Afterparty(55)

“You couldn’t tell them?”

“The last time I told them, Aiden told the whole third grade at Latimer I peed in the school pool. And . . . other things. Didn’t go over well.”

“All the same people, age eight?”

“It was brutal. You don’t want these people getting dirt on you. Pretty soon, I was barely there.” He shrugs. “I’m still barely there.”

I think about what my dad would have done if I’d zoned out for eight years, and it does not involve me moving into someone else’s house.

“My dad’s a director,” Dylan says. “Commercials. But he likes to direct everything, and I don’t take direction well. They had me evaluated for learning disabilities, deafness, blindness, a conduct disorder, and juvenile psychosis. But the Saads like me fine. Where would you live?”

“On my best friend’s top bunk.”

He reaches over and touches my hand. “So now are you going to tell me?”

“What?”

“Arif said you got all weird when he mentioned French Face. Has he been kidnapped by Al Qaeda or something?”

French Face? Oh God, Siobhan, what did you say?

“Would that be funny for you?”

“Hilarious.” He looks over. “Wait. Is something happening with you and him? You have to be honest with me. Once burned. All that.”

I’m thinking, Tell him. Tell him, tell him, tell him. But he looks so fond of me. And even though I know how wrong/weak/bad/stupid/morally backwards/shortsighted it is to want to keep that—to not want to jeopardize that by being, all right, honest—I don’t.

I say, “There’s nothing there.” How much I hate myself for this is almost totally eclipsed by how much I want him.

He touches my face and pulls me toward him. Oh God. The kiss.

I say, “I have to go. I have to be on time for dinner.”

“Phone your dad. You might be unavoidably detained.”

“Dylan, he’s old-school. Really, really old-school. I can’t.”

“How does this work? How do you go out at night? Do I need written authorization to pick you up or old-school dad comes after me or what?”

I say, “You have no idea. Later,” and kiss him some more.

I drive up the hill wondering how this actually is going to work. Wishing that I could morph into the kind of girl he thinks I am. That I were her for real. Wishing I’d stayed.

? ? ?

Siobhan says, “He’s taking up all your time, you don’t answer texts, and you’re not getting check marks. Kissing? Seriously? What are you even doing with him?”

She is slouching around my bedroom at her sulkiest. It’s 9:00 at night, I’m pretty sure my dad is lurking in the hall, and I’m not sure why she appeared at the front door.

I say, “Come on. This was your idea. You set it up. I still see you all the time. Such as now.”

This placates her, but not enough.

I say, “How is it you can’t comprehend that I might want to hang out with the person you told me to hang out with? And do you ever look back at the shit you text me? Come on.”

“You should come to this Malibu thing Friday,” she says. “Bring the boy toy. I don’t care. It’s in the Colony. Better than last time, no one will freeze up and die between the water and the house.”

It is unseasonably hot, it’s all over the news; the beach is not out of the question. But the three of us at the same party, somewhat together, somewhat not?

I say, “I don’t know.”

She bangs the palm of her hand against the wall. “Am I your ninth priority now?” She is pacing, picking things up, tossing them down. “After Dylan and homework and Megan and feeding the poor and conditioning your hair? Do I ditch you when I’m with a guy? Uh, no. When I was with Kahane, I went to parties with you.”

I don’t even know how to respond to this one. I say, “I’m not ditching you.”

“Here’s a news flash! This is what ditching people looks like!” And she storms out, slamming my bedroom door, the front door, the gate to the courtyard, and her car door.

Siobhan, when she’s annoyed, doesn’t keep it to herself.

In the morning, the slamming theme extends to her locker, books on desktops, and snack trays at break. When she talks to me, I (and everybody else within a hundred yards) can tell she’s seething.

Dylan says, “Should I avoid dark alleys and homeroom? Eat lunch with me. I’ll protect you if she creeps up and tries to hit you with a lunch tray. But you’ll have to brave the music room.”

I say, “I like music.”

Dylan is sprawled on the redwood bench on the far side of the library, framed by vines that no doubt got confused by sudden summer weather and are covered with small, waxy flowers. He looks all earnest, and also to die for.

“Prove it,” he says. “Come out with me at night. I’ll even demonstrate how chivalrous I am by meeting old-school dad. Maybe he’ll like me.”

No he won’t.

Dylan lives in a guesthouse without parental interference. Dylan smolders and looks through people. There is something about even his posture, the way he stretches his arms out in front of him with his fingers laced together, the way he scowls at the world, and the intensity of the way he looks at you, the way he looks at me, that says Scary Indie Guy You Can’t Take Home.