Tiny Bottles
Siri has circled the first and second floor of the main concourse building twice, assembling her New Year’s party team. I’ve managed to amass one troop of my own, and that’s Troy. I follow behind Siri, and he follows behind me, like some lame excuse for a processional.
I notice the mayhem has started to die down. The concourse is emptying. Where these people are all going, I have no idea. Perhaps to those blankets and meals that Claudia promised in her announcement.
The airport is vibrating on a different frequency now. The air no longer feels panicked and frenetic. It feels resigned. Everyone has accepted their fate. Everyone has hunkered down for the night.
Well, everyone except me.
Siri is still holding my precious phone hostage, which means she’s holding me hostage too.
Siri’s next (and I pray final) stop in her party planning mission takes us to the airport’s interfaith chapel. I didn’t even know airports had interfaith chapels.
“It used to just be called a chapel, but the Jews complained that was too Jesus-ish,” Siri explains as she pokes her head into the small room, checking to make sure it’s empty. “So they changed the name to ‘spiritual center,’ but the Bible-bangers thought that sounded too hippie.”
Satisfied that no one appears to be inside, Siri steps through the doorway and I follow after her.
The room is long and narrow with three rows of chairs all pointed to a vague, nondenominational shrine in the front of the room, lined with various scripture books of different faiths.
“They finally settled on ‘interfaith chapel,’ until the Muslims complained that there were too many chairs and no room to pray on the floor.” Siri points to the door we just came through. “So they built an Islamic masjid next door.”
She walks purposefully to a small supply cabinet, yanks open the door, and pulls out a handful of long, tapered candles that she stuffs into my backpack.
“Hey,” I protest. “You can’t take those. This is a house of worship.”
“Actually, it’s a room with chairs. I can take them.” She zips me up. “Let’s go.”
We leave the chapel and head to a different set of escalators. These are located across from the bridge that leads back to the A gates. Just as I’m about to step on, out of the corner of my eye, I spot Xander.
He’s huddled against a window, speaking tensely but softly into his phone while blocking his mouth with a cupped hand.
My heart unexpectedly lightens as my mind races through the implications.
He’s still here.
He didn’t leave.
Irrational Ryn didn’t send him packing for the hills . . . or the A gates, as it were.
For a brief moment I consider going over there. For an even briefer moment I consider apologizing. But those moments pass just as quickly as they came, and I turn back to Siri, who is already halfway down the escalator. That’s when I hear Xander’s voice, rising dramatically and echoing off the wall of the emptying concourse building.
“Will you shut up for one second and listen to me, Claire?” he bellows, the easy, laid-back quality of his voice gone. He’s at the end of his rope. That bottomless well of patience he seems to have is draining.
“I’m telling you, I didn’t say a word to anyone! I swear.” He pauses, listening. “I have no idea how they found out!”
Another pause. Xander’s whole body clenches like he’s a sponge trying desperately to hold on to those few remaining drops of patience. “I’m getting there as fast as I can. You can blame a lot of things on me, but you can’t blame me for a snowstorm.”
I suddenly have a burning desire to know who he’s talking to. His parents? A relative? A girlfriend?
The last option makes my stomach drop to my knees.
Of course he would have a girlfriend.
Strangely, it’s the first time I’ve even thought about it.
Lottie would have figured that out hours ago. Lottie would have found a sly way to sneak the question into the conversation. Lottie wouldn’t be standing here like an idiot, eavesdropping on what is clearly some kind of lovers’ quarrel.
Lottie wouldn’t use the term “lovers’ quarrel.”
“Who’s that?” Troy asks. He must have stopped when I stopped. Except he’s not even looking at me, he’s still staring down at his phone, presumably searching for more evidence to prove or disprove the Denver airport conspiracy.
I blink out of my trance and focus on him. “He’s . . . he’s . . .” But I suddenly realize I have no idea who Xander is. He’s not really a friend. I’ve known him for only a few hours. But he’s more than just an acquaintance. How much do I really even know about this guy? Hardly anything.
I return my gaze to Xander, huddled in the corner, and think back to the book I saw in the bookstore. The picture of Dr. Max Hale and Dr. Marcia Livingston-Hale with their well dressed, bright eyed son on the back. I know that’s not the Xander I met in the airport today. The person in that picture looked nothing like the guy in the Muppet shirt standing only ten feet away.
