“She can hear you, B,” Bathrobe/Jack whispered loudly.
“How do you know that? She appears to be mute. Maybe she’s deaf too.” But he was smiling at her. Her heart pounded. “Actually I don’t think she’s mute,” Lying on the Couch/B said. “Muteness is really rare.”
“So you’re saying she just doesn’t want to talk to us?” Jack asked. “Why wouldn’t she want to talk to us?”
“I don’t know,” said B. “Maybe you should ask her.”
Jack reached into his bathrobe pocket and took out a plastic magic wand like the kind that comes in magic sets for kids. Lucy stared at it. Her stomach tightened.
Jack waved the wand. “Speak!”
Lucy pressed her lips together, sure that at any second her mouth would open and words would start pouring out.
He waved the wand again. Nothing happened.
“Um?” Lucy said.
“Ha! It worked!” Jack shouted. He thrust the martini up in the air and more of it sloshed out. “I am magic. I knew it!”
But in that moment Lucy knew it was all just a joke.
“Well?” B said.
Lucy’s heart pumped blood to her already hot face. “I don’t know,” she said. It was all she could think to say. “I’m sorry. I’m. . .” She didn’t know what to say after that, so she just stood there.
Jack tucked the wand behind his ear. Then he raised his eyebrows and nodded. “Fair enough. You don’t know. I don’t either.” And then they just stood in silence.
A moment later Olivia, Liza, and Gil came back into the room.
Liza grabbed B’s butt. Gil and Olivia hugged the boys good-bye. Lucy just stood there awkwardly until Olivia walked out the door and they all followed.
The guy who’d been sitting on the front steps was gone. His empty beer can was sitting on its side on the pavement and there was a little puddle next to it, as though he had melted and that’s what was left.
“Well then,” Olivia said.
“Well then,” said Gil. She turned toward Lucy and smiled.
“This was such a waste of time,” Liza said. “Except for Gilly’s hundred bucks.” She marched ahead and got in the car. She turned back, stared at Gil. “Which you probably slipped back in his pocket when you were hugging him good-bye just like you did after our last five bets.”
“I felt bad!” Gil said.
“You would have made the best pickpocket on earth. If only you didn’t keep getting it backwards.” Liza was shaking her head. “Well, now it was a complete waste of time. And just so you know, Lucy”—Liza glared at her—“you got an F.”
“No, no you didn’t,” Gil said. “It doesn’t work like that; you weren’t being graded.” She turned back toward Liza. “Lucy was nervous,” Gil said. “That’s natural.”
“It’s not natural.” Olivia shook her head as she got in the car. “Understandable? Maybe. But not natural. We were not all meant to be so afraid of each other. She was afraid because she’s been conditioned to be afraid.”
“She was afraid because sweet wittew baby bunnies are always afwaid,” Liza said. She got in shotgun and stuck her long legs out the open window.
“Liza! You’re being mean.” Gil got in the back. Lucy got in too.
“What?” Liza flipped down the mirror and stared at her excruciatingly gorgeous face. “It’s true.”
“She isn’t one thing or another thing.” Olivia’s voice was calm and low, but there was something in it that made Lucy’s heart beat faster. “People are endlessly changeable.” Olivia turned toward Liza. “You of all people should know that.”
Olivia started to drive.
“But what were you testing?” Lucy said. The wind was rushing around inside the car now and she wasn’t even sure if anyone heard her. She tightened her stomach, spoke louder. “I didn’t even know what I was being tested on!”
Gil turned. “We needed to see where you were starting from is all.”
“And now we know,” Liza said.
“But I had no idea what I was being tested on,” Lucy repeated. She felt suddenly sick.
“So what,” Liza said. “Grow the fuck up. You’ve had like what, fifteen years to prepare for this?”
“It’s not about fair or not fair. Life is what you make it; everything is what you make it.” Olivia laughed. “Put that on a poster with a cat! That wasn’t just a test, it was also lesson one.”
“Yes, lesson one,” said Liza. “Have a personality.”
“Did you happen to notice how incredibly hot those guys were?” Olivia asked.
