2. Prescription For Love

Outside, Margie headed down the flagstone sidewalk toward the bike rack on the other side of the white board fence surrounding the grassy lawn. The town library, a white clapboard building with its square steeple and big, tall windows, was just about her favorite place in town, and she stopped by almost every other day. Her mother had warned her it was going to rain when she’d biked out after breakfast, but the sky looked clear to her. Besides, she’d run out of things to read and had already passed her Kindle allowance for the month, with ten days still to go.

She didn’t really mind the six-mile trip to the library, not when it meant she’d get first dibs on any new books that came in over the weekend. And she liked looking at the books, even the ones she’d already read. There was just something cool about seeing the shelves and shelves of spines, and discovering one she hadn’t read, like unearthing a buried treasure. Mrs. Lattimere had stopped censoring her reading from the adult section a year ago when her father had paid a visit to assure her Margie was capable of choosing her own reading material, including what Mrs. L termed racy titles. Margie smiled, remembering that discussion, especially since she mostly liked the economics and business books. Although she always managed to grab a thriller or a romance that she guessed Mrs.

Lattimere considered racy.

A boy slouched on a green park bench just inside the fence under one of the big weeping willow trees, watching her as she drew near but pretending he wasn’t. He looked about her age, skinny like most of the boys in tenth grade—eleventh grade, she reminded herself—with a big loose T-shirt and tan ripcord shorts that came to his knees. His haircut was cool, short on the sides and kind of wild on top, and a pretty shade of dark brown. He was cute. She didn’t know him, and that was kind of strange, seeing as how it wasn’t really tourist season yet and strangers in the village were unusual.

She waved when he kept staring. “Hey.”

He looked surprised and blushed, like he’d been caught at something, and smiled almost tentatively. “Hey.”

“How’s it going?”

“Okay, I guess,” he said, but it didn’t sound as if he meant it. His voice was soft and a little bored sounding, with the slightest hint of sweetness to it.

Margie stopped in front of him and balanced her books on her hip. He was cuter than she thought at first. His eyes were a really neat shade of blue, a lot like Harper’s and her mother’s, really dark until you got close and realized they weren’t brown but more like navy. “So, are you visiting?”

“No, I live here.”

“Yeah?” Margie plopped her books on the end of the bench, sat down, and drew one knee up onto the wooden slats. Wrapping her arms around her leg, she faced him. “You just moved in, then.”

He fidgeted a little, as if trying to think of what to say, and nodded. The sunlight cut across his face, and up this close, his skin appeared smooth and pale, his jaw softly tapered, his upper lip full and curved. Huh. Interesting. “That’s cool.” She held out her hand. “I’m Margie Rivers.”

He looked at her hand for a second as if it were a foreign object. Then he took it. His hand was firm and warm. “Blake Remy. Hi.”

“So, you’ll be in school this fall.”

He sighed. “I guess so.”

She laughed. “You mean you’re trying to figure some way not to be?”

He laughed too, and his eyes lightened as if a storm had passed through and the sun had started to come out again. “Not really. It’s just weird, you know. I’m already halfway through high school, and now

” He shrugged. “You know. New guy.”

“I’ve gone to school with the same kids since kindergarten, but I think it would be kind of neat to meet some new people. After a while, you know everyone.”

He looked away. “Yeah, I guess.”

“So I’ll be a junior. How about you?”

“Me too.” He straightened a little. “That’s cool.”

“Where do you live?”

He pointed off to the left. “At the end of town. The old schoolhouse.”

“Oh, yeah. That’s where the Weatherbys lived before their dad got transferred. When did you move in?”

“We got here this weekend, but we’re not really moved in yet. The truck is supposed to come this afternoon with the rest of our things.” “Where did you live before?”

“Manhattan.” He said it as if it were on the other side of the world, and a place he never expected he’d see again.

“Wow, that’s different.”

He stared at her a second and grinned. “Too right. So what’s it like around here? I mean, what do you do?”

“Well, it’s almost summer.” Margie rolled her eyes. “I guess you figured that out already.” Blake laughed again. “I noticed.”

“So there’s not as much going on as there is during school, when, you know, there’s band and soccer and school clubs. In the summer, though

” She stopped, considered. “I bet you don’t have much experience with livestock, do you.”

“Uh, no,” Blake said. “I don’t know anything about farms and animals and things like that.” He toed his sneaker into the grass. “I’m so not going to fit in.”