Page 33 of Hello, Sunshine

I put my hands down as the officer walked over from his squad car, the sun backlighting him. It took me a second to place him: Zeddy Morgan, fellow graduate of East Hampton High. Fellow native. He’d had a crush on me when I was in sixth grade—or was it seventh?—and left a pack of half-eaten Twizzlers and a love note by the front door. A front door he was now trying to keep me away from.

“Zeddy?” I said.

I gave him a smile, relieved that whatever had started this misunderstanding, it was about to be over.

A look of recognition swept across his face. “Sunny? Sunny Stephens! What are you doing here?”

“Visiting.”

“Visiting who?”

I looked at him, confused.

His face turned beet red. “Sorry to do this, but the owners want you to get off the property.”

I pointed in the direction of the house—my childhood house. “It’s my property,” I said.

“Yeah . . . not anymore,” he said.

“What are you talking about?”

“The new owners took it over a few years back. Celebrity folk. Very private. They’re not here too often.” Then he pulled out his notepad and started writing me a ticket. “Though they are here now.”

He handed over the ticket. I looked down at it, still trying to process what he’d said about my family’s house, no longer in my family. And then trying to process what the ticket said: $500.00. Trespassing.

“Zeddy, you’ve got to be kidding!” I said. “We used to live here. Would you just explain to the owner?”

He shrugged. “Already did.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said you don’t live here anymore.”

I put the ticket in my pocket. “Nice.”

I looked in the direction of the house.

“VERY NICE!” I screamed.

“All right, all right,” Zeddy said, motioning toward my car, motioning for me to leave. “Let’s not make a scene. I’m going to meet the guys at The Sloppy Tuna. Why don’t you come? Five-dollar oysters, two-fifty beers. And they usually just let me drink for free. I can see what I can do. Considering the ticket.”

It was a terrible invitation. But it was the only one I had.

I nodded my agreement, and Zeddy opened my car door.

Then I noticed movement on the guesthouse porch. A little girl. At least, I thought it was a little girl. All I could confirm was that whoever it was who raced out of the doorway and back into the house was a blur of blond curls and glasses and skinny, adept legs.

I turned back toward Zeddy.

“So . . . you remember how to get there?” he said. “Just take a left on Old Montauk and—”

“Zeddy, are they living in the guesthouse?”

He looked away. “No.”

“Zeddy!”

“They may be living in the guesthouse,” he said.