Olivia’s is more like a hotel than a house. She has her own suite complete with marble bathroom, walk-in closet, and lounge. You could seriously spend a year in her house and never have to leave. We tried to do that for the weekend, once, but Matt Lester ended up having a party Saturday night, so we didn’t make it all the way through.
The lounge off her bedroom is always stocked with our favorite snacks (Twizzlers, lollipops, and Swedish Fish), and she has every single channel on On Demand so you can get any movie you want any time you want. We don’t have that at our house. We don’t even have HBO. My parents have never been into TV. It took them until I was fifteen to even get cable.
Tonight there isn’t time to indulge in Twizzlers, though. We’re late. We were supposed to be there to set up a half hour ago, and I’m experiencing some serious guilt about abandoning Lauren. I can imagine her standing in the courtyard holding up lights to string, looking around for some help. Charlie’s never-be-late rule doesn’t apply to functions, but tonight I really wish it did. It’s upsetting me, and, ignoring Charlie’s comment, I ask, again, if anyone has texted her.
“I thought you did?” Olivia says. She’s at her vanity, blotting her lips and looking in the mirror. Her blond hair is curled, the product of about seventy-five minutes of serious quality time with her curling iron. Charlie is standing next to her, trying to hip bump her out of the way. Charlie’s hair is up, and a few perfect spiral strands loop gracefully down onto her face. Stuck into the edges of the mirror are pictures of us since freshman year. There is one of us making a human pyramid in Charlie’s backyard the time we tried to get San Bellaro to start a cheerleading squad. We ditched the idea after about a week, though, whenCharlie refused to accept any new members, and we realized how intensely athletic it was. There are a few pictures from Malibu, and one of Olivia and Ben eating Popsicles. It must be new. I wonder who took it.
I take my phone and send an apologetic text to Lauren:We are so late. Sorry. Be there ASAP.
I toss the phone down and then immediately pick it up to see if she’s responded. She hasn’t.
“It’s true, though,” Olivia says. “You’re handling this really well.”
I shrug and tell them the same thing Rob told me yesterday. “She’s my cousin. He’s just doing me a favor.”
“Some favor,” Charlie says, shimmying into her red dress.
“They used to be friends too. Plus, she didn’t know,” I say.
“Whatever,” Charlie says. “It’s not cool.”
“He’s not even picking her up,” I argue. “And besides, he’s not my boyfriend.” I want to addNot yet, anyway,but I don’t.
“I sort of thought tonight might be the night,” Charlie says.
“What night?”
“That you and Rob, you know.”
“Ooooo,” Olivia says. “Really?”
“No,” I say. “Come on. We’ve just kissed.” The memory of Rob’s lips on mine makes me blush. He was supposed to come over last night, but he got caught up helping his dad repair a car.His dad is obsessed with old cars, and he and Rob have been fixing them up together since Rob was a kid. It’s kind of sweet, this thing they do together, just the two of them. His dad sells them afterward. Sometimes we’ll see someone driving one around town, and Rob will say, “There’s another Monteg.” Anyway, by the time they finished, it was already nine and he had homework to do. I know this doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Rob never ditches out on plans with his dad. It’s something I really respect about him. But I would like to know a little more of what to expect tonight. Especially because we’re not going to this dance together and we’ve still just had those few kisses by the Cliffs.
Even so, I can’t help but think about what Charlie’s saying. So maybe it won’t be tonight, but what if Rob and I are headed for a real relationship? Sex would be involved, I guess. Sometimes I picture Rob and me lying in bed together, but he’s usually just holding me, his hand in my hair.
“Do you think Ben would like the blue or the yellow?” Olivia asks. She’s moved to the full-length mirror and is holding up two dresses, alternating them in front of her body.
“Blue,” Charlie says. “He has a thing for blue. Have you seen his bedroom? Even his sheets are…”
She stops talking and turns back to the mirror. Olivia looks away, and I can see she’s blushing.
“I like the blue,” I volunteer.
“What are you wearing?” Charlie asks.
I gesture to Olivia’s bed, where I’ve put my dress. It’s silver, something I picked out with my mom this summer at one of those shops by the water that always smell like potpourri.
“You need to own this,” my mother had said, grabbing it off the display and thrusting it at me.
My mom is always picking things out for me that are, well, a little trampy. It’s not that she wants me to dress provocatively, I don’t think. She just always says things like “You’re only young once” or “That sweater looks way too old for you.” Charlie says I’m lucky. She used to have to change her outfits at school, in the bathrooms. But that was before her mom got sick. Now she can wear whatever she wants.
“I dunno,” I’d told my mom. “It’s kind of… flashy.”
“Exactly,” she had said, and pushed me into the dressing room.
I knew we would buy it even before I put it on. It’s a halter top that’s completely backless. It’s short but not too short and a very sparkly shade of silver. I felt out of place in it—silly, even—but the more the saleslady and my mother oohed and aahed, the more I felt like maybe I didn’t look completely ridiculous. After I took it home that night, I tried it on with a pair of light blue heels, and I felt, I don’t know,pretty. Like I was someone else. Someone in a movie, or a magazine. Even Charlie or Olivia. When I put it on, I felt like the kind of person who belongs in adress like that. I’m secretly hoping it has the same effect tonight. And that Rob notices.
I slide it on, and Charlie starts hooting.
