A few minutes later, the three of us knocked on Madison's door.
"Do you know where we can get a watermelon?"
Madison blinked at me. Then she blinked at Craig. And one more time at Dave. "What are you doing with --?"
"With Craig? Brady's not home, Kiersten's working and your phone was busy. Who else would I be with?"
"But," she stammered, "I thought that you ... Brady said you were ...?"
She'd talked to Brady?
"Sick?" Dave finished her sentence. "She was sick but, lucky for her, Doctor Craig and I came along with the cure."
"Oh yeah?"
"We could heal you too," Dave told her. "That is, if you have the secret ingredient."
The start of a smile lit Madison's face. "And the secret ingredient is?" she asked while she twirled a strand of coffee colored hair around her finger.
"Watermelon."
Madison giggled for about three seconds. Then she dropped her head and started mumbling. She didn't have a watermelon. She didn't know where we could find one. She couldn't possibly go anywhere with us. She had important things to do.
"Like what?" I asked.
"Like you know," she answered.
Of course I knew. She had more sad songs to listen to. "You know, Heartbreak of the 80's will still be here when you get home."
Her eyes flashed and I thought I might have stepped over some invisible line. Oh well. Sometimes friendship means giving an uncomfortable shove.
Madison shoved back. "I'm sorry," she said. "I forgot to be grateful to you for offering me something meaningful to do like, what is it you're planning? Blowing up a watermelon?" I'd never seen my friend look so old.
"And poop," Dave added. "For scientific purposes only, of course." He grinned at her.
"For science?" she said, and once again the smile appeared.
"Yeah."
"Well then, that makes all the difference."
"Great," Craig said. "Let's go."
Her hand reached for the latch. The screen door opened part way. One foot crossed the threshold. We all stepped back to give her room.
She stopped. "I shouldn't," she said. "I'm pretty sure Jacob and Brady are coming. All they had to do was meet someone about a motor, and then ..."
"An engine," I interrupted. "Motors are --"
"Electric," she said. "I know."
She really had talked to Brady.
Her eyes narrowed. "Maybe you should stay here too," she said. "I bet Brady will be thrilled about your miraculous recovery."
For a second I considered stomping away but then Madison's shoulders relaxed and she smiled a real smile at me. "It'll be like old times," she said. "Just you and me and the boys."
"Hey Madison, Craig and me, we're boys," Dave said. "In case you hadn't noticed."
Madison's cheeks turned as pink as my hair. Oh yeah, I suspected, she'd noticed.
"It's tempting," she said, "But I can't. Jacob and Brady, they might --"
"They might come back soon," I said. "They might."
It was all I could do to keep from screaming out what the rest of us already knew about Jacob and what he was really doing at the races. Instead, I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood and said, "But you know how boys are."
I need to keep Craig around 24/7. He always knows just when to step in and save me from myself. "They could call us when they get back," he said, and held up his phone. "Then it could really be like old times, the whole gang again, just having fun. What do you say, Madison, how long has it been since you saw a first rate explosion?"
When she shook her head 'no' I thought I might have to show her a first rate explosion right then and there.
"It's not just that," she said. "It's, you know."
No. Frankly. I did not know. "What?"
"Yeah, okay," Craig said as a look passed between my best girl friend and my best guy friend.
"What's okay?" I asked.
"She's worried that someone might --" Craig screwed up his face like whatever he had to say tasted pretty sour.
"Might what?"
"Jeeze, Summer, you know."
I looked back and forth between the two of them. If you judged new trends by my friends, you'd have to suppose that eyebrow raising was the next new thing.
"Maybe if you talked slower," I told them. "Or at least in complete sentences."
Dave cleared his throat. "What they're saying is, they think someone might suspect something was up if the four of us, if we were together and – " He looked around like the rest of his words might appear in the air. When they didn't, he continued. "Well, someone might see us and get jealous."
"Jealous? Jealous?" I planted my hands on my hips. "Jacob is the last person who has a right to be jealous."
"Hey, Summer, back off," Craig said.
"But."
He turned me around to face him. "It's not just Jacob we're talking about. Brady --"
Oh. Right.
***
In the end, I stayed with Madison. It seemed like the thing to do.
But, thirty-two minutes later, after I'd tried to use my phone to update my blog, and we were back to lying on her bed, staring at PaperKut posters and listening to really cheesy old music, I wasn't so sure.
"So, you talked to Brady today?" I asked.
She flipped over on her stomach. "Yeah."
"It's kind of odd that you'd call him, isn't it?"
"Actually," she said, "he called me."
He did?
"He just wanted to know what was up."
"I've been wondering the same thing," I said.
"Huh?"
"What is up?" I asked her. "Everything's so weird between everybody all of a sudden."
She laid her head on her arms and sighed.
"I mean, there's you and Jacob and --"
"Everything is fine between Jacob and me," she said.
Let it drop, let it drop, let it drop, I told myself. But I couldn't. "No, Madison. When are you going to realize? Things are not fine."
I thought she would have at least looked at me. If someone told me, directly, that something was seriously screwed up with my boyfriend relationship, I'd at least be curious. Instead, she stretched an arm over the edge of her bed and started sifting through a pile of DVDs.
"Last night," I started, "Jacob, he --"
"Maybe you should worry about your own boyfriend for a change," Madison said. She selected a DVD from the pile and sailed the disc across the room, hard enough that I don't think the bonus track will ever play again.
So that was how it was going to be?
"Look who's talking," I said. "I'm not the one having long conversations with her best friend's boyfriend."
"No," she spat back. "You're the one having long conversations with ... oh jeeze, Summer. Never mind."
"Look, I don't know what Brady told you, but the only one who has any reason to be jealous is you. I can't even believe how stupid you are sometimes."
She rolled away from me and curled into a ball.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry," I said.
"Just go," she said.
And I knew that whatever I said next would not be the right thing. So I smoothed back her hair and chose a slightly less sad song to play. Then I promised to keep my phone on, so that when, not if, Jacob and Brady got back from the racetrack, she could call me. And then things really would be like old times again. They would. I owed it to my friend to make it that way.
That's what I did on the outside. But on the inside I was thinking: What Would A Good GirlFriend Do? I wasn't sure, but if I didn't come up with something soon, Madison might wake up when school starts with nothing to show for her summer than a thorough knowledge of bad song lyrics.
<3