“Yes,” Lucy said.
“They’re used to girls being scared of them or too polite or just fawning. Did you notice how much they all seem to love Liza?”
“It’s not just because I’m hot,” Liza said. “Actually, it has nothing to do with it.”
“It’s because of the sass factor. She makes them work for it and she’s a little mean.”
“So the lesson is to be mean?”
“Not mean mean exactly,” Gil said. “There’s a difference between being mean mean and being fun mean. Liza’s fun mean.” Gil paused. “Most of the time.” Liza reached her hand back without turning around and made a grabbing motion. Gil giggled. “Mean mean hurts feelings and that’s not the goal here, fun mean adds a little sizzle to everything and makes all interactions into a game. You toss something, they hit it back. They toss something, you hit it back.”
Lucy blinked.
“This concept should not be new to you,” said Liza. “It’s called flir-ting.” Liza turned toward Olivia. “This is a waste. She’s not going to be able to do any of this. I mean look at her, she’s practically shaking right now. And she doesn’t even know what flirting is! If you really want a fourth we can find someone else. . . .”
Lucy wanted to ask her—a fourth for what? But she was scared to.
“Liza,” Olivia said. There was a low warning tone in her voice.
“I think you might be surprised, Li,” Gil said gently. “Besides, we said we’d help her.” Gil glanced at Lucy. “I want to help her.” Their eyes met. Gil smiled a warm, secret smile. Lucy felt something happening inside her chest: a softening, an opening. Suddenly Lucy saw in Gil’s eyes a reflection of herself, not as a dump-able mute, but as someone worth fighting for, someone worth trying to save. And for a moment Lucy thought perhaps she understood what it was that made guys, unattainable guys like Ethan, love her enough to let themselves break.
“Well, there’s not enough time,” Liza said. She crossed her arms. “Not enough to fix this one . . .”
Gil’s smile had wrapped a delicate bubble-cushion around Lucy’s heart. But Liza’s words popped it and put a heavy steel clock in her belly. And that clock started to tick.
Tick tick tick.
Because the thing was, Lucy agreed with Liza. Six days was nothing. No time at all. In six days she’d be back on her own. Alone forever unless she had their help.
And their magic.
“What if you give me some of the . . . ,” Lucy started to say.
Tick tick tick. The clock ticked in time with the pounding of her heart.
“We don’t just ‘give’ you anything,” said Olivia. “Anything you get from us, you have to earn. You have to prove that you’re worthy of it.”
“How do I do that?” Lucy said, too quickly.
“By doing everything we say, obviously.” Liza snorted. “Quick, meow like a kitty.”
Gil shook her head. “It’s not like that.” She reached out and squeezed Lucy’s shoulder. When Lucy turned, Gil winked.
Olivia pushed down on the gas and the car sped up smoothly. Faster and faster they went until the trees transformed into a green-and-brown-vibrating stripe and it felt like they were flying. Lucy closed her eyes. She felt the air rushing past her. “Six days is an eternity,” Olivia said. “Anything can happen. . . .”
Chapter Eleven
At night Olivia’s enormous and eerily beautiful house made a strang
e kind of sense. It was a house for having secret moments, nights that feel like a dream, and dreams that feel real. It was a house for doing things in that time between sundown and sunup when the world is covered in a velvety black blanket, under which you can do whatever you want.
But in the slowly fading, late afternoon sunlight, it didn’t make any sense at all. It was too tall, too not-quite-now-ish. It felt like the air in the house had been in there a long time, not in a sad and musty way, but in a meaningful way, like every bit of it had circled through who-knows-how-many other peoples’ lungs, like by breathing it you were mysteriously connected to them all.
A pile of packages had been left on the front steps—a light-blue leather box ringed in gold, three huge bouquets of flowers, a giant paper bag with gold twine handles, a basket wrapped in peach cellophane. The girls stepped over them as they walked inside.
“What is all that stuff?” Lucy asked.
“Gifts from our guests last night,” Olivia said. “We tried something that may have worked a little too well.”
“What’d you try? Some sort of spell?”
“No,” Liza said. “We made them some really fucking good rice pudding.”
