A grin spread across his face, making his eyes dance.
“I’ll take that dare.” Before Edie could respond, Maria stepped outside and called her in for dinner, pausing to quirk a suspicious eyebrow before heading back in.
“I should go.” Edie backed away from the fence, quietly curious about whether or not their dare was officially on record, because she’d sure like to see Sebastian fulfill it. In her seventeen years and seven months she’d never seen a guy pick brains over beauty. Not that the two were mutually exclusive, but most guys she knew cared more about a girl’s cup size than whether or not she could analyze number theory or remember literary quotes. “Thanks for talking, and for not talking. You’re really nice.”
Sebastian flinched. “You know how you didn’t want to be called smart? Well, guys don’t like being called nice. It scares away the girls.”
“Not the right girls.”
“No.” He smiled again, his eyes on hers, teasing just a little. “Maybe not the right girls.”
Chapter Four
* * *
On Saturday afternoon, the girls headed in to Saxon’s, the big anchor department store at the local mall. Maria marched in with the resolve of a military scout on a mission. Julia skipped after her with the excitement of a treasure hunter. Edie slogged behind them both with a resignation she normally only felt toward gym class or lima beans. She’d remained staunch for two hours of shopping, holding fast to her principles about superficial makeovers and frivolous spending, but her resistance was faltering. After all:
She wanted to fit in at the party, at least enough to hide in the crowd.
She wanted to look good the next time she saw Sebastian.
She knew her relatives were trying to be helpful.
She’d repeatedly resolved to be polite.
Besides, even Napoleon surrendered eventually, and he’d never faced off with the Vernon girls.
“Last store,” Maria announced. “And we’re not leaving until you let us buy you at least one outfit that’s brand new, fits you properly, and makes you look like a girl.”
“I do look like a girl.” Edie glanced down at her ragged jeans and layered knits. “Just not a girl who wears dresses.”
“Please, Edie?” Julia adjusted her hold on half a dozen bags, revealing red lines from the handles etched into her forearms. “One dress.”
“And it can’t be black,” Maria added. “Mourning is so two centuries ago. Then again, this cardigan has been around for, like, ever.”
“Or, like, three years,” Edie mimicked, at the edge of her patience.
“Same diff.” Maria poked her fingers through the holes in Edie’s sweater cuff. “This might’ve been cute once but now it makes you look like a walking public service announcement. I’m getting sad just standing next to you.”
“Then stand over there.” Edie nodded toward the perfume counter. “You won’t even have to smell my sadness.”
“Whatever.” Maria flicked a hand, making her gold bangles jangle. “You know Dear Mama won’t let us back in the house unless we can prove you’ll be presentable tonight.”
“Fine,” Edie conceded, unwilling to face Norah’s wrath, Julia’s disappointment, or a continued barrage of Maria’s thoughtless remarks. “One dress. Your choice. Have at it.”
Julia cheered. Maria plunged between the racks. Edie simply realigned her sweater cuff, fully aware that being made to shop didn’t officially qualify as torture, though in that moment she wasn’t sure why.
While her cousins hunted for the perfect outfit, Edie caught her reflection in a mirrored column. Unsatisfied with what she saw, she added another post to her lexicon.
Frumpy
adjective
A cartoon cat who has delightful misadventures with a hapless dog named Grumpleskelter.
Starbucks’ latest coffee drink, complete with ginger-spiced foam and a delicately drizzled maple syrup clef sign.
The way you feel after your cousins spend an entire afternoon convincing you that the last thing you want to look like is yourself.
A swift sweep of the store later, Edie was wedged inside an overpacked fitting room, trying on the dresses her cousins hauled in by the armload. As she put on each outfit and stepped into the central aisle, they critiqued the neckline, hemline, color, fabric, trimmings, fit, and even the label. Edie wasn’t crazy about anything she tried on. It was all too new, shiny, and expensive. Nothing had an old story hiding within its threads. New clothes came with a strange pressure, as if they were blank slates Edie had to fill. She had to be the story. She wasn’t sure she was up to the challenge.
