Page 23

Chapter 23

Grace

“Oh, Grace,” Mrs.Adler said after I’d moved away from Isa and Ev and our demolished food, farther down the sidewalk. “Did I wake you? Were you napping?”

“Mm-hmm,” I lied way too easily. “I’m feeling really zonked after last night.”

“Of course,” she said. “I’m sorry, honey, I was just calling to check in. I thought you might be awake by now. Your mom said she stopped home at lunchtime…”

Shit! Shit, shit, shit! I bit down hard on my tongue.

“…but she said you were passed out asleep,” Mrs.Adler told me.

“Yeah, I must’ve been,” I said, faking a yawn to cover my sigh of relief. “I didn’t even hear her come into my room.”

Not that she actually did, I thought, since before Isa and I had left my house, I’d set up the perfect blend of sound effects to make it clear I was asleep. “Don’t you think this might be going too far?” Isa had asked as I hung up my Do Not Disturb sign and shut the door behind us, and I’d laughed. “You can never go too far,” I’d said.

It was James’s life motto.

“Anyway,” Mrs.Adler said, “I made a big pot of soup earlier, so I’m going to send Everett over with some tonight.”

“Oh man,” I said, glancing back at Isa and Ev. They were still eating and laughing. “You didn’t have to—”

“Grace, we have plenty!”

I laughed. “Thanks, Mrs.Adler.”

“It’s the least I can do,” she said. “Your parents have had a lot on their plates lately.”

She knows, I suddenly thought. She knows they’re putting the house up for sale.

Something thickened in my throat. Soon enough, everyone would know…and soon enough, we would be gone. I still didn’t know how to tell my friends.

“I really wish I could come by to check on you,” Mrs.Adler said. “Maybe before I make a grocery run later.”

“Please don’t worry about me, Mrs.Adler,” I said, trying to keep the spiking panic out of my voice. “Really.”

She sighed. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” I said. “Absolutely. I’m going back to sleep, and when I wake up, I’ll have Ev and your soup. I’ll be perfect.”

Mrs.Adler was quiet for a moment. “You’re so very loved, Grace,” she told me. “It’s wonderful how your classmates and the community have rallied together today.”

My eyebrows furrowed. Huh? Classmates? Community? Rallied together? What was she talking about?

I was confused when we hung up. Really, what was this “rallying together” business? I was absent…so what? Students getting sick was nothing new.

Weird. It must be a slow news day at school. I thought about texting James to get some details, then remembered his phone could get locked in Principal Unger’s office with a hundred others.

I found myself wanting to tell him what I’d done back at Jean-Georges. He was the only one who’d get it without explanation. I closed my eyes, feeling a pang in my chest.

Back at the restaurant, Adrien had arrived with the check several minutes after Isa and Ev had escaped, and instead of handing over one of my Benjamin Franklins, I only needed to dig out a twenty from my wallet. Plus, money for his tip. Our server wrinkled his nose at the crumpled cash. “Thank you for dining at Jean-Georges,” he said, unimpressed. “We hope to see you again soon.”

“Same here, Adrien,” I said, then slipped on my aviators and crawled out from under the table. Nearby diners stared at me, but I ignored them to shoot one last bullet of a look at Mr.Cruz. He was alone, sipping his bubbly and admiring the cityscape. The woman had disappeared.

I thought about going over there and giving him a piece of my mind. You bastard, my pulse surged. You absolute bastard.

In the end, I didn’t. Not because I worried about word spreading to my parents—Mr.Cruz was, after all, supposed to be in DC like I was supposed to be at home—but because Isa didn’t want him to see me.

“ Au revoir, ” the stuck-up hostess chirped on my way out the door.

I hadn’t pressed the elevator’s button immediately; instead, I made a detour to the bathroom. It was almost as extravagant as the restaurant, all marble with gold accents, an enormous, gilded mirror, lilac-scented perfume, white cloth hand towels, breath mints, and even free tampons.

That’s an extravagance, FYI.

