by Sophia Rossi
Instead, I just snapped. “No, the point, Tim, is that this isn’t about you. It’s about the fact that Lily and I always spend the night before my birthday doing something that she knows means a lot to me. And instead of her, I have to do it with you.” It was the worst possible answer, since it was the one that was the closest to how I really felt. I felt the warmth in my cheeks spreading down to my neck. Rein it in, Harper, I thought. I took a breath, closed my eyes, and found my center. In and out, in and out, breathing with my lower diaphragm. Just like mom’s trainer/nutritionist/breathing coach Raoul taught me. Finally I felt calm and relaxed.
“So,” said Tim, leaning against the truck but no longer smiling. “This is really about you and Lily.”
My eyes flew open. “THIS IS ABOUT THE DOGS!” I scream-splained.
Buffy and Georgie and Bruschetta and Dottie and Bandit howled in agreement from their crates.
I looked at Tim. He was already looking at me. I know one of us was the first to crack, but I can’t remember anymore, because soon it was a rolling wave of unending, howling laughter.
The rest of the night went better. On Mulholland in Laurel Canyon, we introduced our buddies around the park, gave away some literature about PuppyTales, cleaned up our fair share of dog poo, and finally shooed away those scam artist “dog walkers” who ignore their fifteen plus charges as soon as they’re fenced into the park. Then we were off to Lake Hollywood Park, right in the shadow of our most famous sign. We were there for no more than five minutes before a giant German shepherd bowled Tim over—literally—while making a play for his sweaty handful of Snausages. Instead of freaking out, BoyWonder just giggled that new Matthew McConaughey laugh of his—heh-heh-heh—and let volfehounder perform an intensive cavity search. All right, I told myself. All right, all right, all right.
“Hey, so . . . sorry about earlier,” I told Tim when we were finally on our way home. It was after dark and the dogs were happily pooped (literally and figuratively). From the front of the Mobile Center’s cab, we could occasionally catch snippets of the Jacobys murmuring their gratitude in our general direction. “I know you’ve been really cool to me and I appreciate it,” I went on. “I just . . . I’m just used to doing this only with Lily, you know? I still can’t believe she bailed on me.”
“I can’t believe it either,” Tim said. “That doesn’t seem like something she’d do.”
Then, the Mobile Center took a sharp left turn, causing me to lose my balance and practically fall into Tim’s lap. Even in the dark I could feel him blush, and he quickly angled his arm out from under where I was splayed, resting it on my shoulder in an awkward, one-arm hug, his chin resting on the top of my head. He smelled nice, like laundry detergent and . . . firewood. Is firewood even a scent? I don’t know, but whatever it was, I liked it, and for once I wasn’t going to question how I felt or what it would look like to anyone else. I closed my eyes, feeling myself drift a little bit over to Tim. In the front of the RV, Mr. and Mrs. Jacoby were singing along to Crosby, Stills and Nash.
“This part is nice,” I said groggily, letting my head rest on his chest.
The hand on my shoulder relaxed. “Wuzzat? The song?”
“Sure, the song, the drive . . . it’s all nice.” I held my breath, but Tim didn’t respond at all. In fact, his breathing had slowed down considerably.
“Tim?”
There was a beat, and then a loud snore. Tim had fallen fast asleep. The dogs in the back howled.
The day of Harper’s birthday and the F³ re-launch party, I spent an inordinately long amount of time picking out my outfit. It had to be just perfect, and I went through a bunch of options, frowning in the mirror at each one. Vintage Girl Scout uniform? Too drab. Coral sleeveless silk top paired with blue culottes? Too formal. Floral print midi dress? Too young. Oversized chambray shirt, belted, with black leggings? Too stylish.
Ugh, fashion was the hardest thing in the entire world and I hated it and I wished Nasty Gal and Man Repeller had stayed Nasty and Repellant, instead of making alterna-wear a “thing.” I wished I had never found WhoWhatWear.com and I wished that I could go back to the time when I thought “street fashion” meant something you actually saw on the street, not the Internet. Finally I settled on the first thing I’d tried on: a Free People layered tulle tutu in soft pink, paired with a cream-colored leotard. I tried to wrestle the pink tutu skirt over my head as I heard the doorbell ring. Ugh, why could I never remember to step into these things? The skirt was scratchy against my bare legs. I could already tell it would be itchy all night, and that I was definitely going to get hives. I wished that I hadn’t made a pact with Harper about staying true to ourselves, when I didn’t even know what that meant anymore.
