Inevitable and Only(31)

I racked my brain for a safe topic of conversation.

“So,” I said, “are you going to the Fall Ball?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Elizabeth said, without looking up from her book.

“Why not?” I said before I could stop myself. “Everyone goes—it’ll be fun. You don’t have to take a date, really, it’s pretty casual.”

“Do you have a date?”

“Um … yeah, actually.” I felt myself blushing.

“Who?”

“Oh, you probably haven’t met him yet. His name is Farhan. We’re just friends.”

“People don’t blush that much about their friends,” she said, smirking at me.

I couldn’t help grinning. “So, are you going or not?”

“Oh, like I said, I don’t know. I’ve never actually been to a dance before.”

“You what?”

“Yeah, we didn’t have dances at St. Joseph. Not a very Catholic school thing. They thought we’d all start, like, heavy petting or something.”

“No way. All schools have dances. And, um, ‘heavy petting’? What even is that?”

We both laughed.

“Well, maybe we had dances,” she admitted. “But I was never really interested.”

“Liar!” I said, triumphantly. “I knew it. You should go with me and Farhan and Raven and Max. We’ll find you a date.” Why was I trying so hard to get her to go to the dance? But now that I’d started, I couldn’t exactly take it back. “So, do you have anything to wear?”

“Well—I guess it’d be a good idea to go and meet some people.” She went to the closet and pulled out a sleeveless blue dress, held it up against her body, and looked in the mirror. “Would this work?”

I shrugged. It was a little boring, but if it suited her, fine. And the color did go nicely with her eyes. “Raven can probably lend you something if you want,” I told her. “I think you’re about the same size. You’d be swimming in my clothes.”

“No, this is fine.” She was staring at herself in the mirror. “I was supposed to wear it for my mom’s …” But she didn’t finish the sentence, and when I waited, she just shook her head. “Never mind.”





CHAPTER ELEVEN


The next night, I didn’t get home from rehearsal until 8:00 again. When I walked in the door, I was surprised to see everyone still sitting at the dinner table. Laughing.

“What’s going on?” I asked, dropping my backpack by the door and coming into the kitchen.

“Oh, we’re just telling stories,” Mom said, wiping her eyes, still chuckling. When was the last time I’d even seen her laugh?

“About the olden days,” Dad added. “Stupid stuff we did in college.”

Josh’s face was flushed, he’d been laughing so hard. “Tell the pineapple story again!”

Elizabeth and Mom dissolved into fits of giggles while Dad shook his head. “I don’t think I’d survive the experience.”

“The pineapple story?” I said. “What pineapple story?”

Mom coughed. “It was just—a game we used to play. In college. Late nights cleaning at the co-op. If you skipped a chore, you had to do the ‘wine shackle challenge’ as punishment—strap a bottle of wine to your chest and leave it there until it was empty, but you couldn’t drink from it; only other people could, and they couldn’t remove it from your body. The whole thing was stupid, of course.”

“But I misheard it as the ‘pineapple challenge,’” Dad admitted. “In my defense, the acoustics in that kitchen were terrible.”

Everyone started laughing again.

“Oh,” Mom gasped, “the looks on everyone’s faces when Dad strapped that pineapple to his chest! And then he strutted over to Rain and Bow Knowlton and asked them to bite into it!”

“You knew people named Rain and Bow?” Elizabeth asked.

“Twins!” Mom and Dad said at exactly the same time, and went off into peals of laughter again.

“Ha! That’s nothing. Didn’t your mom ever tell you stories about Ahimsa House?” I said, dropping into the empty seat next to Elizabeth. “Some really wacky names there.”

The table went quiet.

“What?” I said. “What’d I say?”

“Well,” Mom said, “I’d better start loading the dishwasher. Could you hand me that plate, Ross?”

Okay, hang on. Ross? Just a moment ago, he’d been back to “Dad” status.

“But I just got here!” I said.

“Yes, but it’s getting late,” Mom said, taking a stack of dishes to the sink.

I looked at Josh, who was frowning at me as if I’d killed the vibe. As if I’d done something wrong.

So. Not. Fair. How was I supposed to know Ahimsa House was off-limits? I’d walked in the door and stumbled right into Mom and Dad’s fragile spiderweb of a truce—both a thing of beauty and a trap—and torn it all to pieces.

That was a good image. I repeated it to myself while I gulped down a bowl of soup at the sink and then stomped upstairs. Spiderweb, spiderweb, spiderweb. And Elizabeth at the center of it, spinning the threads around us—no, Mom at the center, trying to ensnare—Oh, I don’t know, I mumbled, pulling my phone out of my pocket. I dialed Raven. She’d have something snarky to say; she’d know how to make me feel better.