“You look so pretty in dresses,” Julia remarked as Edie tugged the top of a magenta strapless mini-dress Maria had already vetoed. “And your complexion can handle bright colors. I always look washed out in bright colors. I stick with pastels mostly, and prints, small ones. Bold prints make my nose look big.”
“Your nose looks fine,” Edie assured her.
“That’s because I’m wearing lemon yellow and the stripes are narrower than the space between my eyebrows.”
As Edie stepped into the fitting room, she noticed her phone vibrating from inside her jeans pocket. Finally. She opened her lexicon, anxious to see an LOL, a smiley face, or a few words of encouragement. Instead, Shonda had posted her own definition.
Betrayal
noun
When your boyfriend deceives you.
When your best friend lies to you.
When you find said boyfriend and said best friend making out in the McDonald’s parking lot while you ran in to pee.
Tears stung Edie’s eyes. She collapsed among the discarded dresses, utterly dejected. So Shonda was still mad. Really mad. And she still blamed Edie for what happened. Edie thought she’d explained everything before leaving Ithaca. She hadn’t been dishonest. She’d just been stupid. She had no idea what James intended until he was lunging across the car seats and planting one on her. She didn’t even like him that way. He drank, he smoked, and he thought deodorant was a marketing hoax rather than a hygienic necessity. Besides, he was Shonda’s boyfriend. That was reason enough to leave him alone. Guys had that terrible saying “Bros before hos.” What did girls say? “Chicks before dicks”? Gross.
Edie was desperate to defend herself, but what could she say that she hadn’t already said? And what if, somewhere deep down, she’d known James might make a pass at her that night? She couldn’t say that without seeming guiltier than she actually was, but she couldn’t not say it and keep claiming she was being honest.
As Maria called for her to hurry her bony ass up, Edie stopped debating her reply and posted a new entry, one that said the truest things she knew in that moment.
Friend
noun
Someone who’s sorry she hurt you.
Someone who misses you.
Someone who needs you to forgive her because she’s being held hostage by makeover terrorists and she might not survive without you.
She swallowed the lump in her throat and prayed Shonda would come around. Edie would do her best to fit in to Mansfield, to hide her tears and swallow her temper, to let herself be polished and improved upon, but she needed someone, somewhere to love her as she was: flaws, failures, freckles, frayed jeans, and all.
With a heavy heart, she forced herself to try on one more dress: an emerald green halter style Julia had picked out. It had an empire waist, twisted fabric details across the bust line, and a full skirt that stopped just below her knobby knees. It was pretty, it felt nice against her skin, and it didn’t announce itself in bold letters. It simply said hello, which was something she could use a little help with.
Maria approved of the dress while Julia tipped her head against the wall and sighed.
“You look amazing in emerald,” she said. “I can only wear mint or moss. Every other green makes me look jaundiced.”
“You make you look jaundiced,” Maria said.
“Yeah? Well, you make you lo
ok like—”
“Shoes?” Edie interrupted as she stepped back into the fitting room. “Unless you’ll let me wear these?” She held up a ratty sneaker.
Maria and Julia both reeled as though she were displaying a severed head, but they quickly shifted from biting at each other to debating the merits of pumps over peep-toes. Edie loved her sneakers almost enough to beg out of the shoe shopping she’d so hastily recommended, but even she could see that the green dress required something a little less war-torn. She just hoped her cousins would let her escape the mall with a nice safe pair of flats. Otherwise she’d have to spend the whole party sitting down.
Maria paid for the dress with her dad’s credit card while Edie stared at the impulse items and tried not to feel guilty. The dress cost the same amount as two weeks’ wages at her old drive-thru job. Spending that kind of money on clothes was hard, weird, and a different way of living, but she knew her relatives would never let her give that money to a pet shelter or a disaster relief fund. In this particular instance, she was the charity. That was hard too. If she heard the words poor relations come out of Norah’s mouth one more time, she was going to paint a few teeth black and sit on the front stoop in overalls, a straw hat, and little else, jangling a cup and begging for coins.
