I glanced across the classroom to track Mr.Henderson’s movements as I slid my phone out of my pocket and balanced it on my leg so I could enter my passcode.
Then I tapped out of my conversation with Grace and into another one, scrolling upward to catch a few messages over the last couple weeks:
Thanks, J. XOXO.
You’re the best. XOXO.
What would I do without you? XOXO.
I rubbed my forehead, pulse pounding and everything spinning…because Grace wasn’t texting me.
It was Isa.
Isawas texting me from my sister’s phone, which meant they were together. Doing what, I didn’t know, but I had a hunch that it didn’t involve Isa holding back Grace’s hair while she vomited into a bucket.
“Is she even sick?” I murmured to myself, but before I could exit Messages and go to Find My Friends to check their locations, a shadow crossed over my desk.
Fuck,I thought as Mr.Henderson said smugly, “Do you have something to share with the class, James?”
A rhetorical question, because he then held out his hand.
I had no choice but to surrender my phone.
Chapter 8
Isa
“Did you shut him down?” Grace asked, glancing back at me. After swinging into the nearby Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot so she could quickly shed James’s one-hundred-pound Phanatic costume, we were now speeding down I-95 South, and for the last several minutes, James had been texting me. Well, texting his sister. First, he unexpectedly messaged Everett, who’d sent him the vaguest of responses, so then he’d moved on to Grace.
But since she was driving, Grace had tossed her iPhone back to me and dictated her replies. My hands shook a little while I typed, the way they always did when I texted with James. It was like I was too excited to function. “Oh my god,” I said when Grace mentioned her mom’s home makeover. “That isexactlywhat’s happening to your house!”
For the last couple months, Grace and James’s house had been slowly shifting from a classic Ralph Lauren warm color palette to trendy neutrals. “No idea,” James had said when I’d asked him about the redesign. We’d both been peering into the fridge, almost hiding together behind the open door. James was always hungry, and I’d volunteered to grab snacks for Grace and me. “Maybe she’s been watching too much HGTV before bed.” He shrugged, shoulder brushing against mine. I felt myself flush. “Or maybe this is her manifestation of a midlife crisis. She does have the big five-oh coming up, after all.”
My fingers moved barely three inches to touch his. He didn’t pull his hand away. “But aren’t you bummed?” I asked in a small voice.
By way of an answer, James had slowly threaded his fingers through mine. Warmth swirled between our palms. “It’s a house,” I barely heard him murmur. “It’s just a house….”
“Tell me about it,” Grace said now, flipping her blinker and switching lanes. “My room’s going to be painted something called ‘snowfall white.’ ”
In the front seat, Everett fake-shivered. “You better zip up your parka.”
“And sip an après-ski hot toddy,” Grace quipped, but neither of them laughed. My best friend straightened up in her seat and refocused on the road while Everett’s eyes followed her. He watched her for a few moments before furrowing his brow and shifting his gaze to the dashboard. He looked almost irritated.
I didn’t get it. Was he upset that Grace had sprung him from school? That he was stuck with us for the day?
“I wonder if James ruined the cookies,” he said after “Grace” texted her brother that she was taking a nap. If James wasn’t careful, his phone was going to get snatched by a teacher. “That was our assignment in FCS today.”
I sighed from the backseat. (Why was I even in the backseat? This was my car!). “I can’t believe you chosethatas your elective.”
Everett shrugged. “Why not?”
“Because—”
“Are you sure there’s no parenting exam?” Grace interrupted in case I had the nerve to mimic Mamá and call FCS a joke. Not that it was an outright joke, but for James and Everett? James loved barbequing with his dad while wearing goofy aprons and listening to music. And Everett was practically a gourmet chef. “My son made everything!” was how his mom had greeted us for game night. “Even the hot fudge skillet cake…”
Once upon a time, I was a regular at the Adlers’ kitchen table. I would have dinner there a few times a week when Everett and I’d dated. But I never was the greatest guest; I would do homework in Mrs.Adler’s quiet art studio while Everett’s family laughed all the air out of their lungs in the kitchen. “Isa,” I remembered Mr.Adler appearing in the doorway one night. “I’m about to put the steaks on.”
“Okay,” I said, taking it as a dinner-will-be-ready-soon warning. “I only have a couple problem sets left.”
