All You Never Wanted (8 page)

Alex follows Palmer into the kitchen. Palmer’s signature perfume would be Butter Rum Life Saver on a Whiff of Johnson’s Baby Oil. She’s just been to the tanning salon, too. Alex dislikes that smell—it’s like stale popcorn in the microwave. But Palmer’s obsessed with holding on to her Spring Break glow until it’s warm enough to lie out. Which might be as early as this weekend. “You alone?”

“For now. Josh and Thea are picking up a pizza.”

“Aw, cute.”

“She’d clean his room in a bikini if he asked. It’s puppy love.”

Palmer reaches into the fridge for the Brita. “No. It’s a bratty kid sister.”

A snarky comment for Palmer, even if it might be a tiny bit true. Alex gets a glass for Palmer to fill. “Which makes her like every other kid sister on the planet.”

“A kid sister who’s throwing down a rager here tomorrow, right?”

“Really? That’s news to me.”

“Uh-oh.” Palmer’s smile falls away. “Then it didn’t come from my lips.”

Alex tries not to let her exasperation show. Nothing is ever a straight line anymore with Thea—but Alex will have no problem squelching this plan. Monstrous as it is, the house is also hugely valuable, and in a party like the one Thea’s probably imagining, it has a one hundred percent chance of getting trashed.

And Mom and Arthur deserve better.

“Sugar, you’re coming out tonight, right? Jess told me to tell you she doesn’t believe she can turn eighteen legit unless we’re all with her.”

“I can’t.”

“Aw, no, Alex.”

“You know I can’t.”

Palmer closes her eyes and then snaps them open. As if mentally pressing her reset button. “But, Alex, it’s her birthday. Republic of Dim Sum. You’ve known about it for—jeez. Weeks.”

Republic of Dim Sum. Alex feels the shove of too many bodies. She smells the restaurant’s particular aromas of smoke and spices. She tastes bitter scallions and briny noodles. It’s a different crowd from Empty Hands. Not as careful. Her friends will badger
her and force her to eat, drink, and be merry. “I’m not sure I can make it. I’ve got a headache.”

“So take an aspirin. When I texted Joshua yesterday, he promised you two would show up. We’ll all be there. Plus Russ, Jamison—you know Marc is here one night from Bucknell this weekend. He’s coming especially to see Jess. It’s the whole crew.”

Alex says nothing. Her heart feels squirrelly.

Palmer’s cheeks have gone red. “The four of us have done birthdays since … I mean, if that’s not … one of your best friends … it’s senior year … how you can’t feel. It’s
Jess
.” Words are failing her, as usual. Palmer’s parents are full-on Mason-Dixon transplants, and while Palmer herself is Greenwich-born, she’s got the warmth and touch of the Deep South in her. She’s not a talker, she’s a hand-grabber, a face-searcher, and as she loosely collars Alex’s wrist, it takes everything in Alex not to shake her off.

“Honey, I am begging you. Pop one of your mom’s relaxy pills and then come eat dumplings. One birthday dumpling. For Jess.”

“It’s too much to ask of me, Palmer.”

“Wrong. That’s so wrong. It’s goddamn dumplings, it’s
nothing
to ask.”

Fear has morphed into a wild horse rearing up inside her. It reminds her of that day no she shakes her head run she needs to get away go. Run-run-run
run​run​run
.

She tugs free of Palmer. Whips out through the kitchen door. Galloping up the stairs as Palmer chases her down. “Alex, come back! You’re being such a baby, Alex, wait … you took it wrong … I didn’t mean it and I’m sorry!” Two sets of feet pounding down the hall.

Palmer’s quick and stronger, too: she’s pushing with both hands and she’s got a foot in. Wedging the door open as Alex slams against it. But Alex is weak and already out of breath. She gives up, lets go. Drops onto her bed as Palmer follows her in and flings herself out next to her, an arm’s length away on the silk quilt.

Breathe. It’s sort of funny, but not laughing funny. It could become laughing funny if Alex says she’s only joking! Duh! Because obviously she’s going to Republic of Dim Sum tonight to celebrate the birthday of one of her oldest friends!

But she can’t. It took everything to get to Leonard today. There’s nothing left.

“Aw, honey.” After a minute, Palmer rolls onto her back. She makes a sound that’s almost a whimper. “Aw, Alex, honey.
What is going on with you?
”

“I don’t know,” Alex whispers.

