I hadn’t been sure what Olivia’s mom had meant by party, but when I turned up the following afternoon, I saw that she’d gone all out: picnic tables set up in the Maxwells’ backyard piled with burgers and potato salad, a Jell-O mold Olivia’s grandma Grace had made. There was also a giant sheet cake from the grocery store, the same kind Mrs. Maxwell had gotten for Olivia’s graduation earlier that summer—although this one, I saw with no small amount of horror, said Congratulations Olivia & Dana on top. I felt my cheeks burn with embarrassment. God, if Olivia didn’t already hate me, her mom slapping my name on her damn cake would probably have been enough to do it. You steal everything, I heard her say.
I made myself as scarce as humanly possible, lurking around the edges of the backyard where I’d spent so many summers, nibbling barbecue potato chips I knew Charla wouldn’t have liked me eating. The fact that none of our other friends had mentioned the party made me think they hadn’t been invited, either, and as I looked around now I saw that I’d been right. Instead, I talked to Olivia’s cousins Sophie and Kayley, twelve-year-old twins who wanted to hear every breathing detail about Tulsa; they didn’t seem to care that I’d only met him once. Olivia ignored me, flitting from group to group across the lawn like a brightly colored hummingbird. In spite of everything that was going on, it made me happy that Olivia had all these people at home rooting for her. It made me kind of sad that I didn’t have it, too.
“How you doing, honey?” Olivia’s mom asked, sitting down beside me on the steps to the side door, a plastic cup of lemonade sweating in her hand. She always made the kind with actual lemons floating in it—at least one thing, she always said quietly, that southerners knew how to get right.
“I’m good,” I said, hoping I sounded convincing. “Thank you for the cake.”
Olivia’s mom waved me off, handing me the lemonade. “This has all been a bit overwhelming, huh?”
I shrugged. “I try not to take it that seriously.”
She smiled at that. “No,” she said. “I know you wouldn’t.” Then she sighed. “Look, sweetheart, Olivia hasn’t told me what’s going on between you two, and I’m not dumb enough to ask. But I can tell that she’s suffering. I said this to her, and I’ll say it to you also: not everybody gets to have the kind of friendship that you girls have, you know?”
I glanced at Olivia across the yard, her dark hair swinging. It didn’t look like she was suffering at all. “I do know that,” I managed. “I understand.”
But Mrs. Maxwell put her hand on my arm. “She needs you, Dana. She’s my girl, she’s my own true heart, but you’re the strong one.”
I stared at her for a moment. What else do you know? I wanted to ask. Still, I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
“I do,” Mrs. Maxwell said. “Look out for her for me, will you do that? Even if you girls are having problems. Just—keep an eye on her, all right?”
I thought again of the night in the bathroom after Guy’s party. I thought of how I’d stolen Alex out from under her nose. I thought of how much Olivia seemed to hate me lately, how in some ways going to Orlando in the first place had been the worst thing I could possibly do. “I’ll try,” I finally said.
“Sylvia!” Olivia’s dad called from across the yard. “Can you grab some napkins?”
This was stupid, I thought when Mrs. Maxwell had left me; it was time to get out of here and go home. I edged across the lawn and went inside to get my purse. The house was cool and dark, quiet compared to the scrum in the yard. The kitchen was a mid-party disaster, plates and cups piled on the counters, the trash overflowing in the corner. I pulled the bag out and got a fresh one from under the sink, then stuck a block of sweating cheddar cheese back into the fridge for good measure. I put a fistful of silverware into the dishwasher, then figured I might as well load the whole thing up while I was at it. There was something soothing about it, weirdly. No notes to remember, no politics to navigate. I’d grown up in this kitchen: here was the cookie sheet we used for gingerbread men every December; here was the Dalmatian-shaped pepper shaker with her nose chipped off from when Olivia had smashed it on the floor. Even with things between Olivia and me like they were, I felt more at home here than I did at my mom’s house.
I was scrubbing a pasta pot when Olivia appeared in the doorway. She was wearing a short denim skirt and a pink tank top with spaghetti straps, her hair brushed long over her shoulders. “Hey,” she said. “What are you doing?”
I shrugged—feeling stupid all of a sudden, feeling like even more of an interloper than I had all day long. “Just . . . making myself useful.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know.”
I thought she was going to tell me to cut it out, but instead she picked up a dishtowel and stood next to me, drying off the big chip bowls and the other stuff that couldn’t go in the dishwasher. We hadn’t talked all afternoon—we hadn’t really talked in weeks—and we didn’t talk now, either, working side by side in a silence that felt, if not exactly comfortable, then at least not quite hostile. We’d washed dishes like this a million times before; it was our job after dinner, every time I’d eaten here since we were little kids. We had a rhythm. That much, at least, hadn’t changed.
Soon everything was put away and the kitchen was cleanish, the dishwasher chunking away. All of a sudden, it felt totally weird again. It felt awkward just to be standing next to her, like the breach between us was too wide to be crossed.
“I’m going to go,” I said finally. “Thanks for inviting me—or for not telling your mom that you hadn’t invited me, or whatever. I’m sorry she put me on the cake like that.”
Olivia looked at me strangely. “I told her to,” she said.
That stopped me. “Oh,” I said, taken totally by surprise. “You did?”
Olivia nodded. “This morning,” she said. She held her hands up. “I mean. This is your thing, too, right?”
You tell me, I didn’t say. “Okay. Well—thanks.” I nodded.
Olivia nodded back. “Car’s coming at eight,” she reminded me.
“I’ll be ready.”
“Dana—”
I turned around. “Yeah?”
Olivia shook her head. “Nothing,” she said. “See you tomorrow.”
TWENTY-NINE
I found Alex as soon as I got back to Orlando Sunday night, pulled him out of the Model UN, where he was watching reruns of The Simpsons with Mario, and led him downstairs to the side of the building near the vending machines. One good thing about Olivia knowing about us now was that there was no reason to sneak around, not really; still, it felt like there was nowhere to be alone here, that we had to take every scrap of privacy where we could get it. I pushed him up against the side of the building, popped up onto my tiptoes, and pressed my mouth hard against his, rough and urgent. I felt like I needed him to ground me, to remind me what I was doing here and who I was.