Carolyn looked down at her gold-flecked dinner plate. “It’s not really that hard.” Emily could tell she was flattered.
They eased into small talk, about school, the Rosewood Stalker, Hanna’s hit-and-run, and then California—Carolyn wanted to know if Maya knew any kids who went to Stanford, where she’d be attending next year. Topher laughed at a story Maya told about her old neighbor in San Francisco who had had eight pet parakeets and made Maya parakeet-sit for her. Emily looked at all of them, annoyed. If Maya was so easily likable, then why hadn’t they given her a chance before? What was all that talk about how Emily should stay away from Maya? Did she really have to run away for them to take her life seriously?
“Oh, I forgot to mention,” Emily’s father said as everyone received their dinners. “I reserved the house in Duck for Thanksgiving again.”
“Oh, wonderful.” Mrs. Fields beamed. “Same house?”
“Same one.” Mr. Fields stabbed at a baby carrot.
“Where’s Duck?” Maya asked.
Emily raked her fork through her mashed potatoes. “It’s this little beach town in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We rent a house there every Thanksgiving. The water’s still warm enough to swim if you have a wet suit.”
“Perhaps Maya would like to come,” Mrs. Fields said, primly wiping her mouth with a napkin. “You always bring a friend, after all.”
Emily gaped. She always brought a boyfriend, more like it—last year, she’d brought Ben. Carolyn had brought Topher.
Maya pressed her palm to her chest. “Well…yeah! That sounds great!”
It felt like the restaurant’s faux stage-set walls were closing in around her. Emily pulled at the collar of her shirt, then stood up. Without explaining, she wound her way around a pack of waiters and waitresses dressed up as the characters from Rent. Fumbling into a bathroom stall, she leaned against the mosaic-tiled wall and shut her eyes.
The door to the bathroom opened. Emily saw Maya’s square-toed Mary Janes under her stall door. “Emily?” Maya called softly.
Emily peeked through the crack in the metallic door. Maya had her crocheted bag slung across her chest, her lips pressed together in worry. “Are you okay?” Maya asked.
“I just felt a little faint,” Emily stammered, awkwardly flushing and then walking to the sink. She stood with her back to Maya, her body rigid and tense. If Maya touched her right now, Emily was pretty sure she would explode.
Maya reached out, then recoiled, as if sensing Emily’s vibe. “Isn’t it so sweet your parents invited me to Duck with you? It’ll be so fun!”
Emily pumped a huge pile of foamy soap into her hands. When they went to Duck, Emily and Carolyn always spent at least three hours in the ocean every day bodysurfing. Afterward, they watched marathons on the Cartoon Network, refueled, and went into the water again. She knew Maya wouldn’t be into that.
Emily turned around to face her. “This is all kind of…weird. I mean, my parents hated me last week. And now they like me. They’re trying to win me over, having you surprise me at dinner, and then inviting you to the Outer Banks.”
Maya frowned. “And that’s a bad thing?”
“Well, yes,” Emily blurted out. “Or, no. Of course not.” This was coming out all wrong. She cleared her throat and met Maya’s eyes in the mirror. “Maya, if you could be any kind of candy, what kind would you be?”
Maya touched the edge of a gilded tissue box that sat in the middle of the bathroom’s vanity counter. “Huh?”
“Like…would you be Mike and Ike? Laffy Taffy? A Snickers bar? What?”
Maya stared at her. “Are you drunk?”
Emily studied Maya in the mirror. Maya had glowing, honey-colored skin. Her boysenberry-flavored lip gloss gleamed. Emily had fallen for Maya as soon as she’d laid eyes on her, and her parents were making a huge effort to accept Maya. What was her problem, then? Why, whenever Emily tried to think about kissing Maya, did she imagine kissing Trista instead?
Maya leaned back against the counter. “Emily, I think I know what’s going on.”
Emily looked away quickly, trying not to blush. “No, you don’t.”
Maya’s eyes softened. “It’s about your friend Hanna, isn’t it? Her accident? You were there, right? I heard that the person who hit her had been stalking her.”
Emily’s canvas Banana Republic purse slipped out of her hands and fell to the tiled floor with a clunk. “Where did you hear that?” she whispered.
Maya stepped back, startled. “I…I don’t know. I can’t remember.” She squinted, confused. “You can talk to me, Em. We can tell each other anything, right?”
Three long measures of the Gershwin song that was twinkling out of the speakers passed. Emily thought about the note A had sent when she and her three old friends met with Officer Wilden last week: If you tell ANYONE about me, you’ll be sorry. “No one is stalking Hanna,” she whispered. “It was an accident. End of story.”
Maya ran her hands along the ceramic sink basin. “I think I’m going to go back to the table now. I’ll…I’ll see you out there.” She backed out of the bathroom slowly. Emily listened to the main door waft shut.
The song over the speakers switched to something from Aida. Emily sat down at the vanity mirrors, clunking her purse in her lap. No one said anything, she told herself. No one knows except for us. And no one is going to tell A.
Suddenly, Emily noticed a folded-up note sitting in her open purse. It said EMILY on the front, in round pink letters. Emily opened it up. It was a membership form for PFLAG—Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. Someone had filled in Emily’s parents’ information. At the bottom was familiar spiky handwriting.
Happy coming-out day, Em—your folks must be so proud! Now that the Fields are alive with the sound of love and acceptance, it would be such a shame if something happened to their little lesbian. So you keep quiet…and they’ll get to keep you!—A
The bathroom door was still swinging from Maya’s exit. Emily stared back at the note, her hands trembling. All at once, a familiar scent filled the air. It smelled like…
Emily frowned and sniffed again. Finally, she put A’s note right up to her nose. When she breathed in, her insides turned to stone. Emily would recognize this smell anywhere. It was the seductive scent of Maya’s banana gum.
22
IF THE W’S WALLS COULD TALK…
Thursday evening, after a dinner at Smith & Wollensky, an upscale Manhattan steak house Spencer’s father frequented, Spencer followed her family down the W Hotel’s gray-carpeted hallway. Sleek black-and-white Annie Leibovitz photographs lined the halls, and the air smelled like a mix between vanilla and fresh towels.
Her mother was on her cell phone. “No, she’s sure to win,” she murmured. “Why don’t we just book it now?” She paused, as if the person on the other end was saying something very important. “Good. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” She clapped her phone closed.
Spencer tugged at the lapel of her dove-gray Armani Exchange suit—she’d worn a professional outfit to dinner to get into award-winning essayist mode. She wondered who her mom was talking to on the phone. Perhaps she was planning something amazing for Spencer if she won the Golden Orchid. A fabulous trip? A day with a Barneys personal shopper? A meeting with the family friend who worked at the New York Times? Spencer had begged her parents to let her be a summer intern at the Times, but her mother had never allowed it.