“Or pro wrestling . . .”
“Or we could take a different approach,” he says. “Send them off to high tea at a snobby hotel. Like tearing off the Band-Aid all at once—just get the worst over with and then nothing else can possibly feel as bad. Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to sit down and eat with me? Or does the very fact I even suggested it demonstrate my ignorance of the school social hierarchy and its unwritten rules?”
“D, all of the above,” I say, and plop down on a bench across from him after only a fraction of a second of hesitation. I wasn’t planning on eating with him—I always eat with Sarah or James or both of them and whatever other friends are around. But it’s ridiculous to stand there clutching my lunch and talking. Not just ridiculous—kind of rude, like he’s not worthy of total lunch commitment. “But now you have to close your laptop. Unwritten rule number one of eating lunch with another human being is that you have to pretend to want to talk to them.”
“I’d rather look at you anyway,” he says, and closes the screen and shoves the laptop away from him.
I was unwrapping my bagel, but I stop and stare at him. “Was that, like, a compliment? Or some sort of . . . I don’t know . . . pleasantry?”
“Yes,” he says, flushing and looking away. “It was a pleasantry. A misguided attempt to make social conversation. And now that you’ve made me feel stupid for saying it, and ruined the word pleasantry for future generations, you have successfully convinced me never to say anything nice to anyone ever again.”
“You can’t blame me for being surprised.” I take a big bite of my bagel. I didn’t have time to toast it, and I didn’t put enough cream cheese on it, so it’s basically a big dry bite of stale bread. I drop it back down in disgust—it’s not worth eating.
David tears a chocolate chip cookie in half. “Want some?” He holds a piece out to me. The chocolate glistens, and the brown-buttery inside looks like it will be chewy, which is how I like my cookies. I can’t think of a single reason to refuse. So I reach for it.
“Thanks.” We chew together for a companionable moment. “That was really good,” I say after I’ve swallowed.
“I know.” He balls up the wrap it came in. “It was a pretty big sacrifice on my part to give you half. I’m already regretting it.”
“I’ll make it up to you someday, somehow. This, I swear.”
“How about giving me your firstborn child?”
“Okay, but when climate change has destroyed life as we know it and we’re all fighting to survive, you can’t favor your natural children over my poor little loaner.”
He laughs, and I notice a couple of other kids turning to look at us. I guess the sound of David Fields laughing is unfamiliar enough to draw attention. His laugh is unexpectedly warm—I’ve heard it a few times now, but its richness still surprises me.
“Someone’s been reading too much dystopian fiction,” he says.
“Yeah, don’t get me started on the zombie apocalypse.”
“What’s to get started on? All you need is an axe and you’re good.”
“You need some chain too.”
“For what?”
I roll my eyes. “To chain up your loved ones when they get bitten. Duh.”
“Why even bother fighting? Why not just give in and all become zombies? Nothing would change—most of the kids here would already tear out each other’s flesh if it meant they had a better chance of getting into Stanford.”
“Yeah, but their parents would never let them eat any old brains—they’d have to be organic.”
We go on like this for a while, and then, since English is next, we walk over to class together, stopping by each other’s lockers to pick up our books.
Inside the classroom, we separate automatically to go to our normal seats—his by the wall, mine near Sarah and James. He’s got his laptop open before I’ve even made it across the room.
“We missed you at lunch,” Sarah says as I slide into my seat.
“Sorry. I got into a conversation.”
James says, “We noticed.”
Camp calls for attention, so we can’t talk more, but after class is over and we’re standing up, I say to James, “You’re not going to start being all possessive, are you?”
“You can talk to whoever you want; just don’t take me for granted.”
“I never have,” I say. “I never would.” I raise myself up on tiptoes to give him a reassuring quick kiss, but he grabs me and presses me tightly against him and turns it into something that’s dramatic enough to inspire a couple of kids to clap and whoop as they’re leaving the classroom. I get the sense he’s sort of marking his territory, but what the hell—it feels good from where I’m standing.
“Lovely,” says Camp, as we walk past her together. “You guys give my heart hope. So long as two beautiful young people can still walk hand in hand, there’s good in the world.”
“We’re beautiful,” I say to James outside her classroom.
“Yes,” he says. “Yes, we are.” He squeezes my hand and kisses me fiercely and then we say goodbye and go to our separate classes. I pass David huddled against the wall, checking something on his phone, but he doesn’t look up as I go by, and I decide to just keep walking.
Twenty-Four
IVY WAKES UP super early on Saturday morning and immediately starts talking to herself in little whispers that I can’t quite make out but are just audible enough to wake me up.
I’m tired and want to sleep more. James and I stayed up late the night before, first at a friend’s party, and then watching scary movies at his house and stalling until the rest of his family went to bed, so we could have some time alone.
All evening long, I felt some weird unspoken pressure to reassure him that everything was good between us, flirting with him like he was a new conquest and not my longtime boyfriend. He seemed to enjoy being freshly seduced. And I enjoyed the hours I spent at his house entwined with his muscular body—I have to remember to appreciate it more and as often as possible.
