While they explained to me the major food groups (crunchy, cakey, slushy, and sticky), I recounted the happenings backstage—chiefly the part about Alex Ritter’s paramour. The incident with the tape measure wasn’t really worth repeating, as it had been more of an embarrassing gaffe on my part, whereas the fact that he’d hit on Terry while already in possession of a girlfriend had direct bearing on his character. Naturally my friends were scandalized.
We carried our plunder to a nearby park, where two teams of sweaty boys were playing soccer. As the sun set, tinting the sky pink, the four of us chatted about classes, homework, the indignities of PE, TV shows I hadn’t seen, and whether soccer thighs were preferable to swimmer shoulders.
DidI like soccer thighs? The question had never crossed my mind. It felt slightly crass to discuss such things until I recalled the Regency fashion for strutting around in skintight pantaloons, which had been all about guys showing off their assets.
What Ididlike was being asked my opinion, and not just as a precursor to telling me why I was wrong. They seemed genuinely curious about what I had to say, something I’d never experienced with Anjuli. The words flowed among us without a single strained silence or sullen eye roll until the lights came on at the park and we realized it was time to go home.
The next morning, I stayed in bed reading until a grumbling stomach drove me downstairs. In the dining room, I found my father surrounded by uneven stacks of books and papers, as well as no fewer than three oversize mugs. There was a bare patch just large enough for my cereal bowl at the far end of the table. After pulling in my chair, I peered at the scribble-covered legal pad next to his hand.
“What are you working on?”
“That remains to be seen.” He pushed his glasses farther up his nose. “I’m noodling for now.”
Dad’s thought processes were famously nonlinear.Almost Woolfian in their circumlocutions,our mother liked to say of his stream-of-consciousness style. It sounded like a compliment, but I got the feeling Mom was trying to convince herself, when in fact she wished he would empty the clean plates from the dishwasherbeforeupending a half-full cup of tea over them.
“Where is everybody?” I asked around a mouthful of whole-grain nuggets. The house was unusually quiet.
“Your mother’s at yoga.” Dad’s mind always turned to Mom first. “I believe Adeline and Vanessa are still slumbering.” His forehead crinkled as he looked at me. I would have thrown him an oar but wasn’t sure which mystery had him confounded: the name of his missing daughter, or her whereabouts.
“Cam’s at practice?” I guessed.
Dad tapped the table, his version ofaha!“She did say something about that, though it may have been yesterday.” He shook himself, tufts of salt-and-pepper hair jutting in all directions. Most people never guessed he was younger than our mother by several years, since Dad tended to be bear-like and shambling while Mom was a health-food-powered dynamo of petite proportions.
“What are your plans for the day?” he asked, surprising me. My father was not a Keeper of the Social Calendar type.
“Homework, mostly.” And maybe a phone call to Arden, who’d asked me to update her with any casting news.
Dad sat back, threading his fingers and resting them on his belly. “No parties on the horizon?”
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “Parties?” It seemed like even more of a non sequitur than usual.
“Your sister told me,” he said gruffly. “About seeing you out on the town.”
“Oh.” I set down my spoon. “That kind of party.”
His brows drew into a worried line. “Is there a reason you didn’t inform us of your plans, Mary?”
“I did tell you. You were sitting in the living room with Mom and I said, ‘By the way, I’m going to a party’ and she nodded, and you said, ‘Indeed.’”
“Well.” He cleared his throat. “It’s possible I mistook your meaning.”
I decided to let that one slide, especially as Jasper walked into the room at that moment, followed closely by his best friend Bo, son of the anthropology professors two doors down. (His full name was Boas, after the pioneering social scientist Franz Boas.) Judging from the state of their hair, they’d just woken up, grabbing a cereal box and pair of mixing bowls en route to the dining room.
“Mary would never sneak out without telling you,” Jasper said sleepily. Although ostensibly speaking in my defense, his tone was a tad insulting.
“Who’s sneaking?” Bo looked from Jasper to me. “You’re not talking about Mary?”
“Yep. Believe it or not, Mary was out after dark. At aparty.” Jasper shook a little more cereal into his bowl. If no one intervened he would go on this way—a little more cereal, a little more milk—until the last dusty grains had been consumed.
“A high-school party?” Bo whispered, in a tone usually reserved for words likechlamydiaorcyanide.
“Just a regular party,” I said, poking at my cereal.
“With those new girls you’re hanging with?” Jasper asked between crunches.
I stared at him, spoon frozen above my bowl. “How did you hear about that?”
He shrugged. “Social media, baby. You’re all over Instagram.”
