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  Grace spun her tennis racquet on one finger as Harper approached with a can of tennis balls. Walking slowly down the alley, Harper prayed she’d take at least one game.

  Although they’d never met, Harper was curious about Grace. From afar, before this day, she’d watched her play other girls. She had textbook form and was known for the power in her backhand. The energy behind her strokes was remarkable.

  Harper heard coaches talking about it behind the dusty fence when she moved in to retrieve a ball during their warm-up.

  Everyone, including Harper, also knew about Grace’s competitive temper. Sloan was right. Just like the winners she

  hit down the line, it was as predictable as summer monsoons in the desert. After she’d missed a shot, from a court away Harper had seen Grace slam her racquet so hard the graphite splintered into pieces.

  Grace chewed bubblegum and took a few steps in her direction as Harper got closer.

  “Are you Harper?”

  “Yeah.”

  Harper was surprised by Grace’s accent. And she was also surprised by the question; she figured Grace knew exactly who she was, they just hadn’t met yet. Grace was relatively new to town, but they went to the same grade school after all.

  Focused on Grace’s dangling gold cross cradled in her young cleavage, Harper avoided her eyes as they shook hands.

  “I’m Grace,” she said, blowing a bubble.

  Harper looked to Nonna, who gave her thumbs-up.

  As Harper bent over to tie her shoelaces, she wondered where Grace was from. From her own world travels, Harper was sure she’d heard the accent before. She took extra time with the double knot. Was she from Scotland? Somewhere else in the UK?

  From under the bill of Harper’s hat, she could see Grace’s hands flat on the ground as she stretched her Achilles tendon.

  Growing up on the tennis court, Harper had learned the hard way about the importance of stretching. Once you’ve heard someone’s tendon snap, even if it’s from several courts away, it never escapes your memory; it sounds like a gunshot when it coils from the bone.

  Physically, they couldn’t have been more opposite. Grace, who already had the bosom of a teenager, was like a picture from a magazine. She looked like a model, Harper thought, completely put together; her hot pink skirt even matched the grip on her tennis racquet. Grace’s blond hair, long relaxed golden ringlets, was pulled back into a loose ponytail.

  A full-blooded Italian, Harper had hair of dark chocolate with a hint of red— cioccolato, her Aunt Amelia said—done up in a tight French braid that fell to the middle of her back. Harper was starting to get hips. She’d always been rail thin and lanky, but she was quickly developing. And faster than she liked.

  Grace, on the other hand, seemed quite comfortable in her stretching skin. You could see it in the way she carried herself, the way her tank was a V-neck, accentuating her newly forming womanhood. Standing about two inches above Harper, Grace looked down at her after they finished stretching.

  “So, do you go to Carlyle?” Harper asked, unzipping her tennis bag, digging out a racquet. She was already playing Grace’s game.

  “Right.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Oh yeah?” Grace said, pounding her strings before walking toward the baseline, leaving Harper at the bench.

  In between sets, Harper tried to strike up conversation again.

  “Where is your accent from?”

  Grace finished her water and crushed the paper cup in her hand. “England,” she said, and left it at that.

  Harper wanted to tell Grace that she’d been to England, had been on every continent, even Antarctica, but decided to just retie her shoelaces instead.

  Their warm-up was almost as long as their match, which Grace won 6-0, 6-1. Harper got her game.

  Afterward, while Grace stood at the net waiting for a handshake, Harper fumbled with the balls at the fence, accidentally kicking one into the adjacent court.

  “Good game,” Grace said, even though it wasn’t.

  Quickly, she loaded up her racquets and left the court.

  Carlyle, the grade school both girls attended, was an expansive ranch-style building that fanned out onto a shaded lawn like a deck of cards spread on an evergreen tablecloth. The five-acre campus was nestled into an orange grove at the base of Camelback Mountain. Each night, it was flooded by an irrigation system that kept that part of town ten degrees cooler than the rest

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  of Scottsdale. Carlyle was ultra private and ultra posh. Students had to live in a certain zip code to get in and there was a steep tuition; the administrators even looked at parents’ financials for admission.

