“And to the outside observer it sort of seems like you’re settling for the poor man’s Zach Braff because you’re afraid you’re never going to find a guy who isn’t a total loser!”
Both of them are quiet for a minute, the air between them strained and sludgy. Lilly digs the heels of her hands into her eyes. She’s spent the last few years worrying she’s never going to be anyone but a reality TV footnote, destined for nothing but casual mockery. It sucks to know Charlotte thinks so, too.
“Look,” she says finally, “it’s late. Obviously we’re both tired, and—”
“Yeah,” Charlotte agrees, not quite meeting her eyes. “Of course.”
Lilly picks her purse up off the table. Neither one of them says good night.
***
She stomps out into the parking lot, unlocks the Honda. She only finally got it back from the mechanic a couple of days ago, and she mutters a quiet thank-you to Joe, wherever he is, when for once the car starts up as soon as she turns the key in the ignition. She feels uncomfortable and exposed, like she’s walking around in public with a visible panty line. She has no idea why Charlotte blew up at her like that—after all, what is a best friend even good for, if not to save you from romantic shame and degradation at the hands of their loser cousin? Lilly’s, like, seventy-five percent sure she’s not the asshole here.
Sixty-five.
Fifty at least.
She idles in the parking lot for a minute, head back against the seat. She used to imagine this car still smelled like Joe, his skin and his laundry detergent and the wintergreen gum he always chewed, the zing of it behind his teeth whenever they kissed. Now it kind of just smells like rust. It’s starting to feel this way lately, like maybe he never actually existed. Like he was a character on a show that got canceled two seasons ago.
When she gets back to the house June and Olivia are sitting at the kitchen island in the half dark, passing a pint of low-calorie dairy-free frozen dessert back and forth. “How was dinner?” June asks, waving her spoon in greeting.
“It sucked,” Lilly announces, tossing her purse on the counterwith more force than is perhaps strictly necessary. “Did you know Charlotte is sleeping with Colin?”
She’s fully expecting her sisters to gasp in piercing horror but instead neither one of them says anything for a moment, like they’re a pair of elder matchmakers taking the union under consideration. “Did you know?” Lilly presses, suddenly filled with deep suspicion.
“No,” Olivia says thoughtfully, “but it makes sense, right? They’re both, like, nerds.”
Lilly whirls on her. “Charlotte isn’t a nerd,” she says witheringly.
“I mean, she kind of is,” Olivia counters without malice. “Not in a bad way.”
“She won a James Beard Award two years ago!”
“Okay, so she’s a nerd with a James Beard Award.”
Lilly sighs loudly, holding her hand out for the ice cream. She doesn’t know why nobody seems properly outraged here. “Are you listening to this?” she asks, turning to June. “Colin! I would literally rather be alone for the rest of my life, rattling around this house with pantyhose on my head like Little Edie, than have sex with Colin.”
“That’s good,” Olivia puts in helpfully, “since it would be incest.”
Lilly rolls her eyes, frowning down at the cardboard carton. “What am I even eating right now? PS, it’s disgusting.”
“Kit and I are doing a partnership,” Olivia tells her, peering curiously at the label. “I think it’s mostly just air.”
“It tastes like lint.”
“Does she seem to like him?” June asks, pulling one leg uponto her stool and resting her chin on her knee. “Charlotte, I mean.”
“I—” Lilly breaks off. She thinks of the way Charlotte was looking at Colin out on the patio the night of Charlie’s premiere, as if she was actually interested in whatever boring, pedantic thing he was talking about. She thinks of the dozens of bad Tinder dates Charlotte has endured in the last five years. She thinks of the way she reached for his hand in the hallway at the restaurant earlier this evening—instinctive, like she’s already gotten used to the way it feels in hers. “Kind of,” she admits grudgingly.
“Well then,” June says, shaking her head when Lilly holds the rest of the poison ice cream out in her direction. “Maybe it’s not such bad news after all.”
“Why are you like this?” Lilly asks her. June only grins.
Lilly says her good nights and shuffles crabbily upstairs to the bathroom, where she brushes the fake-sugar aftertaste from her mouth. She should have known June was the wrong person to talk to about this. She should have brought it to Mari, who never has a nice word to say about anybody. She should have brought it to Kit. Still, the more she thinks about it the more she realizes she doesn’t actually want to complain to Mari or Kit.
As a matter of fact, the person she actually wants to complain to is—
Well.
