Dad’s in the kitchen when I arrive, hunched over a plastic take-out container of sushi, some sort of legal-looking document next to it that he’s marking with a pen. He’s a small and solitary figure in our big kitchen, and I almost feel sorry for him, but his first comment—“Oh, it’s you. I was hoping Lizzie hadn’t left yet”—kills my budding sympathy.
“She’s gone,” I say.
“That’s too bad.” He glances around. “The house feels very quiet tonight.”
“You could call Ginny.”
He shakes his head. “Oh, no. That whole thing was a mistake.”
“Why do you say that?”
He seems surprised by the question. “Isn’t it obvious? Didn’t you see Lizzie’s reaction?”
“Does Lizzie’s reaction matter? She doesn’t even live here anymore.”
“This is still her home. And I care what my daughter thinks. What all my daughters think,” he adds. He skillfully and delicately picks up the last piece of sushi with chopsticks, pops it into his mouth, and pushes the empty container away. He chews and swallows and says, “It’s unfortunate that Lizzie didn’t call before coming this weekend. Always remember, Anna, that surprises are a bad idea. More often than not, the person who’s giving the surprise ends up getting one.”
“True enough in this case. Lizzie was definitely surprised.”
“Painfully awkward for everyone . . . But maybe it was for the best. In fact, I’m sure it was. Sometimes we get swept up in other people’s plans and lose sight of our own, and I’m afraid that in spite of all my education and experience, I’m as susceptible as the next man.”
He must be making a point under all that verbosity. I try to figure out what it is. “Are you saying Ginny liked you more than you liked her, and you were just going along with what she wanted?”
He shifts uncomfortably. “I can’t speak to her emotions. I do think she was more focused on creating some kind of forward momentum than I was.”
Why can’t he just say things normally? I’m still confused. “You could ‘speak to’ your own emotions, Dad. What were they? What are they?” I really want to know the answer to this. Does he like her? Is he embarrassed by the idea of going out with her? Is he worried he’s too old? Was he already getting sick of her? If Lizzie had been in favor of the whole thing, would he have been relieved? Or was he relieved that she tossed Ginny out? He must feel something about all this, right?
If he does, I’ll never know. He gives a little awkward laugh and says, “I’m just glad I didn’t make even more of a fool of myself. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“But didn’t you like her?”
“I’m too old for this kind of conversation, Anna. Don’t you have homework to do?” He bends back down over the brief he was editing.
Maybe if Lizzie hadn’t shown up when she did, Ginny and Dad could have enjoyed each other’s company for a while, or maybe they’d have grown tired of each other pretty quickly. I guess it doesn’t matter. She’s gone.
And will apparently not be publicly mourned.
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twenty-seven
It’s good to walk into the cafeteria at lunch on Monday and see Lily sitting there, laughing and talking, part of the group again.
But I still feel like something’s different about her now, and that feeling grows as we all talk. She listens more, speaks less. She doesn’t fidget or jump up or grab at things or insist that everyone’s attention be on her most of the time.
Maybe the blow to her head affected her brain—Hilary told me a couple of days ago that the doctors had said it wasn’t unusual for someone with a concussion to come out of recovery with some personality changes. So maybe it’s that. Or maybe her close call with serious injury just made such a profound impression on her that it’s changed the way she thinks and acts.
She’s dressed simply again today, in an old pair of jeans and a cotton sweater. She hasn’t done anything special with her hair—it just hangs, the bottoms still light from where she bleached them, all the color washed out. If she’s wearing makeup, I can’t tell. She looks younger, prettier, more vulnerable than the old costumey Lily. And much more tired.
Finn is the last one to arrive at the cafeteria. “You’re back!” he says to her happily, and puts down his tray so he can give her a hug. When he lets go, he glances over at me, and even though the hug was a little tough to watch, it’s okay because his glance says that he knows I might need reassurance and that I don’t have to worry about anything. When he sits down across from me, his foot finds mine and presses against it, repeating the message.
“So how does it feel to be back?” he asks Lily.
“Strange. Nice, but strange. James said when he went back to school last week, he felt like he was underwater. Like he could see everything and everyone, but there was this . . . thickness in the air all around him. And that’s exactly how I feel.” She gazes at each of us in turn with her expressive eyes, like she wants to impress upon us just how in sync she and James are. “Underwater.”
“Did you have to choose that particular metaphor?” her sister asks, wrinkling her nose.
“Yeah,” Finn says. “I’m not entirely comfortable with it either.”
Hilary turns to glare at him and then at me. “I’m pissed at you guys,” she says. “I had to hear about you from Lily.”
“Hear about them?” Oscar repeats. He squints and waggles his finger back and forth between Finn and me. “You two?”
“Kinda sorta,” I say.
“Your enthusiasm is overwhelming,” Finn says to me.
“Here.” I put a plate on his tray. “You can have my brownie. If that’s not a sign of true devotion, I don’t know what is.”
“I made brownies once,” Lily said. “They were great.”
“No, they weren’t,” Lucy says.
“No, they weren’t,” she agrees.
