All You Never Wanted (20 page)

But she wasn’t saying anything. She was planning something. Letting me dangle.

And Alex with a plan was not a good thing.

Probably all I had to do was take off the dress. Baby sis Thea would have shed it to a heap on the floor, no arguments. And part of me wanted to do it. I wanted to take off the dress and apologize. The problem was that Gia was here. She’d been with me all day, waiting for this party to happen. And Gia’s glare could peel paint. Gia would never let me die defeated on this one.

Alex stayed quiet. She walked to my door and put a hand on the knob. For a moment I thought she was done with me.

Wishful thinking.

“Have your party, Thea,” she said. “But don’t let it within ten feet of mine. I call dibs on the kitchen and the breakfast room. Your turf is the entire rest of the house. My only rule? Whoever shows up here has to say which party. Guests are yours or mine. No crossovers.”

“Have you completely lost it? What kind of King Solomon shit party is that?”

“The kind that you and I are separately hosting.”

“No way.” Ugh. I sounded like I was ten years old.

“Really? And what will you do about it?” She widened her fawn eyes. “Tattletale to Mom? I’m sure she’d absolutely love to hear that you’re prancing around in her wedding dress and you’ve got two full-sized kegs stashed in the bathroom.”

Mom.
Mom
. The word conjured her like a scent on my skin. As I stared down my sister, it struck me that Mom was the only person I wanted right now. I deeply wanted Mom to come home.

With or without Arthur.

With or without the Fred Segal boots. I didn’t care. I wanted Mom to walk into this room and end the whole mess that I’d tangled myself up in and couldn’t extract myself from. I even wanted Mom to perform the exorcism.

Gia, you must leave my daughter’s body. Now
.

Nobody was here to stop me. Nobody. Not happily-ever-after Mom. Not sad-gone-ghost Dad. Not Alex. Especially not with-or-without-you, inscrutable Alex. And I needed to be stopped. Tonight was hurtling me too fast toward a strange but certain darkness. Nothing good was at the end. Without any roadblocks, without any interference, was a catastrophe inevitable? Fear was a throb in my brain, my heart. And there’s no way to put a stop on your own nature.

“If I don’t wear it, it’s because I don’t want to not wear it. Not because you tell me to.” It was right from second grade. It hardly made sense. We looked at each other and we almost burst out laughing. I should have. Right there, I should have laughed, and then everything would have been okay.

I didn’t.

Alex folded her arms. “Sis,” she said gently. “You’re taking
this to crazy town. All I’m saying is, you looked so cute in what you had on earlier today. Don’t make a statement with that wedding dress. Be an adult.”

“I don’t feel like being an adult. I feel like being me.” I’d pushed myself into a pointless hole, for no reason except that I was in love with the moment. Talking to my sister, planting myself smack in the middle of her problems.

“What you’re being is incredibly immature. Even for you.”

“I never said I was mature.”

“It’s creepy. You do realize that, right? Wearing Mom’s dress, trying to hijack my friends. That weird way you act whenever you’re around Joshua.”

“I act totally normal around Joshua.”

“Spare me, Thea.”

“Joshua’s not just yours. Where does he go, by the way? Which party?” My stomach was souring, rising up inside me as I spoke.

“Where does
Joshua
go? Are you kidding me?”

This whole deception was making me physically ill but I kept going. “Alex, wake up. Joshua and I have been planning our party all day. Meantime, you’ve been running around, up to
whatever
, and not once bothering to help us or even to check in with us. If anyone made the situation weird here, it was you.”

Alex just shook her head at me. Her smile knotted on absently like I was some circus clown that had failed to amuse her.

Me, a bad joke. Me, an amusement. I wanted to hurt her, just for a minute I did—and so I was battling to keep in what I wanted to say flat out:
Yes, Joshua, who might be halfway in love with me—oh, and by the way, Alex? I think he’s a delicious kisser. He’d probably say the same thing about me
.

I was horrible. A horrible person, a horrible sister. She deserved way better.

“Idea,” said Alex finally. “We’ll let Joshua decide for himself whose party he wants to go to. Okay? Same as everyone else.”

“He’s
obligated
to go to yours”—I was red-faced with frustration, spitting out my words—“but he’d
prefer
to be at both. Everyone would. Nobody wants the first real Camelot party to be butchered down the middle.”

“Did you stamp your foot?” She snorted. “I didn’t think people really did that.”