It strikes me then that something is off about this whole situation. About how desperate he was for me not to see that book. About the way he’s reacted every time I’ve brought up his parents. About the tense hunch of his shoulders right now as he practically curls around his phone.
It occurs to me that Xander might be hiding someone too. An irrational twin bound, gagged, and stuffed in a closet.
I peer back at Troy. He’s scrolling through some Web page on his phone. Without hesitation I snatch the phone right out of his grasp.
“Hey!” he shouts, trying to steal it back, but he’s small for his age, and I hold it high, out of his reach. “Give that back.”
“In a minute,” I say as I attempt to type above my head.
Troy jumps, trying to knock the phone out of my hand. “I’m going to call the authorities,” he threatens.
“Good,” I say confidently. “Then I’ll be able to tell them that I’m not really your sister and you’re an unaccompanied minor without a chaperone.”
He stops jumping.
I flash him a smug smile. “I just have to ask Google one thing.”
With a harrumph, he crosses his arms and, like the rest of the stranded passengers in this airport, reluctantly resigns to his fate.
I lower the phone and type in my first query in almost an hour.
Who is Xander Hale?
The last party I went to was with Lottie. Three months before she died. It was at Poker Guy’s house. I’d resorted to calling him Poker Guy, because I didn’t want to remember his name. Giving him a name made him real. Giving him a name gave him longevity.
I wanted him to be the shortest of any of Lottie’s phases.
I didn’t want to go. The idea of hanging out with a skeevy poker player and all of his skeevy friends was not my idea of a good time. But I didn’t want Lottie to go alone, either.
I assumed the guy was dangerous. I felt it was a safe assumption given the conditions under which they met. Underground poker games in the bowels of downtown Portland are typically not where great romances are made. I had flashes of the police finding Lottie’s body washed up on the shore of the Columbia River three days from now.
In the end, it turned out to be an innocent trip to the mall that killed her. Not a skeevy poker player.
Irony can make you feel like such an idiot sometimes.
The party was nothing like I expected. The house was actually nice. In a suburb. With mowed lawns and barbeques. I tried not to let the surprise show on my face, but Lottie saw it anyway.
“See?” she whispered as Poker Guy took our coats and led us inside. “You need to learn to start trusting me, Ryn.”
Trust was a tricky thing with Lottie. You never wanted to give her too much of it. You always wanted to keep some in reserve, just in case.
There were about thirty people packed into Poker Guy’s living room and kitchen. They all looked to be in their early twenties. The majority of them were men—clean cut and fairly innocuous looking—but I made a point to size up the few women who mingled among them. They definitely didn’t look like prostitutes, but I’d learned from watching a lot of television that you could never be too sure.
Poker Guy walked us to the kitchen and handed us each a bottle of beer. Lottie took a long pull from hers while I went to work peeling the label off mine.
“This is my friend Curt,” Poker Guy said, grabbing the collar of a well dressed man and spinning him around. He looked annoyed by the rough summoning, but when he saw the two of us, his scowl was instantly forgotten.
“Hello,” he said with that curious ring that comes with a less-than-subtle once-over.
“Hi, Curt,” Lottie trilled. “I’m Lottie and this is Ryn.”
Curt took a swig of his beer. I didn’t miss the eyebrow raise he shot to Poker Guy as he drank. A chill crept up my arms.
“Ryn,” Poker Guy addressed me, making me immediately want to change my name back to Kathryn. Or to something completely unpronounceable, like Kplxbmwkxv. “You and Curt should get better acquainted.”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, I knew what this was.
This was the getaway scheme. Distract the boring, less attractive friend so I can go make out with the hottie. But before I could protest, Lottie and Poker Guy were already shuffling off somewhere, his hand on the small of her back, her signature giggle trailing in their wake.
“So, what’s your story?” Curt asked.
“I’m in high school,” I said flatly.
He looked like I’d just slapped him in the face.
Buzzkill Ryn. That’s me.
“High school,” he repeated hoarsely before clearing his throat. “Like a senior in high school?”
Nice try, buddy.
“Nope. Junior. Seventeen years old. That barely even counts as legal adjacent.”
He took another sip of his beer. “Right. Okay.” Then he made a show of pulling his phone out of his pocket as though it had just conveniently started to ring. “Sorry, gotta take this.”
