You're Invited (19 page)

I reach over and pull it open, and Dad peeks his head in.

“Is Becca staying—wow.” Dad pulls off his Tar Heels cap, runs his hand through the sandy-brown hair plastered to his head, and then pulls the hat back on. Like that's going to make him see better. “Wow.”

“Um, thanks?” I
kind of wish people would stop staring at me when I look different than usual. It's not like I've turned into someone else. I'm still Vi. Just with a dress and bouncy hair.

“No, sweetie, I meant . . . wow. You really clean up.” Now Dad's face is all red, like I'm sure mine is.

“Okay, thanks,” I say again.

“But you know you can't go out with all of that . . . stuff on your face.”

“
Dad
, please.” I'll be lucky if I can even get the lip gloss on right. I turn to Becca. “I think Dad wanted to know if you were staying for dinner. I'm making chicken stir-fry.”

“That's really nice, Mr. Husky,” Becca says. “But I have to get home.” When we were little, Becca couldn't ever say my last name, Alberhasky. It always came out like Alberhusky. Dad thought it was hilarious, and started calling himself Mr. Husky, and the name kind of stuck.

“Well, I have some great news to share,” Dad says.

Becca and I look at each other. I twist the ends of one bouncy curl, and Becca doesn't even stop me. Dad's good news isn't always good news. Once, it was
him scoring a bag of cheap clothes from the Church of the Victorious and Forgiving Holy Redeemer's yard sale, only for me to open it and find out they were all Linney's castoffs. Another time, the good news was him being interviewed by Channel 8 Wilmington about the union strike he was on and how hard it was for families to put food on the table during the strike.

So I'm not really sure I want to hear his good news right now.

But he's grinning like crazy, and Dad's smile always makes me smile. Even if I'm dreading what he's going to say. So I smile back and wait for it.

“I got a new job!”

“What! Really?” I fling my arms around him.

“Awesomesauce, Mr. Husky,” Becca says. “Where?”

“I'm making a career change,” Dad says. “Getting out of construction and going into maintenance. And the best part is . . . I'll be working at Sandpiper Beach Middle School!” He grins even wider.

“You're . . . what?” Did he say Sandpiper Beach Middle School? Like,
my
school?

“I'll be working at your school, sweetie,” he says. “Isn't that great?”

I can't say anything.

“That's excellent news,” Becca says. Except the look
she gives me shows that she's super glad it's my dad coming to work at school and not one of her parents. “And you're gonna do maintenance? Is that like fixing up the school?”

“Sort of,” Dad says. “Handyman stuff, and general cleaning duties.”

“Like the janitor?” I feel completely numb as I talk.

“Well, yeah, that's one word for it. It doesn't pay a lot more, but it's steady work. No more waiting to see what the weather does.”

“That's . . . great.” I plaster a smile on my face, even though my stomach is sinking down, down, down to my pink toes in their white sandals.

Dad, working at my school, cleaning up my classmates' messes. This can't be happening.

Linney will eat me alive.

TODAY'S TO-DO LIST:

■
 practice using grill lighter

■
 print out beach quote on paper disks

■
 hang fairy lights on front porch

V
i, do you see where I put the other box of candles?” I ask, rooting through my garage for the plastic tub marked
ILLUMINATION NIGHT.
We only have two hours to put the paper disks around all the candles and set up the tables before the fish fry starts, and no way, nohow am I gonna be late to that.

“I'm on it,” she answers, poking her head out from between two beach umbrellas and a wagon. I'm glad I talked Vi into hanging out with me today. She's been sort of mopey since she found out her dad's gonna be a
janitor at our school this fall. I totally get it, but I can't help being a tiny bit jealous that he's taking jobs to be closer to her while my mom's jobs only seem to send her farther away. Vi hasn't really talked about it that much with me, though, and I think it's because she feels bad complaining about her dad when she knows I'd give anything to have mine alive.

Especially on Illumination Night.

Sometimes it's a hassle to live on a tiny island forty-five minutes from the closest mall. Other times (well, most times, really) I wouldn't trade it even for an apartment in the Eiffel Tower. And I
for sure
wouldn't trade it on Illumination Night. Today I don't even care that we haven't booked any more parties, even though we've been working like crazy on new ways to get the word out (like taking out an ad in the back of the
Sandpiper Beach Daily Gazette
), because it's
Illumination Night
.

Illumination Night is the last Friday in July every year and it's kind of like Christmas. In July. Except just with lights, not like, presents or plastic lawn reindeer or anything.

According to a brochure the Visitor's Center puts out, Illumination Night started way back in the 1940s as a way to give Christmas in July to a group of hometown
boys from the island who were drafted into World War II and would be in France or Italy or Japan when December rolled around. Now it's just a purely fun tradition. Practically the whole town and all the weeklies meet up at seven in the town square for a giant fish fry, and there's always a band playing in the gazebo and the old people and little kids dance on the grass or under the statue of Merlin.

Just as soon as the sun sets, we run home to switch on our light displays and then the entire crowd strolls (or bikes, or scooters, or skateboards—no one drives unless they want to go five miles an hour and get nonstop dirty looks) around the streets and checks out the houses all lit up. Well, except for the houses right on the beach, because if any sea turtles hatched on Illumination Night, they'd head right for the twinkly strands instead of using the moon's light to guide them back to the ocean, which would be totally terrible. It's basically the only day of the year the people who live beachside are jealous of the townies!

