“Oh, I’m like a magnet for people not worth knowing,” she says, and I don’t normally think much about voices, but I like hers. Not quite deep, but throaty and sure, like she could be on the radio. “Attracting them is, like, my special skill.”
She peels herself off the wall and steps closer, and I do look at her then. Her eyelids are rimmed with dark, heavy liner, but underneath, her eyes are a warm hazel. Friendly, which I didn’t expect from someone who looks so tough. A pretty tough, but tough all the same, like people who don’t know her probably wouldn’t fuck with her, tiny as she is. And I’m almost paralyzed by how good she smells. Earthy and a little sweet.
“Why haven’t I seen you around?” she asks before I can say anything back, and I’m glad, because I wasn’t sure what to say to her. She seems so easygoing, so sure that she belongs here with these people I don’t know at all or barely know anymore.
“I just got back from boarding school.”
“Oh, shit, you’re the best friend? This party is for you.” She takes a swig of beer as she looks at me. “I’ve heard all about you.”
“All good?” And I realize, with surprise, that I actually want it to be true, for her to think good things about me. I cared about what people in Avalon thought, but that was because everything was new—every place, person, experience. But here, I have almost too many people who actually care about me to worry about those who don’t. So why is it so important for this girl I just met to like me?
“From what I hear, you’re practically a saint.”
“Really?”
“Not really,” she says with a wry smile. Her lips are filled in with a dark purple color that hasn’t smudged, even from the beer she’s drinking. “But you are apparently the best friend ever, so… I’m Rafaela, by the way.”
“I’m Suzette. How do you know DeeDee?” I ask, trying to remember if she’s ever mentioned this girl.
“Through Alicia, actually. I went out with Grace for, like, five minutes,” she says simply. “Thank Christ we realized we were better as friends, and I totally weaseled my way into her group.” I must look confused because she grins and says, “The girl with the green hair?”
“Oh, right. Grace.”
But I wasn’t confused. I was processing the fact that she’s dated a girl. I felt—well, relieved. To be back in a place where strangers openly discuss relationships that aren’t just boy-girl, where a certain group of students don’t whisper about the guys who were caught kissing in the woods behind Dinsmore Hall. And where two girls sleeping curled up in one bed wouldn’t be gossip to make the rounds.
She drains her bottle and nods toward the kitchen. “Beer?”
I follow, palms sweating as we enter the kitchen, where her friends are still standing around. I glance at Grace, trying to picture the two of them together: going to see movies at the Vista and shows at the Echo and holding hands where anyone can see. It’s not hard to imagine that for other girls—just for myself, since Iris and I were so private.
Rafaela hands me a beer and when she turns back to the fridge to get one for herself, I can’t help staring. At the back of her head, where black curls bounce along the slope of her neck as she moves, at the flowers emblazoned across the back of her shoulder. I twist the cap off the bottle and take a big swallow, but I can’t ignore the way my body thrums with nerves. My skin is warm and tingly and the feeling doesn’t stop even when I look away from her.
Maybe it wasn’t an Iris thing after all.
five.
The next morning I come downstairs to find Lionel making peanut butter toast.
Even though I can’t let go of the words Catie used (schizo, creepy, secretive), I’m glad to see Lionel up and moving around. Last summer, when he was in the deepest trench of his depression, I would only see him at the table for dinner, if then. Mom and Saul didn’t always make him eat with us, and I took it upon myself to bring meals to his room on those days, even if he wouldn’t eat or acknowledge I was there when I opened the door to check on him.
“Hey, you want a piece?” he asks, hand poised over the bag of bread.
“Are we out of challah?” I look past him to the open bread box. We usually have leftovers from Shabbat, and it makes the best French toast.
“Yeah, sorry. I used it to make a sandwich last night.” He looks at me over his shoulder. “So… toast?”
“We should go up to the Brite Spot,” I say, picturing the wood-paneled interior and shiny pleather booths of our favorite neighborhood diner. My stomach rumbles as I think about the vast menu, where I could choose from French toast or omelets or a breakfast burrito or—
“Or we could have peanut butter toast in the tree house?”
“Deal,” I say, and a part of me lightens with relief. We didn’t bike to the reservoir yesterday. In fact, I hardly saw him at all.
I prep a tray and pour two glasses of orange juice while he makes our breakfast. He’s serious about it—the bread is toasted to a perfect golden brown, the thick globs of peanut butter applied with precision. We carry it all out to the tree house and I let Lionel go up first, then carefully pass the tray before I climb the wooden slats nailed against the tree to join him. It’s a proper room, big enough to stand in. We’ve moved a few things up here: the old green rug that used to be in the living room, a small futon that lived in the garage. Lion and I used the tree house a lot the first few years after it was built, but now it looks like he hasn’t been up here in months, maybe since I last left.
He kicks aside a few leaves and sneezes, then sits down cross-legged.
“When was the last time you were up here?” I take in the dust that’s settled on every surface of the room before I brush at a spot on the rug and sit down with my back against the front of the futon.
“I don’t know.” He shrugs, pushing the tray between us. “It wasn’t the same with you gone.”
I know what he means. We didn’t always come up here together; there were solo trips, and a few with people like DeeDee or Emil. But every time Lionel went to see his mom up in Northern California, I tried to sit in the tree house alone and didn’t last more than a few minutes. The vibe was off. Empty. And it never occurred to me that Lionel would feel the same way with me gone.
I pick up my plate and pause before I take a bite of toast. “We missed you last night.”
He looks up at the ceiling as he chews, then back at me. “You were probably the only one.”
I consider mentioning that Catie asked about him, but he’s no fool. He’ll know that missing him wasn’t the real focus of whatever she said. Instead, I ask, “Lion, what happened? Emil said you drifted apart from everyone and they haven’t seen you in forever.”
“Drifted apart? That’s a nice way to put it.” He washes down his toast with a swallow of orange juice. “I don’t know. I missed a bunch of school and… People texted at first. A few emails. DeeDee was good about it, even after everyone else stopped. But then she wasn’t, and school was weird as hell when I went back. Like, everyone was too scared to even ask what happened, so they wouldn’t talk to me about anything real.”