Alone at home except for two boarders in their rooms upstairs, 12-year-old Hattie Owen reflects on the past summer—the summer Adam came into her life. Her parents and grandparents are away at a big dinner event and her father has trusted her to run his cherished movie projector. Hattie first watches a film of one of her old birthday parties; then, anxious to see Adam, she puts in the movie of events that happened in June and July 1960. She sees the boarders, Miss Hagerty, Mr. Penny, and Angel Valentine. She watches her Nana and Papa get ready to go out, and herself and her mother on the carnival Ferris wheel. Finally she watches as Adam, in different scenarios, refuses to smile or look at the camera. Hattie realizes that her dad only filmed happy life events, but what he did not film altered her life. 

On her first day of summer vacation, Hattie makes breakfast for Miss Hagerty and organizes things for Cookie, who arrives early to cook for the