“Screw you, Alex.” I stamped it again. “Screw your plan. Herding us like sheep out to one pasture or the other.”

“Believe me, it’ll be easier than you think. And do me a favor. Don’t be an itch. Don’t bother Joshua and me tonight. I’ve got to talk to him about a few things. So if you won’t take off the dress, give me my space. Finally, I can promise you this. None of my friends want to hang with you more than with me. Understood?”

Her words might as well have been a hand on my neck, plunging me down the well of shame and self-consciousness. Where bookwormy, apologizing old Thea still lurked. Where not even Gia could peddle enough power to rescue me.

“That’s your plan, Alex. Not mine. Don’t expect me to obey it.”

She was mute. Surprised, I could tell.

“And now,” I said, “how about getting out of my room, and my life?”

The last word belonged to me. I said it and I owned it and I even meant it, maybe.

The front doorbell rings—the sixth or seventh time in fifteen minutes.

“Coming.” Be calm, she tells herself. She jumps from the kitchen table, quitting the overly complicated drinking game. She’s had half a beer and she feels tipsy. “Come with me, Joshua? I might need you as reinforcement. In case …” In case yet more gangs of randoms have converged outside under the whale.

God, that whale. It was like a totem of disaster.

“Skip my turn, Russ.” Joshua pushes himself up to follow her out of the crowded kitchen. In spite of everything else going on between them tonight, she’s glad for Joshua’s presence. Half shadow, half bouncer.

Though she hadn’t needed his shadow—or any bouncers—until about an hour ago. When suddenly every single kid in the Greater New York metro area caught wind of this address. This past hour, Camelot’s become like a college movie. The one that usually starts with four idiot guys on Spring Break and ends with all of them crashing a party and destroying the house. All Camelot needed was some topless cheerleaders. Bathtubs falling out of windows. Farm animals in the living room.

Who told you about this party?
Whenever she opens the door and asks, kids shuffle their feet and don’t meet her eye. Mumble
that they might have heard something from a friend. She started nice: “Hey, there’s actually already a lot of people here.” Then got mean: “Sorry, everybody. It’s packed. I can’t let you in.”

They’re getting in anyway.

Was it Thea who overinvited kids? Or was it Joshua?

Random invites aren’t Joshua’s style. He likes exclusivity. Last year, he hardly dealt with anyone who wasn’t either a senior or connected to the Theater Department.

But she’s not going to accuse him of anything. Not tonight. Tonight she needs to pick topics carefully.

Ever since she’d arrived back home (without a decent excuse), Alex was convinced that her conscience was stamped on her face. Ready for Joshua to grill her on her day, and the fact that she never texted, never called, never informed him about anything she was doing.

Instead, Joshua has been acting oddly jumpy himself. Is he hiding something? Doubtful. More likely, she feels guilty and paranoid. Most likely, Joshua’s behavior is bouncing off her own evasion.

And yet they’ve been circling each other. Like the tiger and the ringmaster or the monkey and the weasel. And after tonight, after she tells him about Xander, they could be enemies. Never speaking. No written words. Not one more exchanged glance or shared joke. It pains her to think about that. Why is it that the end of love is such a dark place when it’s always built under blue skies?

“On your left,” murmurs Josh as they weave through the crowd. Which feels incrementally more raucous than the last
time she was out here. “Jay-zus. I hope Lulette and everyone can whip this place back into shape at some stage. It’s gonna be a brutal house hangover.”

“Mmm.” Alex peers into the packed dining room. She semi-recognizes kids from Rye High and Darien Country Day and that group from Greenwich Prep that Mo had vouched for—even though Mo herself hadn’t invited them. Five minutes ago, a carful of kids from Chappaqua had unloaded, all from some Catholic school she’d never heard of. She’d turned them away, but there they are, in the vampire morgue dining room, playing quarters.

“Alex’s party” is the kitchen.

“Thea’s party” is now the entire house and grounds. Upstairs, downstairs, by the outdoor pool, around the guesthouse. Everywhere but in the kitchen.

Is this when she’ll finally get to meet her snooty Round Hill Manor neighbors? When they call the cops to report the party?

Jess, Mo, and Palmer, plus Jamison, Russ, and Marc, have stayed gamely in the kitchen throughout the take-out sushi dinner and the birthday cake. Right from go, they’d been loyal to Alex’s imposed borders.

But now they want to spread out. Now it’s feeling increasingly like a benign hostage situation. As a big sister, as a daughter and a stepdaughter, as a person—she’s stumped. What next? Should she shut this whole thing down? Or should she let Thea pay the price?

