The Smart One and the Pretty One (9 page)

“How about we compromise somewhere in the middle?”

“It’s a small apartment,” Ava said.

“We’ll be so cozy there.”

Ava didn’t answer.

Lauren moved in on Friday. When Ava got home from work that night, Lauren had a pan of brownies baking in the oven, and they agreed that brownies could count as dinner when topped with vanilla frozen yogurt, which, Ava pointed out, provided both calcium and protein.

They made up a bed for Lauren on the sofa and she curled up happily under a fleece blanket, claiming it was far more comfortable than any bed she had slept on in recent memory. Ava felt happy as she got ready for bed that night. It was nice to have someone to say good night to.

But a few hours later, when she was woken up by voices in the next room and groggily came out to investigate, only to find an instantly contrite Lauren watching TV—“Sorry, didn’t realize it was too loud”—she felt a little less serene and optimistic about the whole arrangement and wondered instead how long it was likely to last.

The Braverman bat mitzvah started at ten the next morning. At nine-thirty Ava was showered and dressed and ready to go, but Lauren was only just getting out of the shower. As Lauren emerged from the apartment’s only bathroom wrapped in one towel and drying her curly hair with another, she stopped at the sight of Ava and said, “
That’s
what you’re wearing?”

Ava looked down at her dress, which was green and belted and unstained, and said, “What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s a party, Ava. Don’t you want to look a little more”—she searched for a moment—“like you’re going to a party? Wear something that you wouldn’t wear to work? Maybe put your hair up?”

“It’s a party that everyone I work for or with will be at,” Ava said. “It’s basically a day of work with catered food and some dancing.” She sorted through her small box of jewelry and extracted a pearl choker that her grandmother had passed down to her on her twenty-first birthday.

“But it’s still an excuse to dress up and wow people.” Lauren took her clothes into the bathroom but left the door open so Ava could hear her. “Why do you always dress like you’re fifty years old?”

“I don’t,” Ava said, but she dropped the pearls back in the box with a slightly guilty start. “I dress like a lawyer. Anyway, I’m not like you. I don’t think getting dressed up is fun. I think it’s a pain.”

“Come on,” Lauren said. She emerged from the bathroom in a pair of blue and white striped boy-short underpants and an off-white lace-trimmed camisole. The two undergarments didn’t match at all, but somehow they looked right together anyway. “You’re a girl, aren’t you? Every girl likes to get dressed up for a party.”

“Not me,” Ava said. “It’s a chore. Like cleaning the bathroom.”

“The problem is you don’t
have
the kind of clothes that make getting dressed up fun,” Lauren said. She pulled a dress off its hanger and tugged it over her head. It slipped right into place. It was a dark blue that wasn’t quite navy and it had a deep V-neck that showed off just the right amount of the lace trim on her camisole. She instantly looked smashing and very stylish. “Let me loan you something.”

“It’s ‘lend.’ ‘Loan’ is a noun.”

“Miss English Major. Seriously, A, I have a dress that would look so great on you—” She started to sort through the hangers.

“No, thanks,” Ava said. “I’m perfectly happy with how I look.”

“Really?” Lauren said in a tone of utter disbelief. “Well, wait until you see this.”

“Forget it. I don’t have time to get changed, anyway. Hurry up.”

Lauren crouched down and sorted through some shoeboxes she had stacked on the floor of Ava’s closet, seized on one with a shout of joy, and extracted from it a pair of silver high-heeled sandals. “There you are, my beauties!” She jumped to her feet, clutching them to her chest.

“Please tell me you’re not hugging your shoes,” Ava said.

“I love these shoes.”

“How can you love a pair of shoes?”

“Are you kidding me?” Lauren stopped in the act of pulling the shoes on to stare at her, balancing unsteadily on one leg. “I mean, are you insane?”

“Oh,
I’m
the insane one because I’m not having a love affair with my footwear?”

“It’s so sad,” Lauren said. She twisted her leg so she could prop one foot up on Ava’s bed and do the strap. “There should be some sort of intervention for people like you—”

“People like
me
?” Ava said. “I’m not the one who’s in debt because I can’t say no to a pair of shiny sandals. Come on, Lauren, hurry up.”

“Just let me put on some makeup and I’ll be ready to go.” She went into the bathroom and spent what felt like an eon to Ava brushing and smoothing and clinking while Ava paced outside the door, impatiently glancing at her watch. “Want me to do you?” Lauren called after a few minutes.

