“You’re too cool for us,” she says. Obviously the exact opposite is true, but I shrug like I totally know, and throw my summer-pink hair back over my shoulders and sip wine and for that second I am the girl she says I am.
But when I look at Karissa, I know I’m not in her league. Not even close. She’s wearing a white dress that I’m pretty sure is actually lingerie and a strand of pearls that I’m pretty sure are plastic and a big pink shawl that I’m positive only she could pull off. Patches of freckles cluster around all the best parts of her: her nose and cheeks, her shoulders, her knees and thighs, the back of her neck, hidden except for when she occasionally pulls her mess of hair into a ropy ponytail.
We’re so close we’re touching. My phone buzzes and I almost don’t check it, but even with Karissa next to me, I still want it to be Bernardo. I wasn’t expecting that. I thought she was big and bright enough to eclipse him completely.
I sneak a peek. It’s him. Asking when he can see me next. Saying he was excited to hear from me. I have a surge of adoration for both Bernardo and Roxanne. I try to keep it under wraps, but the smiling happens without me being able to control it. Too big and too sloppy.
I’m all kinds of fluttery.
I text back that he’ll see me soon.
“Looks like you’ve got a secret too,” Karissa says.
Then we’re stupidly grinning at each other, and I think maybe we really are going to be mismatched best friends.
“Enough about me, you’re the one wanting to share secrets,” I say. “So spill.”
“I can’t tell you yet,” Karissa says. “It’s good. I think it’s good. I want you to think it’s good. Promise you’ll try to think it’s good?” She’s the kind of person who wants you to promise the impossible without asking any questions.
And when I’m around her, I’m the kind of person who makes promises I can’t keep.
“I promise,” I say.
We split a cigarette on the sidewalk outside Karissa’s building. The girl with the short black hair and her date, who has a ridiculous hat and an even more ridiculous beard, come down too. I work on fitting in with them.
“Could you guys, like, get arrested for this?” I say. I’m too drunk now to pretend to be old enough to be doing any of this.
“Whatever, no, who cares,” the girl with black hair says, which isn’t an answer at all.
“You’re not thirteen, are you?” her friend says.
“She’s practically an adult,” Karissa says. “We don’t need to baby her. She’s a whole person.” She nods very seriously, and I want to tell Bernardo about it. I want him to know there’s a beautiful mysterious perfect weirdo probably soon-to-be-famous actress who thinks I’m Real.
“She’s right. I barely even have parents.” It’s not the kind of thing I’d say if I weren’t pretty fuzzy on the Manhattan sidewalk.
“Not true, you have a dad,” Karissa says. She winks. It’s something she used to overuse in acting class. Her one flaw as an actress. Which makes her even more perfect, having a funny little flaw.
“My dad’s a mess,” I explain to her friend who isn’t asking questions, because I am oversharing to an insane degree and probably she wants me to stop, but I won’t. “He’s been married four times. And, like, a thousand girlfriends in between. And he thinks we should all get nose jobs and tummy tucks the second we turn eighteen, you know? Like, not because he’s evil but he actually thinks that’s the key to womanhood happiness or something.”
“I didn’t know all that,” the friend says, like she didn’t just meet me two hours ago.
“It’s a wonder I turned out so cool, trust me,” I say. “My sister Arizona almost became cool too, but she changed her mind while she was at college and decided to be not cool instead.”
“Your dad must be pretty hot, with all these ladies all over him,” Karissa says, winking again. I hit her arm and she giggles like I’m tickling her and it’s all very Montana Has Arrived.
There’s a long pause. Pauses on New York sidewalks aren’t quiet, exactly, because they are full of cars honking and strangers talking as they walk by and other people’s television sets. But in some ways the noise makes it even quieter.
“What’s that thing they say in Greek myths or whatever? About truth in wine?” I say. I shouldn’t drink during the day. I shouldn’t drink at all, probably. I don’t know how to do it right. I keep ending up like this: too open and vertigo-ed and rubbing my eyes to regain my balance. None of that magical in-between that Karissa talked about.
“You can tell us anything,” Karissa says. “That’s how we do it, at wine and pickles parties.” She giggles again and her friend laughs too, and I feel like I’m getting inducted into something wonderful and cozy. Like a cult but good.