I'm pulling into the grocery store parking lot in Kingston Friday morning when my cell rings with a call from Vivienne.

"How was the party?" I ask as I get a few reusable shopping bags out of the back of the car. Vivienne was such a hit at the first party the publicist Myriam took her to that last night she brought her along to an even fancier one.

"Ever have the best day of your life and the worst day altogether?" Vivienne asks, "I sat next to Tyler Paul at dinner last night; get this, he knew who I was."

"What!" I exclaim as I hurry across the hot pavement in the oppressive heat; Tyler Paul is one of Hollywood's hottest actors/producers right now, "Tell me everything!"

"Shelby, I've been to some nice parties in my life in private, but this was unreal," she laughs delightedly, "It was one of those mansions up in the Hollywood Hills overlooking everything. It took about fifteen minutes to get from the front door to the back yard."

"Wow," I say, impressed, happy to be in the pleasant temperature of the store now. I quickly head to the freezer section for popsicles. Rune's bringing Lorelei over soon to stay the night, and I realized I didn't have any cold treats, "How in the world did you end up sitting next to Tyler Paul?"

"I have no idea," she tells me excitedly, "but someone in his production company had shown him my blog on Medium. We had the most amazing conversation."

"Sweet!" I fist bump. A few other shoppers give me curious glances. I smile cheerfully at them as I stride past, dancing a little to the catching song playing on the store's music system.

"It gets better. Tyler said he's interested in having me come in for a meeting soon to talk to his team about consulting on his newest project, a limited romantic comedy series with a lot of real-life twists."

"No way!" I exclaim, "Viv, this is amazing!"

"Right? I can't stop pinching myself," she tells me, "The only bummer is that my partner Mattheus called last night with good news for him but not so good for me. He's accepted a position at Harvard. He'll be moving to Boston in a couple of weeks. I have to figure out whether or not I can afford to live part-time in both places or if I need to live there and rent my condo out here."

"Oh, Viv, this is big news. I'm happy for him but sad for you."

"Me too," she sighs, "but Matty's been eyeing this position for a long time. Keep your fingers crossed I can afford to bi-coastal."

"Absolutely, somehow, it'll work out," I tell her, hoping this is true, as I peruse the plethora of frozen treat options.

"So, how's life with Shelby?" Vivienne asks as I pick out two boxes of my favorite fruit popsicles and then, impulsively add a box of drumsticks.

"I'm so happy it's Friday," I tell her, heading over to the produce section for a watermelon, "I've become so used to the cooler temperatures in the Western Pacific Northwest that a week of over ninety degrees with no air conditioning has been rough."

"Oh, wow, I bet," she laments, "how's Horse Girls coming along and life with your summertime bestie?"

"Horse Girls is coming along well; I finally feel like I can pull off a small successful crowdsourcing for it in September," I say, trying to decide which watermelon appears to be the best. I buy most of my fruit at the Farmer's Market, but I want to have watermelon on hand today for Lorelei, "The other, to be honest, has been tough."

"What's going on?" Viv prods.

"Viv, I hate the petty, mean, helpless feeling parked in my brain recently," I say quietly, looking around the produce section to see if anyone's paying attention to me. They aren't. No one else is here, "I'm so jealous of Rune going to Seattle this weekend to stay with his 'friend' Daphne," I find a nice-looking specimen and heave the watermelon up out of the pile and into my shopping cart.

"Oh, sweetheart, I'm sorry, that sucks," she laments with me.

"It does," I agree, "I hate admitting it. Do you have any of your magic advice to help me deal with it?"

"Not magic, no," she tells me sadly, "but I will say it's a wise idea to just sit with the uncomfortable emotions when you can, acknowledge them, and allow them to just be."

"Ugh, that sounds unfun," I huff.

"It is, but it's better than repressing your emotions. That leads to all kinds of bad news. When you let your body feel these uncomfortable emotions, they tend to pass much quicker," she tells me, then asks, "Is there any chance this Daphne person is only a friend?"

"I promise to try your advice," I tell her, "But I doubt she's just a friend. Why would Rune need to stay with her overnight if she is? And he's staying for two!"

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"You have a point," Viv admits, "Whatever you do, though, it's probably best to stay off the internet about her."

"I'm proud of myself on that point," I say, "I'm not digging into any more gossip about him, or who he's dating. He was hurt when he realized I'd read about his relationship with Julia Endo."

"Interesting," Vivienne comments, "Listen, Shelby, I think what you and Rune are rediscovering this summer is really special."

"It is," I agree, "I'm so happy he let me draw him for my coloring page, and his help with Horse Girls is helping make it a reality."

"So do your best to keep your eye on that prize sweetheart," Viv says, "Real love is when you want the best for the other person, not just your own longings."

I ponder this on the drive home. In the comfort of the air-conditioned car, I pass a myriad of small farms, horse properties, and several houses surrounded by quite a bit of acreage. All with grass as brown and dry as mine is, and brown and dry as my fragile heart.