“That makes two of us.” Palmer exhales. “And by the way,
none
of you girlies were at school today. Maureen went with Jess into the city for birthday shopping. Senior spring for Early Decision kids is the biggest joke—they should’ve let you graduate back in December already. Meantime, I’m spinning in circles like a blue-arsed fly, praying I can pass Physics.”

Alex knows that’s not true. Palmer doesn’t care which college she lands at, as long as her summers are long and her winters are balmy.

“Hey.” Palmer rolls up onto her knees. “Has Joshua got anything stashed here?”

“Funny you ask. In my tissue box. He says it’s pretty highgrade.”

In no time, Palmer’s back with a joint, but she doesn’t light it. She flattens back down on her stomach so that their bodies are parallel. Palmer’s eyes fix on Alex just like they did back in first grade, when the two of them used to wriggle into the hand-puppet theater together. “Alexandra the Great,” she says. “Please. I know I’ve asked a hundred times before, but I gotta ask again. Tell me what’s the matter. I tell you everything. You used to tell me everything.”

“I know you do, and I did, I know, I know.”

A minute slips by.

Palmer twirls the unlit joint and then sets it between them like a tiny torch.

“Or we could powernap. Close your eyes for sweeties?”

Alex smiles. Eons ago, Alex had invented sweeties when Thea fell out of a tree, to soothe her. Then, back in fourth grade, when Palmer’s dog, Beau, had been put down, Alex had given Palmer sweeties. Palmer could fall asleep within moments of Alex’s skating back-and-forth finger on her skin. It became a thing they did to each other till they got self-conscious and juniorhigh untouchable.

And then, last year, somehow it became okay again.

Now Palmer traces her index finger, soft as a silkworm, up and down the length of Alex’s arm as she sing-songs
“Sweeet-ees, sweeet-ees, sweeeet-eeees.”

Alex’s eyes grow heavy.

So simple, but the effect is hypnotic.

Pip Arlington never spared an extra gesture. Her pixie hair, her vaguely Asian features, her narrow tailored suits. Total
breathtaking control. Her first day at
Haute
, all Alex had wanted to do was quit. There were no doubters in Pip’s world. Everybody at
Haute
glittered with the assurance of belonging.

She’d been out of her depth. Pip knew it, too. From the moment of their meeting, Alex had detected the chill in Pip’s eye.

“Pip, I want you to meet Artie’s stepkid.” Jerry was the CEO of Fenêtre Publishing. He was Pip’s boss and also Arthur’s golf buddy. Good ole Arthur with the Midas touch. He’d never thought he was doing anything wrong. His heart had been only paternal when he’d overbid and won Alex this extravagant two-week
Haute
internship in the forty-fourth-floor offices in the Time-Life Building. He’d made her dream come true. And all because once Alex had mentioned she might like to work in fashion one day.

“If not you, who? If not now, when?” Arthur trumpeted. One of his favorite sayings. “Besides, who else in your whole high school would have a Senior Knowledge Project luckier than yours? Way to stick it to ’em, right?”

He’d been puffed up with pride. Arthur didn’t have any kids of his own, and this role—benevolent king—was enjoyable to him. Her mother’s smile had come with bright eyes for this break for her daughter, who didn’t have her little sister’s smarts and maybe needed the extra boost.

It would have been almost impossible for Alex to refuse this gift.

At Greenwich Public, Alex was considered stylish. Here at
Haute
, she was just another intern in a miniskirt. Not a very special one, either. She messed up the first day. Calling Jerry by his
first name when he was “Mr. Fabricant” to pretty much everyone else at
Haute
except Pip.

For her part, Pip had made sure that Alex’s days were filled with the time-wasters to suit a girl who’d been handed a
Haute
internship easy as an ice-cream sandwich. A faraway cubicle and simple tasks: compose a mailing list for the trunk sale invitation. Come up with a tagline for the magazine’s “This Month at
Haute
” index.

When Alex had asked for more, Pip had marched her off to write online advertising copy. Just as tedious. Plus difficult.

During the second week, Alex piped up for better jobs—more glammy, more
Haute
-ish. After all, she was smart enough. And the internship had cost a lot. Didn’t Arthur deserve some more bang for his buck? So Pip had asked Alex to help coordinate a debut fashion show by a hot new designer. It was being held in the private home of an Upper West Side socialite.

“We’re super-squeezed for space,” Suniva had warned. “Follow me and do what I do.” She winked. Suniva was Pip’s senior assistant. She had movie-star poise and was easy on Alex’s mistakes.

The fashionista’s apartment was overheated, overfurnished, over capacity. Everyone seemed either famous or working hard on becoming famous. Everybody knew everyone else. Not the best idea, Alex realized, to pretend she could do this.

