“I have kind of a big favor,” Celeste asks, biting her lip as she walks over to me. “Is there any chance I can come to your house before the party tonight? You must live nearby if you biked here, right? It’s just that I live pretty far outside the city, and I don’t really want to go out and back. It could be kind of fun! We could get ready together and I could give you the lowdown on who will be there . . .”
There are a lot of thoughts running through my head. For example, as one of the most adored girls in school, doesn’t Celeste have about a million people she could be hanging out with? I wonder if she’s doing the whole “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” thing but wipe the idea from my mind almost instantly. She’s just not that girl. Does she actually just want to be my friend? I push all those questions out of my mind, because there’s only one that’s actually on the tip of my tongue.
“What party?” I ask. Then, “Are you sure I was invited?”
Celeste laughs. “Oliver’s thing,” she says. Then she looks nervous. “Wait, aren’t you guys friends?”
I close my eyes, letting my head fall back in exhaustion. “Is it Friday already?” I ask.
“I know how you feel,” Celeste says. “But you should go! I’m making Max go, too. And then you could get to know him better, so he can prove he’s not as much of a doof as you saw this last week.” She raises her eyebrows and laughs.
I force a laugh, too, but something about this statement sends a tiny flame through my limbs. Yes, I am well aware that Max and Celeste are dating. We’ve been talking about him all afternoon. But the idea of him making a date with her, an actual prearranged time to see her, when I can practically still feel his head resting on top of mine below the Jenga tower, when the image of his stare in the hallway is still so fresh in my memory, makes me want to throw up, or break something expensive, or both.
Don’t freak out, Alice, I say to myself. You can do this. Celeste is genuinely cool, and she’s asking you to hang out, and you could use some friends. And besides, you deserve some answers.
“I’d love to,” I say, even if it is the last thing I want to do.
“This is better than Newbury Street!” Celeste exclaims for possibly the tenth time, looking around with awe. We’re camped out in the middle of Nan’s giant walk-in closet, a box of pepperoni pizza on the floor between us. “Your grandmother had impeccable taste.”
My dad wasn’t kidding when he said that Nan saved everything. We’re surrounded by clothing on three sides. And he wasn’t kidding about the color-coding either. It’s a ROYGBIV of textiles. The beautiful wool suits she wore in her older age, creams and fine tweeds and moss greens. And pieces she couldn’t have possibly worn in years, like silk strapless gowns and mod minidresses and heels she could never have managed after the age of eighty.
Celeste and I were getting ready in my room when she asked if she could borrow something “funky,” and I, too afraid to tell her I don’t own anything even remotely interesting, directed our attention here.
“What’s so great about Newbury Street?” I ask. I’d been there a few times since we moved, once to pick up some decent coffee at a French bistro when our grinder broke, and another time to buy a new pair of leather booties.
“It’s arguably the best vintage in the city,” Celeste says, getting up and rummaging through a vanity that’s built into the wall, with giant lightbulbs rimming the mirror like you’d see backstage at a Broadway theater. “By the way, this light makes your skin look flawless. Okay, what about these?” She whirls around from the mirror, waving her arm with a flourish, a series of chunky art deco bracelets extending up her arm.
“I love it!” I say, and take another bite of pizza. Whoever invented pizza, I’d like to kiss them on the mouth. “Take them.”
“Alice.” Celeste looks scandalized. “I will borrow them. I can’t take them! Don’t be ridiculous.”
I shrug. “It’s not like anyone’s going to claim them,” I say. “My mom’s not around.”
Celeste takes a seat across from me on the floor, tucking her legs underneath her body. “Is it okay to ask why?”
“She’s a primatologist,” I explain, just enough to hopefully skirt the issue. “She’s studying lemurs in Madagascar.”
But then Celeste asks the dreaded question, the question I hope most people will just let slide. “Well, when will she be back?”
“Um . . . she left ten years ago and hasn’t come home yet . . .” I shrug, then glance over at Celeste from the corner of my eye. But she doesn’t look uncomfortable at all.
“So your parents are divorced?” Celeste asks.
“Not really . . .” I say. I can’t believe I’m telling her all this. These are the kinds of things I only tell Sophie about. “They just sort of never dealt with it. Their marriage. But they definitely aren’t together.”
“So you have not seen your mother in ten years.”