chapter 22
I can’t help myself. I have no control. The next morning, as soon as I spot Alix, Stephanie, and Ambrosia—the people in the world who mean everything to me—I spill the whole story. About the boardwalk, the cave, the kissing. We’re in the parking lot before school, and I rest my backpack at my feet so I can use my hands to demonstrate how we balanced together on the rock.
“Just how far did this lustfest go?” Alix asks.
“Lustfest? It was just light kissing.”
The same skeptical look passes over all three faces. “Okay, okay! Tongues got involved,” I admit. “And hands. But we remained perfectly vertical.”
Alix wipes some crusty sleep from her eyes. “Bad taste in guys. Plan on getting it on with Gnat, too? How ’bout Rat Boy while you’re at it?”
“Ew!” I screw up my face. “I’m not getting it on with Gnat or Rat Boy. That thought makes me want to puke. I’m not getting it on with anyone.”
Stephanie, through a clenched jaw, accuses me of something else. “You told him, didn’t you? About us. Who we are. What did you tell him?”
“Nothing!”
“You better not have.”
Ambrosia comes to my defense. “Meg would never do that. That would ruin everything. Everything!”
I’m grateful that she trusts me, even though the others clearly don’t. But I need their trust. And I want them—I need them—to see Brendon through my eyes. So I try explaining to Alix how he isn’t one of those testosterone-fueled surfers who make her life miserable. I tell Stephanie that when Brendon talked about the ocean and the otters, there was poetry in his words.
Meanwhile a group of stoners keep inching closer to reclaim their usual before-school smoking spot by the parking-lot fence. Ambrosia, irritated by their presence, shoos them away. Studying me, she uses both of her hands to lift and twist her newly layered hair to the top of her head. She lets go of it, and for a moment the hair seems to defy gravity and balance there. Then it falls. “You better watch out.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
A quick lift of Ambrosia’s right eyebrow. It holds there a second, the sharpness contrasting with the sudden warmth of her words. “Meg, Megaera, you are way too trusting. He could be playing you. In your heart, you know that’s a big possibility.”
“I’m not an idiot. I’m a good judge of people.”
“Bullshit,” Alix says.
Ambrosia quiets her with a warning finger and says to me: “If you think so, I’m sure Brendon is worthy of your trust. Not like all the other people you trusted in your life. That worked out so well. They treated you wonderfully, right?”
Her sarcasm makes its point. I feel some of my hope collapse.
“We’re just looking out for you,” she continues. “We care about you. We don’t want Brendon to set you up and then—what’s that expression?—screw you royally.”
My cell phone vibrates then. It’s a message from him: U & me? Ambrosia’s Halloween party?
A part of me soars with happiness. The other part—the suspicious part—hands the phone to Ambrosia to read the text.
“See, he didn’t dump me,” I say.
“Could be. Or a party could be the perfect setup.” Her features tighten. She’s calculating something. “Leave this to me.” With her sharp fingernails, she types and sends a reply: Meet u there. I want 2 surprise u with my costume. Picked it just 4 u.
I hit her with questions: “Why did you do that? What costume? So you don’t think he’s playing me? I should trust him?”
Ambrosia shifts her backpack on her shoulders. “Everything will be answered in time. I have the perfect disguise for you. Sexy but not slutty.” She hands back my phone, which already has a new message: Can’t wait 2 C costume!
“I still don’t like it,” Alix says.
“Neither do I,” says Stephanie.
Before they walk away, Ambrosia gives me a look that’s a smile and not a smile. The whole encounter leaves me reeling. I have to hold on to the fence to settle myself.
Cue Raymond to appear when I most need him. He looks from my strained expression to the three backs walking away, and then to me again. “Whew. I need a sushi knife to cut the drama in the air. What was that all about?”
I don’t hold back. “Me and Brendon.”
Puzzled expression. The light goes on. “You mean, like, you and Brendon? Brendon and Meg sitting in a tree?”
I nod. “Actually, it was in a cave standing, not sitting. It’s true. I think it’s true. But maybe not.”
“I never would have thought to put the two of you together. But that’s the charming miracle of modern teen romance. I admit I have a soft spot for Brendon.”
“Really?”
“If he were gay, I would be crushing, too. His brooding is so becoming on him. I always suspected that he just fell in with the wrong crowd. So many of our youth do, you know.”
“Exactly! You get it! Brendon doesn’t belong with that bunch anymore—if he ever did.”
“Obviously a deep, meaningful conversation with the lad has won the lady’s heart.”
“You don’t think Brendon might be playing me? He’s so … and I’m not so…”
“Meg, you’re a goddess walking on Earth! What more could a straight guy want? Tell me you have a date lined up.”
“Sort of,” I say. I show him the recent messages on my phone.
“So romantic! Costumes and everything.” That really lightens the mood. I can always count on him to make me feel better. I playfully slap at his arm. “So what’s this about Ambrosia having a Halloween party?”
“She put invitations in lockers.”
An exaggerated hurt look blooms on his face. “Guess I didn’t make the A-list.”