I muttered something to myself that even I didn’t catch and threw my phone on the bed, right in time to hear a knock at my door.
“Come in!” I said, wincing as the girl I saw in the mirror put on a too-bright smile. Harper entered almost shyly, wearing a dark red dress that fell around her shoulders in a cowl. She had arranged her hair in a messy up-do, and was wearing smoky eyeliner, like an adult. She had done something (or Mrs. Carina had) to her cheeks as well: they now had capital D Definition. I cringed, and not only because I suddenly felt like a kid next to a well-dressed adult: I wondered if Harper knew how inappropriate she looked for a Pathways party. Not to mention the fact that she didn’t have any wings. Darn it, had I forgot to mention those over the phone? I must have been too busy planning this whole party, which actually should technically count as planning Harper’s party, so who cares if I forgot a detail or two?
“Wow, you look amazing! Let me get a good look at you!” God, I sounded like a daytime TV host. “Happy birthday, birthday girl! How are you?”
“Thanks,” Harper said. “Fine.” She was looking at me oddly, like she was expecting something. It made me nervous, so I pretended to rummage through my bag for something I didn’t need: gum, a Band-Aid . . . anything. Unfortunately, all I had in there was some lint and three citrus flavored Tic-Tacs that had fallen out of their plastic container. I put one of them in my mouth anyway, because I’m disgusting.
“So, are you excited about tonight?” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Why couldn’t I think of anything else to say?
“Sure.” Harper coughed. “Um, if that’s really what we’re doing. Going to your friend’s party, I mean.”
“Of course it is!” I said, as brightly as I could. “Where else would we be going?” Harper seemed to sag a little bit when I said that, so I tried to pump her up. “Isn’t it great? I scored us an invite to the hottest party in town! The F³ rebranding is, like, the biggest event this season!” Whoa, hello, where did that come from? Was I on some terrible scripted show about my own life?
“I don’t know, Lily.” Harper sighed as she drifted toward my dresser, absentmindedly picking up and putting down random objects: my crocheted tea cozy, my porcelain rocking horse, my mirrored tin with all my jewelry. “This seems like a whole . . . thing.”
I gritted my teeth and tried to smile. “That’s the point, Harper,” I stressed, sitting on my bed. “It is a whole thing. We’re going to change it up for once. And you said you wanted to meet my friends . . . I just wish you could have gotten more in the spirit of things! Like, do you maybe want to borrow something of mine to wear that’s a little more . . . fun?”
“Fun?” Harper sounded doubtful. “Since when do you care what I wear? Plus, Lily, I know you put a lot of thought into this, but I was thinking we could maybe just stay in this year? Hang out? Just the two of us?” This was totally not a Harper-like reaction to the idea of going to a cool party. She was usually the one who got pumped about meeting new people, and I was the one who was always begging to stay in and eat cheese and watch weird movies. I had to shake her out of her funk. What would Nicole do?
“Oh, come on! It’ll be fun! There is no ‘I’ in ‘
Us,’ Harper!” I walked over to my dresser with more determination than I’d ever had and spun Harper around so she was facing me. “But there are three of them in ‘Individual!’“
“What are you talking about?”
“Uh, well, it’s just that . . . maybe this year, we could try to do something a little more . . . unique. I was really hoping we could try being, uh, real. The real us. By not following the crowd, and doing something, you know . . . unique?” This kind of stuff sounded so much better when it came out of Nicole’s mouth.
“Wait. You want us to not follow the crowd by going to . . . a party?” Was it just me or was Harper starting to sound a lot like her sarcastic sister these days? Nothing was ever going to be easy with Harper, even when I was . . .
“. . . trying to help her . . .”
Harper looked confused. “Lily, what did you say?”
