I shrugged but before I could say anything she had opened the kitchen window and was yelling. “Hey! Justin Bieber, you wanna hang out?”

He looked up and I tried to push my hair away from my face but my hands were all covered with flour and I got it in my hair and he started laughing.

“My sister has something for you,” she said, and then started laughing as well. Great, I thought, she’s going to be so stoned she’ll embarrass me. Like the time she thought it would be a good idea to invite Declan and Becky over for a dinner we made together and then before we could eat she insisted we listen to the same four lines of a song she liked over and over and over again. Because it was “so cool.”

But it was too late; Graham walked up the back steps and came right into the house.

“Looks like you’re having a fun time this afternoon,” he said. I could feel my face flush.

He took the mixing bowl and wooden spoon from my hands and started stirring. And I sat on the counter watching him.

Syd took the bowl from him, set it on the table, and became her usual bossy self. “Sit down,” she told him. “I want to read your palm.” She grabbed his hand and held it in her lap.

Syd of course did not know how to read palms at all. This was just the way she flirted with boys. If they were dumb, she read their palms; if they were smart, she’d challenge them to a game of anagrams.

“Or maybe you’d like to play anagrams instead?” I said to Graham. I never really got why they liked it—that game where you rearrange letters in a word. She and Declan played it all the time and it had them rolling on the ground laughing. By doing the palm-reading thing, she was telling me she thought Graham was dumb, but she was also getting to touch him, which I was sure she wanted. I sat down next to them.

“Oh, do you know how to play anagrams?” Syd said, stroking his palm lightly.

Graham said, “Ah . . . I kinda do, actually.”

“Okay, we’ll start with Eiffel Tower,” Syd said. “Go.”

He stared for a while and then asked for a piece of paper. She grinned a triumphant sort of grin and actually placed his hand into mine. Then she got up and sat on the counter, humming and mixing the batter, laughing to herself.

It felt good to hold his hand. It was wide and strong and his fingers were long and beautiful. I thought about him working on his car. “I don’t really know how to read palms,” I told him. “But I can tell we’re all going to be friends.” I looked up and smiled and he nodded, his face flushed. Now he really did look nervous, shy. I felt my stomach flutter.

“I better finish making these,” I said, going to the counter and taking the bowl out of Syd’s hand.

“You sure are an interesting girl,” he said, and his eyes were shiny, gleaming beneath the yellow kitchen lights as dusk fell outside.

I had just a few hits of the bowl on my way home with Declan and Becky and was suddenly feeling very in the mood for some sister time in the kitchen and I didn’t have to wait long. When I got home Ally was already standing at the counter, looking at a recipe book and twirling her long blond hair absently around her finger.

“Graham’s coming over,” she said. “I invited him over to make muffins with us.”

“Oooooh. You’re really making the moves on your crush,” I said.

“Stop it, Syd. He’s new here and we’re his neighbors and we should be nice to him.”

“Fine by me,” I said. “As long as you’re baking.”

I reached into the bowl of blueberries and ate a few and she slapped my hand playfully.

We watched Graham lope across the driveway into our backyard and up the steps and then he knocked.

“Hi!” Ally said, opening the door for him. I saw how he looked at her, that way some guys had where they were totally captivated by her homespun New England princess ways. And it made me smile. He looked like kind of a dork next to her, but he was also painfully good-looking.

“You wanna help mix the batter?” Ally asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Sure. Ah, could I use the bathroom for a minute?”

“I’ll show you where it is,” I told him. “You kinda got to go through a construction site. To get to it.” Ally looked up at me sharply. She didn’t like me saying anything negative about our house, but it was true, Dad’s tools were everywhere and I’d rather say it myself than hear someone else point it out.

He followed me though the living room and out to the front hall. I sat on the piano bench while he went into the bathroom. He didn’t shut the door. And then I heard a faint scraping, crunching sound. I wondered what he could be doing. I tiptoed into the hallway and peered around the corner. In the reflection of the mirror, I could see him cutting up a white pill. There were three other pills laid out on a hand mirror he’d clearly found in the cabinet.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

He turned around, startled. “I . . . this . . .” He handed me a prescription bottle. “This is my anxiety medication,” he said. “Sometimes when I feel nervous I, ah . . . snort it. Because it, ah . . . it works faster.”

I took the bottle and it was indeed a prescription made out to him. The pills also looked the same as the ones in the bottle. I stared at him. I felt kind of sorry for him, but it was also too weird. This kid was into some things I couldn’t quite understand. Part of me wanted to understand them a lot better and part of me wanted him to leave.

“My sister really wouldn’t like that,” I told him.

“No,” he said slowly, looking deeply into my eyes. “She seems very different from you.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I won’t tell her.”

Since he hung out with me while I was baking, I guess it was my turn to hang out with him while he tinkered with his car. Or that’s what I told myself when I wandered over to his garage and poked my head in. He smiled and waved for me to step inside and look at the Austin. I was impressed with how much he knew about fixing things, about technical stuff and engines. Not that I found any of it interesting myself. But I liked to watch him work.

It was one more thing that made it obvious Syd was exaggerating when she told me he was using drugs. I told her to mind her own business and not be a gossip. Besides, he might just be tired or stressed out, and lots of people needed to take drugs for ADHD and things like that. Then she told me she’d seen him snorting drugs when he was over at our house. She said she told him she wouldn’t tell me, but I guess either jealousy or real concern made her do it. I thought her whole act was just really sad. Some attempt to get attention and make me not trust him at the same time.

Standing out there with him while he worked, watching how serious and focused he was, I knew Syd was exaggerating. He didn’t act like Syd and her friends—laughing all the time and lying around listening to Death Cab and stuffing their faces with Doritos.

Graham glanced up from the engine and brushed his hair out of his eyes. “Whatcha thinking about?” he asked.

“My sister.”

“What about her?”

“She thinks you’re using drugs,” I blurted out.

He put down his tools and came and stood in front of me. Wiping his hands off on a towel.

“She’s right. I am.”

I shrugged awkwardly, waiting for him to tell me some secret.

“I need them to concentrate and to not be anxious.”

“That’s what I told her,” I said, and felt a flood of relief in my stomach.

He looked at me and his eyes were so blue and beautiful. He looked so sad and I felt that familiar flutter. Then he reached out his hand and I took it. I had the sudden desire to take care of him. I wanted people to know who he really was.