But right now I’m tired, so I hoarsely beg Ivy to either leave the room or stop whispering. She stomps out of the room, making it clear she’s hurt that I would imply she was bothering me, and I go back to sleep for a couple of hours. When I finally come downstairs, she’s not in the kitchen, but Mom and Ron are at the table drinking post-workout protein shakes. I stumble past them on my way to the coffee maker.
They’re wearing matching outfits—black sweatpants and white T-shirts. I hope it was accidental. If they’re going to start dressing like twinsies, shoot me now.
“You have fun last night?” Mom asks. “You got home late.”
“Can’t talk,” I croak. “Need coffee.”
Ron says, “A run would perk you up more than coffee. Why don’t you try that first?”‘
“Great idea. I’ll do that.”
There’s a pause while they try to figure out if I’m being serious or sarcastic.
Here’s a hint: I’m being sarcastic.
“Where’s Ivy?” I ask, yawning as I pour milk into my coffee.
“Where do you think?” Ron says. “Watching TV.” He turns to Mom. “That’s why she can’t lose weight, you know. She spends all her free time sitting in front of the TV. You have to get her to move more.”
“I know,” Mom says. “You’re right. I just don’t know how to make that happen. She doesn’t like exercising.”
I leave the room with my mug before he can launch into a lecture.
Anyway, he’s wrong—Ivy is moving. Even though the TV’s on, she’s not watching it: she’s wandering around the family room with a jerking, half-skip sort of a gait, muttering to herself, her hands fluttering at her sides, occasionally slapping against her legs.
She doesn’t hear me the first time I say her name. I repeat it more loudly, and she jumps in the air and whips around, ending in a terrified crouch. She’s still in her pajamas—flannel ones with a sushi de
sign. (Another Mom pick—Ivy hates sushi.)
“You scared me,” she says accusingly.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to. What’s going on?”
“Nothing. I’m just watching TV.”
I perch on the arm of the sofa and take a sip of coffee. “Is something worrying you?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“I’m okay. We have to go meet Diana soon.”
“Not for another, like, three hours.”
“I don’t want to be late.”
“We won’t be.”
“You say that sometimes and then we are.”
“Hey, I’m doing you a favor driving you. Don’t make me regret it.”
“Okay.” There’s a pause. “You should probably go shower,” she says.
My mother suggests that the family all eat lunch together, so I suddenly “remember” that I promised Ivy we’d grab some burgers at In-N-Out before meeting up with Diana. Ron won’t touch fast food, and Mom won’t either anymore, although back in pre-Ron days, dinner for the three of us was often just a greasy bag of takeout from almost anywhere.
I miss those meals.
Ivy’s really out of it at lunch for some reason—she’s so distracted she can’t even make the limited conversation she’s usually capable of—so I spend the meal texting other people. James and I go back and forth about which movie we want to see that night, and then David sends me a text that says You figure out Sunday yet?
Mom and Ron will be home
So not your house?
yeah
Movie? E and I could go to one and we could go to another
And suddenly I’m discussing what movie to see with both James and David. If my life were a sitcom, I’d accidentally make plans to see the same movie at the same time with both of them, and end up running back and forth, pretending to be going to the bathroom and buying popcorn and doing stuff like that so I could keep switching from one seat to the other, and hilarity would, of course, ensue.
Ivy suddenly shrieks, and I look up from my phone.
“What?”
“Look!” She lifts up her hand, and there’s ketchup smeared all over the fabric at the wrist of the floaty top I gave her for her birthday and told her to wear on her first date with Ethan. “It’s ruined!” she says.
“Just go into the bathroom and rinse it off.”
“What if it doesn’t come out?” Her voice is too high and loud and upset. People are looking at us.
“Well, then you don’t ever have to wear that top again. That should make you happy.” I’m hoping a joke will defuse the situation, but her face screws up in distress.
“You said it’s nicer than my other tops! You said I should wear it when I want to look nice! I don’t want it to be ruined!”
“Calm down. All you have to do is wash it off. Do you want me to help you?”
“No! I can do it!” She gets up and runs to the bathroom with her arm held up and away from her body like it’s bleeding or about to fall off or something. More people look at her. One young guy whispers something to his date, and they both laugh. I glare at them, but they don’t notice.
Ivy’s gone long enough for me to wonder if I need to go in after her, but I really don’t want to. When she does return, she happily informs me that the ketchup came out. She doesn’t seem to mind that her sleeve is visibly soaked from the wrist to the elbow—so much so that water is dripping from it and pooling on the table. I hand her a few napkins and suggest she sop it up a bit. She blots at her sleeve carelessly, then goes back to eating her lunch.
Diana is pretty much the way I remembered her—very skinny with incredibly pale skin that’s pitted here and there with acne scars. Her dirty blondish hair is pulled into a long, narrow braid down her back, and she’s in overalls again. She mutters a low, toneless “hi” to Ivy’s much more enthusiastic greeting.
Diana’s mother is an older, more polished version of her daughter—gaunt, with a long, pale face and hair pulled back in a ponytail and no overalls (thank God), just plain black slacks and a button-down shirt. She greets us both warmly, and when the girls go to look at the boba tea menu on the wall, she says to me, “You’re such a nice sister—Diana’s brother would never offer to chauffeur her around.”
