“There are four seats at my table,” Audra said without preamble. “Which means one’s empty.”
I looked over at Fawn (who waved) and Sharma (who was glued to her Doc) and their two other identical juices, and I’d never wanted to be anywhere so badly in my life. I’d noticed the girls during freshie orientation. The ease between them was palpable, like only in each other’s company were they all whole. I guess that’s what being friends from birth got you. Their mothers were in the same Lamaze class, then after the babies were born it was weekly playdates, then shared babysitters and summer camps, and eventually aligned middle schools.
“Can Ailey sit with us too?” I asked.
Audra looked into the distance, twisting the swoop of her black flapper’s bob. She took a sip of her juice. “Like I said, there are four seats.”
I shrugged at Ailey, like Audra’s answer was the most logical argument in the world, trying not to look as giddy as I felt. Ailey and I had been friends since kindergarten. But even though she knew everything about me, from the mole I’d had removed when I was six to my speech impediment with the letter R until I was eight, I would never have called her my missing piece. Maybe because when eighth grade hit and I got prettier and people were nicer to me, she began acting…what’s a word that means fake sugary, worried, and proprietary all in one? Anyway, she started acting that. When Audra walked up to me a year later because, as she later told me, I “wore cute shoes and a powerful aura,” all I felt was relief.
Ignoring Ailey’s panicked expression, I went to sit with the girls. After all, they’d gotten me a juice and there were four seats. Never mind that it left Ailey at a table with three empty ones. At least I’d asked if she could join us.
In a way, I’d been waiting for Ailey to take revenge for years. Part of me (a very minuscule part) even kind of thought, Good for her. But now it was time to make it stop.
“I just came home myself,” Mrs. Amundsen said. “Let me see….Ailey might still be at the pool.”
Before she went to check, Mrs. Amundsen closed the door. Mrs. A. used to call me her other kid. This same door that she had just shut against me would have been thrown open. She’d have chatted about this or that as she walked away, letting me lock up. I used to spend the first ten minutes at Ailey’s talking to her mom. Now she didn’t invite me into the vestibule.
Five minutes passed. I clicked on Ailey’s CB profile. It said she’d shared the Mr. E. video with her entire peer contact group—over a thousand people. I was about to jab my thumb down on the doorbell when the door opened and there was Ailey. Study Glasses were pushed up on her head, partially holding back her curly bangs. Ailey had her mom’s willowy body and oval face, her dad’s Norwegian nose and cheekbones.
She glanced around outside hopefully, like maybe the other girls were there too.
“I’m alone.”
“I see that,” she said.
“Can I come in?”
She hesitated, part in awe that I was on her steps, part fearful as to why. I figured that had to be a good sign.
“Ailey, you can’t not let me into your house.”
Sighing, she held the door open.
Walking inside felt like how I imagined it would if I stepped into my house after it had been sold and strangers moved in. It was 100 percent familiar and foreign at exactly the same time. The dance prints on the walls, the African blankets piled in multiple baskets around the living room. Ailey’s father in the back doorway, glaring at me like the flu virus had just invaded his home.
“Hey, Mr. A.,” I said mildly, waiting for it.
He wanted to have a go at me? Let him. It would give me a better opening for what I had come to say. Ailey was already at the top of the stairs, probably secretly praying her father would say everything she’d never been able to. But debate was all about preparation. And though he’d had over three years to build his arguments, Mr. Amundsen now only had two minutes to put them together.
“It’s been a long time,” he said.
“It has,” I said, matching his cool inflection.
For as long as I’d known the Amundsens, Mr. A. had hated his job at Eden, but it paid him buckets of money and it meant Ailey always had the latest tech. In turn, Ailey was as addicted to her Doc as Sharma. Could Mr. A. get his hands on unreleased video-editing software? No doubt.
I waited, but that was it. That was the best he could do? A disdainful sniff and “It’s been a long time”?
“Later, Mr. A.”
“Leaving in twenty for that thing in the city,” Mrs. Amundsen called, as I jogged up the stairs after Ailey.
This was Ailey’s out, in case things went badly. The nostalgic comfort I’d felt walking into Ailey’s house dissolved. When we got to her room, Ailey left her bedroom door open a crack as if she might need to call for help.
If I had anything to say about it, she would.
Only Ailey didn’t give me the chance to say anything.
“So holy gosh, how are you even breathing right now?”
No sooner did I step into Ailey’s room than she was a blur of activity. Picking clothes up off her floor, her chair, her bed. She must have had one of those mornings where nothing looked right, because there were clothes all-caps EVERYWHERE. And as she flitted from one disaster area to another, her mouth ran just as quickly.
“That video is mega terrible. I watched it, like, a thousand times. Sorry, I swear I tap replay right before you see your face. It’s just Mr. E., you know? Having S-E-X. With you.”
The thought brought her to a standstill. With all the cleaning and the mile-a-minute talking, she was a little out of breath. A curl fell into her eyes. She blew it away and then laughed, as if she’d just caught sight of herself standing there with that enormous armload of clothes.
“Sorry, I wasn’t expecting company.” She nodded at me to sit on her desk chair, then dropped her clothes back on the floor and sat next to them. “And I’m just so surprised face you’re here. But I’m equaling totally rude. Are you okay? More important, do you have any idea of who posted it?”
“Posted it?” I stayed standing. “I’m here to figure out who made it.”
I expected her to stutter and apologize or to at least be caught off guard. Instead she shook her head like she had water in her ears.
“You mean it’s fake?” she said with incredulousness that was too doe-eyed to be anything but genuine. “Oh holy gosh, I didn’t even think about that possibility. It’s just so clearly you. Wow. H-A. H-A. Give me a minute here.”
As she processed, Ailey separated and then rebraided her hair. I’d forgotten how perfect Ailey and her hair were for each other. Bouncy, crazy, fun. Her nervous energy evaporated.