Chapter 2
I hustle to my car near the back of the lot, keeping my head down, my bag tucked close to my side. I can’t hear the clicking of the camera over Michael’s stupid song—he’s trailing behind me still, the phone held out like an offering—but I imagine it anyway, my brain already racing ahead to what these pictures will look like, what the headline will say. Whatever it is, it will totally paint me as the bitch. In the past year since Ellie started dating Alex, I’ve learned that there’s basically nothing that’s not the girl’s fault in tabloid stories. Two months ago, Alex and Ellie went to some ship christening in Scotland, and Alex frowned and winced through the whole thing, which led to all these stories about how my sister was making him miserable, and that her demands for an engagement ring were tearing them apart.
The truth? Alex had fractured his toe that morning tripping down some stairs. The pained look on his face had been actual, literal pain, not sadness because his evil girlfriend was bumming him out.
Yay, patriarchy, I guess.
That’s what’s so weird to me about Ellie buying into the whole royalty deal. It’s built on crap like that. If she married Alex and they had a daughter and then a son? Guess who’d rule.
Yanking my car door open, I turn to face Michael. The song is ending now, and he pauses there, looking back down at his phone. I have a feeling he’s about to start the song over, and that obviously cannot happen, so I put my hand over his. His head shoots up, dark eyes meeting mine, and, ugh, he’s doing The Smile, which is almost as potent as The Hot Lean, which means I need to nip this in the bud right now.
“Is that your doing, too?” I ask, jerking my head toward the SUV, and he glances over. Michael is cute and all, but he’s a terrible liar—I still remember the social studies test incident five years ago in middle school—so when he looks genuinely surprised and shakes his head, I believe him and sigh with relief.
He’s still a douche who sold our prom pictures, but at least he’s not actively calling the paparazzi.
“Look, Michael,” I say now, painfully aware of the lens still pointed at us, at the sweat dripping down my back, at how my hair is sticking to my face, and how any makeup I put on this morning is a distant memory.
“We talked, okay?” I continue. “I get why you did it, and I hope the guitar is awesome and all you hoped it would be. But we’re done. Like. Really, really done.”
With that, I sling my bag into the car, slide into the driver’s seat, and shut the door on him. He stands there, phone in hand, and I look at my ponytail holder on his wrist again, wondering if I should ask for it back.
No, that would just make this whole thing sadder, really, and given that Mrs. Miller has finally reached Michael, he’s being punished enough. Her hair is trembling with righteous outrage, and as she shakes a finger at him, Michael—despite being a good head taller—actually cowers.
Which is fun to see.
I drive out of the parking lot, not bothering to look back in the rearview mirror.
The drive home doesn’t take long since our neighborhood is only a few miles from the store. It isn’t exactly the most scenic of routes, either. When my parents first moved to Perdido, it was actually kind of a cool place. I mean, as cool as a town in Florida that’s nowhere near the ocean can be. It was quirky and eccentric, full of artists and writers and old houses that people had painted nutso colors. Lime green, turquoise, a shade I thought of as “electric violet,” all slapped on these dollhouse-looking Victorian mansions and cozy bungalows.
But over the years, a lot of the cooler people moved out, and eventually beige started making its way back into Perdido. There’s a country club now, too, complete with a golf course—something that made my dad threaten to move. But while Perdido might not be the idyllic little artist community it once was, it’s still a nice place. Quiet, dull, and, as Mom was always pointing out, far enough away that it isn’t really worth visiting. Today’s photographer was the first one I’ve seen in months. There were better targets for the paps to go after.
Like, for instance, Ellie.
Beige had moved into Perdido, all right, but it still hasn’t crept into our neighborhood. My house is actually one of the more subdued on the block, a cheerful yellow instead of magenta or indigo. Tucked back from the street, it’s surrounded by banana trees and bougainvillea, the pink blossoms pretty against the sunshine-y paint. Wind chimes dangle from the porch, glass ones, wooden ones that sound like flutes, and the tacky shell-covered ones they sell in gift shops around here. Mom has a thing for wind chimes.
But it isn’t the wind chimes that catch my eye as I pull into the driveway. It’s the big SUV parked behind my mom’s.
Suddenly, the photographer back at the Sur-N-Sav makes sense.