I pretty much have the best of both worlds because I live right across from Pirate's Cove, which is tucked around a corner from the rest of the ocean, with only a tiny sandy beach and the rest rocks, so the turtles don't
lay eggs there. Plus it's protected from the wind. Which means our cove gets to host the very best part of Illumination Night: the beach candles.

Every year, Izzy and I set up two folding tables at the entrance to the cove and we hand out hundreds of white taper candles slipped through round paper circles to catch the drippy wax. Mom always prints some quote about summer or the beach on the paper disks. Like, for instance, this year it's one by e.e. cummings that goes,
“for whatever we lose (like a you or a me) / it's always our self we find in the sea.”

Then people walk up the path to the beach, light their candles, and place them in the sand. By the end of the night, there are hundreds and hundreds of little flames there.

It's magical.

Becca, Vi, Lauren, and I always arrange ours like a heart, and sometimes people try to spell out words with theirs.

This year, instead of handing out the candles with Izzy, I actually get to be on the beach lighting them because Mom says I'm finally responsible enough to use the long grill lighter without getting burned. I have to bite my tongue to ask her how she knows this because it's not like she's come to any of my parties, and she's
been so busy with a slew of new clients that she's barely even home for dinner most nights. But whatever. I'm totally not getting in a bad mood about her and ruining Illumination Night.

“I found all your dad's old fishing stuff. Would it be near that?” Vi asks. I can only see hints of her curlier-than-usual ponytail through the metal shelving unit.

I swallow the lump in my throat. It's been three years now, and even though we have pictures of Dad in almost every room of our house, most of his stuff has been donated or put in the attic, so it's not like a constant reminder of how he isn't around to wear the barn jacket in the coat closet. But Mom hasn't gotten to the garage yet, so there are Dad traps everywhere.

I sigh. It's like there's a bad-mood conspiracy going on today. And bad moods are totally not allowed on Illumination Night. (Which, FYI, was also Dad's favorite night of the year. Which, FYI, could also be the reason my bad mood is lurking in the first place.)

“You know what? Let's just bike over the bridge to Whitemore's Hardware and grab some new candles. I bet most of the leftover ones are stubby anyway.”

Vi peers around the shelf. “Sounds good to me. I'll treat to lemon pops.”

Whitemore's
keeps a tiny freezer in the back with Popsicles for customers' kids. I make a face at Vi because we both know the Popsicles are free. She grins back.

“Are you looking for these?” My sister, Izzy, stands in the doorway to the garage and dangles two candles from her hands.

“What? Brat! Were you hiding those on purpose?”

Izzy squints at me. “Noooo. Geez. Why do you always jump to the worst conclusion? I was trying to help by getting started early; I already have thirty done.”

Oh. Oops. Stupid bad mood.

“Sorry, Iz. I'm kind of in a funk today,” I mumble, shooting Vi a guilty look.

“On Illumination Night?” my sister asks, wide-eyed. We follow her around to the side yard, where she's already got a candle-papering operation under way.

With Izzy's help, we knock out the rest in record time and drag the tables into place by the entrance to the cove. We hang a handmade
DO NOT DISTURB
sign on the tables and rush back to our houses to get changed into sundresses (yes, even Vi—color me amazed) for the fish fry.

Of course, Mom's still not home. She's been needing to scout a potential wedding location, and she had
to wait for a day there would be a ceremony so she could see it all set up. But there's a text from her saying she'll meet us there later.

“Do you think the Romitos will have any new ones this year?” Izzy asks as we walk toward the square.

I laugh. After our beach candles and the Berrys' (who serve slices from a giant sheet cake in their driveway), the Romitos' get the biggest crowds. Most houses hang tiny white fairy lights, or globe lights like the ones restaurants sometimes use for their outside areas. Some people line their porch railings with votive candles under hurricane glasses.

But not the Romitos.

They have a crazypants collection of lights that grows by the year. Like strands of lit chili peppers, or beach umbrellas, or miniature poodles, or Volkswagen vans. Last year's additions were Hawaiian hula dancers and a strand of Easter egg–shaped lights. It's to the point now where some of the tourists who come every year will bring ones from their own cities to donate to the Romitos' collection. Their display is also my meeting spot with the girls if we haven't found each other by then, and we always have to budget at least twenty minutes to make sure we see every strand. I basically love it.

I love everything about Illumination Night.

We find Lo, Becs, and Vi (who really is wearing a dress and has let her curly hair out of its ponytail, although none of us have the heart to tell her she missed curling a few spots in the back because we don't want to discourage her) before the fish fry even starts this year. We chow down, then watch the little girls twirl around and around and the old people do old-timey dance steps. It's just as fun as ever. Plus the Romitos have tiny guitar lights on a strand, which Becca oohs and aahs over.

So far, so perfect. My bad mood fades as fast as the sun does.

Izzy and I have to run ahead to get in place before people start to make their way over to the cove. Since I'll be on the beach, she's supposed to have her friend Morgan helping her give out candles, but when we get there it's just us and another text from Mom. Running late. Who ever heard of so many wedding dramas? I can't even believe she'd miss Illumination Night. The parties are one thing, but Illumination Night? It's practically a holiday.

“Iz, I'll help you as long as I can, but I have to light
the candles on the beach. Can't you call Morgan and see where she is?”

“No way will she be home.”

“Just try. Please, Izzy. It's my first year lighting the candles.”

I hand her my cell phone and listen to Izzy's side of the conversation, which consists of a lot of “Oh, nos.” This can't be good. Izzy hits end and hands my phone back to me, saying, “Morgan's sick.”