The Cousins(54)

That’s the downside of personal shopping—zero privacy.



Behind the curtain, I strip off my T-shirt and shorts with a feeling of dread. Milly is going to look incredible at the gala. Jonah, who’s off in some tuxedo shop down the street, will undoubtedly be dashing. And I’ll be the frump in the corner making everyone whisper, Are you sure she’s a Story?

“Here we go!” Oona appears with a dress draped over her arm. The color is a gorgeous twilight blue, but I catch sight of some kind of beading and—I don’t know. The simpler, the better, usually. But Oona hangs the dress from a hook on the wall and starts unzipping the back with total confidence. “What do you think?”

“It’s nice,” I say hesitantly. I want to distract her from the moment when I’ll have to stuff myself into what looks like an unforgiving column of fabric, so I add, “You said before that my uncle Anders was intense. What did you mean?” She furrows her brow at me in the mirror and I add, “I haven’t seen him in years, and I barely remember him.”

“Well.” Oona slips the blue dress off its hanger, letting the silky fabric run through her hands. “It was a long time ago, of course. All I remember, really, is that it was all very dramatic. He and Kayla broke up a lot, and each time Kayla swore she’d never take him back. Then she did. It was hard, in those days, to resist a Story.” Her eyes get a little unfocused. “Kayla was a townie at heart. I think she knew she’d never be able to keep up with Anders in the real world.”

I feel awful, then, for making her talk about her sister again. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

She pats my shoulder. “It truly is fine, Aubrey. It’s been twenty-four years since Kayla died, and I enjoy talking about her.”

Something prickles up my spine then. Twenty-four years is 1997, the year my father and his brothers and sister were disinherited. That’s where it all started to go wrong. I haven’t thought about Cutter-slash-Cutty Beach in a while, or that strange line about it in his novel, but I’m struck with the sudden urge to ask Oona if something happened to Kayla there. I can’t bring myself to do it, though. It’s one thing to talk about her sister’s ex-boyfriend, and quite another to relive the way her sister died.



Anyway, Oona is brandishing the blue dress at me with a determined expression. “This is going to look stunning on you.”

“It can’t look worse than the first one.”

“That was the wrong style,” Oona says, positioning the dress in front of me. “Step into this, would you? You have such wonderful arms and shoulders, we want to show them off.”

I don’t move. “We do?”

“Absolutely!”

I fold my arms across my faded sports bra. “I kind of hate my shoulders, though. And my arms. I wore a long-sleeved dress to prom.”

“Well, that was a tragic waste,” Oona says, shaking the dress. “Go on, step in.”

I do as I’m told, clutching her elbow for balance. “My boyfriend said I looked like a kid playing dress-up.” I don’t know why I just told her that, other than that the fake intimacy of the situation is making me strangely confiding.

Oona’s dark brows draw together in a frown. “He doesn’t sound like a particularly worthy date.” She tugs the dress over my hips, then holds the bodice up so it covers my chest. “Go ahead and take that bra off. You’ll need something strapless with this neckline. We have a lot of lovely bras that will work perfectly.”

“Um, okay.” Once again, I do as I’m told. I almost feel a compunction to defend Thomas, except—she’s right. He’s not a particularly worthy date. “I think he might be an ex now,” I say as she zips up the back. “My boyfriend, I mean.”



“You think?”

“Well, for a while he wasn’t returning any of my texts. Now I’m not returning his, so…”

I trail off, and she finishes, “That’s how it’s done nowadays, huh? Goodness, I feel for you kids. Life is complicated in the digital age. But he doesn’t sound like the catch you deserve. And—there!” She smooths her hands over my hips and beams. “Look at you! Perfect!”

I stare. All I can see is shoulders filling the mirror in front of me. They’re broader than mine, Thomas said to me once. Despite all my time in the sun I’m still pale, my arms an unbroken stretch of freckled white until you get to the wine-colored birthmark. This dress is a lot more clothing than the bathing suit I wear to swim meets, of course, but when I’m in my bathing suit I don’t think about looking good. It’s just functional. My eyes prick as embarrassment floods my veins, and I wish I had something to wrap around me. Like a parka. “I don’t—I think it’s too revealing on top,” I stammer.

“Oh, honey, not at all. You have a wonderful upper body. You’re like a Greek goddess! We’ll pull your hair into a twist, give you some amazing drop earrings, and you’ll be the belle of the ball.”

“My cousin will be,” I say. I’m not jealous. It’s just fact.

Oona pats my arm. “Your cousin is beautiful. But so are you. Anyone who can’t see that isn’t worth your time.”

I try to see the dress like she seems to. It’s a great color, definitely. There’s just one beaded strap, which runs across my right shoulder and down the bodice. The dress is fitted, which I usually try to avoid, but the fabric is so rich—some kind of heavy silk, I think—that it flows across my body a lot better than my cheap prom dress did.