“We’re all A-list. She invited everyone. I bet the invitation fell to the bottom of your locker.”
“She must not like me.” A couple of fake sniffs.
“Such delicate nerve endings, Raymond. Don’t be a fragile flower. I’m sure it was an oversight.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Ambrosia and I have different worldviews.”
“Come anyway. It’s a party. Rumors are flying about the delights she has planned.”
He gives me a goofy slug on the shoulder. “Delights! Oh, I will be there. Don’t worry. Nothing could keep me away.”
* * *
All the party rumors are true.
No parents will be here tonight. There’s going to be a real band, not some high school kids who took a few guitar lessons. And alcohol. The invitation said that nobody has to bring a thing. Ambrosia will provide everything that anyone could possibly want, plus stuff that we don’t even know that we want. She told Alix, Stephanie, and me to come in the late afternoon without costumes. She has everything we need.
So here we are at her house. Things start out a little tense because of the whole Brendon episode. I assure them again that I’d never betray their trust by revealing our secret. At Ambrosia’s prompting, Stephanie gives me a quick, tentative hug and Alix mutters a sentence with the word sorry in it. I’m relieved that Ambrosia, too, has come around.
When we enter the living room, Alix lets out a long whistle of appreciation. This is not only about the decorations, which we all agree are beyond fantastic. There are cobwebs that look and feel real and life-sized mummies and gravestones that also seem real. Alix takes Stephanie by the hand, dragging her from table to table, a kid in a candy store, only instead of Sour Patch Kids and Hershey’s Kisses there’s real champagne from France in buckets of ice, premium vodka sold only in Russia, sake from Japan, tequila from Mexico.
“Plants are not the only thing that my family collects in its travels,” Ambrosia explains. “I want my guests to be happy.”
Alix removes the cap of a bottle of something called rakia. “From Albania,” she reads from the label. “Where is Albania again?” She sticks her nose into the opening, but not for long. When she comes up for air, her eyes are watering. “Your guests are going to be very happy.”
Stephanie holds a small bottle of clear liquid up to the light.
“Don’t shake that!” Ambrosia warns.
Stephanie puts it down carefully. “Someone’s definitely going to call the police.”
Ambrosia scoffs, flicks her wrist like she’s shooing away a pesky bug. “Oh, the law. As usual, it is completely useless and ineffectual. The police have been taken care of. Not to worry.”
“No popo! Might as well get started, then.” Alix tilts back her head, takes a sip of the rakia. “It’s awful. But addictive.” She offers the bottle to Stephanie, who says, “Why not?”
“So intemperate,” Ambrosia says. “I like that.”
I have a one-track mind. “My costume?” I ask eagerly.
I don’t think Ambrosia hears me, because she’s pointing with disapproval to a section of cobweb. “Does that look right to you?” She pushes up her sleeves past her elbows and thrusts her bare arms into the mass, stretching it so that the netting thins and expands. It’s like she’s weaving it herself, and when she’s done she steps back to admire her work.
Then a spin to me. “So impatient and self-absorbed! I like that part of you. We don’t get to see it enough. Costumes will come. First some preliminaries.”
We follow her through the corridors and up the stairs, every inch of the house decked out with spiders, lifelike dead rats hanging by their tails, and pumpkins with sinister grins. Even if there weren’t a single decoration, the red walls, dim lighting, and old furniture would be eerie enough. When we enter her bedroom, even with the window closed, I’m hit by the faint odor of rotting meat from that red plant that sits in the center of the all-white garden. It’s still blooming, seems to be getting even bigger. Everything in the room is about the same as on our last visit—the wicker chair and vase of roses, the jack-in-the-box with the broken neck, and yes, the strange snow globe on the bookcase. My eyes go right for it and my feet follow. I pick it up, feeling the heft in both hands.
“You remember my little trinket. I thought you might,” Ambrosia says with obvious pleasure. “Like it any better now?”
I turn it upside down and back again, but this time feel nothing as the ash falls around figures that are posed in exaggerated states of grief and horror. “Sure, it’s interesting.” But my mind is elsewhere. I want to see my costume. “You said something about preliminaries?”
Ambrosia takes a chest-expanding inhale, turns her palms up and raises her arms until they clasp overhead. Then she bends at the waist, keeping her back straight, until her hands are flat on the ground. She pops back up, claps her hands once. “All warmed up now. Ready to go.” She steps to her vanity table and pulls out a drawer that is surprisingly long, like an artist’s drawer. Instead of paints, though, it contains a treasure trove of lipstick, eye makeup, pots of rouge and face powder, plus dozens of metal gadgets designed to pluck, squeeze, snip, shave, twist, and curl.
“No, no, no!” Alix snarls.
Stephanie backs herself into a corner, plants her feet. “No way. I’m not a tool of the cosmetic industry—even for Halloween.”
Ambrosia makes a calming motion like she’s patting down the air. “You two, relax. Save your outrage for a better purpose.”
She swings to me.
“Yes, please,” I say. “The works.”