All You Never Wanted (14 page)

“Right. Sorry. I guess you never really know what you’re looking at, when you’re just visiting a place.” Alex speaks more to herself. She feels awful for what she’s said. For how Marisol interpreted
it. Xander hears her and he shoots her a smile. His dimple is a green light that everything’s fine.

The apartment is the top floor of a walk-up. It’s got a slope-roofed garret ceiling and its windows are as crooked as an old man’s teeth. Marisol heads to the kitchenette’s fridge. Inside it, Alex can see that Marisol’s mom is up to the same tricks as her own. The brands aren’t as fancy as what’s at Camelot, but there’s a pageant of snack offerings in here. Yogurt drinks, mozzarella sticks, puddings. Also grapes, pears, and waxy red cherries on long stems.

Marisol takes a single cherry. “Want one?”

One cherry. Looks delicious. Couldn’t hurt. Might hurt.

Xander reaches past them for a drinkable yogurt. Ooh, Alex remembers that sensation. She used to drink a yogurt every afternoon at school. They filled her like sap. Perfect pick-me-up. Such a long time ago. Her forearm prickles as Xander’s bare skin brushes hers.

“Sure, I’ll try a cherry.”

She watches Xander drink. It’s all she can do not to take the yogurt from him, to join her mouth to his. To kiss and kiss the taste of sweetness on his lips—Good grief. Her heart is a single blur of beating. What’s wrong with her? Calm down, already.

Crazy how this guy has taken over her appetite.

“I gotta make a call,” says Xander, and she catches his eye and feels shivery all over again. “I’m going into the next room. Okay?” He lifts his eyebrows. Obviously, he wants Alex to seize the opportunity with Marisol. But as soon as he’s vanished around the corner, Marisol beats her to it.

“So what’s your best skinny trick?”

Alex nearly chokes on the cherry.
My best skinny trick? Oh, honey, that’s easy! I go running all by myself early in the morning even though I don’t have the energy or the stamina. I force and push and punish myself until I find the new dimension. You must know that place, too? Where the scrabbling wires of your brain loop your endorphins into an exhilarated thrill zone? And it’s spectacular, but it doesn’t last …

“I don’t know what you mean,” she says.

“Yes, you do.” Marisol snaps her fingers. She’s putting on a show. Girlfriends sharing their skinny tricks. “You’re in super-good shape.”

“Sorry, Marisol. I’m not in any shape at all. My body weight is more on the problem side than on the awesome side.”

Marisol looks surprised. But she drops the act quicker than Alex would have thought. “My mom found me a shrink,” she says softly. “I call her Owlie because she blinks, like, every second. I have to go twice a week. She uses words like ‘serotonin’ and ‘dysmorphia.’ Mom pays a lot of money for those words.” She taps her temple. “But here’s the thing. I’m totally balanced. Except when I think about how much Owlie costs. But nobody cares what I think.”

“I’m sure your mom cares. She’s worried about you. She wants you to talk through stuff.”

“Owlie’s never spent one single day in my life. What does she know?” Marisol reaches for another cherry. Alex knows she’s showing off this second cherry to prove that she can eat it. “I don’t want to tell her anything private. Why should I? I’m fine.”

“Maybe you can’t see what everyone else is seeing.” Alex flushes, thinking of Xander’s hands around her waist.

Marisol takes a moment, reknotting her hair into its elastic. She spits a second cherry pit in the sink. “Nope. You’re wrong. I’m doing great.”

“Really? That’s lucky. I’m not doing so great,” Alex answers. It’s hard to tell this truth, this painful truth, to a kid. She feels vulnerable—almost stupid. She forces herself to keep talking. “Empty comes with a price. My feet get pins and needles. I’m tired a lot of the time. I get these pop-up blinding headaches. I’m usually freezing cold because there’s not enough insulation in my body. I can’t even run more than—”

“Awright.” Marisol is using one finger to twist a fallen strand of hair. Around and around like on a barbershop pole. “But that’s you. I’m me.”

“I only meant that if you think you’re looking at someone who has it all figured out, you’re not. I haven’t been any kind of friend to myself these days.” She shrugs. “That’s all.”

Because there are no magic words for Marisol. Or for herself, for that matter.

Except something has shifted in Marisol.

Alex waits for it.