Lucy blushed.
“Your parents must be really cool letting you have such a big party and on a school night and everything,” Lucy said. As soon as Lucy heard herself she blushed even more. She sounded like a six-year-old.
“Yeah,” Olivia said. “Right.” She laughed and walked up the stairs, Liza following close behind.
“Her parents are dead,” Gil whispered. “Olivia lives alone.”
“She does?” Lucy said. “But . . . how?” She looked at the back of Olivia’s white-blonde head.
“After her parents died she moved in here with her grandmother, but her grandmother died a little over a year ago so now she lives here by herself. She has her grandma’s credit cards and bank info and can forge her signature so . . . she does.”
“That’s really s—,” Lucy started to say.
Gil looked up the stairs; Olivia and Liza had already disappeared down the hallway. Gil put one finger in front of her lips and gave Lucy a little push up the stairs.
They headed down a long hallway lined with many doors, all of which were closed. Lucy was brought into an enormous bathroom with a claw-foot tub and a cream-colored velvet daybed. A large, crystal chandelier like you’d see in a fancy hotel lobby hung down into the center of the room spraying tiny points of light. Before Lucy even had a chance to think, A chandelier! In the bathroom! she felt herself pressed down into a straight-backed chair.
Olivia raised her hand. She had long, strong-looking fingers. She snapped them.
Six serpentine arms moved around Lucy in unison, as though the three girls had merged into one ancient many-armed goddess.
A hand slid Lucy’s ponytail holder off and her light brown hair fell around her shoulders. In another hand, silver scissors appeared. Sssssshk ssshk shhk, the blades slid against each other, like a metallic-winged dragonfly fluttering, fluttering around her head. Wisps of hair began to fall, landing on her arms, her shoulders, her bare legs. She stared at a few strands that lay there on her thigh, pieces of herself that were not attached anymore. Another hand brushed those discarded pieces of Lucy off her leg, onto the floor.
Lucy’s sad broken heart pounded painfully, pushing blood out. What were they doing to her?
“Wait, are you . . . ,” she started to say. She didn’t even know what she was asking.
And someone said, “Ssh.”
She closed her eyes to quiet her heart.
She would trust them. She had to.
The air smelled of sweet chemicals mingled with flowers and spice. Someone applied something to her head, thick and cold.
A cream of some kind was rubbed onto her cheeks, her forehead, her nose. Her eyelids. Her heart squeezed again. Blood rushed in. Memory pumped out.
She’s in her backyard with Alex as the sun is going down. It is getting chilly but they’re not going inside. She is on her back and is intensely aware of everything that’s under her—the dirt, lumpy and hard, grass on top, softer, and above that, the thick down comforter that naughty, naughty Lucy has dragged outside and spread out on the damp grass. Later she will have to hide it as she sneaks it back into her bedroom. Her mother, who does not often get mad, might be mad if she sees it. But Lucy is not thinking about this now, nor about how Alex is leaving for the summer in just eleven days. No, for the first time in a very long time she is not thinking about anything. She is just there, out there on the lawn with her boyfriend and a dozen blinking fireflies, which she can’t see because her eyes are closed now. She feels something softly tickling her cheek. She opens her eyes, finds Alex staring at her, tracing her features with a blade of grass. He smiles and brushes her hair back from her face. “If I were a painter and I were painting you,” he says, his voice low, “this is where I would start.” Gently with his blade of grass he shows her.
Time was passing. Time had passed.
A voice said she was done.
Lucy opened her eyes. She was led over to a huge cream-colored sink with a giant gold faucet and from the neck up everything was rinsed. Someone patted her face with a towel.
Hot air blasted into her hair.
“All right, gorgeous,” said Gil. “Olivia and I have to go do something downstairs. Liza is going to help you with the rest.”
“Wait,” said Lucy. She reached up and touched her hair. It felt smooth. She pulled a lock of it toward her face. What had been a light, mousey sort of brown was now dark, almost black with hints of eggplant and cherry.
Gil smiled. “Don’t worry, Liza will be nice to you.” She looked up at Liza. “Won’t you?”
