“Fine, but a lot of people have those things,” Ava says. “Which is kind of the point. Accessibility, like Epstein told you in class. And here’s what you don’t have. You don’t have any real hardship. Nobody is dying, for example.”
“That’s true, thank God,” I say. “But Lucy specifically said in class that she is looking to give her characters Happy Endings right now.”
“Right,” Ava says. “But you still don’t have a real love triangle. Because yes, Will is sent from heaven, but I don’t care what you say—Elliot is an idiot. And he is not your guy.”
“You’re right.” I nod. And she is. Elliot is the guy who moons people through windows while they’re taking a test. He’s carved his name into every desk he sits at. Last year he took over the school loudspeaker and played the Kinks at full volume for ten solid minutes, and nobody could ever prove it was him. “Thanks for setting me straight.”
“You know what I think?” Ava asks.
“No, but I’m sure you are about to tell me,” I say.
“I think this is a big deal. This thing with Will. No matter how much you have your crap together, boys are the one area where you really don’t know what you’re doing. And you hate that.”
“Are you suggesting I’m looking for a reason for things not to work with Will?” I ask.
Ava makes a face. “Maybe?” she asks, and when she sees the look of annoyance on my face, she rushes to finish. “But honestly, what I’m saying is I don’t blame you! This stuff with your parents is really hard. And we’re graduating soon. And, honestly, isn’t everyone kind of having an existential crisis right now? All this stuff can be scary. So my advice? Take things slow with Will. Let him prove to you how real he is.”
I bite my lip, and lay the piece of chalk down on the countertop. “You’re a really good friend, you know that?” I tell her.
Ava rolls her eyes. “Yes, I do.”
It’s not the brightest idea to walk home by myself at three A.M. in our neighborhood, but I know how to do it as safely as possible, and I need a little room to breathe. I stick to the big streets, meaning I take Venice Boulevard to Abbot Kinney, which was just named The Coolest Street in America to the great displeasure of all the long-time residents. “How many juice shops does one block really need?” my dad asked out loud a few months ago, and my mom told him he was acting like an old person.
“But isn’t old cool?” he asked then, genuinely interested. “Dad bods and normcore? Isn’t that what the kids are into?”
“And juice, apparently,” she replied, and went back to reading her book, while my dad smiled at her.
It was these moments, I thought, that made them so good together. Now I find it confusing and sad to think about exactly how much was going on below the surface.
I keep making my way down The Coolest Street in America, and something odd happens. I pass TK’s, my favorite restaurant since I was a kid, an old neighborhood steak joint where I celebrate every birthday. It has big red leather booths, and giant hot fudge sundaes. Then I stop, and back up a few feet, noticing for the first time that the shop sign next to TK’s, a store I’ve never been to that specializes in European sneakers, says the same thing, but this time without the s: TK. And so does the sign after that, a floral shop, the two letters written in a loopy script.
I start walking again, slowly. What happened to all the shop signs? I wonder if someone is shooting a movie, which is often the case—last week they turned a boutique near our house into a coffee shop so they could shoot a TV show there—but I don’t see any production trailers or lighting equipment. And more important, why does TK sound so familiar?
I Google TK on my phone as I walk, and directly under “TK’s Steakhouse,” there is a Wikipedia entry, and when I read it, my breath catches in my throat.
TK—A publishing term meaning To Come. Used to signify where additional material will be added at a later date.
And now I remember where I heard TK used. In class yesterday while I was flirting with Will. Epstein said she uses it when she wants to come back and fill something in.
I look up again, scanning the length of Abbot Kinney. TK after TK, with the exception of one place: Electric Café, where we get The Good Coffees.
A place Lucy Keating would already have a name for, since she just wrote about it.
Without realizing it, I break into a run. My life is filled with TKs, because my life does not belong to me.
My life belongs to Lucy Keating.
9
The Egtved Girl
I WAKE up to the sounds of low snorts coming from behind my closet door, and throw it open to reveal Napoleon, burrowing into my laundry bin.
“Out!” I cry. Napoleon wiggles out butt first, looks at me indignantly, and maintains complete eye contact for the duration of his exit from the room.
My mother pokes her head in. “Everything okay in here?” she asks.
Well, let’s see, I want to tell her. My life is probably being written by a commercial romance author, making me question literally everything I do and say, not to mention my fundamental existence.
I barely slept last night, not that there were a lot of hours left to sleep, and instead just lay in my bed staring at the ceiling going over every part of my life for which I had assumed I was responsible. Every part I thought belonged to me. Now I feel like I would need to run for thirty miles just to wind myself down. My world is off-kilter, and there is nothing I can do about it.
“I feel sick,” I say instead, giving as honest an answer as possible.
My mom lays a cool hand against my forehead. “You don’t feel warm,” she says. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on? Is this about me and Dad?”
“No,” I say quickly.
“Because we haven’t really gotten to talk about it more . . .” she starts to say. “You were out so late last night. . . .”
“It’s not about . . . that.” I can’t even say the word divorce, so I begin making my bed. My mom joins me, pulling the sheet straight on the other side, not saying anything. Knowing I’ll begin when I’m ready.
“I just feel like life suddenly got so out of control,” I say honestly. “I keep thinking about why things happen, and what the meaning of it all is. Does any of it even matter?” I don’t tell her about Lucy Keating. I’m pretty sure it is bizarrely, insanely real, but I can’t even imagine saying it out loud to her yet.
“Honey, everyone feels that way at some point at your age. Probably many times, even during a lifetime. It’s called growing.”
She goes to grab a pillow that’s fallen on the floor. “Your father and I never wanted to do the helicopter-parent thing. If we made all your decisions for you, you’d never know what you really wanted. You would never have wanted anything for yourself. And look at you!” She holds a hand out. “You got some of our best qualities, and plenty of great qualities we never came close to having. You’ve always known what you want, and you’ve always gone for it without even hesitating.”