“Nothing!” I threw my hand over my mouth, all of a sudden feeling totally overwhelmed. Sometimes it was like my brain couldn’t think about stuff without having it also come out of my mouth. I would have to watch that little tendency of mine tonight, while Harper and Nicole were in the same room together. I tried to regroup.
“I’m just . . . trying to help us—help you—become the best possible version of yourself,” I said, making sure no extra words were getting out. “I put a lot of thought into this . . . and . . . I just think, you know, we need to put more Energy and Art and Nature and Magic into your birthday this year.” I left out Sheganism and Alienation, but managed to throw out the other core tenants of NAMASTE in my Hail Mary speech. I crossed my fingers and toes and prayed for it to work.
“Fine,” Harper finally said, looking down and fidgeting with her cowl collar. “Lead the way, oh brave fashion pioneer.”
I tried not to take that as an insult and instead practiced harnessing my good vibes. “Great! Oh my god, you’re going to adore Jane! And Drew! And my friend Nicole, she’s the president of this club I’ve told you about . . .” I reached behind Harper and pulled the finishing touches to my outfit out from my top dresser drawer: a cool floral crown that I’d found in an excavation of my attic, and of course, my wings. Can’t leave home without them. At least not to any event planned by my Pathway friends.
I really hoped the party would live up to my hype. I hoped Nicole and my Pathways friends would really love Harper the way I did. But the thing was, I was worried. As much as I loved being accepted at my school, my new friends weren’t really accepting. I used to think that the word “intolerance” referred to bigots and racists and bros (and lactose and gluten, obviously), but it turns out that the most open-minded people can also be the least forgiving. At Pathways, if you’re not unique, you’re “basic.” If you like anything that’s accepted by the mainstream culture, you’re “brainwashed.” If you don’t wear your originality on your sleeve, literally, every single day, then you are being a conformist and not thinking for yourself. You’re Beth-Lynne, and you end up in tears in the middle of a hallway filled with judgmental classmates.
No. It didn’t have to be like that. I was sure my new friends would love Harper, I decided. Of course they would. They had to.
They had to.
Right?
Lily was really quiet on the way over to the F³ party, which was fine, because I didn’t feel much like talking either. On the seat beside me was the birthday card that Lily had absentmindedly handed me on the way out the door. I was sure I had seen the card at Walgreens the other week—it featured an owl asking “Who-who-whose birthday is it?” (Uh, it’s my birthday, owl. Do your homework.) Inside, there was a dashed-off note in Lily’s chicken scratch. “Happy birthday!” It read. “To my bestie!”
Thinking about it again, my hands flew up to my neck, feeling for the present Lily had just given me: a vintage BFF broken heart necklace that came in a pair—Lily had the other half. It felt gold and old and pretty heavy. I probably would have loved it, except that, as we rode in the car toward a party that I had assumed was a jokey cover for my real birthday surprise, I couldn’t help thinking of it as a consolation prize.
Plus, it totally didn’t match my outfit.
Maybe I was too overdressed? I figured since this was a fashion party, I could borrow something from Rachel’s pre-goth-phase wardrobe. I picked out a beautiful red BCBGeneration cocktail dress that was a little shorter than what I’d normally wear, paired with gold strappy sandals. The dress flared out from the waist and gave my usually straight figure more curves. It was also really adult-looking, especially after I put my hair up in a sprayed bun and lined my eyes with kohl. If I was going to blow this thing up, I might as well blow it up right. I actually felt good about my outfit tonight, until I saw Lily’s.
She was wearing a costume. Well, Lily was always a little bit in costume, but this was Halloween-level, even for her. She was wearing a tutu! And of course, her wings, which had so many new scraps of fabric tied around them they made her look like a hunchback. She had a flower crown in her hair, which would have been cute if I wasn’t almost positive that it was the same one she debuted back in fourth grade gym class. (The dust bunnies scattered among the fake peonies gave it away.)
“Is this a Halloween party?” I had asked as we left the house, Lily shrugging on her wings with a kind of resigned determination. “Or does it have some kind of retro theme?”
