9 1
k a r i j o n e s
Advance Reading Copy
from the high school, people I don’t really know. But I am
pretty sure they’ll be slobbery beer drinkers I don’t want to
spend time with.
“Hey, we were waiting for you guys,” shouts Jack when
we get there.
“What for?” I ask.
Noah holds up a bottle of tequila. “We haven’t even
opened it yet. We were waiting for the hero,” he says.
Ivan laughs and walks around to the back of the hot tub,
where he strips to his board shorts, which, I notice for the
first time ever, are long and cover his scar. He slides into the
tub. Too fast. Too far away. Too interested in tequila. He and
Noah unscrew the cap and swig from the bottle. I stand at
the side of the hot tub and let the steam wash over me.
“Come on in, Maddie,” Jack says. He shoves the guy
next to him to make room for me, but I can see the bottle of
tequila doing the rounds, and Ivan’s already slouched in an
I’m-not-moving-from-here position on the other side of the
tub. He doesn’t catch my eye when I look at him, so I shake
my head and go back into the house.
I chill with the girls for a while, swaying and dancing to
their music, but they’re kids and they giggle a lot, so after
a while I go to the dining room to get some food. Bea and
Katia are there, so I stay and talk to them. Bea’s heading off
to McGill in a few weeks, and Katia’s going to Victoria for
nursing school. I haven’t told them, or anyone else, that I
got into Emily Carr but am not going. I’m afraid they’d also
look at me like I’m insane.