I found an unoccupied stall and slid its bolt into place before plopping down on the toilet in my fully zipped-up shorts. Here I was, for the second time today, taking a breather in the bathroom to pull myself together. Isa’s father was having an affair? How could he be having an affair?

I felt so oblivious, and I felt terrible for Isa. Seeing her dad and his lover/mistress/girlfriend kissing at lunch together? The look on her face told me she was completely and utterly and awfully blindsided.

You need to calm down, I told myself, eyes closed as a toilet flushed. Once you get down there, you need to be her rock. You are her rock. You’ve always been her rock, and that isn’t going to change.

After my heart rate slowed, I stood up and unlocked my stall…only to feel my stomach drop a hundred stories and my feet freeze in its doorway.

Mr.Cruz’s whatever was washing her hands at the sinks. Her platinum blond hair fell down her back, and she wore a blush-colored bandage dress that hugged every curve. She looked like Meghan Markle’s character in Suits, wearing way-too-sexy work outfits. Not that this was a business lunch, but still. And jeez, she looked like she was only in her late twenties. Twenty-eight, maybe?

I wondered what I should do. Try to slip out without being seen? Try to slip out and be both seen and judged for not washing my hands? Or…

Forcing my feet to unfreeze themselves, I marched straight up to the sinks, turned the gold faucet as I pumped my individual soap dispenser, and rubbed my hands before rinsing them under the warm water.

I dare you, I thought. I dare you to talk to me.

She did.

“I like your jewelry,” she said, wiping her hands dry with a hand towel. She nodded at the earrings Isa had given me for my birthday. Gold-wire teardrop hoops with a small blue-gray gemstone dangling from each one. “The same color as your eyes,” Isa had said after I’d unwrapped them.

“Thank you,” I replied, and grabbed a towel for myself. “I like your…” Isa would never forgive me if I complimented that dress, and neither would I. I glanced down at the woman’s heels, nude with ankle straps. “Your shoes are pretty.”

“Thanks!” She looked away from touching up her makeup in the mirror. “I’m guessing you’re also into the whole upcycling thing?” She gestured offhandedly to my shorts, making it very easy to determine that she was not.

How unfortunate. Sustainable fashion was on the rise!

“Oh, yeah,” I said, modeling my half-green, half-striped shorts. “My boyfriend helped make these.”

She laughed. “Oh, really?” she asked suggestively. “In exchange for what ?”

A wave of rage crashed in my chest. I hated her. “Nothing…,” I said slowly, then slyly, “Luis is just very sweet that way. His grandmother taught him to sew back in”—I adopted Isa’s impeccable Spanish accent— “Buenos Aires.”

This time, her spine straightened—seriously, that dress didn’t hide much—and she blinked in the mirror. “I’m sorry.” Her brows pinched together. “What did you say?”

“That my boyfriend is the best,” I said, remembering how precise Ev had been when cutting apart the fabric, how seriously he’d taken helping me. I love him, I’d thought as I watched, my heart glowing. I love him so much.

The woman didn’t respond, probably still stuck on what she thought she’d heard. So I took that as my opportunity to dig deeper.

“Are you celebrating something today?” I asked. “I saw you and your dad toast champagne at your table.” I feigned a smile. “I wish my father would take me out to lunch more often.”

Mr.Cruz’s date wrinkled her nose. “God, no, he’s not my dad,” she said. “He’s my boyfriend. ” She leaned forward to touch up her eyeshadow. “And we are, actually. We’re celebrating our one-year anniversary today.”

Holy shit, I thought, stomach swirling. One year?

Mr.Cruz had been having an affair for an entire freakingyear?!

“Oh, congratulations,” I said smoothly, then hummed a tune. “April twenty-ninth.”

The woman again went still. She’d recognized the song.

And her reaction told me that she knew Mr.Cruz was married.

“It’s not April twenty-ninth,” she said slowly. “It’s May seventeenth.”