  Around campus, there were always maintenance men working furiously, planting fresh flowers and painting things that didn’t need paint. Near the parking lot was an Olympic-size pool kids swam in at lunch. It was the perfect blue. There, too, men were always skimming leaves, fussing with colored water gauges and measuring chemicals.

  Less than a week after their first match, Harper had just asked the lunch lady for her sandwich to go when she spotted Grace sitting at a table near the back doors. The hot new girl, she was surrounded by boys and their raging hormones. Jamie Simons—a pompous, popular boy with a pretty face—was sitting closest, bending her ear, flexing his young muscles.

  As Harper slid her tray down the line, they caught eyes.

  Grace smiled first.

  Sloan slammed her tray up against Harper’s. “I told you Grace would whip you on Saturday,” she hissed. “Neaner. Neaner.”

  Harper chose a pint of chocolate milk, a cold one near the bottom. “How bad did she beat you in the last tournament?” she asked.

  “I had the flu,” Sloan sniffed, “it didn’t count.”

  Harper shook her head as she grabbed her lunch, packed in a brown bag to go.

  “Helping Miss Jensen again?” Sloan asked.

  Miss Jensen, a young fetching teacher carrying a messy stack of papers, waited near the exit for Harper.

  “She asked for help,” Harper said, paying for lunch. “She’s behind on grading.”

  Sloan immediately stuck her fat tongue out—it had bits of bread on it—and pretended like she was French kissing the air.

  “Oh Miss Jensen, I love you. Oh Miss Jensen, I want to kiss you.”

  “Screw you,” Harper said, throwing her change, a few pennies and a nickel, at Sloan. Just as quickly, she turned and walked away, rolling her eyes as she always did at Sloan and her torment.

  Harper was headed toward Miss Jensen when she caught Grace staring again. Making her way through the cafeteria, Harper opened her chocolate milk and held the carton up to Grace.

  “Cheers,” she said.

  Grace did the same with her apple juice.

  Maybe they’d be friends one day, Harper thought.

  During afternoon recess, Harper was on top of the jungle gym swinging from her knees, upside down like an orangutan.

  Through the web of crossbars, she could see Grace on the swing across the yard. Grace was huffing, pointing her toes to the sky as hard as she could. If there were gears on the swing set, Grace had hit full speed.

  Nearby, Sloan was playing four square with a group of classmates. Even from upside down, Harper could tell she was arguing about a miscalculated point.

  “Nu-uh,” Sloan fought. “Five!”

  Sitting on the park bench under the old Palo Verde tree, Miss Jensen was still grading papers. Harper watched her for a long time—she loved the dress she was wearing, wanted one just like it.

  From hanging this way, Harper’s face looked like a plum, blood draining into her head at an alarming rate. She felt dizzy and decided it was time for a dismount. She’d run over to help Miss Jensen some more.

  Reaching up, Harper was unhooking her legs from the monkey bars when Jamie appeared out of nowhere. He stood above her on top of the webbed dome like the king of the playground.

  In mid-swing, Harper didn’t have time to righ
t herself before Jamie stepped on her bent fingers. Harper screamed before her fingers involuntarily released their grip and gravity took over.

  In a sort-of somersault, Harper was flung to the earthen floor beneath the bars.

  She heard her collarbone snap before she felt the pain, which immediately filled her body with adrenaline.

  The first thing Harper saw once she hit the ground was

  Jamie, about ten feet above her, with a smile on his face. Once he saw the teachers coming, he jumped off like Spiderman.

  Miss Jensen was on her way; Harper heard the jingle of her whistle on a lanyard around her neck. She would save Harper.

  “Are you okay?” Miss Jensen asked, taking Harper’s hand.

  Beyond the excruciating pain from her back, blood ran down her leg. “We’re getting help.”

