“It’s a win-win,” he kept saying.

He wasn’t the only one feeling confident. Not only had Margo listed my father’s house in North Reddemane and gotten an offer in record time, but the negotiations and inspections had so far moved quickly, without a hitch. The furniture had all been packed up, the floors refinished, the septic and electrical checked out. My father and Benji had moved to a motel just down from Gert’s, the Poseidon, with Leah in a room adjacent, to wait until the final repairs were done before heading home. While they both seemed eager to return to their lives, Benji, like me, was looking for distractions. Turned out he was pretty good at finding them.

It had started with some backtalk, not wanting to do the touristy things his mom had planned. He rolled his eyes at minigolf, claimed seasickness at ferry rides, and about the aquarium said only, “Fish are boring.” This general bad attitude escalated once they moved to the Poseidon, manifesting itself in the slamming of doors, heavy, constant sighing, and complaints about the lack of decent channels on the TV. At first, Leah held her ground, dragging him on various expeditions even as he protested. After a couple of days, however, she caved to his near-constant requests and started dropping him off with me.

“I just don’t get it,” she’d said to me one day from her car, which he’d exited like a shot before it was even fully stopped. “I thought he’d just want to have fun the last few days here. What ten-year-old would rather work than go to the beach?”

“Got me,” I said. “I’d love to be at the beach right now.”

She sighed. “All I know is that I am dreading when we tell him we’re leaving next week. He’s been insufferable here. I can’t imagine two days in the car.”

“You haven’t told him yet?”

She shook her head. “I mean, he knows it’s coming, just not the exact day. Joel felt if we waited until the day before, it would be clear it was a fact, not something to be negotiated.”

It was hard not to make a face, hearing this, but I did my best. I had not talked to my father since our argument, keeping my dealings to either Benji or Leah. He hadn’t made any effort either. Now more than ever, it was no surprise to me that he’d preferred facts to negotiations whenever possible. Eliminate the opposing argument and you, too, always get to win.

With all this winning going on, someone had to lose. I’d really been hoping it wouldn’t be me, but now I wasn’t so sure about that either. If June was the beginning of a hopeful summer, and July the juicy middle, August was suddenly feeling like the bitter end. But it wasn’t the end I’d expected, which had totally thrown me off.

What had I thought would happen in these three months? If I was honest, maybe a healing between my father and me, a beach backdrop as a bonus. Instead, we were back to where we’d been before his trip, if not further apart. I’d planned on a fun summer with a boy I’d long loved . . . who cheated on me. Adapting, I’d looked on the bright side, thinking a summer romance might be my fate. Now, though, even that was turning out to be more complicated than I ever imagined.

Theo and I had not talked again about plans for the fall, but only because he’d been so caught up making his come to fruition. Each day for the last week, he’d joined Clyde for his customary early bird breakfast at the Last Chance at six a.m. sharp, after which they set out in the truck together. After collecting collages and paintings from the various places Clyde had them squirreled away around town, they hauled them to the Pavilion, where the show and party was to be held. When Clyde was filming with Ivy, he left Theo there to catalog and organize, rejoining him when he was done. The upside of all this was that Theo was so busy that by the time we saw each other, he was too exhausted to discuss much of anything. The downside? Those twenty-three days I’d finally tallied were now seventeen and counting.

But the cats—the cats I had under control. After putting in a call to C.A.R.E., I headed back to the office, where I found Rebecca on break, my mom and Margo gone, and Benji at my grandmother’s computer, explaining the fine points of social networking on UMe.com.

“And, see, now that we’ve built the office’s profile page,” he was saying as I came into the doorway, “it’s really easy to add various kinds of content.”

“Content?” my grandmother repeated, peering over her reading glasses at the screen.

“Yeah. Like, say, pictures of some of the houses, in a kind of gallery? Or reviews from people who have rented from you. You can even set up a comment section, so people can ask questions in real time.”

“Hmmm,” my grandmother said. “Interesting.”

“No fair,” I called out, getting their attention. “I’ve been trying to get you to update the main Web site for two years, and now you’re on UMe.com?”

“You haven’t updated your Web site in two years?” Benji asked her.

“I told you, I’m a dinosaur.” Grandmother helped herself to a Rolo, giving one to him as well, and they both turned back to the screen. “Okay, now tell me again what these pictures are of, on the side?”

“The people who have listed the page as a favorite,” he explained. “Which means it’s on their page for everyone to see as well. So far, since we just made it, it’s me. But soon there will be others.”

“Emaline,” my grandmother called out, eating her Rolo. “Will you please make our page a favorite? Ask Rebecca, too. And everyone else you know.”