“I’m glad you’re giving Thea a little smack,” Jess had confided on arrival, when Alex had explained the double-party situation. “You might as well know she dropped by Palmer’s house this afternoon
and regifted me some pathetic corporate present. It was meant for your stepdad.”

“I’m scared to ask. What was it?”

“I’m scared to answer. An oversized coffee cup with some bank logo stamped on it.”

“Seriously?”

Jess cracked her gum and nodded. She still looked slightly dumbfounded. “It’s in my car, if you want it back. So who knows? Maybe dividing up this party will teach her a lesson.”

Nope. Thea’s not learning any lessons tonight. The party is split, yes. Just as Alex had instructed. But she can’t claim a victory. Thea’s party is monstrous.

“Do you think kids are sneaking in through the basement?” she asks Joshua as they arrive at the front door. “And there’s the sliding glass doors off the library patio. They might be coming through there.”

“Ummm. Uh-huuuh.” Joshua is the tiniest bit stoned. He’s been disappearing and reappearing all night, selling. But that’s just another thing that she and he aren’t discussing tonight. At least he’s also been useful. He’s already thrown out some rowdy sophomores. He’ll turn away this new batch of kids, too. Ten Pin Alley has a liquor license and has known plenty of rough nights, and Joshua won’t stand back from a brawl.

Alex peeks over his shoulder as she lets him get the door. She’s silently, shamefully, illogically
still
sort of hoping to see Xander. But it’s long past the time since his plane was scheduled for takeoff.
Don’t think about Xander
. She must think this thought at least three times a minute.

Behind the door, two girls stand blinking under the porch light. Alex knows one of them. She’s from Thea’s class. That one Thea told the story on. What’s her name again?

“Nice whale.” The girl’s nostrils flare. She’s not sure if she wants to come in or cut loose. Her sidekick is nervously licking her glossy lips.

Joshua turns. “You know them?”

“I think so.” She remembers. “Hey, Gabby.” What’s Gabby Ferrell doing here? Is she on the revenge warpath against Thea? Something in the girl’s face tells Alex yes.

Aha. Maybe here’s the plan. Let Gabby in. Let Thea deal with it.

And then tonight won’t be so easy-breezy for her sister after all.

“So … um … can I, uh …?” Gabby’s voice wants to be casual. “You
are
having a party, right?” Looking past Alex into the overstuffed obvious.

“Two parties.” Alex holds up two fingers. “So. Are you here for Thea’s?”

Gabby stands on tiptoes. Scanning the crowd. “Which is this?”

“Thea’s. But most of her friends are down in the rec room. Back stairs are off the pantry. Go ahead.” Alex jabs her thumb behind her. “But then you’re it, ’kay?”

“Me plus Mimi you mean, right?” Checking sidelong on Lip Gloss Girl.

“Fine, Mimi. But don’t text any of your friends to come.”

“No, no … I’d never. I just want to see Thea, mostly.”

That’s not going to end well. Gavin and Saskia are also
here. A percentage of Alex wants to wish Gabby luck as she watches her scoot inside and disappear down the stairs, Mimi scuttling after.

“Baby, I can’t handle sitting in that kitchen anymore.” Joshua presses up from behind and crosses his arms around her. “Let’s stay out here. Did I tell you how fine you look tonight?”

“Mmm?” She feels guilty that she wants to hear it. Even though she’d taken care with her outfit, cigarette jeans and a thin cardigan with a sand-washed silky tank underneath. She’d bought all of it at a Haute-sponsored sample sale last fall. Then hid it away when she never wanted to be confused with a
Haute
girl again.

Earlier tonight, getting ready, she felt different. Not
Haute-
ish. But girlish. She wanted to smooth on soft fabrics. She wanted to wield a mascara wand in that indulgent, wrist-rolling motion while she stared into her own reflection.

A quiet voice in her head knew that she’d dressed in the mirror searching for whatever magic Xander Heilprin caught in her today. Redefining herself fresh in his eye.

She lets Joshua sidestep them into the packed living room. Her mother would hyperventilate. It’s pure tornado. The entire view filtered through a metallic haze of cigarette smoke. Furniture sloppily rearranged. Throw pillows thrown around. Feet up on chairs and legs flung over seat backs. And all these discarded clear and red plastic cups, God, they’re everywhere. Even in the fireplace.