  Rolling to her side, Harper saw a worried Grace slowing the swing with her sandal. She dragged it through the soft dirt until she stopped completely.

  Harper tried to move her arm, but the stabbing pain along her left clavicle made it impossible.

  “Nurse Umble is coming,” Miss Jensen said.

  Through her tears, Harper saw Grace walking slowly, cautiously in her direction along with a cluster of other students surveying the scene.

  Even though the bell rang, Grace, with clear, genuine concern, waited until Harper was placed on a stretcher and taken to the nurse’s office before she went back to class.

  Jamie was called to the principal’s office immediately. As Harper sat in the nurse’s chair waiting for Nonna, a bag of ice taped to her shoulder, she could hear Principal Wagner yelling.

  In between his booming voice, Jamie defended himself. “It was an accident. I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

  At the urgent care clinic, the x-rays were telling—Harper had broken her collarbone in two places, both on her left side.

  The blood was from a pencil that had been in her pocket; it had torn a gash in her leg the size of a caterpillar. Seven stitches. The point of the pencil had wedged itself in her flesh so she’d had a tetanus shot, too, for lead poisoning.

  “Even at your age,” the doctor said, “the damage done here may be irreversible. We’ll see how it heals. You won’t be able to play tennis for some time. Maybe never again.”

  “What do you mean?” Nonna asked, as upset as Harper, who was crying into her Carlyle Cougars sweatshirt.

  “What about pom and cheer?” Harper wept. “Can I still be a cheerleader? Once I’m better?”

  “Eventually.”

  “I need to call your parents,” Nonna said later as she and Harper arrived home, parking in the circular driveway of their family’s sprawling estate. “They’ll want to be on the next flight.”

  Even though her day had been awful, Harper worried about the call to her parents; she hated being the reason they had to cut an assignment short and fly home.

  Grace was the last person Harper expected to see a week after surgery. It was mid-afternoon and Harper was in the game room, with more ice on her shoulder, lying on a couch, watching a Gilligan’s Island marathon when Grace, accompanied by her mother, came around the corner carrying a gallon of ice cream and a card.

  At first, Harper didn’t know what to say. Quietly, she watched Grace sit down on the leather ottoman and smile.

  “Hi,” Grace said, tucking her hair behind her ears.

  Grace’s hair looked different when it was down. Harper almost didn’t believe it was Grace Dunlop. Her hair was clean, bright and thick, but the same watercolor yellow. Feathered. As if she’d been on her own desert island, Harper stared like she’d never seen another human.

  After they each said hi, a good ten seconds went by before anything else was said. Grace smelled of orange blossoms and was giving off heat. Their mothers could be heard chatting in the foyer.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Better.” Harper paused. “I think. The doctor says I’m better. I saw him today.”

  Grace handed Harper a get well card with the tub. “I brought you some ice cream. I hope you like Rocky Road.”

  Harper didn’t like nuts, but she said Rocky Road was her favorite.

  “I am sorry for what happened. Jamie’s a jerk.”

  “He did it on purpose you know.”

  “I know.” Grace touched Harper’s arm. She was on her side.

  “He got suspended.”

  It wasn’t long before Nonna, who’d stopped by to check on Harper, brought the girls two bowls and an ice cream scooper.

  Grace reached for the spoon and did the dirty work.

  In silence, they watched Ginger flirt with the Professor on TV while they ate their ice cream. Harper kept her bowl at an angle so Grace couldn’t see the heap of nuts she was collecting at the bottom. She put her napkin on top when she finished.

  Out of the corner of Harper’s eye, she could tell by the shoes Grace was wearing that she hadn’t come from tennis practice.

  “What did you do today?” Harper asked.

  “I had piano.”

  “I play piano,” Harper said. “I’m sure you’re better. I only know one song. ‘Lean on Me.’”

  They smiled and watched Gilligan and Skipper argue.

  “How do you like Carlyle?” Harper finally asked.

