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She just shrugged and came back to the table, where she looked over our shoulders and agreed with everything either of us said, but then she must have drifted away again without my even noticing because the next time I looked up, she was over at the opposite side of the room flipping through our mail, which was stacked up on the counter for Mom and Luke to sort when they came home.
“Hey!” I said.
“What?” She turned around, after quickly dropping whatever she was holding back onto the pile.
“Are you looking through our mail?”
“Not really.” She gave a little laugh. “Honestly, I don’t even know what I’m doing. I’m just sort of wandering around. . . . Short attention span, I guess. Do you mind if I use your bathroom?”
I minded that a lot less than her pawing through our private correspondence. “It’s down the hallway, take a left, and then another left.”
“Thanks.” She disappeared.
“That was weird,” I said to Ben in a low voice.
“What?” He looked up from his laptop.
“She was going through our mail.”
“Aria
“I have no idea.”
“I’m sure she wasn’t.” He pointed to the screen. “Shouldn’t this be a period instead of a comma?”
I let it drop and just focused on finishing the work as quickly as possible so I could get Aria
Later that night, after they’d gone, Grandma and I were watching TV together when she said, “Which friend of yours is that blond girl?”
“Blond girl? You mean Heather?”
“No, I know Heather. I mean the one who was wandering around upstairs earlier tonight—I heard a noise in your mother’s room and there she was. She said she was working on a school project with you and you’d sent her up to find something?”
“Oh. That’s Aria
“Hmm,” Grandma said. “She had her phone out. I think she may have been taking some photos.”
I swore and pulled my phone out of my pocket. I didn’t follow Aria
Luke Weston’s driveway! Luke Weston’s living room! Luke Weston’s closet—and shoes!! Luke Weston’s drawer full of T-shirts! Luke Weston’s bed (squee!)!!!!!!!!
There was even a photo of me working on my laptop at the kitchen table, completely oblivious to the fact that my picture was being taken. She had posted it with the caption “Luv ya, gorgeous gurl!”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” I said.
“What?”
I showed Grandma the photos.
“The curse of fame,” she said cheerfully. She’d already had a cocktail or two. “But no harm done.”
“I guess not.” I felt violated though.
I complained to Heather a little while later, when we were video chatting. I made her check out the photos on her phone.
“Ugh,” she said. “People are jerks.”
“Right?” That was more the response I was going for. Grandma’s “live and let live” attitude was a little too easygoing for my current feelings about Aria
Heather said, “Did you see how Riley commented on every photo? About how much she loved your house, too, and how you’re both so gorgeous? It’s a little much.”
I checked to see and she was right: Riley was almost as a
“Do you see why I need you to come to Elton College with me?” I said. “What if everyone there is like them? What if there aren’t any Heathers?”
“There are Heathers everywhere,” she said. “There’s nothing special about me.”
“Stop it,” I said. “You’re special to me. You’re the only friend I trust. Well, you and Aaron.”
“It’s good he moved here,” she said.
“Yeah, I know you think so,” I said with a grin.
She shrugged with an embarrassed smile and swiftly changed the subject. “Applications are due tomorrow at midnight East Coast time, right? I was thinking it would be fun to click submit together. Is George coming that night?”
“Yeah. I just need to go over my essay with him one last time. Why don’t you come at eight? That’ll give us an hour to check everything before hitting send.”
“Can I? I’d love that—if I stay home, my parents will be standing over me, worrying about every sentence. If I tell them your tutor will read it over for me, they’ll back off.”
“For a good girl, you can be very devious.”
“You taught me everything I know.”
twenty-four
Before George came on Wednesday, I reread my two essays and decided I hated them both. One was too insincere, the other too negative.
I felt anxious and unsettled, so when Grandma came down to make a cup of tea, I snapped at her that she needed to stay out of the kitchen, because George was coming soon and we had to get a lot of work done.
She said calmly, “I’ll clear out as soon as he gets here. Do you want some mushroom tea?”
“Words ca
“Don’t be narrow minded. Why is it okay to drink brewed leaves and not brewed mushrooms? Think outside the box.”
“I love when you use clichés to encourage me to be original. If I promise to defy convention in all other ways, will you please not make me drink mushroom tea?”
“Your loss,” she said. “So George is coming back tonight?”
“What do you mean ‘coming back’?”
“He was here earlier—working on your mom’s office. He came yesterday, too. He wants to finish it before they get back.”
“I didn’t know he came by.”
“Well, you were at school.”
“He could have stuck around and said hi.”
“He probably had plans.”
Did he, though? Or was he just sick of me?
When he arrived, I opened the door for him but hung back a bit, feeling awkward now that he was there. I could still remember his disappointed expression when we parted the last time we’d talked, and it made it hard for me to look him in the eyes. Plus he’d since read my essay and that was embarrassing in its own way—I’d acknowledged some pretty ugly truths about myself. I felt exposed.
He probably thought it was stupid, anyway.
“Hey,” I said, trying to sound normal and not succeeding.
“Hey,” he said. “How’s it going?”
“Fine. Come on in.”
“Thank you.”
This was going great.
We headed toward the kitchen.
“Heather coming?” he asked.
“Yeah, but I wanted to have time to talk about my essay first.”
“Sounds good,” he said without any real enthusiasm.
Grandma looked up as we entered the kitchen. She was sticking two slices of gluten-free bread into the toaster. “Oh, I’m sorry. I promised Ellie I’d clear out of here by the time you came, George, but I’m so slow. . . . Just let me finish making toast and I’ll disappear, I promise.”
I caught George’s expression and realized how bad that sounded—like I was still determined to make my grandmother feel unwanted in my home. “It’s fine,” I said quickly. “I don’t mind if you’re here; I’m just stressed about how much work I need to get done.”
“I completely understand,” she said. “George, would you like a cup of mushroom tea before I do my disappearing act?”
“Mushroom tea?” he repeated uncertainly.
“Trust me, you don’t want it,” I said.
“I would love some,” he said immediately.
“Excellent!” She beamed, delighted, then turned to me with sudden concern. “Don’t get mad at me, Ellie. It will only take one more minute.”
“I’m not mad at you. I don’t know why you always think I am.”