“Well, no one told me anything,” Phoebe says. “But I approve, anyway. Anna and Finn make a lot more sense than Finn and Lily ever did.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lily says. “I mean, I approve too, but still—what’s that supposed to mean?”
Phoebe shrugs. “Finn has this whole nerdy intellectual side that doesn’t fit with you—no offense,” she adds to Finn, who shakes his head and says, “None taken.”
“I can be intellectual,” Lily says with some of her old sass.
No one responds.
“Screw you all,” she says. “Intellect is overrated, anyway.”
“Yes, you’d have to think that, wouldn’t you?” Hilary says sweetly, and her sister throws a roll at her.
“Well, this is just great,” Oscar says glumly. “There’s Phoebe and Eric—”
“Just call us Pheeb-ric,” Eric puts in.
“And now Finn and Anna—”
“Fanna?” Finn suggests.
I say, “That’s just . . . No.”
“This isn’t a friend group anymore,” Oscar says. “It’s Match-dot-com.”
“It’s a friends-with-benefits group,” Phoebe says.
“Only for some of us.” Hilary slumps in her chair. “Seriously, this is getting ridiculous. Lucy has Jackson, and Lily has James. I’m like the only person here who’s alone.”
“Ahem,” says Oscar. “Ahem.”
“This is all your fault,” Hilary tells him. “If you were straight, we could go out and then we’d all line up perfectly.”
“You’re assuming he’d be into you,” Lily says.
“I would be,” Oscar says.
“Yeah, right.”
“Let’s go out, anyway,” Oscar says to Hilary, ignoring Lily. “Gay guys make the best boyfriends. I actually like to go clothes shopping.”
“Oscar’s already got more potential than Jackson,” Lucy says. “Jackson and I talk about dating, but we almo
st never actually go out.”
“You’re right, Oscar’s better,” Hilary says.
“Just don’t call me your ‘gay boyfriend,’” Oscar says. “I hate when girls do that.”
“What should I call you?”
“A hunka hunka burning love.”
I laugh with everyone else, only I think I laugh harder. Not because I think it’s all so funny, but because I’m so happy that we’re basically all back to normal except that this time I’m the one with Finn.
After school he and I walk over to our old haunt—the frozen-yogurt shop—which I’ve spent the last three years avoiding but am willing to go back to now that I can go with Finn again. Over a shared bowl of four different flavors and about eight toppings (pay-by-the-ounce is the greatest thing to ever happen to frozen desserts), Finn says, “Hey, what ever happened with your sister and that girl? Do you know?”
I nod. “I just IM’d with Molly yesterday.”
“And?”
“They had seen each other a few times, and Molly was thinking maybe she’d been unfair, but then Wally’s family came to town for family weekend. Molly ran into them and waited to see what Wally would do. And Wally just let them ignore her again. Didn’t try to make them say hi to her or acknowledge her in any way.” I lean forward. “Some people don’t appreciate it when they get a second chance.” I push my knee against his. “Some do.”
“Two’s all you get,” he warns me. Joking. But not entirely.
“I only needed one and a half,” I say.
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Epilogue
Five months later
“Now I know how movie stars feel on the red carpet,” Lucy says as we swivel obediently toward one camera after another.
“Get closer together,” her mother orders as she squints at her cell phone. “Anna, smush right up against Phoebe, and you two twins come forward at the ends. Lucy, smooth out your skirt. Okay, that’s better.” More clicking.
“Now one with the boys,” Yuri Lee says.
“Not yet,” Phoebe’s mother says. “They keep looking in different directions. I need one shot with all the girls looking at me.” She waves her hand in the air, and we all obediently turn toward her. “Smile and say prom, girls!”
Phoebe groans with embarrassment, but the rest of us laugh and say, “Prom.” I glance at Molly, and we roll our eyes at each other, but she’s grinning. She’s right in the middle of all the parents. She drove down from school for the weekend because she knew that if she didn’t, I’d be the only kid without a family member clucking over me tonight. Dad didn’t take photos of her or Lizzie on their prom nights, so it seemed unlikely he’d start with me. I didn’t think I cared all that much about having my photo taken, but I have to admit it’s kind of nice to gaze out at the sea of middle-aged faces all focusing on their own children and see someone who’s looking at me.
Molly got home late last night, and this morning we drove out to Glendale to see Marta, our old nanny. She hugged us to her chest, tears in her eyes, because she said we had both changed since the last time she’d seen us and that we were too beautiful for her to believe. In the car on the way home, Molly said to me, “Do you ever think of how screwed up we might have been if Marta hadn’t been around to take care of us when we were little?”
I didn’t have to respond to that. We both knew the answer.
“Okay, now with the boys!” Phoebe’s mom says, and we beckon to our dates, whose parents were taking some shots of them over by the pool while the girls were getting the paparazzi treatment over near the deck.
We’re in Hil and Lil’s backyard. They invited everyone over to give our parents a chance to take their fill of photos before we all share a limo to the hotel. Not that the parents seem like they’ll have ever enough shots—they’ve taken what feels like a million photos, and they’re still going strong.
