“It’s really pretty here,” his fiancée added. Izzy had straight dark eyebrows and straight dark hair. She always seemed very serious and intense to me, but it’s possible I was reading too much into the eyebrows.
They moved on to talk to Luke’s business manager. I helped myself to a glass of champagne and raised it to Luke, who had caught my eye from across the room. He blew me a kiss. I had definitely lucked out in the stepfather department. And not because Luke had become so rich and famous. Because he was Luke.
My grandmother beckoned to me. She’d had her hair blown out by a professional that morning, and it looked sleek and shiny, instead of frizzy and bumpy like it usually did. Between that and the neatly tailored blue silk dress Mom had bought for her, she looked great. “Are you sure you should—” she began, but then she saw something that distracted her. “Is that a piece of cheese? Why would she give that to him? He eats way too much dairy.” She ran toward Mom and Jacob.
George came up to me. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey. Were you waiting until my grandmother left to come talk to me?”
“She’s a lovely woman. I respect her enormously.”
“Try waking up with her in your room.”
“Words cannot express to what extent I’d rather not.”
“You get drunk enough, anything could happen.”
“I’m fairly certain not that.”
“That’s the same suit jacket you were wearing last night,” I pointed out, looking him up and down. “It looks better with the matching pants. And a shirt that doesn’t clash.” The funny thing was, he looked younger in the suit than he did in his usual jeans and oxford shirts, like a teenager borrowing his dad’s clothes for a prom. I forgot sometimes that he was only a couple of years older than I was; he felt a lot older because he was done with college already, and because he was so Georgeish.
“There’s sand in the pockets from last night,” he said. “I can’t figure out how it got there.”
“Lax immigration laws? You haven’t said anything about how I look.” I spun around so the ballerina skirt on my dusty-pink dress rose up slightly and then settled back down into place. “Nice, right?”
“You know what your problem is?” he said. “Low self-esteem.”
“A compliment wouldn’t kill you.”
“I could never flatter you as well as you flatter yourself.”
I folded my arms over my chest with a humph. “I take back all the nice things I said about your suit.”
“What nice things? All you said was it didn’t look as bad today as it did last night. Not that I remember asking for your opinion.”
“Does anyone help you pick out your clothing? Do you have a girlfriend?”
“Not at the moment. I’m sure that shocks you. What about you?”
“I have lots of girlfriends.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh, you mean like a girlfriend with a penis?” It’s possible the champagne was getting to me. “Nope. Never had one.”
“Seriously?” His surprise seemed genuine. “I would have assumed you went through a dozen a year. Aren’t you Miss Popularity?”
I wrinkled my nose. “I would never date in high school. It would be way too embarrassing to look back on.”
“Don’t you think that depends on who you went out with?”
“There isn’t a guy in my grade who I haven’t seen asleep in class with his mouth open and drooling. Ugh.”
“I hate to break it to you, but guys fall asleep in college, too. A lot.”
“I’ll skip all my morning classes so I won’t have to see them.”
Before he could respond, Jonathan and Izzy appeared at my elbow. Jonathan said, “Georgie, the manager thought I was you and wanted to know when they should serve dinner. Can you go talk to her?”
“Georgie?” I repeated with delight.
George moaned. “I can’t believe you just gave her more ammunition to use against me.”
“I would never!” I said. “I’m not like that. Georgiekins.”
“I’m going to go talk to the manager,” he said, stepping back. “And then I’m throwing myself in the ocean. Tell Mom and Dad I loved them, Jonny.”
“Jonny’s not embarrassing,” I called after him as he walked away. “Not like Georgie.”
“Poor Georgie,” Izzy said seriously. “He’s so sensitive.”
eight
I spent the next two days digging my toes in the sand while I read and dozed in the sun. They went by way too quickly; I blinked and we were packing.
I was hoping the mellow vacation vibe would stick around, but it was business as usual with George when he showed up for tutoring on Wednesday. “You’re going to take an entire practice SAT today,” he announced briskly as soon as he walked in the door. “We only have a week before school starts and we won’t be able to get as much done then. I want to pinpoint whatever you’re still struggling with so we can focus on it.”
“I’m not struggling with any of it,” I said, following him into the kitchen.
“Prove it. Take the test.”
“That takes hours!”
“Where else do you have to be?”
“I have a life, you know.”
“Want me to text your mother and ask her what she thinks?”
“It is so uncool to constantly be threatening to tell my mother on me. You know that, right?” I dropped into a chair. It had turned really hot, brutally hot, the kind of hot LA only gets in late August and early September. The air-conditioning was blasting throughout the house, but I was wearing my shortest shorts and a tank top because I could see how hot it was through the window.
“I’d hate to have you think I’m not cool,” he said stonily.
“Yeah, that ship has sailed. . . . Can I at least have Heather come do it with me so it’s more fun?”
“If it will cut down on the whining. I can print up two copies.”
I texted Heather and told her to come over but didn’t tell her why, because I didn’t want her to say no and I knew she hated taking tests.
She wrote back: Okay. My mom says we should pay for my half of the tutoring tho
Tell her you make me work harder and we should be paying you to come
That’s ridiculous
We’ll talk about it later
I didn’t want her money. George was my tutor and she only came as my invited guest, and that’s how I wanted it. I liked being the one in control.
Once he had finished printing up the tests, and we were just waiting for Heather to arrive, George started firing vocabulary words at me. “Define euphemism.”
“Polite word for something that isn’t polite. For instance, instead of saying that someone puked, I would say that they ‘prayed to the porcelain god’ or something like that.”
“Avuncular.”
“Behaving like an uncle to someone. Michael is very avuncular toward me. But when I marry his son, he’ll be more paternal. Do you want some tea?” I stood up.
“No, thanks. Fatuous.”
I put a tea pod into the coffee maker and hit the start button. “I’m not sure I can define it, but I’m pretty sure you’re an example of it.”
“Wrong,” he said. “It doesn’t mean wildly handsome.”
“Oh, well played, Georgie! You win that round.”
Soon after that, Heather buzzed in at the gate. “I have good news and bad news,” I told her as we walked along the hallway toward the kitchen. “The good news is we’re going shopping later.”
“And the bad news is that I can’t afford to buy anything.”
“Yes, you can. I’m treating.”
“Then the bad news is that it’s so hot, my car will melt before we leave.” She was dressed for the brutal heat in a pair of Daisy Dukes and a gauzy tee.
“Not that either.”
“Then what’s the bad news?”