“Funny.”

She motioned across the street. Some of the artists were already beginning to pack up their wares and leave. “What’s going on there?”

“Arts and crafts show.”

“Oh. Cool. Let’s go,” she said, tugging the sleeve of my T-shirt. She was already halfway across Central when I tossed the empty iced-tea bottle away and hurried to follow her. “Is this like an annual thing?”

“Yep. Every Labor Day weekend.”

“Oh, cool,” she repeated, then walked a few steps, wrinkling her nose. “You are right. People do paint that lighthouse a lot. Do you come to this thing every year?”

I shook my head. Actually, the last time I’d come, I begged Nan to get me a beanbag frog. It was the only thing there that a seven-year-old would want, the only thing that wasn’t a reproduction of that lighthouse. I loved that frog, took it everywhere with me. But a couple of weeks later there were weevils in my bed, and Nan inspected the frog and told me she had to throw it out. I begged her not to, but then she showed me a little black bug popping out of the seam. She wrapped the frog in two plastic bags and stuck it in the trash. Sometimes I wonder if that really happened, or if it was just part of a future that might have happened, but anyway, I never went to the festival again after that. It was just another reminder of how everything good in my life was always laced with bad.

Taryn said, “Oh, well, it’s cool. Anyway, I’ve got to go. I’ve got to … Listen.” She bit her lip and suddenly I knew what she was going to ask me. She was afraid to, but I would eventually pry it out of her. She wanted to ask me to meet her tonight. At the boardwalk. Yes!

Before she could answer, I found my lips spreading into “yes.”

Her surprise melted into a smile. “You mean it? You can?”

“Sure. What time?”

“Like, six?” She bit her lip again. “I can’t stop myself from shaking. I need to start now. I should have done the last one, but I bailed.”

I squinted at her. What? What had I just agreed to? “So you’re …”

“I don’t really think I’m ready, but I’ve put it off long enough. Too long. So you will?”

Wait … wait. Suddenly it all became clear, all of it. Everything I’d agreed to. And the answer was no. No thanks, never. By that time I felt too stupid to change my reply, to tell her I’d just agreed to it because she had the most amazing … the most amazing everything and it wasn’t possible for me to turn her down. “Sure.”

“Great. I’m a little nervous. Actually, really nervous.”

I nodded. I would be, too. She was going to perform her first Touch tonight. For whatever reason, she wanted me to be nearby for it. I didn’t know how I could do that. Be in the same room with someone as his life was ruined. As Taryn ruined his life. I opened my mouth to speak and a bunch of nonsensical syllables streamed out before I finally managed, “You, like, want me to wait outside?”

She nodded.

“Um. Why?”

“It’s not easy,” she whispered, and her eyes got all glassy. “Just … can you?”

I shrugged. “All right. I’ll wait in the arcade next door, and you come out when you’re—”

“Actually, I thought maybe you could hide in that place I showed you? That way you can watch it.”

“I don’t know how that will help. But okay,” I said, digging my hands into the pockets of my shorts. “But I won’t get … uh …” “Hurt” was the word I said in the You Wills, but I couldn’t push it past my lips. It made me sound like a gutless wonder.

“Oh, no way. You’ll be behind the curtain. And besides, you can’t be Touched twice.”

“Really?”

She flinched at my surprise. “Why, did you want to get another one?”

“Why would I want that? The good is always accompanied by bad.”

She shook her head. “Not always. Sometimes it’s all good. Bad things happen a lot. But sometimes it just does what people want.”

I snorted. Just my luck. “But now it makes sense why your grandmother isn’t too concerned with providing stellar customer service. No repeat customers.”

She wasn’t paying attention, though. She had wandered over to a display of little wire figurines, made to illustrate different professions. “Look,” she said, picking one up. “A fortune-teller. Looks just like my grandmother.”

I stared at the figure, hunched over the table with a deck of tarot cards in front of her. “No it doesn’t. She’s smiling.”

She turned it over, checking the price. “I think Grandma would get a kick out of this.”

I eyed it, doubtful. “She gets kicks out of things?”

She sighed and put the figurine down. “You’re right. So, um, today? At six? You’ll be there?”

I dug my hands deeper into my pockets, rubbing the grains of sand that always seemed permanently buried in the seams of all my clothing against my palms. “Yeah.”

“And you won’t blow me off again?” she asked, nudging me.

She came in so close I could smell the apples in her hair, and it made me wonder how I was ever Superman enough to find the will to blow her off the first time. “Promise,” I mumbled.

We followed the crowds of shoppers out of the green and she waved goodbye, then headed across Central Avenue, in the direction of her grandmother’s house. And as usual, the second she left, I missed her.

I didn’t want to go home again, but I did. I had a lot of time to kill before six, and after Taryn left me, I realized I looked like a slob. I wanted to brush my teeth, wash my face, and change out of my holey gym shorts and T-shirt so I could look halfway presentable. I opened and closed the screen door carefully, then quietly climbed the stairs and did all I needed to without my mother noticing. Well, maybe she did know I was there, since she could see the future and all, but if she did, she didn’t come out of her room or call to me, and I was glad for that. Quickly, I threw on some cargo shorts and one of the few clean plaid button-downs I had lying around, and was still buttoning it when I ran into Nan downstairs. “Don’t hold dinner for me,” I said.

“Oh, it’s that girl, isn’t it?” she said, beaming. “A date?”

“Not exactly,” I said, nerves tweaking as I thought about what it was. “But we’re … hanging out.”

“Not exactly,” she repeated, mimicking my voice, then swatting my backside with a dish towel. “Dating, hanging out. It’s the same thing. You kids and your funny expressions.”

“Whatever,” I said with a smile, then went out the door, this time not caring if my mom heard the slamming. When I straddled my bicycle, in my mind I saw these things: pizza, smiley face, strings of disgusting peppermint. I was halfway down the street in a matter of minutes, heading toward the Heights, when I passed the badge-checking station at the Seventh Avenue beach. A thought of Jocelyn, my old babysitter, popped into my mind. I figured it was probably because that booth was where she worked, but I’d passed it a hundred times before and never thought of her once. I shook the thought away, stood on the pedals and pushed harder, past the piles of sand on Ocean.

It was a weird night. The wind was blowing steadily from the east and thick clouds, like a pile of charcoal, were hovering over the mainland. I could see the white outlines of the seagulls against them. Somewhere, far away, thunder rumbled. That meant a nasty summer downpour, the kind that raged for a few minutes and then disappeared as quickly as it had come, leaving a rosy sunset and a rainbow as a parting gift. I crossed my fingers and hoped I wouldn’t be drenched by the time I made it to the stand on the boardwalk.

I didn’t have to worry. When I got there, the storm was still rumbling in the distance. Taryn was sitting on one of the green benches overlooking the beach, her backside on top of the backrest and her feet planted on the seat. There were seagulls swarming around her. As I got closer, I noticed she had the fabric of a long skirt bunched up around her knees and a scarf over her shoulders. Hoop earrings and a tambourine would have completed the picture so nicely. She was feeding the birds funnel cake. She shrugged as she saw me. “I know, rats of the seashore and all, but we’re all God’s creatures.”