32

“THE PEARCES FINALLY SOLD THEIR house,” Daddy says, heaping more spinach salad on Kitty’s
plate. “We’ll have new backyard neighbors in a month.”
Kitty perks up. “Do they have kids?”
“Donnie says they’re retired.”
Kitty makes a gagging noise. “Old people. Boring! Do they have grandkids, at least?”
“He didn’t say, but I don’t think so. They’re probably going to take down that old tree house.”
I stop mid-chew. “They’re demolishing our tree house?”
Daddy nods. “I think they’re putting in a gazebo.”
“A gazebo!” I repeat. “We used to have so much fun up there. Genevieve and I would play
Rapunzel for hours. She always got to be Rapunzel, though. I just got to stand underneath it and call
up”—I pause to put on my best English accent—“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair, miss.”
“What kind of accent is that supposed to be?” Kitty asks me.
“Cockney, I think. Why? Was it not good?”
“Not really.”
“Oh.” I turn to Daddy. “When are they tearing the tree house down?”
“I’m not sure. I’d imagine before they move in, but you never know.”
There was this one time I looked out the window and saw that John McClaren was up in the tree
house alone. He was just sitting by himself, reading. So I went out there with a couple of Cokes and a
book and we read up there all afternoon. Later in the day Peter and Trevor Pike showed up, and we
put the books away and played cards. At the time I was deep in the throes of liking Peter, so it wasn’t
romantic in the slightest, of that I’m sure. But I do remember feeling that our quiet afternoon had been
disrupted, that I’d rather have just kept reading in companionable silence.

“We buried a time capsule under that tree house,” I tell Kitty as I squeeze toothpaste onto my
toothbrush. “Genevieve, Peter, Chris, Allie, Trevor, me, and John Ambrose McClaren. We were
going to dig it up after we graduated high school.”
“You should have a time capsule party before they demolish the tree house,” Kitty says from the
toilet. She’s peeing and I’m brushing my teeth. “You can send invitations and it can be a fun little
thing. An unveiling.”
I spit out toothpaste. “I mean, in theory. But Allie moved, and Genevieve is a—”
“Witch with a b,” she supplies.
I giggle. “Definitely a witch with a b.”
“She’s scary. One time when I was little, she locked me in the towel closet!” Kitty flushes the
toilet and gets up. “You can still have a party, just don’t invite Genevieve. It doesn’t make sense for
you to invite your boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend to a time capsule party anyway.”
As if there were some set etiquette for who to invite to a time capsule party! As if there were
really such a thing as a time capsule party! “I got you out of the closet right away,” I remind her. I set