All You Never Wanted (2 page)

And now she wanted me to come home.

“Are you high?” I pressed a finger to my ear as I shifted the chunky black men’s shoe of the school’s phone receiver. Alex once told me that some phones at Greenwich Public—including the wooden phone box in the front hall—would never change because they were “quirky comfort objects.” Preserved in amber, so that alums would be nostalgic and write checks at homecoming.

This quirky comfort object was complete with crackling static. “Alex, I can hardly hear you. I gotta go. I’ve got an orgo quiz next period.”

“You don’t get it. I’m stuck. I can’t … I’m stuck.”

“Call Joshua?”

“He’s at work. His mom would combust with rage if he took off.” Her voice was tin, a girl from outer space. Which she was, in a way. New Alex was a dried-up, lollipop-head alien of the big sister she used to be.

“Can’t I leave after my quiz?”

“I wouldn’t call unless I had to, Thee.”

“Right.” I’d lost. In fact, I’d already switched on my cell—an in-school no-no unless it was a 911—to text Mom in L.A. for official permission to leave school. But I wanted Alex to sweat.

She could suffer me a little.

Another five minutes and I was backing out of the student parking lot.

My Beemer stuck out like a show pony among the Rabbits and Beetles and wagons and Mini Coopers. I should have gone with basic black, not this hot villainess scarlet. It had been four months since I got it on my sixteenth, but the car seemed the least-mine object of anything else in the pork barrel of Mom’s remarriage. Less-mine than Camelot, less than my Gucci bag plopped like an overfed tabby cat on the seat beside me, less than my custard-blond highlights from the Marc DuBerry Salon. Maybe it’s because I don’t even really care about cars, outside of how much reaction I might jack from the fact that other people cared deeply about them.

Still, it was flashy. I should downtrade for a Jetta or something.

(Ouch, but that’d be hard. To that, from this.)

Another gilded day in Greenwich, Connecticut. Where even the birds sound like they get private singing lessons. Pulling through Round Hill Manor’s security, then burning it around the
winding drive, I dashed inside with a shout to Lulette in the kitchen. “Only Thea!”

And then straight upstairs and down the hall to Alex’s room, knocking on her bedroom door. I was standing outside it when her text pinged.

Stuck in her car? Usually Alex was stuck in her room. Maybe stuck in motion was a good sign? Of improvement? I cracked the door to be sure. Uh-uh, no Alex. She must have seen me run into the house. I fled back downstairs and shortcut out the door. My footprints crushing an intruder’s path all the way across the velvety green lawn.

Sliding into her Audi. She’d gone with navy. But you can’t disguise that smug new-car smell. Same as mine.

“I’m here. What’s up?”

Silence. A profile of pale skin and hollow bones. The short story: too thin. Alex might even be in worse shape since last week. She was for sure in worse shape since last month. So I hated the shard inside me—the Gia-shaped shard—that was thinking she’d better not kill my party plans for Saturday.

Mom and Arthur rarely went away when they didn’t have Hector staying over to keep an eye on things. But this weekend Hector was taking off for his niece’s wedding in the Adirondacks.

Which meant it was all going down right here. Party at the Parrotts’.

“Okay. Here I am,” I said, a touch impatient. “I came when
you whistled. I blew off science. I ran a stop sign. Will you tell me what’s wrong?”

But when Alex finally looked up, I was knocked speechless by how sad she appeared and how exquisitely beautiful her sad face was, and how complicated my feelings were about that. Alex has always been amazing-looking and never in a million years would I have thought it would come between us, and then I think maybe it did.

And I’m the worst kind of brat to admit that it was all over a guy.

But it was all over a guy.

Her guy.

There, out. See, when pressed, I can be exceptionally truthful.

Only I’d hardly had a chance to deal with that weirdness, because three months ago Alex went rogue, hyphy, off the rez. Whatever you want to call it, we all knew it had to do with
Haute
. Mom and I must have finished a hundred cups of tea between us, trying to crack
The Mystery of Haute
. Sometimes even poor old Arthur joined in, guilt pleating his forehead since he was the one who’d bought Alex the stupid fashion internship in the first place.

Alex wasn’t talking. But whatever happened at that magazine this past January is at least semi-responsible for what’s up now. Even I, with none of my big sister’s looks and charm, even I can’t wish whatever is happening to Alex on Alex.

