When You Were Mine (19 page)

She’s right, of course, but something about the way she says it makes me sit back. I’m not jealous exactly. I don’t want to be with Ben, and I know Olivia’s been waiting for the right person, and all of that. I’m happy for her. She’s my friend and I love her. Of course I’m happy for her. But it’s another thing Charlie and Olivia will have that I don’t. They are already ridiculous beautiful, and they have boyfriends who don’t run off with other girls. Is it too much to ask that they don’t leave me in the dust on this, too? It feels like I’m standing on the opposite side of everyone else, and the longer time ticks on, the wider the split gets between us, like we’re icebergs drifting apart at the north pole. I just keep thinking of that superdepressing
Planet Earth
episode with the polar bears. Where the ice splits and that one lone bear just drifts out to sea. It’s enough to make me want to start weeping in the back of Olivia’s SUV.

“You remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books?” Olivia says.

“Don’t go getting all metaphoric on us now, O. It’s just sex. Use your words,” Charlie says.

“Noooo,” Olivia drags. “That’s not where I’m going with this.”

“Whatever,” Charlie says. “Can we please turn the music back on?” She reaches forward, and her seat belt snaps her back.

“Karma sucks,” Olivia says, smiling at her.

“I read those,” I say. I lean forward. “But I’d always skip to the end.”

“Everyone skipped to the end,” Charlie says. She’s wrestling with her strap, her arms flailing.

“I didn’t,” Olivia says. “It used to make me so upset when I’d finish one, because then there were no more surprises.”

“Weird child,” Charlie says. She finally frees herself. “But I cannot listen to the oldies anymore.”

Olivia flips her hand to say,
Whatever,
and Charlie puts her own iPod on.

“Anyway, I was thinking about those books because I was reading one to Drew. Like, it’s sort of how life is, you know? One decision leading to an entirely different chapter?”

“This is way deep,” Charlie says.

“Shut up,” Olivia says, tapping her fist on the steering wheel. “I’m serious.”

“I get it,” I say. “It’s definitely true. One moment can change everything.”

Charlie gives me a pained smile and wiggles her nose.

“If you could know your entire life now—like, if you could flip to the end—would you?” Olivia looks at Charlie and then at me.

“Definitely not,” Charlie says. “It would just bum me out that Jake is never going to get his act together. Also, what if I didn’t get into Middlebury? I’d rather wait it out.”

“I think I’d choose to know,” I say. “I’d like to be prepared.”

Olivia nods, and the song flips.

I would want to know. I
do
want to know. If I knew, maybe I could figure it out sooner. If I had any idea what was going through Rob’s head and how this would eventually play out, I could act accordingly. I could move on or hang on. I wouldn’t be caught in this in-between, feeling so completely useless.

The rest of the drive is uneventful. Charlie talks about whether or not we want to stay for Saturday night too, but we don’t reach any kind of consensus. Olivia’s house is right on the water. It’s part of the Malibu Colony, this überexclusive community that’s full of movie stars. Her neighbors used to be Zac and Vanessa, before they split.

There is a pool in the back, on the deck, and then steps down to the beach. The entire place is decorated in a million different shades of white and beige, and there are black-and-white photographs of Olivia and her little brothers covering the walls, and big
glass bowls of shells sitting on coffee tables. Her house looks like the “after” on one of those home improvement shows.

We’re the first ones there. The boys will probably stop at In-N-Out Burger on their way, after surfing. I’m relieved they won’t be here for a little while. Just the thought of seeing Rob out of school is making my stomach knot. I don’t know what it will be like when it actually happens.

It’s cool when we step inside, the house full of ocean breeze—crisp and salty, the kind you can taste. Charlie and I toss off our shoes and race out to the sand. Olivia’s stretch of beach is a long one, and some of my favorite memories of the last four years are of waking up, still slightly drowsy, and walking in sweaters with steaming mugs of coffee down the shoreline.

