Silence.
“Daisy and DJ are having a birthday soon,” Meg coached in the background.
“Iknow,” I said with more enthusiasm than I felt. “That’s so awesome.”
Heavy breathing, like the pervert in the market.
“Are you going to be two?” I asked, holding up two fingers.
Daisy dropped the phone.
“Oopsie,” Meg said. “Hang on a sec, okay?”
I waited while she washed the twins’ faces and hands and released them from their high chairs. “Sorry I won’t be home for their party,” I said when she got back on the phone.
“That’s all right. We’re keeping it small. Just family. Bethie’s coming.”
“What about Jo?” I asked, keeping my voice casual.
“I don’t think so. I talked to her this morning.” Meg and Jo talked almost every day. “She doesn’t want the newspaper to start thinking she’s dispensable.”
“Did she sound... upset?”
“Over missing the toddlers’ birthday party?” Meg asked in a dry tone. “Shockingly, no.”
“But otherwise? She’s okay?”
“She’s fine.” Meg shot a too-seeing look through the phone. “Why the sudden concern about Jo, anyway? Are you sure you’re all right?”
A guilty flush heated my face. “I care, that’s all.”
“Aren’t you sweet.” A pause, as if Meg were debating with herself how much to tell me. “She broke up with Trey again.”
“Oh no.”Yes. My heart beat faster. “Do you think they’ll get back together?”
“She says not. Well.” Meg smiled ruefully. “You know Jo.”
I did. Jo had gone to New York for her MFA and found a job as a features writer. It was hard to imagine her giving up her dream to live in Bunyan.
And hard to imagine Trey anywhere else.
He wasn’t born in North Carolina, I reminded myself. He hadn’t grown up with the rest of us. But he was part of the fabric of my childhood, woven in with memories of the time before Meg got married and Jo moved away.
“Listen, sweetie, I have to go,” Meg said. Changing the subject? “The twins are up to something.”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“Exactly,” Meg said darkly, making me laugh before we ended the call.
I took extra care getting dressed for my dinner with Trey. I wanted him to think I looked pretty. That was my value in our family. Meg was responsible, Jo was smart, and Beth was good. I was decorative. So. Yeah. You have to work with what you’re given.
Besides, I wanted Trey to see me as something other than a pesky brat following him around, a humiliated fourteen-year-old shamed by her so-called friends.
White lace top. Skinny black skirt. Skinnier belt. I added red lipstick and tied a scarf around the handle of my bag in case it got cooler later. This was Paris, the city of fashion. I might not have money, but I had learned to accessorize.
When the buzzer sounded, I ran down the five flights to the street, breathless even before I saw Trey waiting on the sidewalk.
He smiled when he saw me. “You’re ready.”