“Oops, my bad,” I said. “I’m hopeless with dates.” I spritzed myself with floral perfume and then popped a breath mint in my mouth. “It was nice meeting you!” I grinned. “Enjoy your lunch. La cuisine est très bonne!”

James would be proud was my first thought upon strolling out the door.

In line at Geno’s, Isa had told me everything—all the signs she hadn’t realized were signs until today. I gently asked if she was going to tell her mom. “I don’t know,” she’d said. “You know I want to scream at her sometimes, but I don’t want to hurt her, G. I can’t hurt her.”

“But it’s your dad who’s hurting her,” I whispered back. “He’s the one hurting your family.” I took her hand and hugged it to my chest. “Who’s hurting you. ”

This is so messed up, I thought now as I walked back to my friends after my phone call with Mrs.Adler, but at least she and Ev…

Scratch that, because Isa and Ev were not as I’d left them. They weren’t talking, and they weren’t laughing. Isa had her arms crossed over her chest and was glaring at Ev, who’d hung his head and was staring at his hands. My heart flip-flopped down into my stomach.

I had no place to hide. I could duck behind a parked car? No, that would muffle their voices and look suspicious to bystanders. Move closer and pretend to still be on the phone? Pass. It would be tough to listen while making sure to add in a “hmm” and “uh-huh” and “oh yeah” every now and again.

Fake phone conversations were another one of James’s crafty fortes. He could make one-sided dialogue appear out of thin air. How does he think of this stuff? I always wondered.

A nearby lamppost was my least worst option. I tiptoed over and casually leaned against it, my phone still in hand. I stared at its dark screen to pretend I was catching up on the notifications I’d missed…or ignored, really. Unless it was someone from the Adler-Barbour-Cruz families, the three of us had decided to unplug for the day. We’d silenced our social media notifications. All I wanted to focus on was Isa and Ev.

My pulse raced at the sound of Isa’s voice. “You shoved me away,” she all but shrieked. “You shoved me away hard when you broke up with me, so I pushed you away, too. I pushed you away because—” She cut herself off, swallowing whatever she’d been about to say. What had she been about to say? “I don’t regret it, Everett,” she resumed. “If you had just apologized for treating me like that—if you had been you that night, just been my friend —things would be different. But they aren’t, and here you are, telling me all over again that you like someone else !” She rose from the curb. “Unbelievable.”

It hit me then. The “someone else” Ev had mentioned at freshman formal? The “someone else” I thought he’d simply used as an excuse for dumping Isa? Since he’d never seriously dated any other girls?

That someone else had been me.

Now I felt like an idiot; I felt like a fucking moron. I had feelings for Ev and he had them for me, but I’d never known how far back his had stretched. I thought I’d been alone, dreaming about us together. I’d had crushes and dated other people, but it had always been Ev.

My eyes stung with tears.

Ev stood up, too. “Isa, I’m—”

“Save it,” Isa said. “Please, save it.” My body jolted when she started searching for me. “G? G, where are you?”

“Over here!” I waved, quickly blinking away my tears. “I just hung up with Mrs.Adler.” I smiled. “Everything’s cool,” I said before Ev could ask. He looked miserable, hands deep in his pockets. “You were right; I had to talk her out of swinging by my house.”

“Great,” Isa said, voice clipped like her mom’s. She tried to smile. “Where to next?”

It was the most awkward Uber ride ever. Our driver picked up on the vibe as soon as we buckled our seat belts, aware that we weren’t in the mood for any chitchat. I sat between Isa and Ev, each of them staring out their respective window.

“Isa,” Ev said at one point, not giving a damn that I was there. He needed to get whatever it was off his chest. “Please let me explain. There’s something you don’t know.”

My ears pricked up. Something we didn’t know?

But Isa pretended not to hear him, seemingly fascinated by the Ford Fusion’s backseat view. “All I wanted was an apology,” she whispered when the street thickened not with cars, but with people. Music sounded in the distance. We were close. “If only you’d apologized.”