“Whatever,” Charlie says. “Who cares.”
She stumbles off, presumably in search of Jake, and I crane my neck to check Olivia’s entryway.
“Where’s Rob?” Olivia asks, suddenly and to no one in particular.
Jake and Ben glance at each other, and Ben talks first. “He’s parking.”
Olivia seems to accept this, but something about it doesn’t feel right to me. It only takes me another half second to realize why. I don’t even have to turn around and see him to confirm my suspicion. He has brought Juliet.
She’s wearing her signature sunglasses and carrying her gigantic bag. Everything about her is the same as it has been for the last week, except for one glaring difference. Instead of her halter dresses and skintight tank tops, she is wearing a sweatshirt. One that swallows up her small frame so you can barely see the denim shorts poking out from underneath. Andblazoned across the front of the worn gray cotton is the wordSTANFORD.
Charlie raises her eyebrows at me, but she’s too drunk to sustain the expression and instead decides to take her irritation at Juliet’s arrival out on Jake.
Olivia hesitates and then goes to greet them, being a good hostess and passing them two drinks. Juliet keeps her sunglasses on, and they’re so tinted, it’s impossible to see her eyes underneath, or what expression she’s wearing. She takes the cup from Olivia, smiles, and exclaims, “Thank you!” but keeps herself glued to Rob, her arm through his. Rob looks awkward, but just slightly. If you didn’t know him, you’d think he was just settling into the party, shaking off the drive. But I know Rob better than that. He’s nervous. He looks the same way he did on our date—or dinner, whatever you want to call it—last week.
He doesn’t look at me but goes over to Jake, who looks confused as to what to do. Charlie stomps off in a huff, and Jake kind of stares after her. The only one who doesn’t seem remotely concerned by this scene is Juliet. She’s smiling and cheerful and looks completely at home in Olivia’s house. And in Rob’s sweatshirt.
“Rose,” she calls. “Hey!”
She crosses the room in three long strides and gives me an air hug. It’s the most physical contact I’ve had with her since she snapped my doll’s head off a decade ago.
“Hey,” I say. I’m not sure what to do. If I was Charlie, I would probably throw a drink in her face or blow her off, but there isn’t enough time to figure out how. It’s not until she releases me that I realize she’s just won. By being nice to me, she’s completely obliterated her chances of being perceived as in the wrong.
“It’s sooo beautiful here,” she says, sliding her sunglasses up on top of her head. “Have you been out back?”
What does she mean, “Have you been out back?” This is my best friend’s house. I’ve been coming here since I was thirteen. Of course I’ve been “out back.”
“Babe,” she calls, and Rob looks up. That one motion is like a knife in my side.
“My parents used to have a house at the Colony,” she says as he comes over, “but they sold it when things just got too busy. Now we have to come down and use the Pitts’.”
Rob stops a few paces from us and makes like he’s looking at the photograph hanging over Olivia’s couch. It’s a picture of Olivia’s little brother Drew in a tin bucket, so I know he can’t be that interested. Juliet is blabbing about Brad’s involvement in her dad’s charity when she stops, looks at me, and says, “Your parents don’t have a house down here, do they?”
“No.” Considering that the average home in the Colony is about fifteen million, I’d say pretty definitively that they never will, either. “The beach isn’t really their thing.”
“What is, then?” Juliet looks amused. She eyes me up and down, slowly, like she’s taking inventory.
“Umm, hiking?”
She half laughs and then drops her voice low, so only I can hear. “Really? I thought you guys were just into backstabbing.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I tilt my head forward, convinced I heard her wrong.
Juliet crosses her arms and looks me straight in the eye. “You heard me.”
“What are you talking about?” My voice goes up at the end, and Rob shifts uncomfortably by the framed bucket baby.
“Oh, poor, little, delicate Rosie. Kept from all of life’s tragedies by her loving family.”
“Have you lost your mind?” I whisper.
“Maybe,” she says, squaring her shoulders. “I am in love, you know. I heard it makes you crazy.” Her eyes twitch slightly, and I recognize something in them, something primal. And it’s terrifying.
Juliet smiles, shakes her mane down her back, and turns, going over to Rob. She draws him into a long kiss, snaking her arms around his neck and up into his hair. I think I’m going to be sick.
I wander outside and try to suck in some fresh air. So, on top of stealing Rob, she’s now attacking my family. I mean, I knowour parents had a falling-out a long time ago, but my mom and dad aren’t traitors. And where does she get off calling anyone a backstabber? Look whose face she’s sucking.
But there’s something nagging at me, something else. Rob’s mom sitting in our living room and what she said about Juliet’s family. That they wanted revenge. For what? Is this Juliet’s revenge?
