Chapter 12
“Please come with me,” I beg Evie after school on Tuesday.
We’re sitting in Starbucks, each of us trying a different fall drink Evie saw recommended on TikTok. She knows I’ve cut Starbucks
mostly out of my budget, so whenever we come, she treats me. I feel grateful but also guilty, like I’m doing something wrong
by letting her pay for me. Evie always just laughs and calls herself my sugar mommy. Today, I get a pecan oat milk cortado.
Pecan pie is my favorite Thanksgiving dessert, and the drink delivers the same rich, spicy flavor. Evie got an iced vanilla
chai with pumpkin cold foam. Hers is too sweet, so she keeps taking sips of mine.
Even though Chelsea is going to be there, I texted Ben last night and told him I’d love to come over on Friday after I’m done
babysitting, if that was still okay. He texted me back within minutes.
BEN:
It’s more than okay, Hopper.
“I’m going to a poetry slam with Dylan. Why don’t you come with us?”
“Eddie will be sad if I’m there and you aren’t.”
“Eddie’s visiting his grandma in Atlanta this weekend. Why do you even want to go?”
“Because I do. And I’m calling best friendship on this one,” I say, parroting her words back to her from this weekend. “You
owe me a party. Plus, I’m not even going until later, like ten. I have to babysit first. You can still go to the poetry slam
with Dylan first.”
“You know I turn into a pumpkin after eleven,” Evie says.
“Best friendship,” I remind her.
Evie bats her eyelashes at me. “Is Luke coming?”
“No. He isn’t invited.”
“Good call. Chelsea would find a way to make out with him, and we can’t let her have the satisfaction.” Evie grabs my drink
and takes another sip. “And fine. I will go to Ben’s with you, but after this, we’re even.”
I get as much work done on Tuesday night as possible, since we probably won’t do much homework at Eddie’s tomorrow. As I work,
I wonder what Luke’s doing. I wonder where he’s staying. Did he rent a house? Probably. There aren’t a ton of hotels in the
area, let alone any luxurious ones, so I doubt Luke is living at the Hampton Inn for two months.
I pull up his number to text and ask him. Purely out of professional curiosity.
ME:
I forgot to ask earlier, where are you staying while you’re here?
I click off my phone and turn it upside down. Luke and I both got cell phones when we were eleven, and whenever we weren’t
together we would text each other constantly. Our texts were more of a nonstop, ongoing conversation. I wish I still had logs
of the messages, because what did we even have to talk about back then? Everything, apparently.
He doesn’t text me back for the rest of the night. Of course he doesn’t. We aren’t friends like that anymore. I don’t even
know why I brought it upon myself to text him in the first place.
Before I go to bed, I search “Lucas Cordova girlfriend.”
There are lots of hits. There are paparazzi pictures of him kissing his old costar from the HBO miniseries last year, on a
curb in LA, before they broke up.
I click into a more recent article about him. I check the date; it’s from a couple of weeks ago. The article is about Luke
and Ana?s Labrie. The pictures are fuzzy, as if shot from a distance. Objectively there’s nothing romantic going on in them.
They’re sitting at a café in LA, eating a meal together. But from the way she’s leaning over, touching his arm, there could
be more.
I delete my history and close my computer. This will be the last time I search for him online. Just because his life is splashed all over the internet for public consumption doesn’t mean I should consume it.
When I wake up, there’s a response from him. He texted me back at 5:47 in the morning.
LUKE:
Some house like ten minutes from you
That’s all it says. Good to know, I write back, and don’t text anything else beyond that.
All through the school day on Wednesday, I have the creeping feeling that I’m making a terrible mistake by letting my two
worlds mix. During last period, it reaches a fever pitch, and I try to come up with a good excuse to not bring Luke over to
Eddie’s house, but they all feel weak. And no matter what I do, it’s probably going to happen eventually. Evie’s like a bulldog
in that way.
So it’s probably best to just grin and bear it.
Finally, the last bell rings. Evie, Eddie, and I meet out front. Evie keeps bouncing on the balls of her feet and palming
her French braids, as though checking to make sure they’re still in place. Eddie’s trying to play it cool, but I can tell
by his freshened-up edges that he’s put some thought into his appearance, too.
Unlike Evie and me, Eddie did win a spot in the parking lottery, which means he can park at school every day, not just on Fridays.
We take his ancient car to his house, where Luke is meeting us.
When we sputter into the driveway, part of me expects the wheels to give out in a cloud of dust, like in a cartoon.
Eddie lives in one of the nicest houses in Glenridge, so his car looks incredibly out of place in the driveway next to his mom’s Tesla and his dad’s BMW.
Both of his parents are self-made, and Eddie says they want him to learn the value of starting from the bottom.
Which explains his 2003 Honda Civic that sounds like it’s gasping its last breath whenever he turns it on.
I’m waiting for Evie to pop the front seat so I can climb out when Luke arrives, looking every bit the movie star in dark
sunglasses with the top off the Bronco. Today was in the low sixties, a fact Evie has been happily sighing about all day.
She immediately forgets about me and starts skipping down the driveway.
“Hi, Luke!” she calls.
I look around to see if Eddie’s coming to help me, but he’s following Evie.
“Hello?” I call out, but they don’t hear.
I struggle to release the front seat as Luke hugs Evie hello and gives Eddie that palm-grasp-shoulder-bump greeting that boys
do with each other.
“Where’s—?” Luke is saying right as I tumble out of the back seat.
Evie turns and laughs. “Oops. Sorry, Claire.”
“Don’t worry about me,” I say as I disentangle my bag from the back of the car. “I’m a strong, independent woman.”