“I’m always nice,” Liza said. But she wasn’t smiling.
Gil squeezed Lucy’s shoulder, and followed Olivia out.
Liza pulled out a big black toolbox and opened it. Inside was an assortment of jars and tubes and pots and brushes. She picked out a thin brush and a jar of what looked like black ink. Lucy’s heart began to pound.
“Oh, calm down,” Liza said. “The pleasure I’d get from giving you a henna unibrow would not be worth what Olivia would do to me if I did it.” She shook her head, then pointed the brush at Lucy. “But don’t think it didn’t occur to me. Close your eyes.” She was leaning so close Lucy could feel Liza’s breath on her face. “The good thing about you is that you don’t really look like one thing or another. Open them.” Liza leaned back. “Close them. Me? I look like a fifties pinup girl. I have big tits and a big ass. I have a sweetie-pie-looking face. That’s just what I look like. Okay, open them. You, on the other hand, you’re totally blank. You could be anyone. Stop moving your mouth.” She put something on Lucy’s lips. “Blot.” She took out a big brush and started pulling Lucy’s hair back.
Lucy’s phone vibrated.
Liza reached out and grabbed it off the counter. “Ooooh, a text from a booooy.”
Lucy’s heart began to pound. Alex? Liza held the phone up over Lucy’s head as Lucy reached for it.
“Who’s Tristan?” said Liza.
“My friend.” Lucy’s heart sank.
“Your friend?”
Lucy reached again.
Liza raised one eyebrow, put one freakishly strong hand on Lucy’s shoulder, and pushed her back down into the seat. “I am assuming this Tristan is a dude, correct?”
“Right.”
“Does he like girls?”
Lucy nodded.
“Well. Then he’s not your friend.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Guys who like girls aren’t ever just friends with them. The only time a guy and a girl can ever be just friends is if the guy is gay. Otherwise there’s something else going on.”
Lucy shook her head. “It’s not like that.” She felt her face begin to flush. “We’ve been friends forever. We’re like brother and sister.”
Liza started laughing.
“Well, isn’t that some adorable bullshit.” She looked down at the phone and read. “‘Hope you’re having fun over there, slugger.’” The phone vibrated in her hand. “Oh look, another one. ‘PS Found something really cool, must show you later.’” Liza looked at her. “Hmmm?”
Liza then held up Lucy’s phone. “Smile, slugger.” She snapped a picture and started texting. “Of course. Don’t I look like I’m having fun?”
“Wait!” Lucy said. “Don’t send that!”
“Too late.” Liza pressed a few more buttons.
Liza handed her back the phone so Lucy could see the photo she sent.
There on that screen was a picture of a girl.
Lucy’s little mouth dropped open into an O as she stared at her.
If you looked at the old Lucy, and slowly started turning around in a circle, by the time you were facing her again you might have forgotten what she’d looked like. Or so she thought anyway.
But the girl in the photo was . . . not the kind of girl you’d forget.
Her eyes were big and green, lined with the thinnest stripe of jet-black liner; her lashes looked thick and dark. Her sexy mouth was stained a deep matte red. Her dark, shiny hair was pulled back into a sleek ponytail, which somehow seemed to have changed the shape of her face. This girl had cheekbones.
What would Alex say if he saw her like this? She tried to imagine how she’d feel sitting there talking to him, all her words coming through this lush lipsticked mouth. But she just couldn’t.
Tristan’s reply popped up on the screen. Whoa, bud, you look like a Russian spy posing as a hostess at a fancy cocktail bar.
“All right, enough,” said Liza. She snatched back Lucy’s phone and stuck it in her back pocket. “That’s one person you can be. Now let’s try something else.” Liza released Lucy’s hair from its ponytail. She wiped off Lucy’s lipstick and removed the mascara from her bottom lashes. Then she rubbed the tiniest bit of petal-pink blush on the tops of Lucy’s cheeks and a dab of berry-colored gloss on the center of her bottom lip.
“Let’s see what your completely platonic brother-friend thinks about this one,” Liza said.
The Secret Sisterhood of Heartbreakers Page 7