“Of course,” I said, happy to be rid of the pervy friend. The problem was, now I had nothing to do but wait until Lottie either finished her current activity or got pissed about something trivial and stormed off.
As I made myself comfortable on a couch and opened my favorite trivia game on my phone, I silently prayed it would be the latter.
But knowing Lottie, it was really anyone’s guess.
Who is Xander Hale?
The question felt different from the thousands I’d asked over the past eleven months and thirty-one days. This wasn’t a desperate attempt to ward off the ominous unknown.
This was a genuine curiosity. A genuine yearning to understand.
The search on Troy’s phone delivers several results. I scroll through each one, looking for something that would give me a better handle on this train-surfing, rabble-rousing, Muppet-shirt-wearing boy still hunched around his phone ten feet away.
I click on a Wikipedia entry for his parents first. Xander is listed in the section labeled Personal Life. But there’s not much there I haven’t already surmised on my own. He was born the same year as me. He lives in Los Angeles with his überfamous psychologist parents, who drew upon their experience raising him—their only child—as inspiration to write the Kids Come First book series.
There’s not much else.
I click back to the results and continue scrolling. I’m about to return the phone to Troy when I spot a link to a news article. It says it was posted only an hour ago.
The headline reads:
Kids Come First Authors’ Son Kicked Out of Prestigious Los Angeles Prep School
My eyes widen and my heart races a little faster as I click the link. It’s short. Only a paragraph, but it tells me everything I need to know.
Xander Hale, only son of renowned child psychologists and bestselling authors Dr. Max Hale and Dr. Marcia Livingston-Hale, has reportedly been expelled from the Archer Academy, an esteemed preparatory school in Malibu, California, known in the city for educating numerous children of celebrities and important media figures. The information comes from an anonymous source close to the Hale family, although the reasons for his expulsion are still undetermined. Representatives of the Hale family as well as the Archer Academy have yet to provide comment.
Shocked, I lower the phone.
The son of two of the most famous child psychologists got expelled from school? How does that even happen? Dr. Max and Dr. Marcia are supposed to be the end-all, be-all of parenting. If they can’t manage to effectively parent their child, how is there any hope for the rest of the parents out there? The poor, clueless souls like my mother, who can’t have a single meaningful conversation with her daughter about anything?
How is there any hope for me?
It must be some kind of misunderstanding. A mistake. He was framed by a jealous peer. Or unfairly targeted by a vengeful teacher. There’s no way he could have been expelled for a legitimate reason. The article said something about an anonymous source. Maybe someone is just spreading vicious rumors about him.
But then I flash back on the conversation I overheard just a minute ago.
“I’m telling you, I didn’t say a word to anyone! I swear. I have no idea how they found out!”
I glance up at Xander, who’s still crouched in the corner, scowling into his phone.
Is that what he was talking about? The expulsion?
Does that mean it’s possible he’s not on the phone with a girlfriend?
Xander lets out a frustrated sigh as he listens to the voice on the other end of the call and casts his eyes to the ceiling. On their way back down they land right on me, and I feel a strange sensation trickle through me.
His entire demeanor shifts. He stands up a little straighter. His scowl fades.
“Look,” he snaps to the person on the other end of the call. “I gotta go. I’m sorry, Claire, but I can’t help you.” Then he jabs at the screen and returns his phone to the pocket of his bag strap.
“Hey,” he says, walking over with a smile that I think is supposed to look casual but ends up just looking painful.
“What was that about?” I ask, even though I know it’s not my place. It’s not any of my business. If I’m going to attack him for asking me about my text message, I certainly can’t expect him to answer questions about his phone call.
Xander glances back at the corner he was just huddled in, as if he already forgot where he was. “Oh, that?” he says, his pitch slightly higher than normal. “Just more people trying to blame me for things I didn’t do.”
He looks pointedly at me with a look of accusation.
I open my mouth to . . .
To what?
Apologize?
Protest?
Yell again?
I’ll never know, because Xander chuckles and adds, “I’m kidding. Chillax. Who’s this?” He nods at Troy.
Troy doesn’t even bother introducing himself. He swipes the phone out of my hand and chirps, “I’ll take that, thank you very much.” Then he immediately goes to work, resuming his conspiracy search.
“That’s Troy,” I explain. “I’m sort of kind of responsible for him.”
“Sort of kind of not,” Troy argues without looking up.