I'm in love with Rune. Whew. There it is. But I don't want to mess up this precious friendship. So even though I'm jealous right now, underneath that, I do want the best for him. He's been through such a bad time and deserves happiness. Maybe that's Daphne. So I guess I have to learn to live with it, and this horrible feeling will dissipate sooner or later.

**

"Our task this afternoon," I tell Lorelei as we look at my grandmother's classic Marguerite Henry horse books spread on the dining room table, "is to pick which four books I should feature in the corners of the new coloring page I'm working on. Then, if you're game, you can help me storyboard some ideas for the video. That's the homework Rune's given me for this weekend."

"He's good at giving assignments," she tells me dryly, raising one eyebrow just like he does, "but fortunately, they're using something fun."

Lorelei's spending Friday night with me and Saturday night with Marguerite. Rune dropped her off a few minutes ago before taking off for the Kingston ferry. He was dressed in cool business casual and looked nervous, excited, and devilishly handsome.

"As long as we can have popsicle breaks and we're talking about horses, I'm game," Lorelei breaks into my longing with a winning smile, sucking on one of the juice bars I was smart enough to stock up on, "Can you show me the coloring page?"

I pick up my drawing pad, flip to the sketch I'm working on, and hand it to her. She carefully puts her juice bar on its wrapper on the table before taking it from me.

"Who's this? Did you make this all up?" She asks, looking at my pencil sketch of a woman sitting at a typewriting desk, with a book open and a pony looking over her shoulder, nosing the keys.

"No. That's the author Marguerite Henry herself, with one of her most famous subjects, Misty of Chincoteague," I tell her, waking up my laptop and pulling up the photo I was drawing from, showing it to her, "it must have been a publicity photo for the book."

"The same as this one!" Lorelei says happily, picking up my grandmother's hardback copy of Misty, the paper wrap cover illustration showing a sweet palomino pinto pony, and starting to flip through, "Can I read it tonight?"

"Of course, it's a fantastic story. But it's very old-fashioned," I tell her.

"That's okay; I like old-fashioned. Where's Chincoteague?" Lorelei asks, "Is it here in the United States?"

"Yes, it's an island off the East Coast. Let's look," I tell her, opening up Google Maps to search. The map program shows us a tiny island in Virginia among a group of them just off of a long peninsula.

"Wow, it's sort of like this area," Lorelei says while intently studying the map, "It's a different shape, but we have a lot of islands up here too."

"We sure do," I say, "have you ever been to any of them besides Bainbridge?"

"Only Whidbey," she tells me, picking back up her popsicle and sitting at the table, "My dad has worked on a couple of houses there. But he's promised we'll go adventuring to other islands."

"I bet you're excited he'll be here soon," I say, closing my laptop again, "your upcoming camping trip sounds fun."

"It will be," Lorelei agrees, "at least until Jenna shows up," she gives me a cringy glance before looking over my sketch, carefully holding her popsicle away from it. "Have you read all of these books?"

"I have. My grandmother let me and Rune read them when we spent summers here."

"Which one's your favorite?"

"I liked Misty a lot, but my very favorite is King of the Wind," I tell her, picking up that book and handing it to her, "I used to be into racehorses as a kid, and this is the story of one of the forefathers of one of the most famous races horses of all time, Man O' War. I wanted to adopt a thoroughbred off the track when I was young."

"Then King of the Wind needs to be one of the books you draw for your illustration," Lorelei says firmly, flipping through the book, "It looks exciting. I think I'll read this one first."

**

With many popsicle and watermelon breaks in between, Lorelei and I are making decent progress on my video storyboard.

"Let's send pics to Rune," Lorelei says when we hit a point where we're not sure how to move forward.

"Should we bother him? Isn't he working this afternoon?" I counter.

"Yes, which means he'll turn his phone off, so it won't annoy him. He won't see it until later, but I know he's going to want to know about our progress," she says, already getting her phone out of her brightly colored tote bag.

"Okay, snap away," I tell her, feeling a little mollified she thinks he'll be so interested.

While she's taking photos with her phone, I scrutinize the four large pages of drawing paper on which I've drawn a series of identical rectangle squares for the hundredth time. The first three and a half pages feature one moment of rough sketch after another of what I imagine will happen in the video. To make it easier for myself to be on camera, I'm breaking up the storyboard into short sections with me talking, mixed in with graphics, my art, text, and I'm thinking of looking up stock video clips of women and horses to give the video more movement.

But yes, I'm stuck. When Lorelei finishes we go outside to water the veggies and flowers and let Butterscotch stretch her legs and have a bathroom break.

My phone beeps while I'm picking tomatoes and spinach for our dinner salad and Lorelei's playing with the dog.

Rune: It's looking great!

Me: Thanks. Lorelei's a big help.

Rune: I've shared the animation you made for Vivienne with Daphne. She loves it. We both wonder if you could bring some animation into this Horse Girls video?

Me: I'll see what I can do. Thanks!

We. Bleh. I swallow uncomfortably. I hate to admit it, but it's a great idea.