“I’mfine,Dad,” Marigold says with a roll of her eyes.
“You two can practice for Stockholm together,” Mr. Gensler goes on, clearly just talking himself into it at this point. “The practice rooms will be closed over break, anyway. I can’t imagine you’d want to spend your last weeks of practice time before the competition playing a desktop keyboard?”
Mr. Gensler has officially run through every possible reason why I should stay at their house and finally landed on the one reason that even I can’t ignore. My electric keyboard is fine. It’s…serviceable. But it’s not an instrument that is going to prepare me to perform competitively on the world stage. From the way Marigold sinks lower in her seat, I can tell that I’m not the only one who recognizes a winning shot.
“Okay,” I say at last. “I…thank you, Mr. Gensler. That is very generous of you.”
There we go. Mr. Gensler has officially made an honest man out of me. When my mom calls me back later to ask who it is I’m staying with, I’ll be able to answer without guilt:
I’m spending winter break with Marigold Gensler.
7
Marigold
“Jacob Gensler does it again.” Cessy sighs, dropping back onto my bed with dramatic flourish.
I’m huddled up by the headboard with my knees drawn to my chest, trying to figure out just how I ended up in this reality TV show of a situation. Should I have mentioned to my dad at some point how much Jamie Larson hates me? Was that something that never came up? The universe has got to be out to get me at this point. It’s just comical.
At least our capstone practice hasn’t been a complete disaster so far. All those endless hours sharing a practice room, and our music has finally started to flow together like we were born to be partners, an invisible thread tying my heart to his.
Which is really the last thing I need, emotionally, but if it gets us an A, I’ll take it.
“I love your dad,” Cessy goes on, “but sometimes he’s like…too nice. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it when it’s him bringing me cardamom buns just because he thought I’d like them. But literally pawning out rooms in yourhouseto random classmates like they’re lost little puppies? And I can’t believe Jamie said yes. I don’t get it.Why?Does he enjoy torturing himself?”
I’ve spent the past several hours imagining what it’s going to be like orbiting each other in a New York City apartment. Yes, our apartment is larger than most. But it’s still New York, and there’s not a lot of space to hide.
“I think he just wants to use our piano,” I say honestly. “He can’t practice for Stockholm on some shitty Casio. There’s only a few weeks left to go.”
“You’re probably right,” Cessy says with a sigh, and finally pushes herself back up to a proper seated position. “I don’t know what Shrishti sees in him, I swear.”
I busy myself with picking a loose thread out of my duvet. I’ve never admitted to Cessy that my crush on Jamie didn’t exactly disappear after our falling-out. Even when he was trying his best to be an asshole, I still remembered how he used to be. How he—at least, as I told myself—really was. It wasn’t that hard for me to believe that my favorite human might get along withhisfavorite human, even if Cessy and Shrishti’s relationship was perennially on-again, off-again.
Jamie isn’t a bad person. He just hates me, specifically.
Three Years Ago
My first college party, and I already felt out of place.
It wasn’t that Juilliard didn’t have parties. Same with my performing arts high school. But we were all nerds in the most extreme sense of the word, whereas Parker had enough edgy visual arts students and hypercool modern dancers that I couldn’t help but feel like an uninvited twelve-year-old. Some prudish part of my brain kept screaming,They’re drinking alcohol! They’re drinkingalcohol—like my dad hadn’t been letting me sip wine at Passover seder since I was ten.
Cessy, meanwhile, slid into the milieu like she was born to be here with a White Claw in one hand and her phone in the other, taking reel after Instagram reel of everyone dancing and screeching and playing messy games of beer pong.
“Seriously, nobody is watching you,” she urged me after half an hour putting up with my curmudgeonliness.
You’rewatching me,I thought, which still felt high stakes, because it was freshman year and I hadn’t gotten to the point where I’d seen Cessy belting out Dora the Explorer songs in her bra like a drunk rock goddess. She was still cooler than me. She was still someone I desperately wanted to impress.
I grabbed a Miller High Life and took several gulps in quick succession. Maybe if I got myself a little tipsy, I’d feel less awkward?
This all felt incredibly high stakes in a way that made about zero sense in objective reality. I was pretty sure that never in my life had I made a new bestie from some random house party…but hey, there was a first time for everything, right?
“Cessy!” someone shrieked, and I barely had time to turn toward the voice before a short girl with wild black curls all but barreled into Cessy, flinging both arms around her neck. “You made it!”
Oh god. Just what I needed: to be the third wheel.
“Hey, Shrishti.” Cessy was grinning when the girl finally pulled away, the kind of grin that took up her entire face. “I didn’t realize you were coming! I would have dressed up.”
Shrishti rolled her eyes, but the tiny smirk that tugged at the corners of her purple-lipsticked mouth gave her away. “Hush. You look great. The nineties vest is particularly—” She made a gesture evoking a chef’s kiss.
