“Woooow,” I said, absorbing the information. “She’s finally dumping him? After, what, like a zillion years?”
“She’s realized she deserves to be treated better,” Jacinta said. “She’s realized she deserves everything she’s ever dreamed of. Besides, she’s going to break so huge at Fashion Week this year that she won’t need him, or her family’s money, or anything. She’ll be booked for months, and the months will turn into years, and she’ll make so much money as a supermodel.”
“As a supermodel,” I repeated dubiously.
“She’s going to finish out her senior year at Trumbo, and then we’re going to rent an apartment together in Brooklyn.”
“Together? In Brooklyn?” I tried to picture Delilah Fairweather living in, or even going to, Brooklyn. It was an image I couldn’t summon no matter how hard I tried.
Jacinta was still talking. “. . . and we’ll have a garden in the backyard to grow some of our food, and of course, if she wants to go to college, she can go to NYU or Columbia, and I’ll keep up with my blog and I’ll be much closer to the designers, being in New York instead of Florida.”
“Florida?” I was confused. “Why would you be in Florida?”
Jacinta looked flustered. “Oh—um—well, you know, Miami is one of the fashion capitals of the world. I was thinking of spending some time down there to, you know, enjoy the weather.”
“Okay,” I said. “So, Brooklyn, then. With Delilah. In an apartment. Together.”
“Yes,” she said confidently. “We’ve figured it all out.”
“And until then, you’ll. . . what, live in the city?”
Her bright smile dimmed a bit. “That part I’m not quite sure about. Delilah’s going to see if I can stay in one of their spare rooms for a while.”
“And do her parents. . . know about you two?”
“They know we’re friends. That’s all they need to know. And they’ll come around eventually, once they do know.”
“Right,” I said, even though she was so obviously, utterly, completely wrong. “I noticed you haven’t had any parties lately. Is that because of Delilah?”
“Sort of. I just don’t want too many people asking questions. It’s very important to her that it stays as private as possible. It’s different for her than it is for me. I don’t have any—my parents couldn’t care less. They’re fine with whatever I do. Very European attitude. But her parents are more—opinionated. Conservative.”
“Of course,” I said. I had a very strong feeling that Senator and Mrs. Fairweather would prefer to be swallowed whole by a monster than to have their picture-perfect, all-American image besmirched by a lesbian daughter. But I wasn’t about to say so to Jacinta.
“I’ve even let my housekeeper go. I just want to have as much time with Delilah as I can before the summer is over.”
“So who cleans the house?”
She laughed. “Um. . . no one, really. But there are only two of us ever there, so it hasn’t gotten too messy just yet.”
Her phone buzzed. She looked at it, and her face lit up. “Delilah will be over soon,” she announced, as if I wouldn’t know who was texting her. “I’d better get back. But you’ll come tomorrow night? To Delilah’s house, at seven?”
“Of course,” I said. “It’ll be good to see Jeff, too. I haven’t seen him as much since the summer golf league started. He’s busy practically every day.”
“Then we’ll all have a wonderful time,” Jacinta said. She kissed me on the top of my head before bounding across the lawn, back to her castle.
Once Jacinta was safely out of earshot, I actually dialed Skags. She picked up.
“Hello, trust-fund baby,” she said, yawning. “Thanks for remembering I exist.”
I felt bad, but I didn’t know what to say. So I pretended I hadn’t heard the last part. “You sound like you just got out of bed.”
“I’m still in bed. I was out all night with Jenny Carpenter.”
“Doing what?”
“Driving along the lake.”
“What?!”
“You heard me. Driving along the lake. What’s weird about driving along the lake?”
“With Jenny Carpenter? Only, like, eighteen thousand things.”
“Well, she’s actually very smart and interesting,” Skags said primly. “There’s a lot going on underneath the surface there.”
“Skags,” I said. “She’s a cheerleader.”
“That’s just because she’s really interested in dance. Experimental dance, actually. Have you ever heard of this group Pilobolus? They’re a modern dance troupe out of the Northeast somewhere, maybe Yale or something, and they do the most amazing stuff. We watched all these YouTube videos about them at Jenny’s house the other day.”
“At Jenny’s house?” My world was spinning. “Jesus Christ, is everyone a lesbian now?”
“Yes, Naomi,” Skags said. “Everyone is a lesbian now. Except for you, the lone straight person carrying the banner of heterosexuality forward for the sake of the future of the human race. You’re like a saint. A really boring, heteronormative saint. Who goes to fancy parties and never calls me.” Again, I decided to ignore the jab. She was completely right, after all. And apparently, while I’d been ignoring her, Jenny Carpenter had been doing the exact opposite.
“You are not gonna believe what happened here the other night,” I said.
“Does it involve that one girl queering off with the other girl?”
“Well—yeah. How did you know that?”
“Duh. Anyone could see that was going to happen.”
“Really?”
“Oh, totally. Now give me all the details.”
I explained as much as I could while Skags listened. By the time I was done, she’d reached a conclusion.
“Oh, they’re not really gay,” she said.
“Since when are you the authority on gay?” I asked, even though Skags pretty much was the authority on gayness, at least at our school.
“No offense, Naomi, but you don’t know shit about women.”
“I am a woman,” I said defensively.
“The point is that I understand chicks better than you do. And what Delilah and Jacinta have is not a real relationship. They are mutually obsessed. Well, Jacinta is obsessed with Delilah, and Delilah is also obsessed with Delilah, so it all works out for them.”
“I’m pretty sure they have sex,” I said.
“Okay, can I get real with you for a second? If they do have sex—and I really doubt they do, given Republican Barbie’s natural inclination toward straight white douches like her dad—it is all Jacinta doing stuff to Delilah.”
“Eww,” I said. “TMI.”
“How is it TMI?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t want to picture it.”
“Well, I’m sorry I offended your delicate WASP sensibilities, but that’s my take on it. Jacinta wants to be Delilah, and Delilah wants to be worshipped. I gotta go—Jenny and I have a tennis date.”
“Have you guys even, like, kissed yet?” I asked, even though I didn’t usually like to know the details of Skags’s encounters (I still kind of thought of her as a little kid, even though we were obviously all grown up).
“I’m not going to go into that with you, Naomi,” Skags said airily. “It’s not like you’ve been particularly interested in what’s going on with me this summer. I haven’t even told you about my plans for the all-school LGBTQ BBQ in September, or the fact that I’ve basically locked down an internship with the mayor’s office this fall.”
“That’s awesome,” I said sincerely.