It devastates me to think of them being tossed out.
“I have a small storage space in town,” Dad says. “I’ll keep the books for you.”
Tears spring into my eyes.
“Thank you.”
“Yep. All right, dear. I’ll let you go. Have fun.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
He hangs up before I can tell him I love him. My small, broken family makes me feel achingly lonely. I’m envious of Felix’s.
Maybe that’s part of his appeal.
Lauren emerges from the bathroom. “Oh no!” she exclaims. “Why are you crying? You’re going to mess up your makeup.”
I inhale, centering myself. “Just my parents,” I say. “My dad called and he looks and sounds terrible.”
She clucks sympathetically. She’s become close to my parents since her own father died our freshman year of college. She’s estranged from her mother, so I took her home with me for a week and we all gathered around her and helped her plan the funeral.
She and I were already best friends—we bonded the first day of school when she flounced into our randomly assigned dorm room and immediately gave me a makeover—but that week, she became family.
“They’re going to be all right, my love,” she says.
“I know. It just makes me sad to see them both so unhappy.”
“Well, we’re going to make you beautiful and then carbo load your pain away.”
She grabs a makeup remover wipe from the mess of cosmetics we’ve both strewn along the vanity table and gently dabs mascara away from my eyes.Then, biting her lip, she reapplies concealer with the skill of a professional makeup artist.
“Perfect,” she pronounces. “You just need the magical lipstick.”
She dabs it onto my lips.
“Ooh, hold still for a sec. That light is perfect.”
She snaps a picture of me with her phone and holds it up. It is indeed a beautiful photo.
“That could be my funeral portrait,” I observe.
She glares at me. “Stop being macabre and come on. It’s time to OD on pasta.”
Felix
My family has supper at the Japanese restaurant, and my parents insist we do the full omakase experience. I’ve never been so impatient to finish a perfect filet of miso-glazed black cod in my life.
Imustnot be late to Elvis.
“I think we need to duck out before the green tea semifreddo,” I tell my sisters.
“Why?” Pear asks. “It sounds delicious.”
“Elvis is on in ten minutes.”
Prue snorts. “This morning you were complaining it’s too camp for your delicate sensibilities. Now you want to be early?”
I hesitate before confessing my motivation, as I know my entire family will either mock me (my sisters), worry about me (my dad), or fawn over me (my mum) for inviting a girl somewhere.
