141 lines
8.9 KiB
Plaintext
141 lines
8.9 KiB
Plaintext
{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil Helvetica;}}
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\f0\fs24 The last of them were filing out through the front door, and Emma Hayes stood in the middle of it like a queen receiving her court, still in her coverall over the red bikini, hair half-dry and smelling of chlorine and sunscreen and birthday cake. The living room behind her was an archaeological dig of torn wrapping paper and ribbon and gift bags tipped on their sides, and her mother had made her keep a list\u8212?an actual handwritten list\u8212?during the unwrapping, so she had three pages of cramped notes in her own handwriting about who gave what, which she was going to need badly in about forty-eight hours when the thank-you cards materialized on the kitchen table like a parental summons.\par
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\par
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She didn't care. She didn't care about any of it.\par
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\par
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She hugged Susanna, who whispered something about Tyler in her ear that made her laugh so hard she snorted, which was not a sound she preferred to make at her own birthday party but could not be helped. She hugged Mai Lin's cousin, whose name she could never remember, and the cheerleaders, and Daniel Park, who turned out to be exactly as interesting and good-looking as advertised, and Harrison Webb, who had spent most of the party eating, which she respected. She hugged Hannah Eliot last, because she always saved Hannah for last on the theory that it gave her fewer opportunities to say anything.\par
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\par
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"Amazing party," Hannah said, smiling her enormous smile. "Honestly, Emma."\par
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\par
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"Thank you so much for coming," Emma said, which was the exact right amount.\par
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\par
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The door closed.\par
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\par
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She stood in the wreck of the living room and the silence of the empty house\u8212?not counting her family somewhere behind her, her father's voice a low baritone murmur from the kitchen\u8212?and felt the fullness of the evening pressing against her ribs from the inside. The greatest night of her life. She was not being dramatic. She was sixteen and this had been the greatest night of her life and she had kissed Tyler Marsh on the mouth, sort of, in the middle of a chicken fight, which was not how she had envisioned it but she was not complaining.\par
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\par
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His face had been extraordinary. His face had been\u8212?\par
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\par
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And then another girl had climbed onto his back and the moment had simply concluded, the way moments do at pool parties when they are not allowed to run their full course, and she had filed it away under *to be continued* and told herself it would have to serve, and it did serve, it served very well, she was going to think about that expression on his face for approximately the next six months.\par
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\par
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She was still smiling about it when the noise erupted from the kitchen.\par
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\par
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She turned.\par
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\par
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There were voices, overlapping\u8212?her mother's voice, which was doing the thing where it went very precise and careful, which meant she was surprised\u8212?and underneath that, her father saying something she couldn't make out, and underneath *that*, something she had never in her entire life heard before, which was her little sister being loud.\par
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\par
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Emma walked toward the kitchen.\par
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\par
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She arrived in the doorway exactly in time to hear Lizzie Hayes, fourteen years old and holder of approximately twelve library cards, announce at full volume: "I kissed him, so what!"\par
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\par
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Emma stopped.\par
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\par
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Her mother was standing at the kitchen island with an expression normally reserved for significant structural problems with the house. Her father was beside the refrigerator holding a beer and his face was doing something very specific\u8212?mouth pressed together, eyes a little too bright\u8212?the face of a man engaged in serious, load-bearing effort not to laugh. Ella was at the counter in a state that could only be described as profound theological shock.\par
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\par
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And Lizzie.\par
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\par
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Lizzie was standing in the middle of the kitchen, chin up, cheeks absolutely crimson, glaring at their mother with an expression Emma had never seen on her sister's face in all fourteen years of her existence\u8212?defiant, certain, and completely unrepentant.\par
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\par
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"*Lizzie,*" their mother said.\par
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\par
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"He kissed me first," Lizzie said, which was apparently a refinement of the record she felt was necessary. "I'm going to bed."\par
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\par
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She turned around and she walked\u8212?not ran, *walked*, with great dignity\u8212?out of the kitchen and up the stairs, and the kitchen was very quiet.\par
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\par
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Their father made a sound.\par
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\par
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"*Andrew,*" their mother said.\par
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\par
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"I didn't say anything," their father said. He took a careful sip of his beer.\par
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\par
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"You're laughing."\par
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\par
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"I'm not laughing."\par
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\par
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"Your face is laughing."\par
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\par
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"My face is doing nothing." He looked at Ella. Ella shook her head at him with the slow gravity of someone who wanted no part of whatever was happening. He looked at Emma. Emma took a step backward into the doorway.\par
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\par
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"Little miss *boys are stinky,*" Emma said, and she heard her voice go very high on the last word, which was a sign she needed to get control of herself immediately.\par
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\par
