretch. I’m dying in here!” Abbie groaned. She flopped her arm into the front seat and tapped my dad on the shoulder. “You guys, remind me why we got rid of the minivan again?”

“Other than the fact that it was a giant, ugly egg, you mean?” I asked. I had a dream of someday having a vintage car with giant tail fins, a pastel paint job, and wide, white leather seats.

Mom twisted in her seat to look at us with wistful eyes that she quickly whitewashed with one of her forcefully perky smiles.

“Abbie and Hannah, you’re both driving now, and Chelsea will be next year too,” she said, her voice sounding tinny and cheerful. “You girls don’t need us to carpool you anymore. It was time for a grown-up car.”

“Plus, this little guy gets fifty-one miles to the gallon,” Dad said, giving the putty-colored dashboard a pat.

“ ‘Little’ is the operative word,” I grumbled. “There’s barely room for us, not to mention certain essential items.”

“Are you still pouting that you couldn’t bring that ridiculous box of books?” Abbie sighed.

“No,” I said defensively.

By which, of course, I meant yes. Ever since my e-reader had been tragically destroyed, I’d had to revert to paper books. I’d spent weeks collecting enough of them to last me through the long Bluepointe summer, but at the last minute my mom had nixed my entire stash.

“We just don’t have room in the car,” she’d said as we were packing up. “Pick a few to throw into your backpack.”

“A few? A few won’t get me through Colorado,” I’d complained.

“Well, maybe next time you try to prop your e-reader on the soap dish while you’re showering,” Mom had responded, “you’ll think twice about it.”

Which had caused Abbie to laugh so hard, she’d dropped a suitcase on her foot.

Hannah had been slightly more sympathetic. Probably because she got to bring all her books with her. She was starting her freshman year at the University of Chicago in September and had given herself a huge stack of summer reading to prepare.

Even now, as she gazed out the car window, Hannah was being scholarly.

“Dad, don’t forget,” she warned, “we’ve got to get off at exit forty-eight if we’re going to the Ojibwa history museum.”

“Ooh, arrowheads and pottery bowls,” Abbie said. “Thrilling.”

“Well, if you know how to look at them,” Hannah said haughtily, “they are.”

Now it was Abbie and I who sent each other a silent message in a glance: Our sister is a super-nerd. She’d already mapped out her future of a BA in biology and anthropology,