As soon as Reagan left, Cath jumped up, wincing and feeling her side again, and opened her closet. Baz glared at her from the back side of her closet door.
“Don’t just stand there,” she mumbled to the cutout. “Help me.”
When she and Wren divided up their clothes, Wren had taken anything that said “party at a boy’s place” or “leaving the house.” Cath had taken everything that said “up all night writing” or “it’s okay to spill tea on this.” She’d accidentally grabbed a pair of Wren’s jeans at Thanksgiving, so she put those on. She found a white T-shirt that didn’t have anything on it—anything Simon anyway; there was a weird stain she’d have to hide with a sweater. She dug out her least pilled-up black cardigan.
Cath had makeup somewhere … in one of her drawers. She found mascara, an eyeliner pencil, and a crusty-looking bottle of foundation, then went to stand in front of Reagan’s makeup mirror.
When Reagan came back, gently opening the door, her face looked fresh, and her red hair was flat and smooth. Reagan looked kind of like Adele, Cath thought. If Adele had a harder, somewhat sharper twin sister. (Doppelg?nger.)
“Look at you,” Reagan said. “You look … slightly nicer than usual.”
Cath groaned, feeling too helpless to snark back.
Reagan laughed. “You look fine. Your hair looks good. It’s like Kristen Stewart’s when she’s got extensions. Shake it out.”
Cath shook her head like she was emphatically disagreeing with something.
Reagan sighed and took Cath’s shoulders, pulling her head down and shaking her hair out at the roots. Cath’s glasses fell off.
“If you’re not going to blow it out,” Reagan said, “you may as well look like you’ve just been fucked.”
“Jesus,” Cath said, pulling her head back. “Don’t be gross.” She bent over to pick up her glasses.
“Do you need those?” Reagan asked.
“Yes”—Cath put them on—“I need them to keep me from becoming the girl in She’s All That.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Reagan said. “He already likes you. I think he’s into the nerdy schoolgirl thing. He talks about you like you’re something he found in a natural history museum.”
This confirmed everything Cath had ever feared about Levi wanting to buy a ticket to her freak show. “That’s not a good thing,” she said.
“It is if it’s Levi,” Reagan said. “He loves that stuff. When he gets really sad, he likes to walk around Morrill Hall.”
That was the museum on campus. There were wildlife dioramas and the world’s largest mammoth fossil. “He does?” God that’s cute.
Reagan rolled her eyes. “Come on.”
*
It was almost eleven when they got to Levi’s house—but not exactly dark, because of all the snow. “Will anybody still be here?” Cath asked Reagan when they got out of the car.
“Levi will still be here. He lives here.”
The house was exactly as Cath had imagined it. It was in an old neighborhood with big white Victorian houses. Every house had a huge porch and way too many mailboxes next to the door. Parking was ridiculous. They had to park four blocks away, and Cath was glad she wasn’t wearing pointy, high-heeled boots like Reagan’s.
By the time they got to the door, Cath’s stomach had realized what was happening. It twisted painfully, and she could feel her breath coming and going too soon.
She couldn’t believe she was doing this. Boy. Party. Strangers. Beer. Strangers. Party. Boy. Eye contact.
Reagan glanced over at her. “Don’t be a spaz,” she said sternly.
Cath nodded, looking down at the worn-smooth welcome mat.
“I’m not going to abandon you in there,” Reagan said, “even if I want to.”
Cath nodded again, and Reagan opened the door.
It was immediately warmer and brighter inside—and exactly not how Cath had imagined it.
Cath had pictured bare walls and the sort of furniture that sat out on curbs for a week before anybody decided to take it.
But Levi’s house was actually nice. Simple, but nice. There were a few paintings hanging on the walls, and houseplants everywhere—ferns and spider plants and a jade tree so big, it looked like an actual tree.
There was music playing—sleepy, electronic music—but not too loud. And somebody was burning incense.
There were plenty of people still there—all older than Cath, at least as old as Levi—and they were mostly just talking. Two guys standing next to the stereo were sort of dancing, sort of just being silly, and they didn’t seem to care that they were the only ones.
Cath stood as close as she could to Reagan’s back and tried not to be obvious about looking for Levi. (Inside her head, Cath was standing on tiptoe with her hand over her eyes, scanning the horizon for ships.)
Everybody there knew Reagan. Somebody handed them each a beer, and Cath took hers but didn’t open it. It was Levi’s roommate. One of them. Almost everybody Cath met in the next few minutes was one of Levi’s roommates. She looked right through them.