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"Emma," her mother said, in the tone that meant *do not*, but Emma could see the corner of her mouth, and the corner of her mother's mouth was doing something complicated.\par
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\par
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"Will is very handsome," Emma said, which was true and which she felt was relevant, and which she acknowledged to herself carried the faint sting of jealousy, because he was quite a handsome boy, and she was sixteen, and he had been at her party.\par
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\par
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Her mother pointed at her. "Don't you start."\par
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\par
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Her father was now looking at the ceiling with his beer held in front of him like a shield.\par
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\par
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"I'm not starting anything," Emma said. "I'm just saying."\par
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\par
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"Andy," her mother said.\par
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\par
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"Mm," said her father, to the ceiling.\par
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\par
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"*Why* is this funny to you?"\par
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\par
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"It's not," he said. "It's completely\u8212?it's a very serious\u8212?she's fourteen." He appeared to be working very hard. "He seems like a nice kid."\par
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\par
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"*That is not the point,*" her mother said.\par
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\par
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"No, you're right," he agreed. "You're absolutely right. It's not funny at all." He took another sip of beer. His shoulders were shaking, very slightly.\par
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\par
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Emma pressed her hand over her mouth.\par
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\par
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"Go," her mother said to her, making a gesture toward the rest of the house. "Go do something."\par
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\par
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Emma retreated to the hallway, which was close enough. She could still hear everything. She could hear her mother explaining to her father exactly why it was not funny, and her father saying he understood completely, and saying it in the voice of someone who understood completely that it was in fact very funny. She could hear Ella departing the kitchen with the footsteps of someone who had decided that this was a family event she did not need to attend.\par
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\par
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She was standing there, holding it together, when she heard footsteps on the stairs and looked up and saw Mai Lin.\par
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\par
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Mai Lin came down three steps and stopped. She was carrying her bag over one shoulder. She looked at Emma.\par
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\par
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"Why," Mai Lin said, "is Lizzie crying?"\par
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\par
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Emma lost it.\par
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\par
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She put both hands over her face and she folded forward from the waist and she laughed until her eyes watered, which given that she had already cried twice this evening meant she was severely dehydrated, and Mai Lin descended the remaining stairs and grabbed her arm.\par
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\par
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"What happened," Mai Lin said. "Emma. What happened."\par
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\par
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"She kissed him," Emma managed.\par
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\par
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"*What.*"\par
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\par
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"Will. She kissed\u8212?or he kissed her, it's a whole\u8212?"\par
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\par
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"*Lizzie* kissed Will?"\par
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\par
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"She announced it," Emma said. "In the kitchen. To our mother. At full volume."\par
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\par
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Mai Lin stared at her.\par
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\par
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From the kitchen, her mother's voice escalated half a step, and her father said something low and agreeable, and there was the very specific silence of a man choosing his words with surgical care.\par
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\par
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Then, from upstairs, distinct and final: a door closing.\par
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\par
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Mai Lin looked at the ceiling, then at Emma.\par
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\par
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"Your mom is going up there," Mai Lin said.\par
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\par
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"Absolutely," Emma agreed.\par
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\par
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"Lizzie is going to be mortified."\par
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\par
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"Completely."\par
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\par
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"Will seems like a good kid," Mai Lin said. Then she caught Emma's expression and said, "Oh, don't you dare."\par
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\par
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"He's very handsome," Emma said.\par
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\par
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"Stop."\par
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\par
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"I'm just\u8212?"\par
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\par
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"Emma."\par
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\par
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They heard the creak of the stairs\u8212?their mother, ascending with purpose\u8212?and they looked at each other, and Emma thought about Tyler's face, and Lizzie's chin in the air, and her father's shaking shoulders, and the party behind them glittering like something already becoming a story she would tell for years, and she thought: *I am sixteen, and this is the best night of my life, and it is still not over yet.*\par
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\par
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"More cake?" she said.\par
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\par
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"Obviously," said Mai Lin.
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} |