Where I Belong by Gwendolyn Heasley

at eleven), she dresses more like a mother who summers than a girl who summers.
    “Did you miss me, Mrs. Corcoran?” Waverly asks.
    My mom fakes wiping sweat from her brow. “Those four hours you were gone were unbearable, Miss Waverly.”
    “I missed you, Waverly,” Tripp says, looking up from his lighthouse puzzle. Of course Tripp would do a puzzle. He even started the chess club at his school. If he weren’t so good-looking, I’d be sure that he was switched at birth.
    “Okay, Mom,” I say, standing up from the rocking chair. “We’re going to touch up our makeup, and then we are going to bounce.”
    “Wait, Corrinne,” my mom says. “Maybe you girls would like to have some lemonade first and then tell me exactly where you are bouncing to.” My mom stands up and heads to the kitchen.
    “Mom,” I say, “I don’t drink lemonade. Empty calories. Besides, the island is only fourteen miles long. Does it matter where we are bouncing to?”
    Waverly just gives her best parent smile and says, “Aren’t you going to the Barefoot Gala?”
    My mom looks down at her jeans and white T-shirt. “Nope, Waverly, my date is working, so I am going to take it easy with Tripp.”

    The truth is that my mom’s not much for galas. Despite being beautiful and glamorous, she’s always sidestepping opportunities to hobnob. I think growing up in small-town Texas socially stunted her. Other Manhattan parents have known one another since the days of elite nursery school.
    “Oh!” Waverly says. “My mother will be so disappointed. She hasn’t seen much of you this summer!”
    I lock eyes with my mom: We know that the only thing that disappoints Mrs. Dotts is when someone is slow to refill her drink.
    Holding up the pitcher, my mom asks, “Are you sure about the lemonade?” Waverly and I shake our heads.
    “Okay, no lemonade. I got it. You are too old for that. But I do remember just a few summers ago when you and Waverly made a killing with your lemonade stand.”
    “Ugh, don’t remind me. We were so juvenile,” I say, thinking back to our curbside stand where we harassed every biker and jogger into paying a dollar for a cup of Country Time Lemonade.
    “Hey, Mom,” Tripp says. He doesn’t even bother to look up from the puzzle, which he’s completing in record time. “Can I do a lemonade stand?”
    “Sure, Tripp,” Mom says.
    Waverly tucks her long, blond hair behind her ear. “Good luck, Tripp. No one’s going to buy lemonade in this shaky economy, even from a heartthrob like you.”

    Tripp immediately blushes, highlighting his already apple-colored cheeks.
    “C’mon, Waverly,” I say, itching to get out of this living room. “Let’s go see these outfits in a full-length mirror.”
    “Corrinne,” my mom says, and she stands to block our path upstairs. “First you will tell me where you are going and with who.”
    “Whom,” Tripp pipes up, head still in the puzzle.
    “A small gathering at Bronson McDermott’s,” I say, which is the truth.
    “Will his parents be home?” my mom retorts with the sentence I most dread.
    “Yup,” I lie, and look my mom in the eye so she thinks I am telling the truth. I learned that in psych class.
    “Waverly?” my mom asks.
    “Totally true.” Waverly confirms my lie.
    “Okay, girls,” my mom says, opening the way for us to pass by. “I want you to remember a thing called island mentality. Just because we are on Nantucket, thirty miles to sea, doesn’t mean that the rules don’t apply. It seems that children and adults get on this island and think it’s high school all over again.”
    “But Mom,” Tripp says, “they are in high school.”
    “Yes,” my mom says, sitting down again, “that’s exactly what I am afraid of.”
     

    Bronson lives way out in Madaket, which is known both for its sunsets and the fact that the dump is there. Luckily, Bronson’s brother, Dennis, at twenty-four, has yet to become employed, so he drives us around for free. I