“Good luck,” I tell him. “I’ll be thinking about you the whole time. Especially on the day you see the judge. It’s going to be all right.”

He nods and gives me another kiss.

“I’m going to miss you so much,” he says.

One more hug and then he walks away and gets in line.

“I meant what I said,” he says as he turns back. “Read every word.”

“I will,” I say, trying to put on a brave face.

I watch him walk away, and although I know he can’t hear me, I just have to say it aloud, so I whisper.

“I love you.”

August

I’m pathetic.

I know this. But knowing it and being able to do something about it are two totally different things. It’s been five days since Ben left, and no matter where I go, I’m constantly reminded of him. Right now we’re closing up the shop, and as I lock the front door, I notice the poster he brought in the first day we met. Just the sight of it makes me want to cry, so you can guess how much fun I’ve been to be around. Nevertheless, Sophie and Nicole have not wavered in their repeated attempts to lift my spirits. You have to love their tenacity.

“Ladies, the dance floor is ours,” Sophie announces as she turns up the volume on the sound system. “Let’s crank it.”

Sophie is obsessed with nineties dance music, and she loves to blast it while we clean up. As a result, she’s gotten Nicole and me hooked too. The first song on the playlist is another example of how she keeps trying to make me smile.

Right about now, the funk soul brother

Check it out now, the funk soul brother

Despite the fact that it is basically just the same two lines repeated over and over and that its name is completely baffling, I love “The Rockafeller Skank.” I know, it makes no sense, but the beat is irresistible. Which is no doubt why Sophie is leading off with it.

Sophie sings along behind the counter as she sorts the day’s receipts, and Nicole busts a shoulder shimmy and dances with the push broom while she sweeps the floor. I, however, maintain my groove-free status as I mope and restock the clothing racks.

“Who’s up for Mama Tacos tonight?” Sophie asks, raising her voice but still moving to the beat. “I could destroy some nachos.”

“Count me in,” says Nicole. “How ’bout you, Iz?”

I shake my head and mumble some excuse that gets drowned out by the electronic rhythm.

“What?” she says, this time raising her voice.

I try again, but they don’t hear me.

Finally I just blurt out, “No thanks!”

Sophie presses stop. The room goes quiet, and suddenly our fun little surf shop becomes one of those cop show interrogation rooms.

“Why not?”

“I’m just not very hungry,” I say defensively. “And I’ve got to get up early to train.”

“Which is it?” asks Nicole.

“What do you mean?”

“You gave us two excuses,” she says as she stops sweeping. “Which one’s the real one?”

“First of all, they’re not ‘excuses.’ They’re answers. And both happen to be real.”

Nicole turns to look at Sophie; they share a brief psychic-twins moment. Then she turns back to me and says, “You’re shutting us out, Izzy. I don’t know why, but you are.”

“Just because I’m not in the mood for nachos? That means I’m shutting you out?”

“Now you’re ‘not in the mood.’ That’s excuse number three. Who are you trying to convince? Us or you?”

She walks over until she’s standing just across the rack from me. “You haven’t hung out with us once this week. We get that you’re busy when you’re with Ben. We’ll cut you that slack. But since he’s out of town, we thought the three of us would do some stuff together.”

“Yeah,” says Sophie. “We kind of figured we could cheer you up.”

“I don’t need cheering up,” I say curtly. “I’m fine.”

Nicole goes to reply, but instead she just shakes her head and resumes sweeping. “Whatever.”

“What is it?”

“I’ve known you forever,” she says. “Whatever this is, it’s not fine.”

“Well, you’re entitled to your opinion.”

She looks at me and nods. “And you disagree?”

“Very much so.”

“Then why don’t we take this to the register.”

I cannot stress how much I am not in the mood for having my love life taken to the register. “Let’s not. The last thing I need right now is the two of you ganging up on me.”

“Excuse me,” says Sophie. “You feel terrible. We understand that. But if you think we would ‘gang up’ on you, then we’ve got real problems, because that’s not who we are.”

I know she’s right and I regret saying it, but the truth is there’s nothing they can say that will make me feel better. Plus, I worry if I tell them everything that’s on my mind, it will only make things worse.

“It was a poor choice of words,” I offer. “I apologize.”

“It’s us,” says Nicole. “You don’t need to apologize. You just need to talk.”

I don’t respond. I just keep rehanging shirts that were left in the fitting rooms. I figure they’ll give up, blast some music, and let me get back to my mope-a-thon. But they wait me out. There’s no music or questions, just the sound of the hangers as I slide them on the rack. Finally, I give in.

“You really want to know what’s bothering me?” I say.

“We really do,” says Sophie.

“He’s only been gone for five days and I’m fully mental. What happens a month from now when he’s gone for good? And what happens a month after that when this shop closes? What am I going to do? Where am I going to go? I can’t just sit in my room and cry all the time.”

“Is that what you’ve been doing, sweetie?” asks Sophie. “Have you been crying in your room at night?”

“Maybe,” I grudgingly admit. “But I’m serious. What should I do? I can’t figure it out.”

I look at them and wait for answers. I can see that Nicole is carefully considering her words before responding, “I don’t know.”

I wait for more, but she doesn’t say anything else. “‘I don’t know’? That’s your answer?”

“That’s the truth,” she says. “I don’t know what you should do. But I do know that whatever it is, you’re going to do it with me. You’ll be with me at school and wherever it is that we decide to hang out once this place is gone, and we’ll figure it out together.”

“It’s awful,” Sophie adds. “Ben’s great and he’s totally into you. You’re such a cute couple, so we get that it’s not fair. But don’t forget that you were already awesome before he came into your life. And you’ll still be awesome after he goes back home. Maybe even more so because he’s opened up parts of you that we’ve never seen.”

I raise a skeptical eyebrow. “Like what?”

“Like the fact that pre-Ben Izzy would never have entered the King of the Beach,” says Nicole. “She should’ve, but she wouldn’t have. Ben gave you confidence. He made it so you believe in yourself.”

This is something that I had not thought of. “You might be right about that.”

“Of course we are,” says Sophie. “We’re your best friends. We know things about you that you don’t even know about you.”

“Is that so?” I ask, amused.

“Yes, it is,” she says. “Like for instance, right now I know that you’ve still only told us part of what’s bothering you. We already knew that you missed him and were unsure about the future. This is not that kind of moping. This goes deeper. What else is it?”

Somehow the vibe has gone from interrogation room to confessional. They really are great friends, and I know that I can tell them anything. Still, I have to take a couple of deep breaths before I can say it.