Xander glances between us, clearly wondering what he missed in the time he’s been gone. He gives his head a little shake. “Okay, so what’s the plan?”
I glance over the railing at Siri, who is back on the ground floor, chatting up some guy. I assume he’s another airport employee she’s recruiting. “Siri has taken my phone hostage until I agree to go to some stupid New Year’s party she’s planning.”
“A party?” Xander asks, his face brightening. “Cool.”
“No. Not cool. I need to get my phone back. I need to—”
“You need to what?” he interrupts, and I notice the subtle edge to his voice. “You need to go home? You need to call a cab? Ryn, you’re stuck here. We both are. So why don’t you relax and just let go for a minute?”
His words ignite a flare of irritation inside of me. He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know anything about me. Who is he to tell me to relax?
“C’mon,” he coaxes, his voice lightening again to that playful, easy cadence. “I’m willing to bet all the money I have in my wallet that you’ve never been to a party before.”
He draws his wallet out of his back pocket and holds it up as proof that he’s serious about the wager.
I think back to the last party I went to. That horrible night at Poker Guy’s house.
I cross my arms. “I’ll have you know that I’ve been to lots of parties.”
“Fine,” Xander allows, his mouth twitching with the hint of a smile. “Then I’m willing to bet all the money I have in this wallet that you’ve never been to a party you’ve actually enjoyed.”
I expect to hear Lottie’s buoyant voice telling me once again how easily pegged I am, but she stays silent. I think she might be on strike. For what, I don’t know. But I have my theories and most of them revolve around that flight attendant. But I can’t deal with that now.
“You can’t change the bet,” I retort. “The stakes have already been set and you lost.”
The smile breaks free, overthrowing his scowl once and for all. “Fair enough,” he says, and opens his wallet, pulling out two wrinkled and worn dollar bills. “There you are. All the money in my wallet.”
I can’t help but laugh.
“Hey! Mopey Girl!” I hear Siri’s voice and glance over to see her running back up the escalator. She’s waving my phone in the air, and I feel my dread lift. Thank God. She’s giving it back. Finally.
I practically skip over to meet her. “Your phone’s ringing,” she announces when I get there. “It’s your mom. I’ll let you talk to your mom because moms are important, but then the phone goes right back in my pocket.”
This is my chance, I immediately think. I could do it. Take the phone and run in the other direction. Get as far away from these people as possible.
I look at Xander, who’s followed me over here, his eyes pinned intensely on me. I look at Troy, his attention still focused on his Web search. Then, finally, I look at harsh, abrasive, salty Siri who’s holding my beloved phone in her hand.
I can see my mom’s number flashing on the screen. I still haven’t responded to any of her latest texts about me being stuck here overnight. I can only imagine what that conversation will sound like. A whole lot of talk that results in absolutely nothing.
A whole lot of words that form sentences but no meaning.
The same dance of avoidance we’ve been doing for eleven months and thirty-one days.
“Last chance,” Siri says, brandishing the phone. “Do you want to answer?”
Ever so subtly, I shake my head and watch the screen change from the incoming caller ID to the pop-up message alerting me of a missed call.
Siri shrugs, returns the phone to her pocket, and spins on her heels. Xander follows after her and Troy follows after him.
I guess I’m going to a party.
I’d been at Poker Guy’s house for more than two hours and there was still no word from Lottie.
Is she dead in there?
Did he strangle her and climb out a window?
Is he already halfway to the Canadian border?
These were the questions streaming through my mind as I sat on the supple leather couch and played on my phone. I’d already won twenty-seven trivia games with random strangers across the globe and amassed more than ten trophies. The victories were all empty, though. They felt like placeholders for a life that I should have been living. Every time I started a new game, I told myself this one would be the last. After this, I would get up and talk to people. Make conversation. Ask someone about their day, their interests, their life. It’s not hard. Question. Answer. Question. Answer. That’s all a conversation is.
I promised myself I would be at this party instead of just existing at this party.
And yet every time I won and the little Play Again? bubble appeared on my screen, I always chose Yes.
I always chose wrong.
Occasionally, I would lift my head and watch the various partygoers chitchat and drink and laugh and then rearrange into different group formations and start again. They all made it look so easy to not be me.
Somewhere around eleven o’clock I finally managed to convince myself that this was just not my crowd. That they were all older and more mature and what would I have in common with them anyway? Probably nothing.
