I can’t answer her because my eyes are glued to her nails, which are painted a fresh eggplant purple. They’re glittery and super shiny, glossed in my mother’s favorite hue, the bottle she only takes out for special occasions, like first dates or that one time she actually made it to one of my piano recitals before it was halfway over.
“Girl time,” I deadpan. Approaching the table, my fingers dig into the strap of my bag, and I let my gaze pass right over what I see now is my brand-new bottle of top coat, to stare at Eva. She looks peaceful and relaxed, if a little tired, nothing like she did when she shook off Emmy’s touch earlier.
Eva tilts her head at me, her smile faltering. I try to cover up whatever expression is on my face right now, but I can’t muster up the barest hint of a smile. Instead, I look away from her and peer down at the green concoction in a casserole dish.
“You cooked?” I ask Mom. “What is that?”
She beams. “It’s lasagna verde.”
“I don’t think that’s a thing.”
Eva laughs. “Oh, come on, you’re going to love it. It smells great, Mags.”
Mags?
“It smells like vomit,” I say.
Mom flinches and her smile flips upside down, but I don’t say anything. I can’t. Because if I open my mouth right now, I’ll scream like a banshee and scare our nearest neighbor a half mile down the beach. Without a word, I turn around and walk out the door.
When I was a kid, my mom and I used to take these midnight walks. She had nightmares a lot, so she’d wake me up—?school the next day be damned—?and take my hand, and we’d walk on the beach or the bike path, circling the cape until I could barely keep my eyes open and she’d have to carry me home. She’d smoke cigarettes, and I’d always wait for her to start talking about my dad. His favorite color. How they met. What kind of music he liked.
Anything.
But she’d never say a word.
We’d just walk, hand in hand.
Now I walk too. I’m not sure for how long. A couple hours at least because the sun starts to set when I’m on the beach and the day gets swallowed up by an inky black when I’m on the bike path. It takes me that long to suss out why I’m so mad, who I’m mad at, if I’m mad at all or just tired.
My feet pound the pavement as I spill off the path and onto the sidewalk of a residential neighborhood about a mile from LuMac’s. I’m stomping and my skin feels buzzy, a familiar sensation that catapulted me off of Colin McCormick’s balcony. I stop, my hands on my hips as I try to figure out what I want to do. What I need to do. Not a year from now, not at my Manhattan audition, not next week. Now. Because right now, I can feel myself coming out of my skin, sloughing off Grace the girl to make more room for Grace the caretaker, the worrier, the fixer. The hopeless nitwit who thinks some new girl showing up in her life means possibility, when really all it means is more damn worrying.
A flash to my left draws my attention. I turn my head just in time to catch the flicker of the outside light blinking off on Mrs. Latham’s porch. Her tiny gray house is impeccably maintained, her prized beach gnomes spread across her pristine yard in various states of leisure and, if you ask me, ridiculousness. They’re each about the size of a cat, and Mrs. Latham loves those damn things. Mrs. Latham has also despised Luca and me ever since we were twelve and used to share a paper route. Luca hurled a rolled-up Cape Katherine Chronicle onto her porch with a little more vigor than necessary, and it tipped over a potted begonia or azalea or who-the-hell-cares-what, which knocked over one of her gnomes and busted his bulbous nose. She got so mad and yelled so loudly, Luca actually cried. Since then every time she ventures into public, she glares daggers at us, and we vow afresh to one day rearrange those gnomes into compromising positions.
But we’ve never done it, because it’s completely immature and stupid.
I laugh softly, taking out my phone and tapping on Luca’s name. He answers almost immediately, and my lungs open up, that pent-up, antsy feeling slowing down into a steady heartbeat.
I could use a little immature and stupid right now.
Chapter Fifteen
THE NIGHT AIR IS COOL AND CRISP, THE USUAL HINT OF sea salt in every curl of wind. I wait under LuMac’s aqua-blue-and-white awning for Luca, my adrenaline kicking up a notch with every second that passes, but this is the good kind of anticipation, one full of excitement rather than dread.
“Gray.”
I turn toward Luca’s voice, the grin on my face fading when I see he’s not alone. Kimber smiles at me, her long hair tied into a low ponytail.
And Eva is right behind them.
“Hi, Grace,” Kimber says, her yoga pants clinging perfectly to her thighs.
“Uh, hi.”
Luca bumps my shoulder. “I can’t believe we’re actually doing this.”
I grunt acknowledgment, but my attention is on Eva. She’s staring right back at me, a million questions in her eyes.
“What exactly are we doing again?” Kimber asks as Luca slips his hand into hers. She leans against him. Definitely a familiar, we’ve-made-out kind of lean, which means Luca must really like this girl. He talks a big game, but he’s a total sap when it comes to girls and he’s never hooked up with someone for only a night. Aside from a round or two of spin the bottle, Luca’s only ever kissed girls he’s actually dating. Now, he may only date her for a week, but, dammit, he makes sure she knows his noble intentions before he plants one on her.
“We’re going to make it look like beach gnomes are doing the nasty,” Luca says casually, like we’re talking about watching a movie or something.
“Why?” Kimber tilts her head at me, her gaze curious.
“Why not?” I say.
“That’s not really a reason.”
“Do you need a reason for everything?”
“Usually, yeah. Especially if it involves handling someone else’s property without their permission.”
I feel my eyes narrow into slits. “You don’t have to do it, Kimber. I called Luca. Not—?”
“All righty, then,” Luca says, slinging an arm around Kimber’s shoulders. “It’s just something Grace and I have joked about doing for the past few years.” He proceeds to tell her about our paper route and Mrs. Latham’s subsequent eye daggers. I watch Kimber as Luca talks. She watches me back. We’ve always gotten along in the past, working together last summer and sharing some classes. Back in ninth grade, she even lent me a pair of sneakers for gym for about a month when my own got so ratty that the soles nearly disintegrated during a rousing game of four square. I wouldn’t call us friends. I wouldn’t call us not friends, either. But now she’s looking at me like she’s not quite sure who the hell I am or why her brand-new boyfriend is friends with me.
“Sounds like Mrs. Latham has one too many well-behaved beach gnomes,” Eva says. “I say let’s do this.” She meets my gaze for a split second before I flick mine away.
“Fine,” Kimber says. “But if we get arrested, I’m claiming hypnosis.”
“Because that’s believable,” I mutter. Luca elbows me in the ribs, and not very gently, either.