“Wait for me!” Olivia calls. She’s already put on her swimsuit, a black bikini with multicolored polo horses.

The three of us drop down into the sand. The haze has lifted, and it’s sunny out. I close my eyes, lying down on my back. The warmth feels good, and for the first time since last Friday, I think maybe things will be okay. The familiar surroundings and the promise of us all spending time together reassure me. Rob will come to his senses. We’ll figure it out. That has to be the way the story ends.

Charlie is drunk. We’ve been taking vodka shots by
Olivia’s pool for the last hour, chasing them down with warm Diet Coke with lime. I’d put Charlie’s and Olivia’s count somewhere around five. I’ve been too nervous to have more than two shots, one and a half if you count the fact that I tipped most of the second one onto the deck when no one was watching. I know alcohol technically relaxes you, but I don’t want to be silly by the time Rob gets here. If we have to have a serious conversation, I want to be able to have it. Coherently.

Charlie is wearing a white halter top and a denim skirt and gold, dangly earrings she borrowed from Olivia’s mom’s bathroom. Olivia’s family keeps full wardrobes here even though Olivia says she can’t remember the last time her parents came
down. Olivia is still in her bikini, but she has a see-through purple cover-up thrown over it. I have on a sundress I’ve had since the seventh grade. It’s one of those cotton ones from American Eagle Outfitters that Charlie hates. She didn’t say anything tonight when I put it on, though. She just complimented my hair.

Olivia is wandering around with the vodka, haphazardly pouring it into red party cups.

“Who are those
for
?” Charlie asks, and cracks up laughing. She’s trying to fish a swimming noodle out of the pool and is teetering in her platform wedges, her drink sloshing over the side of her cup.

“You are an inch from catastrophe,” I say, but she doesn’t hear me.

Olivia comes over and tips the vodka bottle toward me, pouring me a full cup. “You need to drink more,” she informs me, and then taps her watch. “Any minute.”

Her cell phone blares. She answers it quickly.

“I told yooou,” she says into the phone, and then repeats some numbers, probably the gate code, and hangs up.

“They’re pulling in,” she says. Charlie nods, but her head doesn’t quite make it all the way back up.

My heart is racing, and I take a few tiny sips of my vodka. It burns, and I wince. My hands feel numb, and I clench and release
one fist and then the other, switching the cup as the three of us head back inside. I can hear cars parking and doors slamming. I see John Susquich and Jake first. Then they are in the pantry, pulling out Doritos. Charlie plods her way over to them.

“Yo, babe,” Jake says, stuffing a chip into his mouth and attempting to kiss her at the same time.

“I missed you,” she slurs.

John takes off with the bag, and Jake positions Charlie’s arms around him.

“You smell like a burger,” I hear her say, before they start making out.

Ben is here too, and he’s accepting a drink from Olivia, his hand on the back of her neck.

Where is Rob?

“Hey, Caplet.”

I spin around, but it’s just Matt Lester and Lauren. They probably drove down with John. Lauren’s always invited, but I think she’s come once in the last four years. And that was when her family was in LA for the weekend and they dropped her off at two and picked her up at five.

“Hi,” I say, giving her a wave. She seems to be wrapped up in something Matt is saying.

“What, did they, like, caravan down?” Charlie is behind me, breathing into my ear.

I shrug. “I guess.”

“Are they
together
?”

“Matt and Lauren? Doubt it.” Except I don’t. As soon as she says it, I realize that’s exactly what’s going on. Matt has the same look he used to give Charlie, and his hand is dangerously close to Lauren’s back. She’s pretty in a soft, natural way. They actually make a cute couple.

“Whatever,” Charlie says. “Who cares.”

She stumbles off, presumably in search of Jake, and I crane my neck to check Olivia’s entryway.

“Where’s Rob?” Olivia asks, suddenly and to no one in particular.

Jake and Ben glance at each other, and Ben talks first. “He’s parking.”