I gave myself an out, and I didn’t only take it. I leapt on it. I tackled it and wrestled it into submission like a wilderness expert wrestles an unruly crocodile.
The party began to wind down around midnight. Coats were gathered. Hugs were dished out. Sober friends helped stumbling, drunk friends toward the door.
I checked the message app on my phone. Still nothing from Lottie.
I decided to text her.
Me: Hey. Party’s almost over. Are you ready to leave?
Minutes passed before I heard back from her.
Lottie: You’re still here? I thought you would have left by now.
Me: I wouldn’t leave you!
Lottie: I think I’m gonna stay. Why don’t you go home? Pete will give me a ride in the morning. I’ll tell my mom I’m staying the night with you.
Staying the night?
I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all. Of course, I didn’t mind lying for Lottie. I’d done it countless times. But Poker Guy was bad news. Despite the fact that his friends had proved to be harmless, I could feel it in my bones. Lottie may have been blind to it, but that’s what she had me for. To be her Seeing Eye dog. To guide her around dangerous obstacles. To make sure she didn’t trip and fall.
Me: I think you should come home with me.
Another lifetime passed before she responded.
Lottie: But I’m having fun! I’ll text you tomorrow.
Frustrated, I stood up, jamming my phone into my pants pocket. How could I help her if she wouldn’t let me? How was I supposed to do my job—keep her safe—if she cut me loose?
Then a disturbing thought struck me. It felt so obvious that I chastised myself for not realizing it sooner.
What if that’s not Lottie texting me back?
What if Poker Guy had her bound and gagged in that room and was texting from her phone? Trying to get rid of me so he could finish whatever sadistic plot he had plotted?
The thought made me bold.
I marched down the hallway, knocking firmly on the door that I had seen Lottie disappear behind hours earlier. There was a shuffling on the other side. A repositioning of things.
“Who is it?” called Poker Guy. He sounded guilty. I felt vindicated.
“It’s Ryn. I need to talk to Lottie.”
More movement. A padding of footsteps. The door opened.
Lottie’s face appeared through the crack. She was purposefully hiding the rest of her body.
“What’s up, Ryn Ryn?” she asked. She had the loopy smile of Drunk Lottie.
“I . . .” I started the sentence, but I had nothing to finish it with. I hadn’t thought this all the way through. I had been so convinced that what I’d find on the other side of this door would warrant a call to the police, I hadn’t even considered any other scenario.
But as soon as I saw her face, as soon as I caught a glimpse of half-naked twentysomething Pete through the crack in the door, I knew what I had to do.
“Something happened,” I said, forcing the brokenness into my voice.
Lottie’s loopiness vanished. Sexy Drunk Lottie was replaced with Concerned Best Friend Lottie. “What?”
I looked down and whispered. “I can’t talk about it here. But I really need you to come home with me.”
She didn’t hesitate. “Give me three seconds,” she said. “Don’t go anywhere. Stay right by this door.”
I nodded, adding a sniffle for effect.
The door closed, and, true to her word, Lottie was back in record time. Her dress was on backward, her hair was a mess, and she was still putting on her shoes when she reappeared. She wrapped one arm around my shoulders and led me toward the front door. We didn’t speak the whole way.
I felt guilty for bluffing. For playing the only card I knew would win in a poker game against Lottie. The Ace of Friendship.
But seeing her in the passenger seat of my mom’s Prius, safely removed from that place, eased my conscience enough.
I didn’t know what I was going to say to her. Once again, I hadn’t thought it all the way through. We drove the first few minutes in respectful silence, but I knew it was only a matter of time before she asked. And I would have to show my true cards. I would have to admit that I bluffed her. I had stolen the pot with a risky bet.
But I didn’t care about that.
All that mattered was that I had won.
And this victory felt anything but empty.
It turns out airport parties are a lot like high school parties. Word gets around fast. Within an hour it feels like every single person who was once out there in the concourse is now packed into this tiny hotel room on the ninth floor of the Westin Denver airport hotel.
The decorations scattered throughout the room are suspect. They don’t seem to have any apparent theme. In fact, most of them don’t even seem to be decorations at all, but rather random items repurposed as decorations. A pendant necklace hangs from the ceiling over the makeshift dance floor, serving as the world’s tiniest disco ball. A collection of sparkly purses have been secured to the walls like bizarre modern art installations. A bobblehead of some politician I don’t recognize nods away on the desk-turned-refreshment-table. The candles Siri lifted from the chapel are scattered around the room, thankfully unlit. And sitting on one of the beds in the corner is an inflated female blow-up doll wearing a gray blazer, sunglasses, and bangle bracelets, and holding an e-reader.
