“Easy for you to say,” I grumble.
Cora eyes me. “Really? Easy for me to say? And why would that be, Elyse?”
She halts at the stop sign at the highway and then turns left to head east toward the town square. My house is in East Clayton, the neighborhood occupying the southeast quadrant of Clayton—mirrored on the opposite—southwest—side by…you guessed it, West Clayton. They’re both distinct neighborhoods, even though they both border on Pleasantonville. Basically, if you have money, you live in Pleasantonville; if you’re not well off but not poor either, you live in East or West Clayton, if you’re somewhere between poor and East/West Clayton, you live in Oak Junction, and if you’re flat-out poor, you live in Grand Manor. In a place like Clayton, there’s a certain subtle, unspoken, but very real socioeconomic status that’s directly tied to where you live, and those who feel it the most acutely are the kids in middle and high school.
We’re approaching my street, Walnut Drive, and I hold my answer until we pull into my driveway, the third house on the left. She shuts her car off and eyes me. “Seriously—what did that mean?”
I sigh, shrugging. “Just that you don’t care what people think, and never have. I do, and it’s harder for me to shrug the gossip off like you can.”
“Oh.” She seems to deflate. “That’s not what I thought you meant.”
I give her a baleful glare. “Really, Cora?”
She rolls a shoulder. “Whatever. Go take a shower while I make coffee. I need the deets.”
“Deets?”
“People still say that,” she protests.
“No, they don’t. Or if they do, it’s either ironically or they’re hopelessly out of touch and trying to sound like they’re not.”
She laughs. “How do you useironically, anyway?”
We head into my house—there are still Legos all over the floor, and the TV is on, theLego MovieDVD home screen illuminates the living room.
“You’re an English teacher,” I say. “Aren’t you supposed to know the definition of irony?”
“Yeah, I know the definition of irony, but that’s a different thing than using a colloquialism or slang term ironically.”
“So basically, nobody really understands what irony really means, and we’re all just pretending we do?” I ask.
“Exactly!” She whacks me on the butt. “Shower! I need details, and I need them now!”
“I’m going, I’m going.”
I take my time showering, and it’s hard to not relive last night. I want to remember it forever, but I’m also a little scared to look too closely, because I’m worried if I do, I’ll start a downward spiral of one-night stand guilt. Once I’m finally clean, my hair washed and conditioned, my legs shaved, and I’ve blow-dried my hair and dressed in comfy clothes—yoga pants and a long-sleeve T-shirt—I follow the scent of brewed coffee to my kitchen. Cora is at my kitchen table, sipping coffee, munching on a Pop-Tart, and scrolling on her phone.
“I can’t believe you still have this junk in your house,” she says, lifting the pastry. “I thought you gave up this kind of stuff a long time ago.”
I laugh. “I did! I thought I threw out all that stuff—where’d you even find it?”
“Back of your pantry.”
“And you’reeatingit? That’s got to be leftover from when we moved in!” Which was three years ago; I bought this after selling the house Daniel and I had owned together.
Cora just shrugs. “Itisa little stale. Whatever. I was munchy.”
“I have real food, you know.”
“That requires cooking. I barely slept last night and I’m not in the mood for culinary exertion.” She gestures at the mug of coffee on the table near hers. “Sit and spill the juicy stuff, sister.”
Cora knows me better than pretty much anyone—she’s poured my coffee and put ice cubes in it, because I like my coffee at a temperature most people would call cold, which I call not burning my tongue to cinders.
I sit, sip at the coffee, and spend a few minutes just breathing. Cora knows better than to rush me, so she just idly browses through the news app on her phone until I’m ready to talk.
“Best sex I’ve ever had,” I say, by way of introduction.
She almost spits out her coffee, coughing and wiping at her lips. “What?”