“Last year, I wrote myself a hate letter,” she admits. Softly. Barely. “It was just about how I wasn’t anything special—not pretty enough, not athletic enough. So if I didn’t work harder than everybody, I’d never get out of this neighborhood. I keep the letter hidden in my underwear drawer. Whenever I take it out and read it, I want to cry. But I keep reading it. Every day.”

“Marisol. Why would you do that? Why?” Except Alex knows why. She’s been in that moment. She could write herself that letter.

“It helps me to push, you know? To win. To be number one.”

“Have you met Penelope … ah … Penelope? From Empty Hands?”

“You mean Penelope Appel? The British girl?”

“Is that her name, Penelope Appel? It sounds like a poem.”

Marisol nods. “She introduced herself to a bunch of us last week. She’s friendly.”

Alex is messing through her purse. She finds the scrap. “I think she’d be a great someone else to talk to besides just Owlie. Because you’re right. You’ve got to like someone first before you can really sink into a real conversation with them.”

Marisol smiles. “Like you and Xander?” But she shrugs off the paper scrap. “No, thanks.”

“She’d love you to—”

“I’ve got enough friends.”

“Right, okay.” No need to press it. Not on this end, anyway. “Point me to the bathroom?”

“Around the corner.”

As Alex leaves, Marisol reaches for a third cherry. Her hand hesitates over the bowl.

She can’t do the third cherry, and Alex knows it. That third cherry’s all bravado.

The apartment is so small that Alex is uncomfortable using the bathroom, especially with Xander in the much-too-adjacent living room.

At least he seems preoccupied. Facing the front window to
keep an eye on the car while talking softly on his cell. She pauses to eavesdrop. He’s on with Molly. Something about finding the bottom pan for the toaster oven. A nothing conversation, and she’s relieved. She’d have no leg to stand on if Xander was on the line with some girl. But she can’t help be glad that the girl is only Molly.

Xander suddenly turns and looks right at her. A “gotcha” grin on his face.

She ducks into the bathroom and locks the door.

Lord, how she’d always disliked dealing with her period—until it up and vanished. And then it wasn’t that she missed it, but it seemed like her body was suffering amnesia, or had yanked an option off the table. Now that it’s back, she’s not appreciative exactly. The cramps and the blood, the tampons and the extra trips to the bathroom, suck just as much as always. Still, it affirms something. That she’s recovered some missing code in herself.

She checks her phone. Joshua is asking about ice-cream-cake flavors. She texts back that it’s his pick. Then she leaves a voice mail for Thea, who will want to know where she is. Alex doesn’t care to tell. So this message is short.

Warmed up, feeling brave, she hits Gussman’s number. Waits for the robot-lady response and the beep. Goes for it.

“Hey. Me again. Alex Parrott. Look, you’re probably off dealing with weather-related activity. Ha, bad joke. But if you pick up this message, please listen. You might think of yourself as just some meteorologist that nobody’s watching. Well, except for people who obsess on the weather. But I promise you, Mr. Gussman, for kids like Len, predicting the weather is almost the same as controlling it. You’re a rock star to him. A weather god. How
about we come to your office this Thursday? Six on the nose? Give us ten minutes. Five minutes. And I swear I’ll never bother you again.”

Heading out of the bathroom, phone in hand, she bumps into Xander.

“Sorry. Guess you’re not the only one who eavesdrops on conversations. Who won’t you ever bother again?”

“Chuck Gussman.”

Xander snorts. “Chuck ‘Hurricane’ Gussman? The weatherman? What’s that about? You two are buddies?”

“Not exactly. Long story.” She squints at the hands of her unreadable watch. Wasn’t there something happening today at this time?

She remembers.

They might be able to make it. If they hurry.

No​no​I​can’t​do​it​no​I​can’t. Yes​yes​you​can
.

Xander’s watching. “What? What’s up?”

“I need you to help me out with something,” she says. “Something that might be hard for me to do, but I want to do it. So we can’t go home just yet.”

Mom’s wedding dress equaled voodoo magic. It held my curves in all the right places.

Question was: which one for tonight? Because I’d also bought the imposter. The Welch & Co. wedding dress. And I looked cute enough in the fake, too. For that I could thank Gabby, who’d left me fuming and fretting behind the steering wheel. She’d got me so scrambled that after a couple of minutes I’d jumped out of the car, returned to the shop, and asked the saleslady to shinny it off Plain Jane’s plastic butt when it turned out she was wearing my size.

