“What?” Olivia asks. Her hands are on her naked hips.
“Ben is going to want to bringRob,” Charlie says.
Olivia wiggles her nose and sighs. “We’ll just tell him not to.”
“No,” I say. “I don’t want him to think this is a problem. I don’t want him to think anything.”
Olivia shakes her head. Charlie nods.
“It’s okay,” Charlie says. She’s talking slowly now. “You’re allowed to feel totally screwed over.”
“Look, we don’t need to talk about this anymore. Like I said, he was never my boyfriend. We had one date, that’s all.”
“Okay,” Charlie says, but I can tell she’s not convinced. Charlie has an impeccable BS detector. One time she busted Olivia for ditching our plans to seePretty in Pinkat this indie theater downtown. Olivia said she had a dentist appointment, but Charlie caught her making out with the Belgian at her house. She actually made us drive over, just to prove it.
Realistically speaking, everyone is going to show up in Malibu anyway. Everyone always finds out about Olivia’s parties. Inevitably Jake tells John and Matt, who tell Darcy, who tells everyone. I think there were something like seventy-one juniors at her house at the end of last year. I don’t think this party will be quite like that one, but Rob will find out anyway. The question is just whether he’ll actually show or not.
“Do you think he’d bring her?” Olivia asks.
“I don’t know,” Charlie says. “Are they together?”
“Yeah,” I say, “I guess so.” Rob used the word “destiny.” I’m pretty sure that means they’re at least considering making things official. I slide a Twizzler out of the wrapper and snap off the end with my teeth.
“We need new swimsuits,” Olivia says, like this is our real problem.
Last year Olivia’s parents took the three of us to Acapulco with their family for spring break. She had gone shopping before our trip and went armed with five new Lilly Pulitzer swimsuits.The sensory overload kind with the neon pink. When we got home, she was wailing about how she didn’t make out with anyone the entire time even though there were tons of cute boys at the hotel.
“Maybe that’s because you had electric-green elephants all over your body,” Charlie said. Olivia pretended to be offended, but I hardly think that was the reason, anyway. I think she already had a thing for Ben.
“Fine,” Charlie says, “but I think we should focus on the real issue here.”
“I need a new black bikini.” Olivia’s rifling through her drawers now, things flying everywhere.
“Which is?” I ask.
“What we’re going to do about Juliet,” Charlie finishes.
“We could toilet paper her house,” Olivia says. She’s on her hands and knees, fishing a purple bikini top out of the bottom of her dresser.
“We’re not twelve,” Charlie says. She rolls her eyes at me and runs a Twizzler between her palms. “We need to get her out of here.”
“Like make her quit school?” Olivia asks.
“Like make her move back to LA. If she wasn’t here, this definitely would not be a problem.”
“Maybe she’ll sleep with Mr. Davis,” Olivia offers.
“They’d just fire him,” I say. I don’t want to keep having this conversation, because getting back at Juliet won’t help. It won’t fix anything.
“True,” Charlie says. “But seriously, Rose, snap out of it. This is not okay.You’renot okay.” She tosses a Twizzler in my direction, then perks up. “Do you remember when Fester first started school?”
“Brittany?” Olivia asks. She hops onto the bed, and Charlie sends her an annoyed look.
“Yes. She transferred in halfway through sophomore year and immediately tried out for drama,” Charlie says.
“Mrs. Barch runs drama now,” I say. Charlie looks at me like she has no idea why I know this, or why I’ve volunteered it.
“Anyway,” she says, “she fell in love with Matt, remember? He was doing that Julia Roberts play.” She waves her hand around like she can’t quite remember.
