The Wangs vs. the World(48)

“It was a terrible, terrible thing to say from any standpoint.”

Grace kicked at his submerged leg, splashing the chemically charged water up onto the tile, which was still hot even though the sun had been down for hours. “Do you think I’m a slut now?”

“No! Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

“If I’m a slut?”

“Oh no, no. It’s just this girl that I was involved with. I really liked her but she—” Andrew paused and looked at his sister. Well, why not? “She wanted to sleep with me, but I just wasn’t sure.”

“Was she hot?”

“Grace, is that really all you think it’s about? Was she hot? Is that what you do? Just f*ck anyone you think is hot?”

She looked up from braiding a strand of hair, shocked. Behind her winged eyeliner and baby hipster layers of necklaces and bracelets, his little sister was still so young. A pinprick of anger broke through his heat-heavy torpor.

“Have you f*cked a lot of guys?”

“I’m not telling you!”

Okay. Andrew would have to change tack. The important thing now was to save her from becoming one of those girls that everyone wanted to sleep with and no one wanted to take out to dinner. “Grace, look, I’m not trying to shame you. It’s your choice, right? I mean, it should always be your choice. But you don’t have to choose . . . to, uh, do it with a lot of people.”

“You are so condescending.”

“You don’t know what guys are like—”

“No, you don’t know what guys are like because you’re deciding that you have to be a virgin for some reason. Dude, why is it such a big deal? Are you a Republican or something?”

“I don’t care what other people do, I just . . . I just think that things like sex matter. It’s your connection with another person. It should mean something.” He looked at her, underlit by the glow of the pool. Should he tell her about their father and his unfaithfulness? He hesitated. “Just . . . just don’t be stupid, Grace.”

Grace scraped back on the concrete and jumped up, kicking a spray of pool water in his face. She stood, looming above him, furious now. “Why are you being like this, Andrew?”

“Like what?”

“All judgy, like you’re my dad or something. Are you going to try to send me off to boarding school, too?”

Contrite, Andrew leaned over and grabbed at her ankle. “No! Hey. No. Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”

“Well, you did.”

“Don’t be Gracie mad! Be my friend again.” He held up the empty minibottle of Jack. “Say hello to my little friend?”

“It’s not going to work, Andrew. Guys can just quote things from movies and everything’s cool, but it’s not going to work with me.”

It was always like that, thought Andrew. Any time Grace felt like someone was disapproving of her, even the slightest bit, it became an all-out battle. Youngest child syndrome. That had made so much sense when he first read about it. He was always in the middle, bringing Grace and Saina together, giving in to their dad, being nice to Barbra. He felt like Rodney King sometimes, arms outstretched, asking for everybody to just get along.

“So is this all real?” asked Grace.

“You being mad at me for no reason? I hope not.”God. Andrew. He should be a stupid comedian—he always tried to make everything a joke. Grace briefly considered the possibility of both of her siblings being famous. If that happened, then she’d have to be famous, too, which she was planning on anyway. It wouldn’t be fair if she was the only one who wasn’t.

“No, *. All of this. Us staying in this piece of shit place, Dad not having money for our tuitions, our house being gone. Is that all real?”

For a minute, Grace still expected the answer to be no. She looked for a flicker in Andrew’s face, a hidden smile, a creased eye, something that would congratulate her for stumbling on the secret. And then a hail of balloons would fall out of nowhere and all her friends would run out from behind the Dumpsters and the whole place would erupt like an episode of My Super Sweet 16, but instead of giving her a car, her father would give her a giant check and tell her that no one ever expected her to pass all the tests as quickly as she did.

“Grace—”

“It is, isn’t it?”

“Well, yeah,” he said, gently. “What did you think it was?”

She curled up her toes, scratching them against the concrete, breathing in the throat-searing chlorine, closing her eyes to the harsh fluorescents that cut through the hazy moonlight. She licked her lips. They were salty with sweat. How could she have been so completely, utterly, nonsensically, next-level idiotic? Of course it wasn’t like The Game. Her father would never have gone to so much trouble for something that wouldn’t make money. Her stepmother would never have agreed to drive with all of them to Saina’s house just to teach her some sort of lesson. Grace looked down at her brother’s face. Open. Concerned. Andrew was so f*cking sweet. He would have done it. He would always do anything for her.

“What did you think it was?” he asked again. So worried.

“Nothing,” she said, dully. And then she kicked him in the chest, hard, her bare foot leaving a wet imprint in the middle of his T-shirt, and took off, running back towards the room.