In the mirror at home, I’d twitched and sashayed. Checked my angles. Side to side and back again, full frontal. In my stacked sandals. In my metallic stiletto booties. In my flops. Barefoot.

Verdict: the original fit me better.

Alex never could have triumphed in this dress. Not today’s Alex. She was too beanpole. You needed general sexy-healthy to kill it in this particular style.

But could I wear it tonight at the party? I’d need to test-drive it.

Which was what I was doing now.

I’d rung the bell already. I could hear feet padding toward the door.

“Thea?” Palmer answered in a bikini and sarong. Giving me
the wide eyes and a surprised, openmouthed smile as she took me in. The
We both know I didn’t invite you here however my charming hostessing will rise above your crappy guestess-ing
smile.

But the look she threw my tastefully wrapped birthday gift was pure skunk.

“Hey, Palm. I was passing through the neighborhood and—”

“Who’s that present for? Why are you all dressed up?”

“This is for Jess. And this? This is just something I made.” I gave a twirl.

“
Shut up
. Like sewing? You did not make that dress.”

“I didn’t just sew it, I designed it, too. I mean, it was long time ago. A couple of years back, when I worked at Topshop. And fine, okay, I didn’t do it all on my own or anything. I got lots of help from the store manager—remember her?”

Palmer nodded. She still looked skeptical.

“Well, it was this fashion project we did together. We used Mom’s old dining room curtains. Which is why it’s sort of tatty.”

“You made that dress out of a lace curtain? Who are you, Scarlett O’Hara?” Her eyebrow was arched, but then she stepped back. “Come on. Follow me.”

Eek. I’d been thinking
Gone with the Wind
, too. But Palmer didn’t give me any more grief about it.

In fact, the opposite.

“Actually, I could tell right off that dress was handmade. It fits you different—more exactly—than a store-bought.”

“Right. Totally. Such a lost art, in a way. Sewing …” As I trotted beside her through the modern zigs and zags of her house. Tasteful modern. Lots of chrome and glass and light. Smallish, though.

“Gang’s all here,” she said. And then I was outside and winding around to the pool, where Jess and Mo were soaking up what they could from whatever a strong May sun brings.

Confidentially, I knew the Blondes were here even before I’d arrived. The first thing I’d done, after I’d come home and parked the Benz wayyy in the back of Arthur’s garage—was check Facebook to see whether or not anyone was posting about the Camelot party.

It was probably safe to say I was obsessed with this party.

And it was safe to say that nobody else was.

Nothing. No mentions, no posts.

But I’d found the group photo upload—since the Blondes document just about every single time they sneeze. Especially if they’re sneezing in bikinis.

Alex Parrott is MIA! If you see her, tell her to report for duty!
read the caption.

I was surprised nobody’d mentioned her blowing off Jessica’s dinner last night. Also, no response comment from Alex. Was she ignoring them more than usual? Was she still at her nerdnik community service lunch?

And if not, where was she?

“Alex?” I’d called into the empty house. I didn’t see her car. Yet her name chiming through the walls made her presence seem possible.

I hated not knowing anything about my sister anymore. Where she went what she did who she did it with. She’d spun so far outside my claim.

My next project had been to hunt down Mom’s wedding dress—which wasn’t even in her walk-in, but zippered into a dress
bag in the upstairs storage room along with all of Arthur’s discarded toys: his Sunfish, his mountain bike, his kayak. Every so often, Arthur would take up, fart around with, and then surrender a new prop to the storage room. He didn’t get it that none of these sports were cut out for sleepy walrus dudes who started cocktails at four p.m.

The entrails of our previous life were stuffed in here, too. Here was the former Parrott family’s vine-patterned couch with the grape juice blotch on the arm. And there was my Dora the Explorer lampshade. Over there, Alex’s and my painted table and chairs. Most of it was hard to see, since it had been wrapped up and taped down before getting stuck here without any purpose. Like the end of your tailbone.

But it made me feel strange anyway. Our tiny dollhouse life. At the time, we’d owned it so completely. I could almost see little bookworm Thea doing homework at that table.

I’d shut the door on that room with a bang. No reason to dwell there.

Next, downstairs. Where I snagged Jess’s “gift” from the pantry. It had arrived by FedEx yesterday. Mom and Arthur received a near-constant stream of corporate “Thanks for your donation” gifts. They’d never miss this one, in metallic paper and taped with a Fidelity Supply Capital gift tag, which I quickly removed.