“You changed your mind?”
“I want to know what else Charlie was hiding,” she says. Her voice is cold. My eyes meet hers. She’s unwavering—calmer and more confident than yesterday. “Here’s the deal,” she continues. “I have, like, a few hundred dollars. That’s it. I can’t come for long. So we’d better make this worth it. And—” Her voice cracks. She shakes her head like she doesn’t want to say more.
“What?” I challenge.
“He had something of mine. My journal. I want it back.”
Now it’s my turn to nod, just as the last bell rings to signal the train’s departure. If some stupid journal is what’s bringing her with me, then fine. “Okay, then. I guess I’ll see you in London.”
“See you in London,” she agrees. Her mouth is drawn in a cool line, and with a night’s sleep, some of her sharp, cold beauty is back. Then she turns, and we both part for our separate cars.
I’ve almost reached mine when I turn to watch her recede into the crowd. The thing I can’t figure out—the thing this whole crazy idea I had depends on—is whether I can trust her.
Because I know she can’t trust me.
5
Aubrey
“List of . . . sofas you’ve spilled wine on. Go.”
I sigh, twirling a bit of loose fringe between my thumb and forefinger. I’m lying on a beach towel that’s covering my shady hostel mattress, sketching characters on my little pad of paper as we talk. Mercifully, my notebook doesn’t seem to interest Lena—she hasn’t asked to see it, even though she’s pried into every other aspect of my life.
We sprang for a single-sex quad, which amounts to two sets of bunk beds in a closet-size room with a single light bulb and a narrow shower stall in a corner. Luckily it’s just us in the room. We each chose a top bunk on opposite sides of the room. There’s a shared toilet in the hallway. The light bulb flickers a little and its chain sways in the breeze that comes through the open window—we’re trying to air out the putrid, musty smell that’s probably coming from the mattresses. I don’t want to speculate on its cause.
By now I know that Lena’s lists are mostly for her benefit—so she can tell stories about herself—but I try to play along. I don’t know why we’re not staying with one of the supposed million friends she has here in London, where she was headed anyway, where she has family and all that. When I agreed to come out here, I’d assumed she’d thought it through. I assumed she had someplace for me to stay. Now I see that was pure stupidity on my part.
“I’ve never spilled wine on any sofas,” I tell her. I pull the edges of my beach towel around me, but it’s futile. I’ll never be warm. “First of all, I’m technically not supposed to be drinking when I’m in the U.S. It’s not like I sit around sipping wine with my friends all day. I mean, I’m eighteen. Secondly, when I do manage to procure booze, it’s usually guys who get it, and it’s usually beer.” Lena already knows I’ve done much less, seen much less, than she has. She wishes I’ve felt much less; at least when it comes to Charlie. I know she wants to believe that she and Charlie were more special than we were; and they probably were. But she doesn’t know that.
“Procure,” she mocks. I try not to blush. “You’re so cute, Aubrey,” she says in a condescending tone. Maybe it’s because she looks elfin and wide-eyed that she can get away with so much. Or maybe it’s that people like me don’t hold her accountable.
“How about you?”
“There was my best friend’s sofa, twice,” she says, propping herself up on one elbow. “Nothing a Tide pen can’t correct. Then my parents’ sofa, which was kind of a problem because it was crazy expensive. You should have seen the way my mom’s eyes bugged out when she saw it . . . and then I poured a bunch of baking soda over it because I thought I had read somewhere that it would absorb the stain, but it actually made it worse. Then there was the leather sofa in the rental apartment I—”
“Lena.” I break in while I can still control my tone. “Can we talk about something that matters? Like why we’re here?” I was hoping to keep my voice neutral, but she bristles.
“I was just trying to lighten the mood. If we’re going to be friends, we can’t just dwell on the reason we’re here all the time. Talk about depressing.”
“I don’t want to be your friend,” I tell her. “I’m not here for that.”
“Well,” she continues, in a falsely cheerful tone. “Thanks for being clear.”