It should have been a relief to discover Van didn’t know, but she looked so crestfallen I almost wished I’d kept my mouth shut.
“Who?” she whispered.
I braced myself. “Alex. Alex Ritter. I saw them together at auditions.”
Van was silent for a long moment. Then she bent forward, gripping the edge of the dresser. Her shoulders shook.
“It’s okay!” I patted her with both hands. “You’ll meet someone else, and they’ll be so much better. You deserve someone faithful and true ... ” My voice trailed off as I realized my sister was laughing, not weeping. Had she succumbed to nervous hysteria? Maybe I should slap her.
Addie walked back into the room shaking a bottle of red nail polish. “What’s so funny?”
Van wiped her eyes before taking a deep breath. “Mary just informed me that Phoebe is dating someone behind my back.”
Addie’s arm fell to her side. “I’ll kill her.”
“Wait!” Van waved her to silence. “You haven’t heard the best part. Guess who it is?”
“Who?” Addie directed the question at me.
I sighed. “Alex Ritter.”
Addie looked away, pressing a hand to her lips, but not quickly enough to hide that she was laughing at me too, albeit with more restraint. How wonderful they’d finally found something to agree on. I was sorely tempted to walk out and leave them to their mirth-filled reconciliation.
“I’m sorry.” Addie gasped for breath, clutching her ribs. “I shouldn’t laugh. You didn’t know.”
I looked from her to Van, who appeared to be on the verge of another fit. “Know what?”
“Alex is Phoebe’sbrother,” Van said, clearly relishing the word. “Not her boy toy.”
Phoebe was Alex’s sister? I thought of their slender frames and curly wheat-blond hair, the dark lashes and blue-gray eyes. It was ... not impossible.
“But he came to Trivia Night.” This was not a protest so much as a question—the first of many circling my brain like moths around a porch light.
“He heard me telling Phoebe about it. Said it sounded entertaining.” I felt Van’s eyes on me. “Maybe he had another reason for showing up?”
Addie set down the nail polish. “Is there something you want to tell us, Mary?”
“Me?”
“Who else would he have gone there to see?” Addie asked.
“You. Van. Random strangers. How should I know?”
“Pretty sure he knows I’m spoken for,” Van pointed out.
I sniffed. “That didn’t stop him before.”
Addie frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Antony and Cleopatra,” I reminded them. “With what’s-her-name? She had a boyfriend at the time, and then Alex came along and suddenly people were sobbing in the prop room and slamming doors.”
Van made a noise of disgust. “Oh please. Julia and Tad were like the low-rent Heathcliff and Cathy, way before Alex Ritter showed up. We ordered sandwiches after rehearsal once and somehow it led to this huge crisis with Tad locked in the bathroom and Julia rolling around on the stage yelling ‘hey nonny my ASS.’”
“Over condiments,” Addie recalled. “She wasnota mustard person.”
I must have missed that day. “But what about you guys? Didn’t he, you know—”
“Flirt with us? Oh yeah. It was adorable. He was like a baby Lord Byron, without the sleaziness. Or the incest.” Van grinned at me. “Too soon?”
