Page 11 of The Debutantes
“Fuckyou.”
Normally, those two words are a term of endearment, our best expression of sibling love, but now they feel charged. Real.
Wyatt sighs, running a hand through his hair. A truce. “Do you want a ride home? I’m driving Lily.”
It’s as close as he’ll get to an apology, but it does nothing to soften the hurt still burning in my stomach.
“No,” I tell him sharply. “I’ll go with Mom and Dad.” I start to leave, but something stops me. I spin around to face him again. “You may think all this is lame, but I don’t. It’s a family tradition, it’simportantto me, and someone tried to ruin it tonight. So even if you don’t care, I’m going to deal with it. Like I always do.”
I’m almost halfway back to the building before Wyatt calls after me.
“Right. Because who wouldn’t want your help?”
It’s like a current down my spine, making me stand up straighter.Does he know?When I turn back around, Wyatt’s looking at me with that smug expression of his, the one that says he’s won every battle before it even starts, because that’s just how life works for him.
But he can’t know. There’s no way. Because if he did, we’d both have a shit ton more problems than we do right now.
I put on my bestbless your heartsmile, like the little Mom clone he thinks I am.
“Get home safe,” I tell him, and then, murmuring to myself as I turn away, “Hope your relationship makes it past the first traffic light.”
4APRIL
DECEMBER 29, 9:30P.M.
I press my forehead against the cool glass of the car window, watching the streets of Uptown pass in a green-and-golden blur. There’s a dull throbbing behind my skull, but I try to ignore it, focusing on the fact that we’ll be home in ten minutes. Then I’ll get to peel this dress off and try to wipe the past two hours from my memory.
“How’s the air?” Dad asks from the passenger seat. “Too hot? Too cold?”
“I think we’re just right, Goldilocks.” Mom reaches across the driver’s side to squeeze his shoulder with a warm smile.
They’re annoyingly cute for a couple who’ve been married almost twenty-five years. Sometimes, it feels like a slight from the universe that I, April Whitman, cynic extraordinaire, somehow ended up with two college-sweetheart parents who manage to run a real-estate business without becoming any less in love with each other. It defies the logic of both physics and America’s divorce statistics.
I’m mostly kidding. I’m glad my parents have such a goodrelationship. Really, it’s just that the least-perfect thing about them seems to be me.
“How ya doing back there?” Dad asks me. “You’ve been awfully quiet.”
“Just practicing my wistful gaze out the window,” I say. “You know, for when I’m a debutante child bride and my husband goes off to war.”
Dad laughs. “Well, you look beautiful.”
“Good. They’ll never know I’m hoping he dies in battle so I can inherit our massive country estate.”
“There’s the feminist, mildly sociopathic debutante I raised,” Mom teases, but she glances at Dad in that way of hers, a telepathic temperature check. Instantly, I feel guilty, remembering Dad’s beaming face as Milford dragged me around the ballroom. Dark humor has been my number-one defense mechanism through all this, but I’m worried it might actually be hurting Dad’s feelings.
“I’m glad I did it, though,” I say as convincingly as possible. Which is to say, not at all. I edit the statement, making it true. “I mean, before everything happened at the presentation, I’m glad we all got to hang out as a family, and stuff.”
“Me, too.” Dad smiles, but there’s a twinge of sadness in it. “Look, April, I know you only did this for your old man, and I’m so sorry it turned out to be such a mess.” He pauses, and I know he’s doing his own temperature check on me, wondering if he should change the subject. “Did you have some fun before, at least? I saw you chatting with Vivian Atkins up there. Are y’all getting to be friends?”
“Chatting” is a generous description, considering I could barely produce a single syllable. I feel a twinge deep in my gut,the same mix of guilt, shame, and frustration I get whenever my parents try to save me from my own hermitlike behavior. It’s no secret that I have no friends, which is due to a combination of social anxiety and, as I’ve told my parents hundreds of times, personal choice. The people at school aren’t exactly my type, with their rich-kid conformism and total lack of interest in anything outside of the Beaumont bubble. And sure, maybe Vivian seems a little more down-to-earth than some of the other popular kids, but she’s still one of Lily’s minions. To them, I’m just the weird, quiet girl with the camera, if I’m anything at all—and that’s the way I like it.
Because I’ve tried the alternative, and it was infinitely worse.
Still, I can’t handle the barely disguised hope in Dad’s voice.
“Yeah,” I lie. “A little.”
“That’s great!” He grins at me in the mirror, but it’s too put-on, fading as quickly as a camera flash. Already, I know what’s coming next. “I just can’t believe someone would pull a stunt like that. Those videos, like some kind of joke…”
