One big fat tear slides down her face. Trudy suddenly gasps. It is a horrible gasp that shatters the silence. It is a shudder so hideous—one that I and so many of my friends have let escape from our bodies when we could no longer contain our shame or pain—and yet it is as familiar as a hymn.
I know immediately: Trudy does have a secret. A very, very big one.
“Is there something else on your mind?” I ask. “Is that why you’re here, Trudy? Do you want to talk about it with me?”
She looks at me as if she’s been caught stealing, but shakes her head until she must be dizzy.
“No!” she says. “Please. No!”
“Then shall we pray?” I ask, extending my hand.
Trudy grips it and unleashes a torrent of tears.
“Amen,” I say.
Barry
I hear a splash in the pool.
I look up, andthatgirl is floating on our rainbow unicorn.
She is wearing a red bikini no thicker than a Twizzler. She stretches her lithe, translucent body out like a sheet of paper and sighs as the warm water and sun envelop her.
“So, how old areyou?” she asks.
I lower my vintage Versace sunglasses—which may or may not be women’s and which I may or may not have “borrowed” from one of Teddy’s trunk shows when he wasn’t looking.
“Questions we don’t ask out loud,” I say.
“So, old, then?” she asks.
I sit up on my chaise, give her porcelain-colored skin a slow once-over.
“Have you ever seen the sun before?” I ask. “Do they have that in Ohio?”
She opens her mouth, but I wag my finger at her.
“No, ma’am,” I continue. “Don’t pull any BS with Barry. Girls like you are a dime a dozen in California. I’m an actor and a writer, so I know a good story when I hear one. You packed that swimsuit, so you knew where you were going.”
“I thought we were going to a hotel for spring break.”
I laugh.
“Your grandma on spring break? Now that’s a rom-com waiting to be made! No, no. You knew you were coming here. You went to an airport. You knew we had a pool. How?”
She smiles sheepishly, caught out. “Imayhave helped her find your address out here. The nosy guy with the cotton candy hair...”
“Ron.”
“Yeah, him. He sent a letter to my mom about Teddy’s husband a long time ago. It didn’t have a return address, but all I had to do was google his name and Palm Springs, and it brought up your address, your ages...”
“Our ages?”
“Well, Ron’s age,” she says. “All I knew was that my grandma was hell-bent on talking to him. I thought at first she just wanted to get away from the house after my grandpa died, but I think it’s more than that. My grandma is the most boring person in the world. She’sneverout of control. I mean, do you see her?”
I laugh.
“Well, just enjoy it before Teddy drags your grandma out by her horns.”