If she didn’t belong at
Haute
, she
really
didn’t belong here.

One morning. It was only one morning.

What was the worst that could happen?

But it scared her. Like that dream of wandering around naked
and not being smart enough to cover up. She stuck to coffee duty. Pouring it into tremblingly thin cups from the French urn. Then she stood by the urn and drank too much of it herself.

Cup after china cup, her eyes trained on Suniva, darting here and there in her sample-sale six-inch heels.

Eventually, on the brink of frazzled, Suniva grabbed Alex and hissed in her ear.

“Alexandra, help! I can’t do this alone. We overbooked the event. We need to get the VIPs sat and then turn away the rest, chop-chop.”

“But who’s important?”

“Trust your instinct. Go seat Her next to Him.” She flipped Alex the seating chart, jabbing her finger at different places. “And of course you know who She is. But watch out, because They’re not speaking. And don’t put Him in a seat at all, no matter how name-droppy he gets, because he’s Nobody, he can’t stay.”

The seating chart was a thorny scramble of chairs and arrows. Alex fumbled and stammered. “Hello. If you’ll just … follow me … and … sit here …” Each face seemed uniquely hostile. The socialite. The television actress. The designer. The editor.

Topshop’s Becky Frankel would have nailed it. She’d have known at least half of these people from her fashion and gossip magazines. Alex recognized nobody. She kept making mistakes. Seating people. Then asking them to get up again. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. If you wouldn’t mind …” She glanced up and saw Pip, who was glowering at her from a faraway pocket of the room. And who stiffened visibly as Alex sat the hot new fashion blogger beside the curdled English duchess, which seemed to quietly enrage them both.

The heat was cranked up high against the outdoor January freeze. Alex’s cheeks burned. She was sweating so hard that the sides of her bra had gone damp. Suniva was already re-reseating people and apologizing. Pip was at Alex in a swoop.

“Are you a moron, Alexandra?” she spat. “I need an answer. Are you a total and absolute moron?”

“Oh, I …”

“And if you aren’t a moron, then have you ever paused to consider the bright young woman who might have truly benefited from this magazine internship? But who isn’t here today? Because you, in all your precious entitled ignorance, thought you deserved it better?”

In front of everyone. In front of all the Hims and Hers. Pip wouldn’t stop. Calling Alex out. “Foolishly underprepared … dithering Greenwich girl … padding your college application.”

How could Alex explain that she’d never, ever stepped out of bounds? Had never so much as stolen a piece of candy, or sneaked into a movie theater, or copied an answer for a test?

She had followed the rules all her life. They had made sense. Why had she done this? Why had she cheated?

Her head was pounding. The backs of her knees were slick. She wanted to run.

“I’m sorry, Pip, I—”

“Do you have any inkling of what it means to be here?
Do you?
”

Did she? More important, was there any way to grasp the impact of Pip Arlington’s wrath in light of this new and horrifying urgency in her body?

The bathroom was the farthest door, past the first row of
seating and around the makeshift catwalk. The one time Alex had braved it, with a tap-and-whisper, the door had been locked and occupied. Now her need was bigger than a tap-and-whisper. Now it was a shout.

Now, with each excruciating, slip-sliding second, everything was about to change.

A Rush of Pee on Cashmere Capris. Her Signature Scent. Alex won’t ever forget the feeling for the rest of her life. The burst of liquid heat flooding down her legs. The buckling. The release. The death of whatever reliable connection she’d ever assumed that her brain held over her body.

The expressions on their faces. Suniva’s quiet “Oh,
Alex
.”

In front of the Duchess and the Makeup Heiress and the Nobody and the Hot New Designer and the Features Editor and Suniva and the infamous Pip Arlington, Alex’s pee soaked through the Persian rug and became a dark and widening spotlight around her.

And now Pip was motioning to Suniva to arm herself with the buffet napkins, but
nononooo
Alex couldn’t watch that.

Couldn’t bear to see Suniva on her hands and knees,
blotting
.

She bolted.

Quickly escaping the Exquisite Everybodies.
Bam
through the fire-escape door and into the cold air down the countless flights of concrete stairs. Maybe nine flights or maybe fourteen. Her boots squelching, slipping on the icy sidewalks. Her skin was on fire, her heart was an anvil, her purse was clenched like a football under her arm. Every muscle was straining to outrun anyone who might follow, though nobody did, as she tore all the way to Grand Central Station. Where, with violent shaking fingers, she’d bought a
pair of wool leggings at Strawberry and then changed into them in a station bathroom.