“We figure out whose life is worse,” Edie said. “Don’t call it a game, call it an ice-breaking activity. We already started. I told you I can’t wear real pants and that I grew up in Green Bay, which, depending on which polls you’re looking at, is either one of the nicest places to live in America or the most racist and the drunkest.”
“I can’t tell you about myself. You could call any tabloid, especially right now, and they would pay you for the information.”
Edie grinned. “See? That sucks. You’re already great at this game. What the hell do you even talk about if you can never talk about yourself or anyone you care about? The weather?” The orange cat bumped his head into Edie’s bright green too-big coat, and she scratched beneath its chin.
“Money,” Cosima said. “Mostly. There are a lot of ways to talk about money.”
Edie laughed. Her laugh came so readily. “I’ll bet. Here’s mine. Back home, I’m called by my nickname more than my actual name.”
“Which is?” Cosima watched as Edie picked up the cat and snuggled him against her chest. It made her throat tight. The sun had come out from behind a cloud, and shafts of improbable golden light made the ordinary stone and brick buildings of the village seem to glow. She felt restless without the weather matching her mood.
“Frog.” Edie raised an eyebrow at Cosima.
Cosima could admit that Edie, in her green coat, hat, and boots, seemed to be leaning into the name, but she couldn’t think of a lessfairthing to call this woman. “Why?”
“Because I’m short and round, and my face is covered in multicolored polka dots.” Edie indicated her freckles. “Also, my eyes are green, and when I was in middle school I had to wear headgear to move my teeth and jaw.” Edie mimed an apparatus around her head and pulled her mouth into a grimace in a way that did recall a frog.
“Freckles are chic right now. And green eyes are the most rare. Almost no one has green eyes. There is, I’m sure you’re aware, nothing wrong with your body.”
Edie set the cat back onto the wall. It started on its way as though it were late for an important appointment. “Well. Thank you. To be clear, I’m not hung up on how I look. It was always obvious how much smarter I was than my brothers, who are ding-dongs, so it didn’t get in too deep. But the nickname persists. One of my brothers has kids who call me ‘Auntie Frog.’”
“Auntie Frog is objectively charming. No points for you. How does onewinthis game?”
Edie glanced over at Cosima with an expression so drawn and tired, it slowed Cosima’s stride in surprise. “Oh, we’ll know when one of us wins.” Now Edie’s laugh was dark. “The discomfort and social embarrassment will come over us like a black cloud.”
Cosima pulled her hands out of the pocket of her shooting coat and shook out her hands. She stretched her arms over her head. It was as if her body had already decided to tell Edie whatever she wanted to know, and so it needed to warm up first. “Here’s mine. I got my period in front of Harry Styles at a pool party.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“I was sixteen. I had just gotten home for the summer from boarding school with a few of my classmates, and—”
“Wait.Boardingschool?”
She hadn’t expected that to be the part of her story that tripped Edie up, but she should have. Edie was right. Their lives were different. Phoebe had made sure Cosima’s life was safe. Exclusive.
“Yes. Ecole d’Humanité, in Switzerland. For high school only. My mother couldn’t stand having me gone before then.”
“Obviously. Carry on.”
Cosima did not linger on thatobviously. She had told thisstory before, at brunches or in VIP lounges with cocktails, but this time, she decided to tell it straight, without euphemisms or edits. “My mother had a pool party to celebrate the summer vacation. She got somewhat carried away.”
Edie snorted. “Don’t spare the details on my account.”
She walked faster in retaliation. “There was a tent with a facialist and hot stone massage. Of course, One Direction performed.”
“Of course,” Edie said, breathing hard but keeping up with squishy stomps of her ill-fitting boots. “It would’ve been embarrassing to have someone like Maroon 5, my god.”
“I wore a bikini. It was—”
“—white,” Edie interrupted. “It was white, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. It was.” Cosima could feel her cheeks burning, even now. “And I was sitting on a cabana chair that was upholstered in white canvas, and Duncan—”
“Who’s Duncan?”
Just like that, Cosima felt the ground slip under her boots. Like when the plane’s cabin had opened up beneath her.
“No one. Duncan is no one.”
