I want to be annoyed at this statement, and at Celeste for pushing the issue, but oddly I’m not. There is judgment in her tone, but I can tell it’s not at me.
“I mean, I’ve seen her . . .” I stretch my legs out, knocking my feet together like a little kid who’s just been asked a tough question. “We Skype once in a while . . . but it’s usually too awkward. We do better in writing. I get a letter or postcard from her every couple of months, telling me about her latest adventure and any new exciting findings in her research.”
“And what do you tell her?” Celeste asks.
I pick up another slice of pizza. “She never really asks,” I explain. Then I take a huge bite so I don’t have to say any more. But Celeste doesn’t say anything, either, and I feel a need to fill the silence. “So the point is, the jewelry is up for grabs,” I say, waving my slice toward the vanity, my mouth still a bit full. “I mean, look at me—it’s not like I’m gonna wear it.” Currently I’m wearing a worn-in chambray shirt, black jeans, white Keds, and zero “funk.”
Celeste gazes at me, resting back on her hands with her head tilted to the side. “Actually,” she says, “you are going to wear it. And while we’re at it, you’re going to wear some eyeliner, too.”
I smile and wish I wasn’t growing fonder of Celeste by the second.
When Oliver told me he lived a few blocks from my house, I assumed he meant a house just like mine. Old and dusty, with so many stairs a real estate agent could advertise guaranteed glute definition in the listing. I did not assume what he actually meant was the penthouse apartment at the Taj Hotel, with suited doormen, a gracious concierge, and an elevator that moved so smoothly and soundlessly that at first I was afraid we’d gotten stuck.
When Celeste and I arrive, pushing our way through a lushly carpeted, crowded room of our schoolmates, we find Oliver alone on the balcony overlooking the Public Garden, a glass of something dark balanced perfectly in his left hand.
“Yes, that’s correct,” he says politely into his phone, as though making a dentist appointment. “I want thirty-six pizzas delivered to the Taj. Half cheese, half pepperoni and onion. Oliver Healey. You have my card on file. And what’s your name? Denise? Thank you ever so much, Denise. You’re an angel.”
Oliver hangs up the phone and turns around, his eyes lighting up at the sight of us. “Laaaadies!” he says, wrapping an arm around each of our shoulders. “Welcome to the Bat Cave. May I offer you a beverage?”
“It’s just that he’s so dreamy,” Leilani Mimoun gushes, and I can barely hear her. We—she, Celeste, and I—are wedged into a tiny corner of the kitchen counter as the party continues to grow around us, because apparently the whole world knows about it. “He knows everything. And oh my God. When he wore that Black Watch shirt and Levis on Tuesday? I thought I would faint.” Leilani fans herself with a stray oven mitt. “I love a man in good denim. I know he’s our teacher, but it’s not like he’s that much older, you know?”
“What’s Black Watch?” I ask.
“It’s a type of plaid,” Celeste explains. “Anyway, I dated a college guy when I was fifteen. Summer camp. It was no big deal.” She takes a swig of beer. Celeste is totally the girl who dated a college guy when she was fifteen and knows so much more about life than any of us ever will.
I open my mouth to say something when Max walks through the doorway to the kitchen, stopping dead when he sees me and his girlfriend shoulder to shoulder in conversation.
“You think I’m super creepy, don’t you?” Leilani pesters when I don’t respond.
“No!” I assure her. “That’s not it at all. I totally get it. Levy is adorable.”
“Hi, babe!” Celeste coos, slinking over to kiss Max on the cheek. “You remember Alice, right? We met on the quad. I guess you know her from psychology, too. Duh.”
And the time we broke into the Louvre and had a picnic with the Mona Lisa. And the time we raced a 1960s Porsche through back roads in Italy. And the time we rode pink elephants along the Great Wall of China.
“Hey,” I say, smiling with just my mouth.
“Hey,” Max says back, smiling with even less of his, and I blink. I know things are awkward between us, but why is he being so cold? After all, he’s the one who broke my heart, and after all that, I’m the one standing here being nice to his girlfriend.
And that’s when I realize: He’s scared. When he first saw me in psych class and walked the other way. When he was cold to me on the quad. When he slammed his tray down in the cafeteria. And now, here, when he thinks I’m becoming friends with his girlfriend. Max hates uncertainty, and I make his world less certain.
And he has no idea how to handle it.