“No, I’m fine,” said Ava. “I just want to get going.”

“Almost done,” Lauren said. When she emerged a few minutes later, she had arranged her hair in Pre-Raphaelite curls down her back, with just the front pieces pulled back and twisted together and then pinned so they merged with the rest. Her skin looked flawless, and her eyes were now smoky and dramatic. She did look very beautiful, and as Lauren checked her reflection one last time, Ava deliberately moved out of the mirror’s sightline, knowing that a side-by-side comparison wasn’t likely to increase her self-confidence as she headed off to try to be social.

“That was endless,” Lauren said to Ava as they emerged from the temple sanctuary into the foyer at the end of the two-hour bat mitzvah service. “Would it be wrong to thank God that our family isn’t religious?”

“Maybe not wrong,” Ava said, “but certainly confusing.”

“Ooh, this’ll help.” Lauren snagged two little Dixie cups off of the table where the rabbi had just blessed the wine. She handed one to Ava and took a sip, then made an awful face. “Oh, good Lord, it’s
grape juice
.” She put her cup back down on the table and hailed a waiter going by with a tray of filled wineglasses. “Is that the real thing?”

“Pinot Noir,” he assured her.

“Hallelujah!”

“Hey, you
are
religious!” Ava said.

“What do you know—I’ve been born again.” Lauren swiped two glasses off the tray and handed one to Ava. As she drank, she turned to study the crowded room. “So are you going to introduce me to people? Are there any cute guys at your firm?”

“Some.” Ava leaned toward Lauren and lowered her voice. “There’s this one guy who all the women think is gorgeous. Peter Rogers. He’s over by the bar. Do you see him? He’s wearing the red tie and talking to that bald guy.”

Lauren casually sipped at her wineglass as she swiveled just enough to see the guy Ava meant by looking out of the corner of her eyes. “Oh, yeah,” she said. “Totally hot. What’s his story?”

“He’s new,” Ava said. “I don’t know much about him.”

“Have you spoken to him?”

“Yeah. I asked him to press the fourth-floor button on the elevator once. It was a real moment.”

“Let’s go,” Lauren said, moving in his direction.

“Wait.” Ava grabbed her by the arm. “You can’t just go walking up to him for no reason.”

“Sure I can.” Lauren shook her off and kept moving.

Ava pursued her. “Seriously, Lauren, I have to face him every day and if you—”

“You really have to learn to relax,” Lauren said and walked right up to Peter Rogers and the bald guy. “Hi!” she said brightly, and they returned the greeting with equal warmth. “So here’s a question for you—”

“Yes?” the older man said with an expectant smile.

“I was reading the Bible back during the ceremony and now I’m doing a survey, trying to see how many people know the answer to a simple biblical question. Ready?” They nodded. “Okay. Today’s question is ‘Who slew Cain?’”

“Abel, of course,” Peter Rogers said.

“Careful.” The older man winked at Lauren. “You’ve got to get up earlier in the day to trick
me
. No one slew Cain—Cain slew Abel.”

“Oh, right,” Peter said. “The mark of Cain.”

“They
don’t
have to get up early in the day to trick
you
,” the other man said with a fond smile.

“Apparently not.” He gave a good-natured shrug.

“Everyone falls for it,” Lauren said. “Except for you.” She nodded toward the bald guy, who smiled, pleased. “It’s just this weird thing—you ask people who slew Abel and they’ll say Cain, but if you ask them who slew Cain, they’ll say Abel.” She had read about that somewhere but hadn’t remembered where—just one of those random interesting facts that had stuck in her memory. It wasn’t the first time she had used it as a conversation starter.

“It’s kind of sad for Abel,” said Ava with a slightly nervous laugh. “Don’t you think?”

“It’s the curse of having siblings,” Lauren said. “You’re always judged by their behavior. She’s my sister,” she informed the men, gesturing at Ava.

“So I assumed,” the older man said. “The resemblance is striking. Are you twins?”

They both shook their heads and Lauren said, “Nope, she’s older.”

“You’re at the firm, right?” Peter said to Ava. “I know we’ve met, but I’m terrible with names. Please forgive me. I’m Peter.”

“Nothing to forgive. I’m Ava. This is my sister, Lauren.”

“And I’m Tom,” the older man said.

“Are you at the firm too?” Lauren asked him.

“No,” he said cheerfully. “Just here for the free drinks.” Up close he was clearly younger than his balding head and slightly stooped shoulders made him appear from a distance—closer to forty than to fifty.

