A girl and a guy sat on the pavement to the right of me, leaning against the wall.
“You waiting for a car service, too?” the guy asked me.
“I’m looking for my friend. She’s on crutches.”
The woman pointed toward the water, bracelets jangling on her arm. “They went that way. To the pier.”
I started walking down the cobblestone street, trying to ignore my nervousness. In the middle of nowhere, in a neighborhood that didn’t seem particularly safe, and Celeste off with some guy. I kept thinking about what David said about her self-destructive decisions. I kept thinking about those bruises.
Then I thought about her strange fit of jealousy. Maybe my flirting with David had pushed her to get together with some random guy, just to feel wanted, or to get David’s attention back.
I came to the end of the street and heard rustling noises from down by the water. A damp, fish-scented breeze blew my hair across my face. I hoped to God the noises were from Celeste and not some waterfront rats. Or rats climbing all over Celeste’s body.
“Celeste?” I said loudly enough to scare them off.
More rustling. “Mmm?”
I could now make out her shape, sitting next to someone else on a big slab at the edge of the shore. I picked my way over rocks and chunks of concrete and waterlogged scraps of wood.
Surprise and relief hit me at the same time when I saw whom she was sitting with. “Whip! Hey! How did you get here?” I asked.
“This amazing innovation,” he said, lifting a cigarette to his lips. “It’s called a cab.”
“I think I’ve heard of that.” I turned to Celeste. “I was just checking to make sure you were okay.”
“Let me guess,” she said. “David sent you.”
“No. We were all wondering.”
“My brother,” Celeste said to Whip, “has an irrational fear that if I’m ever out of his sight, I’ll do something stupid like sit on a darkened waterfront with a totally untrustworthy male. While drinking alcohol. And smoking. So he has to send out his little minion to check up on me.”
“You said you’d only be a few minutes,” I pointed out, annoyed.
Celeste ignored me and kept talking to Whip. “Maybe she’ll get to give him a blow job for the information she brings back.”
My mouth fell open. “I—”
“The word’s always been Leena doesn’t do stuff like that,” Whip interrupted. “I know plenty of guys who’d be happy to hear otherwise.”
“David did not send me out here,” I snapped. I wasn’t even going to address Whip’s comment. “I came on my own because I couldn’t find you inside and I was worried. I don’t know where I ever got the idea that Celeste Lazar couldn’t take care of herself. Maybe it’s because every time I leave you alone in the dorm I come back and some horrible thing has happened to you.”
“God, Leena,” Celeste said. “I must have really hit a nerve. Did you already service David tonight? In the bar bathroom, maybe?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Is that your job?”
Oh my God.
The words rang in the air. I could not believe I’d said them. I didn’t know where they’d come from.
“Snap!” Whip said.
Celeste didn’t say anything. I was about to apologize when she starting making a strange noise. It took a second, but then I realized what it was. It was laughter. She was practically convulsing.
“Oh, sweet Jesus,” she said once she’d calmed down. “I had no idea you could be so funny.”
Was she being serious?
“I shouldn’t have said that,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“No,” she said. “It was funny. Real y. I’ll tell David. He’ll think so, too.”
I knew perfectly well David wouldn’t think it was funny. And I had a feeling Celeste knew he wouldn’t think it was funny, too.
“Look, just forget it. It wasn’t funny. Anyway, do whatever you want. I’m going back inside. It’s freezing out here.”
I tugged open the door just as David was coming out.
“What’s going on?” he said. “Did you find her?”
“Yeah. She’s okay.” Seeing David made me feel bad for what I’d said to Celeste, the tasteless joke. I prayed that she’d forget and wouldn’t repeat it to him. “She’s down by the water, with, uh, Whip.”
“Whip? What the hell is he doing here?”
“I guess she called him,” I said.
“You just left her out there with him?” David started to brush by me. The door closed behind him.
“David.” I gripped him by the forearm. “She’s fine. They’re just sitting there.”
“Are the bruises not enough proof for you that this is a really bad idea?” he said.
“Isn’t telling her not to do something the worst approach?” I said. “The more you tell her not to be with Whip, the more she’ll push it with him. Right?”
“That’s your assessment?” David said. “Reverse psychology. Very tricky.”
I took my hand off his arm. “Don’t be such a jerk. I’m just trying to help. If you want to know the truth, I don’t really feel like being in the middle of this sibling drama. But I don’t want to see you getting all upset at each other, either, especially when you might just be being overly protective.”
David looked out toward a bell clanging in the fog on the water.
“She likes to do the unexpected,” I said. “It’s too obvious for her to date some artistic, emo guy.”
“I don’t need you to tell me about my sister,” David said.
“Then why do you ask me about her all the time?” I pushed by him and opened the bar door, my eyes burning. Before going inside, I said one last thing in his direction. “Do what you want. Go down there and beat him up. That should help things.”
“So you think I should just do nothing?” he said. He sounded not mad, but genuinely upset.
“David,” I said. “You know that Celeste survived three years at Barcroft without you. I think the best thing you can do is to leave her alone and concentrate on your own life.”
He stared out at the low clang-clang-clang of the bell. The neon sign cast a soft, red glow on his face.
“What happened to all of that energy?” I said. “The energy that was going to go toward something other than worrying about her?”
“The energy?” he said, looking back at me.
“Yeah. In the car, remember? Where’d it go?” I tilted my head. “If you find it, I’ll be inside.”
Chapter 23
WE ALL STUMBLED INTO the Parker-Whites’ town house sometime after two a.m. Celeste disappeared up the elevator immediately, alone. Whip had gone back to Manhattan.
“Hungry, hungry, hungry,” Abby said. “How can I be so hungry?”
We moved en masse to the kitchen. Usually, I’d have been psyched to raid the pantry, but my stomach was too tied up to eat much. After our little … conversation outside the bar, David hadn’t gone to find Celeste and Whip; he’d come inside right after me, and had sat close and apologized and touched me in the ways that are socially acceptable in public—hand on knee, arm across shoulders, foot on foot. It had all been suggestive of more to come, and now here I was, confronted with a whole night in front of us, and nothing stopping us from spending it together.
Eventually, Viv and Cameron went upstairs.
“Want to watch a movie?” Abby said.
“Nah,” I said. “I think I’ll go to bed.”
David stood up and stretched his arms over his head, showing his stomach. “Me too.”
“Your loss,” Abby said.