“Don’t you have to hit the slums for SKiP today?” “SKiP” stood for Senior Knowledge Project. Also known as something better for spring Greenwich Public School seniors to do than cut
class and go to the beach. By late May, most seniors hardly showed up at school. The rules got pretty lax. You could take off a week and still graduate. But Alex was hardwired to be more diligent than that. After dropping her internship at
Haute
, she’d switched her SKiP to Empty Hands—a tutoring center in the Bronx. One of the few things that still mattered to her.

“That was the plan.” She sounded physically shot. Like she’d been attempting to get there by dogsled.

“There’s time. I know you’re worried about blowing off that kid you tutor, uh …”

“Leonard. He must hate me. Should hate me.”

“He doesn’t hate you. But don’t focus on him right now. It only makes the pressure worse for you.”

She nodded in half agreement. Dug in her bag and pulled out a stick of Orbit. I could feel her considering the gum, the way she second-guessed everything she ate and drank these days. Even gum. “That’s like one of those sweet things you used to say, Thealonious.”

She was kidding me; she meant in my geekstery days. Before I began the painstaking reinvention of Theodora Parrott. But Alex wouldn’t have a clue how much effort Popular took. Alex never had to lift a finger to be adored. She’d have burst out laughing to learn how much I fret and fume to find the right anecdote for the Figure Eight. How hard I pushed to get myself to the best party on Saturday night.

“Let’s just remember who’s missing her organic chemistry quiz,” I said, “that I now get the thrill of making up after school.”

“I’m sorry.” I could hear that she meant it. “But the thing is,
Thea, you’re the only one who knows …” She stopped. I tried not to look desperate for the payoff end of that sentence.

What? What could I possibly know? What was so special about me? I wanted it so badly. But my sister’s thoughts had gone traveling, touching off into distant places.

“Okay! Here’s the plan! Last time you got stuck”—my voice was loud enough to jog her back to me—“you said the first five minutes are the worst. When you’re overthinking it, you said.”

“So?”

“So underthink it. Start the car and I’ll drive with you five minutes. And then, if you can make it that far, let me out. I’ll walk the mile or whatever back to the house.”

“That’s too far.”

“It’s not. It’s no problem. Really, Al.”

Alex sagged forward. Rested her forehead on the steering wheel. Her dark, paper-smooth bob falling past her ears. “Look.” Without moving the rest of her body, she raised her arm to show me the huge flapjack of sweat stain underneath.

“Are your wet pits supposed to scare me? Drive, already.”

“I need to relax. Tell me something. Take my mind off my mind.”

My tale o’ the bubble gum might do the trick. The germs of truth, and there are always germs, was that I really had seen Gavin and Gabby at Mim Goldsborough’s party last Saturday. And Gabby really had been chewing watermelon-flavored gum in the kitchen. I’d caught the whiff. Then, when Gavin had blasted in with some friends, drunkly bungling through the cupboards for a snack, I’d seen Gabby’s eyes fixate on him. Watched
him brush-pivot-rub against her as he went for the bag of Pirate’s Booty.

I hardly knew either of them. I’d barely spoken to Gabby Ferrell since sixth grade. Gavin Hayes, on the other hand, had always enjoyed his reputation.

The Nasty was like a pocketful of glitter in my closed fist. Too tempting not to toss in the air.

Days later, finessing the story, I swear, it was like it really had happened.

“So here’s something funny,” I began. “You know Gabby Ferrell? Well the way I heard it, last weekend at Mim Goldsborough’s, she got together with Gavin Hayes in the clothes closet of Mim’s little brother’s room. Big fat sloppy hookup. And the best part? The brother was sleeping six feet away.”

“Making out inside a clothes closet. So what.”

“Except it was a beej and they kept the door open. And, pause for effect—she didn’t even take out her bubble gum. The way I heard it? She used her tongue to wrap the gum so that it—”

“Wait—did you say
Gavin Hayes
?” Alex fixed her fawn eyes on me. “But Gavin’s been seeing that Russian girl for months.”

“Oh, really?” My heart skittered. “He’d better hope this doesn’t get out, then.”

“With the big buckteeth but cute, the basketball player Coach Hal imported from Kiev so Greenwich had a shot to win State’s. Everyone knows Gavin is really serious about her.”