“No.” Lily shrugged. “Why? This is just called ‘looking good on a Saturday night.’”
“Okay,” I said. “Just asking.” I didn’t bother following up on that, and so resigned myself to staring dejectedly out the car window as we drove, wondering when it had become so hard to make conversation with my best friend.
“By the way,” I said, hoping to guilt Lily about PuppyBash, “I saw the Jacobys the other night. They said they missed you. . . .” They hadn’t said any such things, but I saw Lily’s shoulders tense as if shocked by a cattle prod.
“Oh,” she squeaked. “Was . . . did you see Beth-Lynne by any chance?”
I scowled in the backseat. What did Beth-Lynne have to do with any of this? I hadn’t even seen her since my last birthday party.
“No,” I said curtly. “Why, have you?”
Lily mumbled something I couldn’t catch, but it was possible she was just talking to herself again.
I think I was still holding out hope that this was going to turn out to be some epic prank, right until the moment that we pulled up to Art Rebel. The building was a giant warehouse, the kind some witty detective might find a body in in an episode of NCIS. Except usually those buildings didn’t have a red carpet outside. There was a line round the block; a sea of improbable hair colors, asymmetrical clothes and thick glasses. But the most insane part was that everyone was wearing wings except me. It was like we had wandered into some strange Disney-sponsored tween nightmare.
“You girls have a fun time!” Mrs. Farson purred as she unlocked the doors. I considered making an argument for staying in the car—lady cramps were probably my best bet—but Lily was dragging me by the hand and out the door before I could protest.
Even from outside, the scene was chaos, like some end-of-the-world apocalypse scenario meets a Zac Efron premiere. Kids were shouting and there were light bulbs flashing everywhere. Loud bass-heavy music was booming from the entrance, where a linebacker-sized bouncer stood holding a tiny clipboard. It would maybe have been funny if I wasn’t so disoriented by the myriad of Tinkerbells (and Tinkerboys!) thrumming outside the entrance.
“So, these wings, is that something you started?” I asked. “It’s a little . . .” I didn’t actually know how I planned on ending that sentence. It wasn’t a little anything. It was a lot. Much to the Muchness. Instead of responding, Lily squeezed my hand tighter as we approached the door. Either she hadn’t heard me or was pretending not to.
“Lily!” There was a loud screech near the door, and suddenly the giant bouncer stepped back
to reveal the pink-haired girl from Lily’s first day at Pathways. Except tonight her coif was silvery white, and she wore a black, shapeless tunic with a gold braided sash. Neon plastic bangles ran up one arm and down the other, and her nails were bright orange. Though I’m sure she thought she looked oh-so Warhol-era, the effect was less Edie Sedgwick and more raver Scarlett O’Hara.
Oh, and one other thing: Her back was sprouting a large tuft of angel wings. Each feather was dyed the same metallic blue-gray as her hair color, and her wingspan ran all the way to the tips of her fingers when she spread them to point to us.
“She’s good, Julio,” Nicole said, unlatching the red velvet ropes and beckoning Lily with one pumpkin-painted nail. “And so is her, uh . . .”
I smiled grimly. “I’m Harper.”
“Of course, Harper.” Nicole’s voice could have been sponsored by Splenda for all the artificial sweetener she’d put in it. “We’ve heard so much about you! Though didn’t Lily tell you about the dress code tonight?” I frowned at Lily, who was suddenly looking anywhere but at me. No, I thought, I had definitely not been told about any dress code.
Nicole pursed her lips and shrugged benevolently. “Oh well, I’m sure we can’t all find a pair of wings quite as stunning as our Lily’s on such short notice. It’s natural that you would feel a little, shall we say, less motivated to be your true self, what with that upbringing you’ve had.” Nicole moved in between me and Lily, pushing us apart and snaking her arms through ours as she bulldozed through the entrance, leaving me to wonder just what Lily had told her about my home life. What did she mean about my upbringing? Sure, my parents weren’t perfect, but I loved them to death! (And so, last time I checked, did Lily.) I couldn’t imagine what Nicole was referring to, but it sounded nasty. I needed to talk to Lily, ASAP.