“He’s here with me,” Peter added, with a proudly defiant tilt to his chin.

“Ah,” Lauren said with a nod and raised her glass to her lips—but not without first shooting a very quick, very surreptitious, and very amused look at Ava, who returned it with equal amusement and a sheepish shrug.

“Next time you ask a cute guy to push an elevator button for you, check out his sexual orientation first,” Lauren said after Tom and Peter had left them to go in search of food. The trays of smoked salmon sandwiches and chicken sates followed a path that bypassed their corner, and the men were getting hungry.

“Yeah,” Ava said. “I’ll do that. ‘Fourth floor, and are you gay or straight?’”

“That’s rude,” Lauren said. “You should say, ‘Fourth floor,
please
. And are you gay or straight?’”

A waiter came by with a tray that had some empty glasses on it and told them it was time to find their table and sit down for lunch in the big hall.

“Hold on,” Lauren said as the young man started to move away. “I need your advice.”

“Yes?” He turned back, smiling with polite attentiveness. He wore the white button-down shirt and black pants of the classic server, but his hair was appealingly tousled and his pants had slipped down a bit on his slim hips—no belt. She wondered if he knew that one shirttail had slipped completely out of the waistband in the back. It lent a charmingly roguish look to his standard-issue uniform.

She held up her newly filled wineglass. “Do I hold on to this during lunch?”

“Here,” he said and held his hand out. “Give it to me. There are glasses already on the table and the first thing we’re supposed to do is pour the wine.”

“It sounds risky,” Lauren said, moving her glass out of his reach. “What if no one comes to our table for a long time and I get thirsty?”

“What table are you at?” he said. “Even if it’s not mine, I’ll come by right away with a bottle. What do you like—red or white?”

“Both,” she said and surrendered the glass. “What’s our table number, Ava?”

“Fourteen,” said Ava, who had checked and pocketed the little folded name card with their table assignment when they first arrived.

“Fourteen,” he repeated. “My name’s Diego, by the way.”

“I’m Lauren.”

“See you soon, Lauren.” He moved on, stopping to tell the next group of people that it was time to find their tables, and the sisters followed the mass exodus of guests out of the foyer and into the dining hall.

Ava introduced Lauren to everyone at their table. Lauren’s place card put her between her sister and a slightly geeky-looking lawyer named Richard who chatted with her about L.A. versus New York for a while, and then the table conversation opened up to a general discussion about which of the last group of summer interns deserved to be offered permanent jobs at the firm. Lauren listened quietly, smothering a yawn or two. She felt a light touch on her shoulder and swiveled around to see Diego the waiter standing behind her, a bottle of wine in each hand. “You’re not my table,” he said. “So I’m breaking the rules for you.”

“You’re an angel.” She held out her glass.

“You do a good impression of one yourself.” He had the easy charm of a natural flirt, and Lauren felt like she was finally in the presence of one of her own kind.

Richard glanced up and tapped his own glass with an index finger. “Red, please.”

“Sorry,” Diego said. “Your server will be with you in a minute.” He winked at Lauren and walked away.

“That was weird,” Richard said, frowning at Lauren’s filled glass. “Why’d you get wine and not me?”

“Diego and I are old friends,” she said. “He was just looking out for me.”

“Ah.” He seemed satisfied with the explanation and returned his attention to the group discussion. Ava was making a point—something about how a candidate’s individuality had to mesh with the firm’s reputation without being smothered by it—and Lauren was impressed by how all the others were listening to her with real respect. Then she got bored again.

She sipped some more wine and looked around. The party seemed too sedate to her, like something vital was missing. It occurred to her that none of the kids who’d been fidgeting their way through the service and dashing through the foyer during the reception were anywhere in sight. So where were they?

She excused herself from the table, then wove her way through the room and back toward the double doors. Before she had even left the hall, she could hear the throb of loud music. She followed the beat of the bass line across the foyer, down a back hallway, and into a room that was smaller than the big hall but big enough to hold five round tables, a dance floor, a DJ, an enormous sound system, and what appeared to be several dozen thirteen-year-olds, every single one in motion, some dancing to the lilting sound of Rihanna’s voice, some filling plates at the long buffet tables that lined one wall and were covered with kid-friendly junk food like chicken nuggets, pizza, and fries, some jostling to get in line at any of the three booths set up in one corner, and some just running back and forth between the different areas, screaming and calling to one another.