April suddenly wanted to unbutton each one. Slowly.
She shook her head while Daphne laughed at something Dylan’s mom, Carrie, was saying, the two of them deep in conversation. Still, Daphne’s eyes flitted over to April, just once, and April’s stomach billowed upward like a deployed parachute.
“She keeps doing that,” Olive said.
“Doing what?”
“Looking at you.”
“She does not.”
“She does too,” Olive said, pinching the skin on April’s forearm lightly.
“She’s looking atyou.”
“Well, I am very cute, but you’re full of shit.”
“Language!” April said, feigning being appalled.
Olive laughed, then turned to look April in the eyes. “So how are you doing? Really.” Her expression was full of concern, even a tinge of pity.
April pressed her mouth flat. “Exactly how much did Ramona tell you?”
“Ramona tells me everything.”
April flinched, but she wasn’t even sure why. Of course Ramona told Olive everything. She always had since Olive became an adult, and April couldn’t even be mad about it. She could, as it happened, feel left out.
“I’m fine,” she told Olive, because it was true. Because she needed it to be true, even as her gaze slid to Daphne, even as Daphne’s eyes met hers, even as April looked away for the four hundredth time.
“There she goes again,” Olive said out of the side of her mouth.
“Oh, shut up,” April said, then proceeded to tickle Olive’s middle, and she giggled like she was ten years old again.
April was still digging a finger into Olive’s ribs when the back door opened and Ramona came outside.
“Look who’s here, everyone,” she called, her eyes finding April’s and widening.
April frowned at the blurry shadows behind Ramona. She hadn’t even noticed when Ramona left the gathering to answer the front door, and April couldn’t imagine who else—
She froze as her parents stepped onto the patio, the twilit glow making them look almost angelic.
Almost.
They stood stoically together, the Drs. Preston and Jacqueline Evans. April’s mother clutched the strap of her black pocketbook—it wasn’t a purse or a bag, it was apocketbook—her brown bob cut severely just below her chin. She wore a crisp white blouse tucked into knee-length navy shorts, as though she were attending the summer session of an East Coast private school. Preston wore his usual khaki pants—flat front, to keep up with the times—a starchy light blue dress shirt, and a bow tie. The bow tie was a signature look for her father, something he’d donned every day since his residency at Northwestern, claiming a bow tie was jovial and set patients at ease. April had always found this quirk of her father’sstrange, as the wordjovialhad never exactly described the Preston Evans she knew.
“Mom, Dad,” April said, patting Olive’s back to stand so she could get up. “What are you doing here?”
Her mother gave a tight-lipped smile. “Mr.Riley invited us.”
“He did,” April said, barely a question.
“That he did,” Preston said. “I ran into him at Gallagher’s yesterday.”
“You’ve all known our Ramona since she was nine years old,” said Mr.Riley, who had joined them to shake the Evanses’ hands. “I figured you’d want to help us celebrate as well.”
“Of course,” Jacqueline said, smiling without her teeth. “April hadn’t even told us the good news yet.”
“I’ve been busy,” April said. A paltry excuse, sure, but the only one she had.