“Thanks for coming in our direction.”
“I’d drive a hundred miles to get Diana together with a friend. Except I can’t drive her at all during the week, because I work. But on the weekends, I’d do anything to get her out and being social.”
“My mom feels the same way.” Actually, it’s more me than Mom, but this sounds more normal.
She says, “I can keep an eye on them if you have something you’d rather do—I brought a book and was just going to wait here.”
I check with Ivy, whose response to my “do you mind if I leave?” is an impatient wave of her hand and a “no, just go, I’m busy.” She turns back to Diana, and I hear her telling her that the green dragon tea is best and also that she has enough money to pay for both of them. “I just want water,” Diana is saying as I leave. “I don’t like tea.”
I wander in and out of a bunch of stores around Westwood Village, idly looking through racks of clothing and occasionally trying on stuff. I buy a black dress on sale at Brandy Melville, a candle at Urban Outfitters, and mascara at Target.
I drop the stuff off at the car, feed the meter, and decide it’s time to head back to the boba shop. Ivy hasn’t texted me, which is great. I wish she could be as mellow about hanging out with Ethan as she is with Diana, but it’s not surprising that she finds a date more stressful than just hanging with a friend.
As soon as I enter the place, Ivy spots me. “Chloe! It’s too soon. Go away.”
“Nice to see you, too.”
“We want more time here.”
“I don’t,” Diana says. “I’m a little bored.”
I have to hide a laugh. I can’t decide if the world would be a better or worse place if everyone was as honest and literal as these two. Better in some ways, I guess, but maybe a little harsh?
Diana’s mother was sitting at a table reading by herself, but she gets up and comes over. “So what do we think?” she asks. “Do you girls want to do something else before we head home?”
“Can Diana come back to my house?” Ivy asks. “We live close.”
“It’s okay with me,” Diana’s mom says. Her daughter just shrugs.
We make a plan: I’ll drive the girls to our house while Diana’s mother runs an errand, and she’ll pick Diana up in an hour. I give her our address and lead the two friends to the car.
When I glance back, Ivy is walking so close to Diana that their arms keep bumping. Ivy has mild spatial issues—she doesn’t always seem to know exactly where her body is. Still, it’s weird that it keeps happening.
“My sister is younger than I am, but she drives and I don’t,” she tells Diana as they climb into the back seat of the car.
“You’re both going to sit back there?” I say over my shoulder. “I feel like a chauffeur.”
“We want to sit together,” Ivy says. She scoots over to the middle seat, so she’s right next to Diana.
Diana says she once drove her father’s car in a parking lot, but it was scary and he yelled at her a lot, and now she isn’t sure she wants to learn how to drive. Ivy says she thinks Diana would probably be very good at driving a car and that she, Ivy, will probably learn to drive when she’s twenty-five, which is the first time I’ve heard anything about that.
I glance in the rearview mirror when we’re stopped at a light. It seems so crazy the way Ivy is sitting all smushed up against Diana’s side when there’s plenty of space to spread to. But also kind of sweet. Maybe this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship . . .
Too bad Diana doesn’t live closer, though.
At home, Ron’s car is gone, and Mom must have gone out with him, because she’s not around. I go upstairs and do some homework while I l
isten to music.
Eventually I get a text from Diana’s mom saying she’ll be here in five minutes, so I go downstairs to tell the girls. I follow the sound of the TV to the family room and peer around the doorway.
They’re sitting on the sofa together. Diana’s staring at the set, her mouth slightly open, totally absorbed by whatever they’re watching. But Ivy isn’t. Ivy’s staring at Diana. Like she’s some kind of miracle.
While I’m watching, she shifts her leg ever so slightly so it’s right against Diana’s, then puts out her hand and gently strokes an index finger along Diana’s lower arm. Diana doesn’t seem to notice, just shifts her arm a little without taking her eyes off the screen. Ivy lets her head fall back on the cushion and rolls it toward her friend, like she wants to rest her head on Diana’s shoulder—only she doesn’t. She just huddles close like that—as close as she can be without their heads actually touching. Her eyes slide sideways so she can still see Diana’s face.
I watch Ivy watching Diana watching TV, and something’s nagging at me—Ivy’s reminding me of something, something I was just thinking about, and I can’t remember what it is, and that bugs me, and I’m standing there . . . and then I realize what it is, and I actually grab at the side of the doorway to steady myself because my legs feel suddenly wobbly as two words explode in my head, bright and shiny, my own internal neon sign:
SKIN HUNGER.
Twenty-Five
DIANA’S MOTHER IS IN A RUSH and steers Diana quickly to the front door, reminding her to thank us for having her over. “I know,” Diana says irritably, the way I would have at the age of eleven. But she’s over seventeen (how much over, I don’t know), and Ivy’s twenty. They’re not little kids.
Physically, they’re adults.
Ivy throws her arms around Diana, who stiffens and waits, expressionless, for the hug to end. But then she does say, “Thank you for having me over.”
“Can we do it again?” Ivy asks eagerly as she steps back. Her hand lingers on Diana’s arm.