Temperamental? Damned straight.
Purchases in hand, the girls headed to the shoe department, where Julia made a beeline for a sparkly rhinestone sandal.
“This is totally Cinderella!”
“Too obvious,” Maria said. “And they look cheap. Like, slutty-bridesmaid cheap.”
Julia deflated as she returned the shoe to the shelf.
“We need something sexy and sophisticated.” Maria examined a high heel that looked like it would challenge even an experienced runway model.
“Maybe not quite that sexy?” Edie eyed the heel in terror.
“Fine, but help us out a little here. Someone’s hooking up at this party and it can’t be me because I’m already spoken for.”
“Maria’s practically engaged,” Julia explained.
Edie spun toward Maria, gaping with astonishment.
“Only practically,” Maria clarified. “My parents are making us wait until Rupert graduates from Harvard next year and starts work at his uncle’s firm. They don’t want me repeating your mom’s mistake, Edie. Not that Dear Mama thinks I’m about to run after some D-list rock star who’ll leave me barefoot and pregnant.”
All of Edie’s efforts at politeness evaporated in an instant. She grabbed a stiletto and imagined spinning it like a ninja star into Maria’s forehead.
“Good thing we’re in a shoe department so none of us have to go barefoot,” she squeezed out through gritted teeth. “Now we just need some condoms. Then we can run after anyone we want.”
Maria waved her off, totally unfazed by Edie’s murderous glare.
“I’m not about to elope,” she argued, as if that were the key point being debated. “I want a huge wedding. Dear Mama wants it too. Desperately. She already picked out a color scheme.”
“Buttercream yellow and navy blue,” Julia piped in.
“A.k.a. Nauseatingly Nautical.” Maria made an exaggerated gagging motion. “I’ll change all the orders when she’s not looking. It’s my wedding.”
“Yours and Rupert’s,” Julia corrected.
“Of course.” Maria flashed her sister a sneer.
Edie set her weapon back on the shelf as she talked herself down from murderous to merciful. Maria didn’t mean to be cruel. Her offhand comments didn’t quite warrant a death sentence. A few hours of community service might be nice, though.
Julia fell back onto a sectional seating unit, her bags strewn around her like shopping roadkill.
“Tell her about your summer house,” she suggested to Maria.
“Your what?” Edie choked back a laugh.
“You know,” Julia said simply. “A house for summer.”
While Edie tried to process the concept of seasonal housing, Maria spun in her direction, her expression dreamy, as if she were a Disney princess about to burst into song.
“It has this gorgeous porch that faces the ocean.” She framed an imaginary view with her outstretched hands. “We’ll set up a pair of Adirondack chairs and there we’ll sit, me and my sweet, darling Rupert, drinking mimosas and watching the waves roll in as our prize-winning King Charles spaniels, George and Martha, romp around the yard.”
“You already bought a house?” Edie blinked, still struggling to hide her astonishment. “Before you finish high school?”
“Of course not.” Maria laughed. “The house isn’t even for sale. We’re just planning ahead. Don’t you plan your future?”
“Not in that much detail.”
Edie poked through a nearby display table while trying to accept the fact that Maria was already engaged, or practically engaged. Edie’d never even kissed a guy, not really. Shonda had set her up on a few awkward dates, but the guys Edie liked never seemed to like her back. Sure, she’d kissed Sebastian when she was ten, but they were just playing a game. Then of course, there was James, but that was an accident, or at least sort of an accident. Maybe a makeover wasn’t such a terrible idea. She didn’t need a ballgown or a pair of glass slippers, but she needed to change something. It’d be a lot easier to start with her hair than with her heart, though both were equally prone to tangles.
“Sebastian will be there too,” Julia said.
“What? Where?” Edie asked, snapping to attention mid-conversation.
“At the party.” Julia stacked a few stray shoeboxes so they lined up perfectly. “And Tom should be home for the weekend.”
