Open Road Summer(61)

“Grey Gardens?”

“Yes.” Her smile widens. “I’ll write crazy songs, and you’ll take crazy photos, and we’ll start a collection of antique teacups and eat macarons for every meal. And we’ll dance a lot and not give a crap what anyone thinks about us.”


She’s laughing like this is an unreasonable idea. For someone who is such a dreamer, so imaginative in her songs and vision for her career, Dee is surprisingly bad at realizing she can do whatever she wants. “Sounds good to me. Let’s do it.”

The smile drops from her face. “I can’t just, like, get an apartment.”

“Of course you can.”

“But I love being with my family.”

“So you’ll stay at your parents’ house whenever you want. But you’ll also have a place in the city. You can wake up there and walk to a favorite coffee place and all the antique shops. You’ll have your brothers over to watch movies and eat junk. You’ve seriously never considered this? I think about it literally every day that I live with Brenda.”

“I guess once or twice. But I’m not even eighteen yet. And I don’t want to live alone.”

“So I’ll live with you.”

“But then you’ll go off to college.” She presses her forehead into her hand. “And I’ll hardly ever see you.”

“Well, if I go to NYU, I’ll get a studio apartment with the money I get from selling a kidney, and you’ll stay with me as often as you can. Or maybe I’ll attend Vanderbilt or Belmont, and we’ll go with the Grey Gardens plan in a Nashville apartment.”

“It would be like a sleepover all the time.” I can’t tell if she’s realistically considering it, but at least she’s entertaining the idea. “My business manager did mention that I need to think about investing, and my parents said real estate might be a good idea. Is that weird and codependent? Would you really move in with me?”

“Are you kidding me? Of course I would.” I hate to be a sap, but I’ve thought about this before. Girls will move across the country with a boyfriend they’ve known for less than a year, and people think that’s normal because it’s romantic love. But living with your best friend? Or, for Dee, staying close to her parents and brothers? I don’t think that’s weird or codependent. I think it’s basic: if you find people you love, you want to be near them.

Dee still looks lost, though. Her thoughts have created the perfect storm—career, love, family, independence, the future—and she’s flailing in the waves. “Sometimes I worry that my fans will think I’m obsessed with having a boyfriend. But I’m not. I just don’t want to come home to an empty house. I want to have someone to go out to brunch with, someone to stay up talking to really late.”

“Well, you have me.”

She nudges her shoulder against mine. “You’re not going to go off to college and make all these cool photojournalism friends and forget about me?”

“Nah. What’s that thing your mom always says? You can’t make new old friends?”

“Yeah.” Dee reaches her pinkie out, and I lock it with mine. “Wouldn’t want to anyway.”

A knock on the door jolts us both.

“It’s me,” Matt says. “I’m not going to interrupt best-friend time, but I need you to open the door. Delivery.”

We scoot forward on the floor, enough room for a person to slide in. Instead, it’s a white Styrofoam cooler, with Matt right behind it.

“Open it,” he says to Dee.

She peers inside, hesitant, and then gasps like it’s a trunk full of gold coins. “How did you get this?”

From inside, she pulls out a frosty pint of ice cream—Jeni’s Ice Cream, the best ice cream in the world and Dee’s one, true sugar weakness.

“I have my ways,” Matt says, holding out two plastic spoons. “One for you, and one for you.”

“Oh my God.” Dee cracks open the pint’s lid. “I could kiss you right now.”

I’m really not sure if she’s talking to Matt or the ice cream.

“Seriously,” I say. “How’d you do it?”

“Paid a production assistant to sprint down the street to a specialty grocery store I saw earlier.” He grins. “Or . . . magic.”

“Howidoono?” Dee tries to ask, but there’s a mound of Brown Butter Almond Brittle ice cream on her tongue. “How did you know I needed this?”

He gives her an “oh please” look. “I have a sister and a girl best friend. This is not amateur hour. Anyway,” he says, “I’ll leave you to your ice cream. See you in Baltimore.”

I tilt my head back, and he leans down to kiss me.

“Fank oo, Matt,” Dee says through another mouthful of ice cream.

“Don’t mention it.” He disappears out the door, then pops his head back in.

“And you,” he says, looking at me. “Don’t make plans for the day off tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay . . .” I furrow my eyebrows, suspicious.

“Okay, bye.”

I try to give Dee a “what was that about?” look, but she’s really busy mining a piece of almond brittle out of her ice cream. She pries it loose, but with a little too much force, and a huge chunk of ice cream hits her chest and slides down the coral dress. Her face registers shock for a split second, and then she bursts out laughing—that nerdy, middle schooler, goose honk of a laugh. She scoops up the glob and flings it at me, hitting my T-shirt. This sets me off, giggling uncontrollably because, what else can we do? We sit there on the floor while ice cream melts on our laps, laughing until we’re both crying. Laughter feels like our flotation device—it won’t pull us out of the storm, but it might carry us through, if we can just hang on.