‘And I perfected them! Now they aren’t perfected anymore, and I’m stressing.’
‘But you didn’t stress when you were perfecting them before. So something is distracting you. What is it?’
I couldn’t tell her that all I had thought about over the past few days was Gabe and why he was ignoring me. What was I supposed to say?Oh, a boy I like kissed me, but he has a boyfriend, and even though it seemed like he was going to dump his shitty boyfriend for me – because, again,he’s shitty – I haven’t heard from him in days, and oh, by the way, I’m gay?
‘Are you on drugs?’ she asked.
‘No.’
‘Have you been smoking weed?’
‘Mom! I’m not high!’
‘That’s not a no, so if you are smoking weed, at least lie to me!’
‘I’m not smoking weed.’
‘Thank you.’ She let out a sigh of relief. ‘But … now I’m wondering if you really are lying.’
‘Mom!’
‘Okay! So if you’re not doing drugs, is it school?’
‘Yes.’ It was easier to say it was just school, but it was everything. La Mère, Ava still not talking to me, Gabe now also not talking to me, and the uncertainty behindwhy. With Ava it was obvious – she was pissed because I didn’t support her gap year idea. I understood it in theory, but what had been the point in her doing all that hard work over the past few years for nothing?That’swhat I didn’t understand.
My mom folded her hands together. ‘Ava’s uncle called me.’ I didn’t say anything. ‘He told me she doesn’t want to go to Johns Hopkins. He’s worried about her.’ So she had told him. Which meant the ‘possible’ gap year was officially a for-sure gap year. And she didn’t even bother to let me know.
‘So am I. She did all that work to just throw her life away.’
My mom tilted her head. ‘Why do you think that?’
‘Because she’s not going to the school she worked so hard to get into!’
‘That doesn’t mean she’s throwing her life away. Maybe something changed and she just needs time to figure it out.’
‘She can still do thatinschool.’
My mom laughed, loud and harsh. ‘Yeah, well, it’s fifty thousand bucks cheaper to do it outside of school. Take it from someone with a bachelor’s in marketing who’s a glorified event planner for a retirement community. It might be easier to take some time and figure out what you really like before you get buried in student loan debt. But is all this really about you worrying if you’ll get into La Mère?’ She motioned to the macarons. ‘They’re not going to make you whip up a batch of these to prove you belong.’
‘I was going to make a video to show I belonged, remember? And the person who was supposed to help me backed out, and now I’m screwed and I have to figure it out myself.’
That was completely secondary, though. Yes, I still had to get my video together, but I had time to do that. What I really needednowwas to know how Gabe went from kissing me to completely ignoring me. Even after we first kissed and he told me he had a boyfriend, he still answered my texts.
She shook her head. ‘You don’t have to figure it out yourself. I’ll help you. Just tell me what you need, and I’ll help you do it. Or if you don’t want me, just text Ava an apology and ask her for help.’
‘I’ll see her tonight,’ I said. ‘She’ll be at the party.’
‘The party you’re not going to be drinking at, right?’
‘Right.’ That was actually true. I had no plans to spend tonight drinking at Amber Gallo’s house because I didn’t want to get all mopey when I had no one to kiss at midnight. I also wanted to see if Gabe would show up – if he did, it would be much better if I was sober for that conversation.
My mom stood and pointed to the coconut pandan cookies. ‘Maybe don’t give her these, if you’re trying to make up.’
But Gabe wasn’t there. Ava was, with Morgan, and even though I had been at the party for twenty minutes already I had yet to go over and say hi to her. I dropped off the bags of chocolate ganache and vanilla/strawberry macarons in the kitchen, not bothering to look for a plate to make them look presentable.
I went right out onto the back deck, where I could see Kevin and a couple of other Murphy bros smoking.
‘Have you seen Gabe?’ I asked Kevin.
