It’s been several years since we huddled on the couch and did our nails together. It used to be fun, giggling and gossiping and carving a space out of reality where we were just sisters and the mother and daughter were the illusion. But I got tired of that script around the time I turned twelve and Mom decided I was old enough to hear about her occasional one-night stands in between boyfriends, which wasn’t really something a girl who hadn’t even had her first period needed to know. Plus, aside from my immaculate nails, the rest of me—?my hair, my attempts at makeup, clothes—?was a total freaking mess for all of middle school until Emmy finally taught me how to put on mascara and match a top to a skirt.
Still, I haven’t been able to shake the nail habit, though unlike Mom’s loyalty to aubergine, I dabble in all the purples. I tried red one time. Blue another. But other colors just looked weird on me, a stranger’s hands. Varying the shades is the closest I’ve been able to get to nail polish rebellion.
Tonight I paint with Lavender Sunrise, every nail except my middle fingers. Those I coat in an almost bloody-looking blackberry color.
“Is that supposed to be a subtle fuck you?” Luca asks, getting up from my bed where he’s been weaving together some old guitar strings into something that vaguely resembles a napkin holder. My roommate in Boston played guitar to blow off steam from piano performances and the workshop, which was pretty tense most of the time. She threw away a bunch of used strings, but I grabbed them out of the trash can, knowing Luca would love them. He’s always creating stuff out of totally random materials. Anything he can bend or melt or break into something weird and functional. After he graduates, he and Macon have big plans to start up some sort of industrial design business here on the cape. His mom pushes college, but he just waves her off.
“Too obvious?” I ask, grinning up at him where he’s hovering over my shoulder.
He paws at the clip I’ve been using to hold my hair in a messy pile on top of my head, and soon my face is covered.
“Hey!” I swat at him, grabbing for the clip.
He laughs, patting my head. “You need to come by the diner tomorrow. I want you to meet Eva.”
“Oh, lord, here we go.” Luca is perpetually in love or trying to fall in love or thinking about how he might fall out of love so he can fall in love again.
“It’s not like that,” he says.
I smirk at him.
“Okay, maybe it’s a little like that, but only because she’s really pretty. But life just crapped all over her. Half the time I don’t know what to say or do. She needs friends.”
“Friends.”
“Yes, friends. You know. Conversation. Time spent in each other’s company. Inside jokes. That sort of thing.”
I growl at him. Literally.
“Easy, tiger.”
I growl louder.
“You don’t have to be her bosom best friend—?”
“Did you just say bosom?”
He inhales deeply through his nose, a sure sign I’m annoying the hell out of him. It’s so damn fun. Plus, I’d rather not go down this path. It’s not that I’m opposed to new friends. Okay, maybe I am a little opposed, at least historically. And then there’s the fact that I haven’t told Luca I’ve already met her. I’m not sure why. Our whole interaction on the beach just felt sort of . . . I don’t know. Sacred. I got the impression that Luca and Emmy didn’t know she was weeping on a usually secluded beach, so I keep my mouth shut for now. Besides, it was just a few moments. Not a friendship.
“I’ve got to go,” he says when I don’t say anything else. Setting the guitar-string creation on my desk, he picks up my bottles of nail polish, base and top coats, and ragged nail file, and places them all in the little taco-shaped contraption.
I smile at him.
“You going to be okay?” he asks.
I look away. “I’m always okay.”
He frowns.
“Luca, I’m fine.” I stand up and stretch. “Just tired.”
“See you tomorrow?”
“Yup.”
After he leaves, I wait a good five minutes, listening for human sounds in the house.
Nothing.
