Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here(16)
“First of all, Scarlett,” says Kira, with a smile in her voice, “if you put this much thought into school, you’d be the valedictorian.”
“But seriously . . . why do people respond to that?”
There was a thoughtful pause on the other end. Then she finally said, “I’d wager people like looking at how little effort she puts into, say, late-night shows. They identify with it. It makes them feel like they can be lazy, and it’ll come off like effortless charm. Does that help at all?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
“What’s this for?”
“No reason,” I mumble.
She has to go shortly after, profusely apologizing because she and my dad are late for a dinner party.
Dawn’s acted even more psycho since Dad married Kira, a gorgeous black Englishwoman who looks immaculate in Google image search, even as far back as page fifteen of the search results. She’s thirty, smart, and pedigreed as hell—she got six figures for her debut novel, which came out last year. She is one of those women who doesn’t eat any bread at restaurants but would never judge you for eating it. Whereas Dawn’s and my motto is basically “Can we get some more bread for the table?” in Latin. It makes way more sense for Dad to be married to Kira. I asked him once why he married my mom. He thought about it for a minute, then finally said, “She was fun.”
Not lately. Dawn hates when I geek out with Kira over books—the very first time we met, we immediately discovered our shared love of The Secret History. And Dawn really hated, before they got married and Kira’s book came out, how impressed and flattered I was that Kira used to talk to me about the editing process like I was a grown-up, an actual writer.
Now that the Lycanthrope cast photo is gone, a photo of Matilda is the only one wedged in the rusty outside door of my locker. She’s like the most perfect baby ever, good-natured and smiley with deep dimples, like a babyGap model. She may be my half sister, but she’ll grow up in a totally different world—even her name evokes intellect and specialness—which I try not to think about too much or I get jealous. It’s one thing to be jealous of Ashley Parker but a whole other thing to be jealous of a prehuman who doesn’t even know what her own feet are.
They live in a gorgeous, airy loft in Brooklyn. It makes sense with Matilda and Kira’s book and everything that they don’t really have much time to invite me over and why my dad doesn’t call as much as he used to. He’s probably really stressed out—I’m a lot like him, so I can tell. Last year I tried to persuade Dawn to let me move in with them, and she flipped out. If I’m so horrible and he’s so great, why doesn’t he ever come to see you? Why aren’t his checks ever on time?
It doesn’t have anything to do with me. She just doesn’t want to live alone. And more than that, she doesn’t want Kira and my dad to win.
I try my best to go to New York all the time. Avery and I go see Upright Citizens Brigade, then run to catch the last New Jersey Transit express from Penn Station back to Melville at one A.M. While we’re sitting on the train and Ave’s napping next to me, I look out the window at the pinpricks of twinkling lights receding in the darkness and think about living in New York. It’s like the closest thing to a John St. Clair show there is in real life, where everybody’s like my dad and Kira—smart and articulate and creative—and I’d never feel alone.
When I started writing fics, they were mostly about Connor and Becca. They’re not the most popular pairing—one-third of the Gillian love triangle, and Gillian’s sarcastic plus-size best friend—so it took me a while to figure out why people liked my fanfics as much as they did. I guess I’m funny, something I seem to be the last to know about. I never thought about it until last year at the mall when I made this girl pee her pants. I didn’t know her that well—Avery met her in their accelerated-genius Princeton math class and invited her along without asking me.
I don’t even remember what I said to make her laugh so hard; I just remember going on compulsively for, like, five minutes until she was squeezing her legs crossed in front of the clearance rack in Wet Seal and breathlessly begging me to stop. It’s mostly useless—a party trick, like being double-jointed. No decent college would accept someone with a 2.9 GPA just because she once made some girl have to run to the food court bathroom and stick her 7 jeans under the hand dryer.
Scarface: What’d I miss?
xLoupxGaroux: WELL. We’ve been talking about doing one last fic challenge. It didn’t really end. And the fix-its are okay, but they’re getting hammered. Every time someone uses the canon characters, people flip out on them about whatever ending they made up.
Scarface: What about the next matriculating class at Pembrooke?
xLoupxGaroux: Like, a number of years later, you mean?
Scarface: Yeah. All OFCs and OMCs. Blank slate, same world, same rules.
WillianShipper2000: ugh idk if i even WANT to make up my own, we could just switch to a diff show
xLoupxGaroux: TRAITOR
DavidaTheDeadly: actually . . . scarface, that’s not a bad idea.
Scarface: Willian, think about it: You can write your own couple to ship! And Loup, you’re always complaining there’s too much het fic. This would be a make-your-own.
xLoupxGaroux: OK. Hold up.
Loup is our de facto snarky leader. He doesn’t suffer fools, but his deepest, darkest secret is that he’s essentially a nice person. Otherwise he’d never tolerate Willian’s basicness—the Lycanthrope fandom can be snobby about that stuff.