Olivia seems to accept this, but something about it doesn’t feel right to me. It only takes me another half second to realize why. I don’t even have to turn around and see him to confirm my suspicion. He has brought Juliet.

She’s wearing her signature sunglasses and carrying her gigantic bag. Everything about her is the same as it has been for the last week, except for one glaring difference. Instead of her halter dresses and skintight tank tops, she is wearing a sweatshirt. One that swallows up her small frame so you can barely see the denim shorts poking out from underneath. And
blazoned across the front of the worn gray cotton is the word
STANFORD
.

Charlie raises her eyebrows at me, but she’s too drunk to sustain the expression and instead decides to take her irritation at Juliet’s arrival out on Jake.

Olivia hesitates and then goes to greet them, being a good hostess and passing them two drinks. Juliet keeps her sunglasses on, and they’re so tinted, it’s impossible to see her eyes underneath, or what expression she’s wearing. She takes the cup from Olivia, smiles, and exclaims, “Thank you!” but keeps herself glued to Rob, her arm through his. Rob looks awkward, but just slightly. If you didn’t know him, you’d think he was just settling into the party, shaking off the drive. But I know Rob better than that. He’s nervous. He looks the same way he did on our date—or dinner, whatever you want to call it—last week.

He doesn’t look at me but goes over to Jake, who looks confused as to what to do. Charlie stomps off in a huff, and Jake kind of stares after her. The only one who doesn’t seem remotely concerned by this scene is Juliet. She’s smiling and cheerful and looks completely at home in Olivia’s house. And in Rob’s sweatshirt.

“Rose,” she calls. “Hey!”

She crosses the room in three long strides and gives me an air hug. It’s the most physical contact I’ve had with her since she snapped my doll’s head off a decade ago.

“Hey,” I say. I’m not sure what to do. If I was Charlie, I would probably throw a drink in her face or blow her off, but there isn’t enough time to figure out how. It’s not until she releases me that I realize she’s just won. By being nice to me, she’s completely obliterated her chances of being perceived as in the wrong.

“It’s sooo beautiful here,” she says, sliding her sunglasses up on top of her head. “Have you been out back?”

What does she mean, “Have I been out back?” This is my best friend’s house. I’ve been coming here since I was thirteen. Of course I’ve been “out back.”

“Babe,” she calls, and Rob looks up. That one motion is like a knife in my side.

“My parents used to have a house at the Colony,” she says as he comes over, “but they sold it when things just got too busy. Now we have to come down and use the Pitts’.”

Rob stops a few paces from us and makes like he’s looking at the photograph hanging over Olivia’s couch. It’s a picture of Olivia’s little brother Drew in a tin bucket, so I know he can’t be that interested. Juliet is blabbing about Brad’s involvement in her dad’s charity when she stops, looks at me, and says, “Your parents don’t have a house down here, do they?”

“No.” Considering that the average home in the Colony is about fifteen million, I’d say pretty definitively that they never will, either. “The beach isn’t really their thing.”

“What is, then?” Juliet looks amused. She eyes me up and down, slowly, like she’s taking inventory.

“Umm, hiking?”

She half laughs and then drops her voice low, so only I can hear. “Really? I thought you guys were just into backstabbing.”

“I’m sorry, what?” I tilt my head forward, convinced I heard her wrong.

Juliet crosses her arms and looks me straight in the eye. “You heard me.”

“What are you talking about?” My voice goes up at the end, and Rob shifts uncomfortably by the framed bucket baby.

“Oh, poor, little, delicate Rosie. Kept from all of life’s tragedies by her loving family.”

“Have you lost your mind?” I whisper.

“Maybe,” she says, squaring her shoulders. “I am in love, you know. I heard it makes you crazy.” Her eyes twitch slightly, and I recognize something in them, something primal. And it’s terrifying.

Juliet smiles, shakes her mane down her back, and turns, going over to Rob. She draws him into a long kiss, snaking her arms around his neck and up into his hair. I think I’m going to be sick.