Page 54

“Like, in America, which is the center of the world, like, you get given a free puppy at like, every street corner.”

“Do you not have a chandelier in every room? My word! You peasant!”

By now, we’re both laughing so hard I’m actually having to press my legs together to keep from peeing myself.

“I was not like that!”

“Yep, you totally were.”

“So were you!”

We flop over the sofa, still laughing, and Kiki opens a carved wooden box that’s been placed neatly at the center of the coffee table. Inside are fancy chocolate bonbons, and we go “Ooh!” and pore over the selection. When I bite into mine, the hard chocolate shell gives way to a creamy coffee center. “Oh my god, this is so good,” I moan, settling back into the comfortable sofa.

Kiki nods with her mouth full; she’s popped two whole bonbons into her mouth and looks like a hamster who’s shoveled too much food into its cheeks. I grin at her, and she winks back. When she’s finally swallowed her chocolate, she says, “You’re right, you know. I…I don’t hate this too. I wasn’t sure what to expect when Mum and Dad told me you were coming to visit. I was really nervous.”

“You? Nervous?” I gape at her.

“Yeah, of course! You’re American!”

“So?”

“We’re always watching American shows and reading American books, and they always make American teens seem so cool. And I was really sure that you’d arrive and look down on everything. I don’t know.” She takes another piece of chocolate, nibbling on it this time. “I thought for sure you’d find me uncooland be extremely bitchy about it all. To be fair, when you first arrived, you definitely gave that impression.”

“Only because I was so intimidated!” I say.

Kiki lifts her eyebrows at me.

“You were like, ultra-fashionable—”

She flips her hair behind her shoulder and wiggles her eyebrows at me. “Obviously.”

I roll my eyes. “Everything about you is so classy and grown-up, and there I was in my ripped jeans and shirt. I felt so, so”—Isearch for the right word—“dowdy.”

“Ha! I was thinking the opposite. I felt so dumb in my tailored clothes and I thought you looked amazingly cool in an effortless, rule-breaking way. I guess that’s kind of how we’ve always viewed American teens—like, we’re so boring and predictable here, but you Americans are different. You’re daring and you color outside the lines and you break all the rules.”

I pop the rest of the candy in my mouth and think about our first meeting, seeing it in a new light. How weird that while I’d cocooned myself in my insecurities and envied Kiki’s composure, she’d been doing the exact same thing. When we meet each other’s eyes, we smile.

“I’m really glad you came for a visit,” she says.

And despite the circumstances of my visit, I realize that I am glad too. “Yeah. I’m glad I got to meet some of my family members.”

“Anyway, so back to George…” She pauses to take another bite of chocolate. “Ooh, this one’s raspberry. Mmm. So you were saying, he looked like you killed his puppy?”

“Oh god. Yeah.” A flash of George’s disappointed, hurt face slashes through my mind, making me wince. “I don’t blame him, I mean, there he was about to say something important, and I went ahead and ruined everything. But I just couldn’t do it, I couldn’t stand there and let him share his secrets with me when I’m lying to him this entire time.”

Kiki nods. “What do you think he was about to tell you?”

“I don’t know, but it felt big.”

“Ooh, he was probably going to tell you he really likes you.”

Heat rushes to my cheeks. “No. No way. It’s way too soon.” My stomach is doing advanced yoga. “No. We’ve only known each other for like,days.”

“Well, technically, he thinks you’ve been chatting constantly for a week leading up to your coffee date,” Kiki says, helpful asever.

I groan. “That’s exactly why I couldn’t let him go on with whatever he was going to tell me. This whole thing is a sham! Plus, he liked that version of me that my mom cooked up. That awful, sexist, judgmental, boring—”

“I think he likes this version just fine,” Kiki says.