We rearrange ourselves into girl/boy couples. Well, not entirely girl/boy: Oscar’s date is named Matthew. He has black hair and wide green eyes and is almost exactly Oscar’s height. The two of them look pretty adorable in matching tuxes. Matthew goes to James’s school; Lily met him at some party a couple of months ago and instantly got him and Oscar to FaceTime each other. They had their first date ten days later and have officially been a couple for well over a month. Oscar likes him a lot but, being Oscar, continually frets about whether or not it will last and whether or not it should last and whether or not they’re really in love or just think they are because their choices are so limited.
Finn comes over to stand behind me. I swivel so I can look at him. I know I’m biased, but he’s the cutest guy here today. He’s combed back his hair, and he’s wearing his contacts and looks totally killer in a slim black tux. I wouldn’t want him to look like this all the time—his slightly scruffy everyday self is just fine with me, and most of the time I actually prefer him in glasses because it makes me think of the old Finn—but it’s definitely fun to see him all fancy for a night.
I guess the feeling’s mutual, because he touches my bare shoulder and says, “It’s a good thing girls don’t dress up like this all the time. Guys would lose the ability to speak coherently.”
“You seem to manage.”
“It’s a struggle.”
I am pretty pleased with my dress. I found it at a small store in Venice. It’s pale green with a tight, strapless bodice that flows into a long, full skirt. I had my hair professionally curled, and when I move my head, I can feel the ringlets tickling my naked upper back. My shoes are very delicate—just a couple of narrow, gold-leather straps on spike heels.
Phoebe and Eric are posing next to us. She’s wearing a short, tight, electric-blue dress that gives her curves she doesn’t normally have. Her hair is swept up in a French knot, and she had her makeup professionally done so for once she looks glamorous instead of like she’s ready to go for a jog. She helped Eric pick out his tux, and the vest matches her dress.
I swear Eric’s face is going to break into two halves if his grin gets any broader. He still can’t believe he gets to go out with Phoebe, even after over six months. She’s told me more than once that she might break up with him before leaving for college, and I’d be worried for him, except that I don’t believe she’ll actually do it—I’ve seen how much she depends on his support when she falls apart, like when she got rejected by her first-choice college. He dropped everything to hold her through an entire weekend of weeping and despair (only the one weekend though, because she found out she was accepted at UCLA that following Monday and decided that was just as much her first choice as Pitzer had ever been). Anyway, I don’t think she’d last a week without running back to him. She needs him. She just doesn’t know it yet.
Lucy’s standing next to Phoebe and Eric, in front of her date, Flynn Flexner. “Hate the name, love the guy,” I said when she told me he had asked her to the prom and she’d said yes. Over the years Flynn’s been in a bunch of my classes, and even though we’ve never been close, we’ve always been friendly. He’s tall and skinny, and his hair looks like someone attached it to his head wrong—it’s bunched up on one side, flat on the other—and he has a great laugh and is really smart. What’s not to like? Other than his name, I mean.
Mostly I’m relieved Lucy’s finally over her crush on Jackson. All it took was one week of them really dating for her to realize it wasn’t going to work. Lacrosse season had ended, and he finally had time for her, but after they’d spent about three solid hours together, she was complaining that they had nothing to say to each other, and after five, she was trying to figure out how to break it off. I’d say it’s a lesson in “be careful what you wish for,” except I wished for something and was very happy to get it, so I guess you just should be careful that what you wish for is worth wishing for.
She’s not actually going out with Flynn. They’re just frie
nds. Although I’ve noticed the way he keeps looking at her in her strapless, black-lace minidress, and I have a feeling that, before tonight’s over, Lucy will either have to kiss him or break his heart. It could go either way, but I doubt anything between them will last long, since they’re going to colleges on opposite coasts. He’s heading off to Berkeley in the fall, and she’s going to Yale, just like she’d hoped.
The twins are standing next to each other on the other side of Lucy. They’re doing something tonight I’ve never seen them do before, not once in the three years I’ve known them: they’re wearing matching outfits. I was stunned when I walked in and saw them in their identical, long, clingy navy gowns. Even their hair looks the same: Lily’s had a geometric, chin-length bob for the last few weeks, and Hilary pinned hers underneath so it looks like it’s the same length. They’re wearing identical makeup too: smoky eyes, dark red lips, and barely noticeable blush.
I asked them why they decided to dress the same tonight, and Hilary said, “It was Lily’s idea. Since we’re going to different colleges, she said this was our last chance to have fun with the whole idea of being twins.” Lily added, “We’ve always tried so hard to make everyone see us as two different people—but now that you all do, we wanted to mess with your heads.”
What’s funny is that I’ve always assumed the two girls would be almost indistinguishable if you took away their different haircuts and style and all that, but now that they’re dressed exactly alike, I can see how different their features really are—maybe not from a distance (they’re hard to tell apart from across the yard), and maybe not to people who don’t know them well (Finn’s mother keeps asking them, “Which one are you again?”), but it’s surprisingly easy for me to tell who’s who. Hilary’s face is longer and thinner, and her eyes are slightly smaller, her nose more tipped up. Lily’s got a rounder face and looks younger because her eyes are so big. I never noticed the smaller differences before because I never needed to. There were always easier ways to tell them apart.
The Last Best Kiss Page 25