Xander left to get a drink ten minutes ago and I haven’t seen him since. You would think it would be easy to keep track of someone in such a small room, but with this many bodies shoved inside, I can barely keep track of my own thoughts.
For the past twenty minutes Troy has been trying to explain to me the theory of Schrödinger’s cat. He doesn’t realize that I pretty much stopped listening nineteen minutes ago. I just occasionally nod and purse my lips like he’s saying something really fascinating.
“So you see,” he says, wheeling his hands in the air. “Until you actually open the box, the cat is both dead and alive, proving that multiple dimensions are a scientific reality.”
“Mmm,” I say in response.
“Which means there’s a version of this reality in which you aren’t even here. In which you were booked on a nonstop flight home and are now sleeping soundly in your bed.”
How do I get to that reality? I want to ask, but I’m afraid he might start talking about wormholes or time loops or some other timey-wimey Doctor Who stuff.
“I’m gonna get a drink,” I announce to Troy and push my way through the people, toward the refreshment table. Troy follows behind me, still talking passionately about the half-dead, half-alive cat.
The drink table has been completely looted. I search for something nonalcoholic. All I need right now is to get Irrational Ryn drunk. I find a half-empty can of Coke and pour the rest into a cup, taking small sips in an effort to make it last longer.
The desk is littered with countless tiny liquor bottles, all empty. It makes me think of the stash Lottie used to have hidden in her tree house. The one my mother still thinks belonged to me. Hundreds of bottles in every variety. Vodka, gin, whiskey, bourbon, rum. Lottie was running her own tiny saloon up in that tree house. She said she would steal them from her dad’s briefcase when he got back from business trips, but where did he get them?
Did he really buy tiny liquor bottles only to store them in his bag?
Or were they given to him? Perhaps by someone who worked on an airplane?
Lottie? I try. I don’t have high hopes that she’ll answer me. She hasn’t answered me in a while. I’m not sure if she’s mad or just running some strategic plot to get me to talk to people other than my dead best friend. I wouldn’t put that past her.
“How’s my favorite Mopey Girl?” Siri sidles up to me and bumps her hip against mine, spilling some of her drink in the process. I can tell she’s already tipsy. After being the only sober one at so many parties that Lottie dragged me to, you start to get a radar for these kinds of things. I’m probably more accurate than a Breathalyzer.
“You have interesting taste in decorations.” I motion toward the curiously dressed blow-up doll on the bed.
Siri giggles and I can smell the alcohol on her breath. “Everything you see here Jimmy got from the airport Lost and Found.”
I give her a scandalized look. “He stole from the Lost and Found?”
“Not stole. Borrowed. We’re gonna put it all back when we’re done.” She picks up a snorkel mask that’s been propped up on the refreshment table. “People leave the strangest things at airports.” She puts the mask on and then attempts to take a sip of her drink. The liquid runs down her chin, causing her to snort.
“So,” she says, holding her hand in front of the mask and miming a fish swimming by. “Are you having fun yet?”
I give her a fake smile. “Absolutely. Troy, tell Siri what you just told me.”
Troy’s face lights up with pride. He starts from the beginning. “Schrödinger’s cat, first proposed by Erwin Schrödinger in 1935, illustrates the quantum theory principle of . . .”
“Whoa, whoa,” Siri interrupts, holding her head. For a moment I think she might vomit, and I take a step back. “Nerd Boy. Why don’t you go find some other drunk chick to talk to about your Dinger?”
Troy does not look amused. “It’s Schrödinger and it has nothing to do with the male anatomy.”
“Well, at least he understands euphemism,” Siri whispers to me through her mask, but it’s loud enough for Troy to hear.
“I beg your pardon,” he huffs. “I have a physics degree from Stanford. I know a euphemism when I hear one, and I’m afraid that was not one. What you did was simply turn something you didn’t understand into a bad sex joke.”
I bite my lip to stifle a laugh.
“Bad sex joke?” Siri retorts, slurring her words slightly. “Okay, brainiac, let’s hear you come up with a better one.”