  “Fine. How do you like it?” Grace asked quickly, nervous.

  “It’s all right.”

  After a few minutes, Harper asked Grace if she wanted to see her stitches. Grace paused before she said sure. Harper pulled up her pant leg and leaned back onto the arm of the couch.

  “You can lift the gauze.”

  While Harper waited, staring out the window at the crew of Hispanic men working in the yard, she wondered when Grace had decided to be her friend, if coming over was her idea.

  “Is this blood?” Grace asked, tentative.

  “No, it’s Betadine. It’s gross, huh? It’s for the germs, I guess.”

  “It’s not gross.”

  Harper could tell by the way she said it that she thought it was.Coming over had been Grace’s idea. As Harper and her mom, Ana, made dinner that night, they discussed it. “I don’t get it,” Harper said. “She was so mean to me when we played. I tried to be nice.”

  “I remember you saying she was bitchy,” Ana said, standing a few feet away, towering over Harper, her premature gray hair sloppily wound into a bun.

  As Harper sat at the counter doing homework, she wondered if she was allowed to say bitch, too. She was eleven and had already gotten her period; perhaps she was old enough. They’d been working on becoming friends. It felt weird, but she tried it out.

  “Yeah, she was bitchy.”

  She glanced at Ana, who wore an African stone around her neck and was chopping Maitake mushrooms. Ana smiled. And so did Harper. It worked.

  Ana wasn’t like other moms in Paradise Valley; as an international photographer for National Geographic, she was cultured, worldly and open in a way others simply weren’t.

  Harper yearned to spend more time with her mom. Each time she and Harper’s dad were home in between assignments, it was never enough.

  A soft-spoken feminist, Ana had somehow escaped the conservative trappings of the Valley and her wealthy upbringing.

  Since college, where she’d left midstream to join the Peace Corps, she’d bucked every tradition. Something inside her had changed and never went back.

  “How do you like your pottery class?” Ana asked, drying spinach in the salad spinner.

  “I like it. Nonna thinks I should be in ballet instead, so I might switch classes.”

  “But you love art. You don’t love ballet.”

  Harper chewed on the green crazy straw leftover from her afternoon milkshake. “I like ballet, Mama. Grace takes ballet.”

  Over her glasses, Ana looked at Harper and then dumped a pile of mushrooms into the sautéing onions on the stove. Harper added, “Maybe I want to take ballet, too.”

  “Whatever you want, baby, is fine with me.” />
  After Grace stopped by to see if Harper was okay, it seemed that overnight they were best friends. Inseparable. They made a

  pact and did all the things best friends do, securing their place in each other’s lives. At the mall, they bought a best friend charm and each wore half around their neck—BE FRI and ST ENDS.

  They sealed the deal after overturning the Dunlops’ golf cart.

  Both girls were catapulted onto the gravel path. “Blood Sisters Forever,” they said, swearing on it, pressing their wounded knees together.

  That same summer, they started planning their futures.

  “I’ll be your maid of honor and you can be mine,” Grace said, bouncing on her trampoline.

  “Okay,” Harper agreed after she did a backflip. “And we’ll be neighbors. And live on the same street.”

  “The two houses perched above the lake,” Grace added, always specific, knowing exactly what she wanted.

  As they spoke, they bounced up and down opposite each other, speaking mostly in midair.

  “And we’ll have two kids each, maybe three.”

  “And we’ll plan it so we can be pregnant at the same time.”

  “And our kids can all grow up together.”

  “I want a dog. And a cat.”

  “And a fish tank. I love fish,” Harper said.

  “Our husbands. They’ll be handsome and successful.”

  “They’ll drive nice cars and play golf.”

  “And they’ll always be away on business trips, so we can still have slumber parties,” Grace added. “You, me and all our kids.”

  Beyond specific childhood experiences—activities which revolved around the country club and the private golf course they grew up on—the soil Harper and Grace sprouted from was quite different.