“Do you have brothers or sisters?” Owen asked.
“One brother. He’s my twin. But I’m older.” Even at fourteen, that felt important to mention. “And you’ve got a sister, right?”
“How’d you know?”
“I saw you in Wellfleet at the ice-cream place.”
Owen nodded. “I saw you in P-town once. I go to sailing camp there.”
“I didn’t know there were any camps in P-town.”
“Yup.” Owen didn’t seem like he was going to say any more, and Sarah found herself babbling to fill up the silence.
“My mom called you guys the Pond People.” As soon as it was out of her mouth Sarah wished she hadn’t said it. It had sounded funny when her mother used the term. Out loud, to an actual Pond Person, it just sounded insulting. She was about to apologize when Owen turned around, grinning.
“Pond People. That’s pretty good.”
“And I guess we’re the Bay People.”
“Ha,” Owen said, sounding less amused. He turned around again, giving Sarah his back. “No. You’re the rich people.”
That shocked her into silence, as if “rich” were a curse word, something you couldn’t say out loud. She’d never thought of her family as rich, although she guessed that probably they were. But if Owen went to boarding school and sailing camp and spent his summers here, wasn’t he rich, too? And if that was the case, why did his house look like it was falling down?
“I don’t think my parents are really rich. My mom’s a professor, and my dad’s a lawyer,” Sarah said. When Owen didn’t volunteer any more information, Sarah asked, “What do your parents do?”
“Well.” Owen paused, seeming to gather himself. “My real dad’s a stockbroker. He lives in Manhattan. Anders is between jobs at the moment.” From the clipped way he spoke, Sarah guessed that Owen was quoting someone. Probably his mother. “And Sass doesn’t work. Well, she does house stuff. And she gets married. I guess that’s her job.”
Sarah barely knew where to start. She could understand that being married might count as a job, the same way being a mother was, but how did getting married qualify as work? “You call your mother by her first name?” was what she finally decided to ask.
Owen dipped his paddle smoothly in and out of the water. “Her real name is Ballard Moreland. Then she was Ballard Moreland Lassiter, and now it’s Ballard Moreland Lassiter Renquist. But everyone calls her Sass.” He backpaddled to steer them around a fallen log.
“Oh,” said Sarah. “How about your sister?”
“She’s sixteen. She’s working on the Vineyard this year. Her name’s Eliza, but everyone calls her Bump.”
“Why Bump?”
“Because she used to bump her head against her crib when she was a baby.”
“Do you have a nickname?”
“Yup.”
Sarah waited for a few strokes. “Will you tell me what it is?”
“Nope.”
“Oh, come on!” Sarah used the edge of her paddle to flick water at him.
Owen turned around. He splashed her back and gave her a smile that made her heart do strange, swoopy things. “Someday. Maybe.”
For the rest of the afternoon, Sarah and Owen paddled around the pond, talking. Sarah learned that Owen was fourteen, like she was. She learned about his favorite food （pizza with sausage and onions）， and which TV shows he liked （ER and Law & Order）。 She found out his favorite musicians （Outkast and Eminem） and what he was planning to do with the rest of his summer （attend sailing camp in P-town, then go back to school a week early, when lacrosse practice began）。
When Sarah told Owen that she’d taken piano lessons since she was six and that her current teacher was on the faculty at the Berklee College of Music, he sounded impressed.
“Are you really good? I guess you must be.”
“I practice a lot,” said Sarah, which was true. It was also true that she was beginning to wonder if she was good enough to be a concert pianist. When she was little, her teachers had been effusive, telling her parents that she had innate musicianship, that she was gifted. Now they said that she needed to apply herself; that if she was serious about making a life as a musician, she needed to practice at least three hours a day and, ideally, even more than that, at least six days a week. That kind of schedule didn’t leave time for anything besides sleep and homework, and Sarah wasn’t sure if she loved music enough to persist, to give up everything else and devote herself completely to the piano.