Troy rolls his eyes. “My mind is far too occupied pondering worthwhile concepts to waste any time conjuring up lewd jokes. That would be like asking a brilliant surgeon to use his hands to pick up trash on the side of the highway.”
“Well . . . ,” Siri begins gruffly but then quickly runs out of steam.
Troy is a child prodigy who also happens to be sober. Siri’s biting wit is no match.
“Well,” she says again as she lifts her mask to take a sip of her drink and then nearly spits it all over me as a thought comes to her. “Aha! Here’s a math joke for you, genius boy. What is 6.9?”
Troy flashes me a look. “Um, a rational number.”
“Ha! Wrong! It’s great sex interrupted by a period.”
Troy and I both get it at once, and we let out a simultaneous “Eeeww!”
Siri hoots with laughter. “You should see the look on his face!” she says to me.
“I can see the look on his face,” I remind her.
Her intoxicated brain catches up. “Oh, right. Well, you should see the look on your face!”
“This is a friend of yours?” Troy asks me accusingly.
“Not . . . exactly.”
“Hey!” Siri says, scowling again. “Why don’t you make yourself useful and go hook up with someone.”
For a moment I think she’s talking to me, and I’m about to open my mouth to argue, but then I see her gaze is pinned on Troy.
“I don’t have time for members of the opposite sex. I’m writing a dissertation on—”
“On how to be a virgin forever?” Siri guesses.
“He’s only fourteen,” I step in. “Let up a little.”
Siri rolls her eyes and scans the crowd through her mask. “So where is that hot boy toy of yours?”
Now I know she’s talking to me.
“He’s not a boy toy and he’s not mine.”
“But he could be.” She taps her head.
“I don’t know where he is,” I admit. And it’s true. I still haven’t caught sight of Xander since he left to get a drink.
“There he is!” Siri spots him for me, her face all lit up under the mask. I follow her gaze until I see him by the bathroom, talking to the barista who Siri recruited from the French café. I suddenly feel like someone just punched me in the gut.
He’s met someone.
Of course he has.
If Lottie were still talking to me, she would tell me that this was all my fault. That cute boys will only show interest for so long. That the game of hard to get is a delicate one. You have to give them just enough to keep them hanging on, otherwise, they’ll give up and try their luck elsewhere.
But it’s not like I care. It’s not like I was even interested. I’m barely emotionally stable enough for a relationship with my imaginary dead best friend. What would I do with a real, live boyfriend?.
“Oh no,” Siri laments dreadfully.
“What?” I turn my attention back to her. She’s still watching Xander.
“He’s talking to Mylee. That’s not good. She just got dumped. And whenever she’s emotionally vulnerable, she’s trouble.”
I feel panic rising up in my throat. I want to ask what kind of trouble she’s talking about. Trouble as in she’s a serial killer who murders cute boys in Muppet shirts? Or trouble as in she—
“Right now she’ll probably sleep with anything that walks.”
A thousand-pound stone rolls onto my chest.
“How old is she?” I ask, cringing at the obvious strain in my voice.
“Twenty. But she has a thing for younger guys.”
My grip on the cup tightens. This is ridiculous. Why should I care whom Xander hooks up with? It’s none of my business. The only thing that should matter to me is getting through this night, surviving 10:05 a.m., and getting home.
That’s it.
“You should really do something about that,” Siri tells me.
“Do something about what?” I play dumb, sipping the dregs of my soda.
Siri pulls the mask from her face and drops it onto the table. “That!” she says way too loudly, pointing to Xander and Mylee.
“Shhh!” I hiss, grabbing her arm and pulling it back down. Although I’m not sure why I’m worried about her volume. You can’t hear anything in this room.
“But you’re going to lose him!”
“I never had him!” This comes out way more forcefully than I intended.
“That’s not what I saw,” Siri insists.
I want so desperately to ask her what she did see, but it doesn’t matter. It’s too late. I can’t be here anymore. I’ve reached my party threshold.
“I need to go.” I pick up my backpack from the corner where I dropped it earlier and dart for the door, smacking right into someone walking in.
When I finally overcome the dizziness of the collision, I’m able to focus on her face. That’s when all the air gets sucked right out of the room.
It’s the redheaded flight attendant. She’s changed into different clothes—dark jeans and a low-cut top—and she’s let down her hair. It tumbles around her shoulders in long, fiery waves.
She looks more like Lottie than ever.
And following right behind her is the married man.