Neither of Eddie’s parents are there, so we have the house to ourselves. The entire front is decorated for autumn, but tastefully,
the stairs up to the door covered in a sea of pumpkins of all shapes, colors, and sizes, warty gourds, and bales of real hay.
Inside, a pumpkin-shaped Le Creuset pot sits displayed on the stove. The house smells amazing, like cinnamon apple cider,
which must be coming from the glass scent diffusers placed tastefully on various surfaces. We grab drinks and snacks from
the kitchen, and then head to the basement.
Eddie’s basement is incredible. It has a projector with a screen that’s at least ten feet across. There’s a gaming setup,
a vintage pinball machine, and a bar (with dozens of bottles of high-end liquor in a cabinet that Eddie’s parents keep locked
tighter than Fort Knox). There’s even a dartboard and leather bar stools that swivel.
“Quite the setup,” Luke says once we’ve made our way down the stairs. “I can see why you guys hang out here every week.”
Eddie gives me and Evie a confused look, but Evie pretends not to see.
Eddie is stiff at first, talking in a voice that’s a level or two deeper than normal. Evie keeps widening her eyes at him,
and he keeps shrugging her off.
“Luke, Eddie’s an artist, too,” I tell him, trying to get a normal conversation going.
“You say that like I’m a real artist.” Luke laughs. “I’m not. I just mess around with drawing sometimes.”
“That’s not true.” To Eddie, I say, “Luke used to make this comic strip when we were little called ‘Waspman.’ It would make
for such a great graphic novel.”
Luke shakes his head. “Let’s not talk about ‘Waspman.’”
After that, it starts feeling much less stilted. Eddie admits he used to draw a Spider-Man fanfic comic before he got more
into abstract painting. Eventually they move on to video games. They play NBA 2K, and I’m sitting on the floor as Evie braids my hair. Luke isn’t good at the game at all and keeps getting frustrated, which
is endearing. I begin to relax, to let down my guard.
That is, until Evie says, “So, Luke. I want to hear about little Claire. She barely talks about growing up in LA, and I’ve
only ever seen, like, three baby pictures of her.” She pokes my neck. “Even at her house, all the pictures are like she and
Nicky popped into existence when they moved to Connecticut.”
Her tone is joking, but I go perfectly still, which makes me more aware of Evie’s fingers deftly working on my hair.
“Let’s see,” Luke says. “For starters, she wasn’t very good at chess.”
“Not good enough, Cordova,” Evie says. “I want details. The juicier the better.”
“It’s not that interesting,” I manage to say. “I was a weird, awkward little kid. End of story.”
I can feel Evie about to protest when Luke says, “First of all, that’s not true. And second, I do have one for you. So Claire, as you can imagine, was skinny as a kid. All legs and arms. Like a baby horse.”
“Foal,” I say. “A baby horse is a foal.”
Luke rolls his eyes, which allows Eddie to get in a three-pointer. Luke swears. “Baby horse. Foal. Whatever. So we were at
one of those chess tournaments, and another kid was bragging about how he’d never lost a race at school, not since he was
five. Even though he was at least three years older and five inches taller, Claire stepped up and challenged him to a race,
right there. There was something about her confidence that was so unshakable, and her legs were so long, that the other kid
shrank down like two feet. He didn’t want to, he even tried to get out of it, but we all forced him to. So they raced.” Luke
starts to laugh. “And he absolutely smoked her. I think he lapped her twice. She didn’t stand a chance.”
Evie and Eddie both crack up.
“Shut up,” I mutter, but I’m smiling.
The story he’s telling is true, but the details are different. This really did happen, but it was on set, and it was with
a couple of other actors who played our classmates at school. He blends the fact and fiction together so seamlessly. He is
a good actor.
“More!” Evie says. “I want more!”
“One embarrassing childhood story per day.” I don’t want Luke to have to lie, but more than that, I don’t want anything to
slip out accidentally.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you guys,” Eddie says, not taking his eyes off the screen as he frantically presses buttons on his controller. “I saw Ms. Hansen and Macho Mike get into his car together after school on Monday. And they were vibing, if you catch my drift.”
“Liar.” I gasp, swiveling my head. I could hug him for taking the attention away from me.
“Don’t move,” Evie chides, swatting my head. Then to Eddie, she says, “I don’t believe you saw that. Swear on our relationship.”
“I swear,” Eddie says. “And I did. I think they’re a thing.”
“Who are these people?” Luke asks. I make a mental note to add “teacher lore” to my checklist of things to teach him about.
Evie launches into the story. About how Macho Mike is the nickname we gave to the—very married—head of PE, Michael Belnik,
who has the tiniest head plopped on top of one of the most muscular bodies any of us has ever seen. And Ms. Hansen, advanced
art teacher with white lady locs and body hair, who’s also the passionate head of our school’s LGBTQ+ alliance. The two of
them being the least likely couple in all of history. And yet.
“Speaking of romantic pairings,” Eddie says. “Ben said you’re going to the party on Friday. That true?”
I try to play it cool. “Yeah, so?”
Eddie shrugs, but there’s a hint of a smile on his face. “You’re not exactly the party queen. That’s all.”
Luke glances at me, his eyes bright with interest. “Who’s Ben?”
“No one,” I say. “A friend of ours. Who’s much less interesting than Ms. Hansen and Macho Mike.”
“Yeah, I need to know,” Evie swoops in, “did he have any Trump paraphernalia on his car?”
“And was she wearing her Birkenstocks?” I add.
Eddie tries to remember, and I squeeze Evie’s leg in thanks.
Somehow, an hour or two goes by like this, all of us talking and laughing and just hanging out together, without the topic
of conversation going back to me and Luke as kids. It’s stressful, but not as bad as I thought it would be. I can tell Eddie
and Evie both really like him, which does nothing to make this whole thing any simpler.