“I can’t help him if he’s in France.”

“Then go, for God’s sake,” Britt said. “Just go. If she’s being bullied, then taking her away for the summer might not be the worst idea,” said Britt. “Honestly, Cam, this sounds like a dream come true. Just so you know, if somebody tells me I should spend a summer in France, I’m not going to fight them.”

Because you wake up every day to a great guy and two kids, Camille thought. No nightmares of falling husbands.

“You can hang out with Professor Dreamboat while you’re there,” Britt added.

“Not dating, remember?” Camille scowled at her.

“Then just shag him. He’s gorgeous,” Britt burst out.

“Mom, do you hear the way she’s talking to me?” Camille asked their mother.

“She’s only doing her job as a sister. Listen, it’s taken you a long time to get to the point where you’re even open to dating. Don’t shut down now. You’ve finally met someone who makes you blush when we tease you about him.”

“I’m not blushing.” Camille’s burning cheeks made a liar of her. “I don’t even think of him like that. I don’t think of him at all.”

“Sure you do, and you should. He lives in Aix-en-Provence. Isn’t that pretty close to Bellerive?”

“I have no idea,” Camille said. Forty-seven kilometers, to be precise. She’d looked at the map several times. Several dozen times. “If there’s any hanging out to do,” she said, “it would be with Papa. And I still haven’t made up my mind about going.”

Her mother dabbed at her lips with a napkin. “Your father just finished cancer treatment. This is what he wants. I don’t believe you have a choice.”

“Are you sure these are the right forms?” Julie asked Tarek, sitting next to him on the curb outside the post office.

“Yes.” He turned the blank form so she could see it. “All you have to do is fill it out completely, get your mom to sign it, pay the fee for expedited service, and you’ll have her renewed passport within two weeks.”

She scanned the official-looking forms. “Really? Then we’d better get started right away.” The we just seemed to slip out. Since the previous soccer fiasco, she and Tarek had been hanging out, sort of, like shipwreck survivors hanging on to a raft.

She still cringed when she thought about the soccer match that had incited the stupid purse incident. The trouble had started with the morning pickup game. It was pretty common for kids to kick a soccer ball around on the front school lawn. Soccer was huge at their school, and everybody played.

But not everybody played like Tarek. He was amazing. He had incredible moves and speed, and he was good at every position he played. You’d think a kid like that would be popular with everyone else, but no. Tarek looked different. He was from a foreign country. He was so good at soccer that you almost couldn’t take your eyes off him. That morning, when he’d drilled a goal past Jana Jacobs’s stupid boyfriend, Rolfe, Jana called Tarek a terrorist and told him to go back to where he came from.

From her midfielder position, Julie had heard the remark. She’d seen the look on Tarek’s face as he’d left the field. And she’d seen Jana’s couture purse on a bench next to a big, juicy mud puddle. She’d wanted to push Jana herself into the puddle, but she’d settled for the purse instead, not realizing Jana was going to make a federal case out of it.

“You need a passport photo and your mom’s old passport. Do you have that?”

“I haven’t even told her I’m doing this.”

“Will she be mad?”

“She keeps saying we can’t go, but I think she might be coming around. And I do have a photo we can use. My mom and Billy used to have a passport photo service. I found one on her computer.”

“It has to be in the proper format. A two-inch square with the head in the middle.”

“I’m pretty sure it is,” she said. “How’d you get so smart about this?”

A shadow passed over his face. “We left everything behind. Everything we owned, and all our important documents as well. Fortunately, my parents had made digital copies and stored them online.”

Julie tried to imagine what that had been like for him—walking away from his home, his neighborhood, his town . . . his father. “I’m sorry that happened to you and your family. It must have been awful.”

“The worst part is that my father is still detained. My mother and our host family have been trying to secure his release.”

“What’s he like, your father?”

Tarek’s large, dark eyes turned soft and beautiful. “He is my best friend. And the best soccer player I know. I learned all the moves from him.”

“Oh, look, it’s Jumbo Julie and Lawrence of Arabia,” called a harsh-sounding voice.

Julie’s head snapped up. Vanessa Larson, along with Jana and three others in their clique, were bearing down on them. As usual, they traveled in a pack, all skinny jeans and silky hair and nasty attitude.

“Ignore them,” Tarek said.

“Sure,” she muttered.

“You two make such a cute couple,” Vanessa said, sidling closer.

Julie wanted to disappear without a trace, but there was no escaping the gaggle of girls. Humiliation felt like fire, the kind of fire built for human sacrifice.

“Lawrence of Arabia was an Englishman,” Tarek said easily. “I am not an Englishman.”

“No, you’re a terrorist, that’s what I heard.” Vanessa did a lame imitation of his accent. Then she whipped out her phone and took their picture. “I’m going to post this online so everyone can see what a cute couple you are.”

Julie still had a knot on her head where Vanessa had “accidentally” bonked her during surf rescue. The knot seemed to throb as her temper rose. “Why would you do that?” she asked, dismayed to hear a tremor in her voice. “Can’t you just mind your own business?”

“Oh, look who’s talking,” Vanessa snapped. “You’re the one who told your mom a bunch of lies about us. She saw us at the library and said you gave her some bullshit story that we’re picking on you. As if.”

Julie’s insides turned to ice. Really? Had her mom really said something to Vanessa? After Julie had begged her not to? Everything was going to get worse. Way worse.

Mortified, she stood and gathered up the passport forms.

“Whatcha got there?” Jana asked, snatching up one of the pages.

“Hey—”

“Ooh, a passport application. Does this mean you’re going away?”

“God, I hope so,” Vanessa said. She grabbed the form and ripped it in half, and then in half again, all the while holding Julie’s gaze with hers. “Unfortunately, they don’t give passports to people who hang out with terrorists. Oh, and your mom probably can’t get one either, because they don’t give passports to murderers.”

“What did you say?” Julie was incredulous. Scandalized gasps erupted from the other girls.

Vanessa turned to them. “Oh, didn’t you know? Haven’t you ever wondered where Julie’s dad is? Her mom killed him when they went on vacation. That’s probably why she could never find another husband.”

From the corner of her eye, Julie saw Tarek stand up. “Let’s go,” he said in a low voice.

Too late. Julie dropped the rest of the forms. They wafted to the ground, settling on the asphalt. Everything seemed to fall away, everything except the flawless, taunting face of the girl in front of her. Julie surged forward, and shoved Vanessa as hard as she could.

Camille heard the ding of an incoming text message from Julie: Catching up on homework at the library. Gonna be late to P’s for dinner.

Homework on the last day of school? That seemed surprising. Maybe, Camille thought, Julie was doing some extra-credit assignments to bring up her grades. In just a few months, she’d gone from making straight As to low Bs and Cs. Camille hoped it wasn’t too late to bring those grades up. She was tempted to call Julie but didn’t let herself. She was trying not to hover so much.