Afterparty(79)

And I’m fine, completely fine. I eat lunch with two ballet girls that I barely know, and they’re kind of friendly. At the end of it, Kimmy sits down, takes her burger apart, and eats the bun, tomato slices, lettuce, and patty separately, all with ketchup.

She says, “Disgusting, huh?”

I’m not sure if she means the burger or her eating habits, but I agree.

I feel like master of the universe, like a person who can actually cope, in a riding-for-a-fall kind of a way.

I don’t have a clue.

Siobhan is still walking around entirely un-made-up, entirely hostile, although somewhat cogent when called on. I’m wondering if a former best friend can ever mount some sort of intervention that the other former best friend listens to.

I head up to the rocks to find her, but nothing.

I leave for home, the back way through the hills, and there she is, sitting cross-legged on the hood of Burton’s DeLorean, with a box of Gitanes on her lap, smoking something that doesn’t look much like a Gitanes.

I roll down my window.

I say, “You want a ride?”

“Sweet,” she says, “are you supporting me? Because no thank you.”

“Shit, Sib, you can’t drive like that!”

“Why not? Don’t you know how officially sober I am? Nancy found my stash. Ask me about home drug testing kits. Fuck my life.”

“So Gitanes is selling undetectable weed now?”

“Nancy’s take on it is I’m too young for major pharma, so I should stick to drinking.”

She takes a long drag on the joint.

“Siobhan! We’re ten yards from school!”

“So what? If you weren’t completely obsessed going Ooooooh, Dylan, baby, delude me some more, you might notice that they don’t actually care.”

She crooks her finger at me. “You want to talk to me, c’mere. I have something to shooooow you.”

I pull up in a no-parking zone and climb onto the hood of the car. Siobhan takes out her phone, and I’m seriously waiting for this to be a horrible picture of me doing something embarrassing. But it’s not. It’s William and a beautiful, emaciated girl walking along the street in Milan. Shot after shot after shot.

“Her name is Elisabetta,” Siobhan says. “And he claims that she’s his other half. Does that bitch look like half of him?”

They do look remarkably similar to one another, rich and emaciated and half asleep.

“He can’t just walk away from me and take up with a piece of Eurotrash!” she yells. “We have a pact! He can’t just walk away!”

But there he is, walking away down the Via Montenapoleone, carrying Elisabetta’s shopping bags.

“Sucks. I’m sorry.”

Siobhan stares at the photo. “Doesn’t she look trashy to you?”

“Totally.”

“Elisabetta von Koppenfels,” she says. “Sounds like some famous Nazi’s girlfriend.”

“She could actually be some famous Nazi’s grandchild,” I say. “Look at her.”

“This makes me feel so much better. You think he can be happy with a blatant Nazi but not with me.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“You think I’m not good enough for your widdle boy toy and I’m not good enough for William.” She is drumming on the hood of the car. “You think Dylan broke up with me.”

Which I do, obviously, because he did.

She grabs my arm. “Admit that’s what you think.”

I yank my arm away from her and end up jabbing her with my elbow. She steadies herself against the windshield so as not to fall off the car.

“You pushed me!” she shouts.

“It was an accident. Be rational!”

“I’m irrational and you are such a damn rocket scientist! Stop feeling sorry for me!” She is glaring at me with a level of rage not commonly seen on the faces of even former best friends. Not that I’ve had that many of them. “You’ve never been my real friend!” she yells.

Before she can come at me again, I’m off the car and standing in the street.

“What do you think is going to happen when your boy toy leaves?” she asks.

“You knew about that?”

“Duh. Why don’t you ask him who he was doing when he was pissed at you?” she hisses. “You are so stupid?!”

I get into my car, and I turn the key, and I just sit there for a minute watching her kick Burton’s car before I head down the street.





CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE


I CALL MY DAD AT Albert Whitbread. I say, “I can’t come home now.”

He says, “Why not?”

“This is the complete truth. I’m alone. I’m really upset. And I just want to drive around for a while.”

“Ems, I don’t want you driving around upset. What if I don’t come home until you phone me, and you have the house all to yourself?”

I say, “Wow. That’s so nice. But I just want to sit in my car.”

He says, “I don’t suppose you want to talk about it?”

“No! I mean, no thank you. But no.”

My dad sighs, “All right. But Ems, ten o’clock, or I’m tracing you with LoJack.”