Famous in a Small Town(24)

“Okay,” Brit said finally. “All right. I think it’s time we all get to know August a little better.”

“Everyone says that when they find out about my clarinet-size dick.”

Brit grinned. “Tell us all about yourself, August Your-last-name.”

She didn’t remember the last party: Shaw. Conlin. Hm.

“What do you want to know?”

“What’s your deal? Why are you here?”

“What kind of a question is that?” Dash said. “Why are any of us here?”

“Yeah, like what’s my cosmic mission?” August said.

“Why are you here in Acadia? With us, on this porch right now?” Brit replied.

“I mean, I’m on the porch because I followed Sophie.”

“We’re all here on the porch because we followed Sophie somewhere at some point in our lives, but like why are you here in town?” she pressed.

“What do you think of Acadia so far?” Flora added, and I silently thanked her. Sometimes she was the best at wresting control of a conversation from Brit, even if it wasn’t always intentional.

“It’s fine,” August replied evenly.

“You can be a little more enthusiastic,” I said.

“It’s …” He squinted up at the sky like he was consulting with it on an answer, before settling on “Unique?”

That was about on par with You seem really nice.

“You know, it’s actually not unique at all,” Brit said. “There’s another Acadia in California.”

I nodded. “We found it online. They’re trying to put their Acadia High School on the historical register. It’s that nice.”

“Sometimes we pretend what it would be like if we went to the other Acadia High School,” Flora said.

It had become a thing—our lives were better at Other Acadia.

Or at least they were different. It might not solve our problems, but it could give us new ones, Flora would say. No one loved the Other Acadia fantasy more than she did.

“What’s it like there?” August asked.

“Just like here,” Flora replied. “Except everyone has exactly what they want.”

“For real, what’s your deal, though?” Brit reached across me to poke August in the arm.

He didn’t respond, just got to his feet and nodded toward Terrance. “You want to introduce me to some people?”

“I don’t know any other people,” Terrance replied, deadpan. “That’s the only reason I’m here.” But he stood too and followed August inside.

Brit leaned in to me when they left. “Don’t worry. I’m gonna wingman the shit out of this for you. This right here—still laying the foundation.”

“Thanks, but I’m good.”

“You are,” she replied. “Too good.”





fifteen


Flora and I ended up standing on my front lawn with August at the end of the evening, having left Terrance and Dash behind to deal with Brit.

“Sleepover?” Flora said, when August had retreated to the Conlins’ house. I nodded.

I stopped at home and said hi to my folks, changed into my pajamas, then headed next door. The front door was open—Mrs. Feliciano was on the couch, watching TV, her phone pressed to her ear. She waved when she saw me, then gestured in the direction of Flora’s room.

The bathroom door was shut, light seeping out from underneath when I stepped into the hallway, so I headed into Flora’s room.

She was an only child—never had to share a room. Even Brit and Luke shared when they were little, before Luke got the basement. And I had shared with Ciara almost my whole life, until she went off to college.

I remember watching Ciara taking her clothes out of the closet, piling them into a suitcase. Isn’t it nice you’ll have more space? You can spread out.

I didn’t want to spread out, if it meant filling the places she had existed before.

I sat on Flora’s bed while she was in the bathroom and fussed with my phone for a moment. I hadn’t messaged Megan yet today, so I did that quickly—Hi, this is Sophie from the Marching Pride of Acadia and we would love to host you for our annual fall festival …

Then I set my phone aside.

Flora’s room was a little like a time capsule. It had the same wallpaper runner around the top of the room as it did when we were little kids: cartoon sheep jumping over fences, rolling green hills behind them. Newer interests were layered over older ones—hand-painted pictures and drawings were partially obscured by magazine tear-outs of pop stars, which were partially obscured by movie posters.

On the shelves by her window were stacks of books, piled high and color-coordinated. One shelf was dedicated to Flora’s miniatures—a tiny café, a little bookstore, a bakery with shelves filled with tiny cakes and macarons and teacups.

It’s not exactly right to say I worried about Flora. But she was just so … soft sometimes, so unguarded. We begged our moms for these knockoff American Girl dolls when we were younger and Flora still had hers, all of its clothes and accessories. Sometimes—rarely, but still, every now and then—I would come over and it would have a new hairstyle, or be wearing a different jacket.

There’s no expiration date on that kind of stuff, not a spoken one, anyway, but whatever it was that crushed it out of the rest of us—made Terrance and Dash put down their Power Rangers action figures and never pick them back up again—I don’t think it had happened to Flora yet.