“Not according to my story.”

“Your
story
. Cripes, Thea. ‘The way I heard it.’ You heard nothing. Voices in your head, maybe. That whole entire story’s not true and you know it.” As Alex dropped the unopened Orbit
in her purse. Like I’d stolen her appetite for gum. “What is wrong with you?”

“Now hang on a second. How do you know it’s not true? It could be true.” I mean, because seriously, it could be true, you know? Why not?

“Oh, get over yourself. I’m your sister, remember? The same sister who knows you’ve hated Gabby Ferrell since sixth grade when she made you cry at gymnastics, saying your feet smelled like a cat’s ass.”

“Hand to God, this story came to me straight from a McBride.”

“You know what they call people who make up stuff like that? Mentally imbalanced.”

“Wow. A lot of attitude from a girl who can’t even get on the Merritt.”

My comment refocused her. “At least I’m not
deliberately
sabotaging people.”

“Look, forget about that story. You’ve got to drive. I mean, between you and me, if you don’t try to make it to Empty Hands today, how do you expect to show up at U. Mass come September?”

“Thanks, Thea. Like I’m not far enough out on the edge here already.”

“If I’m pushing you, it’s for your own good. You’re losing it, Alex.” I was forcing myself to say it, knowing it was hard on us both. Truth can be physically painful. It sits so squeaky and worried in your chest. It releases so whispery thin. “This is insane. What if you’re heading for shut-in? Nobody can read your mind. Nobody knows if your next act is to stop bathing and start talking
to doll heads. So that by the time fall semester starts, you can’t even cross state lines to—”

“Enough. I got it.” She started the car and we jerked out onto the road.

I wasn’t sure if she had it in her to drive. Getting a read on Alex lately was almost impossible. Like Mom said, you just had to suffer it. With full understanding that she was probably suffering it worse.

If she makes it past the first five minutes, she can handle the rest.

Except that’s not really true. Because these first minutes are rolling just fine. For one thing, Thea is singing—
“I know that you like me. I know it’s not a secret”
—as they drive to the train station. That oldie Avril Lavigne song “Girlfriend,” from the playlist they used to dance to while doing refolds after hours at Topshop.

The song helps. It makes her smile. Thea is shrewd at figuring out what you want to hear and delivering it tied up in pink ribbons.

Her sister is a natural storyteller. Always was. But she’s been getting so brazen with her lies. Alex knows, with a prickling, back-of-the-brain dread, that she should intervene. Sit Thea down and talk this mess out. A sisterly act. Because nobody else can get inside Thea’s head. Not like she can.

But now’s not the time. Not when Thea’s being her best self, singing her heart out. As if to prove to Alex that life is a breeze, a country drive, a catchy pop hit on a loop.

Old Field Post Road is nothing but fencing, meadows, and the picturesque barns that are photographed for coffee-table books. High-culture cow country, with no view of the mansions from the road.

Alex keeps a grip on the wheel.

Then Thea is gone. Leaping free at the red light on the first intersection without even a goodbye.

Okay​but​I​don’t​need​her. Doing​just​fine​just​me
.

Except she needs her. In some ways, Thea’s got what Alex craves most. Because Thea gets the big picture. Even when they were kids, Thea was the girl who did whatever it took to win the prize. Even if she was working for different prizes now. She’d stopped being “good.” She didn’t bother with the honor roll anymore. Had quit varsity field hockey after she broke her finger. (“Why do I care about a fancy college?” she’d said once. “Arthur can buy me college. Maybe I’ll ask him for Yale.”)

But now that Thea’s gone, the dread is a thousand flashing knives aimed so sharp that Alex can’t even speak to call for help. The road, the passing scenery, are hallucinatory. She makes it to the train-station parking lot on a crawl of sweat.

Where she cuts the engine and stares at her phone. Joshua? No. Don’t. He’s probably still irritated about what she did at the movies last night. Jumping out of her seat. Climbing over bodies, whispering
Excuse me
’s. Scurrying from the darkened theater.

He’d followed her and stood by the restroom and waited for her. When she’d come out, his face had been erased of expression. “Baby, I don’t care how the movie ends. Let’s go home. We’ll make popcorn and watch On Demand, and it’ll be better than being out.”

Yeah, sure.