“I can’t believe he’s at UPenn now.” Maria rolled her eyes.
“What’s wrong with UPenn?” Edie asked.
“Nothing, except it’s his third school.” Maria considered a silver gladiator sandal that looked like it belonged on a sci-fi sex slave. “He got expelled from both Yale and Columbia, but his stepdad keeps pulling strings. Mr. Hayes is well connected in the Ivies. He belongs to one of those secret societies or alumni cult thingies where they, like, sacrifice chickens to decide who gets into what school.”
Edie sank down next to Julia and tried to swallow her envy. She would’ve given anything to go to Yale. She’d applied last fall, knowing how proud her mom would’ve been. When she received her acceptance letter, she even thought she’d go. Then she got her financial aid forms and the dream disappeared. All her saved-up babysitting money and drive-thru wages weren’t enough to cover room and board, let alone make a dent in tuition. Too bad she didn’t know how to sacrifice a chicken.
“Tom’s a great guy,” Maria said. “He just likes to party.”
“You would know,” Julia chided.
“Whatever.” Maria waved her off as she turned to Edie. “We made out one night a couple summers ago. We were both drunk. It didn’t mean anything.”
“It never does,” Julia said.
“Careful. Envy makes you look jaundiced.”
“Well, lust makes you look fat.”
“You boobless little—”
“How’s this?” Edie held up the nearest shoe. It was black, velvety, and at least semi-stable-looking.
“It’ll do.” Maria flagged down a saleswoman. Then she plopped herself between Edie and Julia, wrapping an arm around each of them. “Tonight we will all look astonishing. Especially you, Miss Edie Price, for you are about to be introduced to Mansfield society.”
Chapter Five
* * *
By six p.m., more than two hundred people were scattered through Norah’s garden, with more arriving every few minutes. A string quartet played on the patio, setting a formal, stand-up-straight-and-don’t-talk-too-loudly mood. White folding chairs and tables sat in tidy clusters near the buffet area, where several guests were milling about. White canvas canopies flapped in the breeze. White votive candles lined the paths. Perfect white roses perched on practically every available surface, making up f
or the lack of blooms on the bushes themselves. As always, Norah exhibited great appreciation for order but little patience for color.
While Julia and Maria chatted with friends under one of the countless heat lamps, and Bert nestled himself into a lawn chair with a Jenga stack of sugar-dusted fruit kabobs, Norah led Edie from neighbor to neighbor, flitting through the growing crowd like a seabird looking for a place to land, introducing her poor relation to the community and collecting compliments for her great act of charity. Edie played along, holding back the knowledge that she’d spent three years in foster care before Norah offered her a home. She kept quiet about the family feud that’d split the family for almost a decade. She didn’t even bring up her less-than-urgent position on Norah’s Good Causes list (number seventeen, below a recent tree planting initiative but above city signage renovation). There was no point making a scene. Norah meant well, in her way. Her Great Heart just had to serve her own needs before it served others.
Eventually one of the women from Norah’s philanthropic club asked if she could do anything to help Edie settle into Mansfield. Edie responded by making the egregious mistake of requesting suggestions about where to find a part-time job.
“A job?” Norah chuckled as though the idea was hilarious. “Bert and I don’t expect you to work. If you want anything, you only need to ask.”
The ladies praised Norah’s generosity while Edie tried to imagine five months of having to ask for anything she wanted. She didn’t need much and she trusted her aunt and uncle to help her with any real necessities (provided they also considered her requests necessities), but they’d only agreed to pay her living expenses through the spring and summer. She was on her own for college fees and tuition. Apparently charity both started and ended at home. Once Edie left Mansfield, there was no need to parade her around as proof of Norah’s recent bent for philanthropy. If she didn’t earn a scholarship or get a job, she wouldn’t even afford state school. Staying in Mansfield wasn’t an option. Edie was starting college in the fall, even if she had to hawk Norah’s pearls to do it.
Hearts, Strings, and Other Breakable Things Page 3