Tiny Pretty Things (45 page)

They all want me to be jealous of Gigi’s freckles and brown skin and wild hair, but when I catch sight of myself in the mirror, I’m still a replica of the ballerina in the music box: the golden-haired one in the glistening tutu with long legs and a perfect pirouette.

I almost cry with the realization.

The pride.

Even Gigi’s mother said so.

That’s why there’s nothing to be afraid of when I stop listening to my mother and Mr. K and the voices in my head. The
petit rats
still skip over and pull on my hand and ask me for autographs and kisses on their cheeks. They all want to be like me. Not her.

I watch Alec kiss Gigi’s hand, and I regret taking that pill. I can’t seem to
not
focus on the tiny ways he touches her. I want to go snatch him away, and remind him that I am the one for him. I find a quiet corner in the room and open my locket. I skip over the white pills and take the pale-blue oval ones in the middle. One from my mother’s stash and the other one a little gift from my dealer. Then I watch as Alec leaves Gigi’s side and stands with his dad and stepmom. It seems like they’re in some heated conversation. Gigi’s parents have left. And I wonder if they they’ve been introduced to the Lucases. I imagine Alec’s stepmother’s chilly reception of Mrs. Stewart and her hippy-dippy dress and mannerisms and multiculturalness, and it makes me smile a little, knowing she’ll always love me and my mother, and Gigi can never have that.

Last year Alec and I paraded around the spring gala and put on an impromptu show. We performed complicated lifts and turns just to thrill the crowd. I gulp down more champagne and ignore how many calories it’s adding to my body. Or maybe if I just wait long enough, he’ll grow tired of her. Because there will always be a huge difference between Gigi and me. She won’t always be new and fascinating and strange and mysterious, but I will always be the girl in the music box, the girl who has known him practically forever. Nothing she does can change that.

Henri joins me at the buffet table after my mother makes a dash to speak with Morkie. He doesn’t greet me, just brushes his body against mine. I feel his breath in my hair and the anger rising off him. The pinch of his fingers digs into my hips, snapping at me like the predator he is.

“What’s wrong with you?” I say, facing him. “Get away from me.”

“You should start being nicer to people,” he warns.

I don’t acknowledge him, and with a ballerina’s walk—pointed toes, turned-out legs, head high—I join my sister, who has just walked into the room with some of the dancers from her company. I take another glass of champagne from a tray, and another pill. I need it to kick things into high gear. And I’m Bette Abney, determined, willful, successful. The girl who makes things happen.

It will be a good night. A night to remember. A night that changes everything. I will make something happen.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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I RECOGNIZE THE KNOCK AT
my bedroom door. Fast, light, aggressive. Bette.

“Tonight’s the night,” she says. She’s decked out in a fringy silver number, and has another dress in her hand. We’re supposed to be resting for opening night tomorrow. “We’re all going out.” She looks at my pajamas, disapproving. “Like I promised.”

I open my mouth to decline, but she doesn’t let me. “It’s tradition,” she says. “Mandatory. You know that. All the Level 7 girls did it last year. We have to.”

I can’t believe she actually meant what she’d said—that we’d go out. All of us. I’m so stunned I leave the door open and stumble backward a little. Girls chatter in the hall about Bette’s dress. They wish she’d come to their rooms. Or invite them wherever she was headed. They tell her she looks gorgeous.

“I don’t—” I try, but she pushes past me and enters the room without listening for a response. Gigi went off with Alec and her parents, saying she’d see me later.

I never go out. It’s just not me. And yet within two minutes, I’m somehow letting Bette dress me up like a little doll, like her little plaything. Part of me hates myself for it, but another part, albeit a much smaller one, has longed for this. Because this is what normal girls do. They play dress-up and dance and get a little crazy. They have girlfriends and share secrets and giggle about boys. They’re sisters, maybe not by blood, but in the moment at least, when it feels like nothing will ever be this real again. That’s what tonight will be. I can feel it in my bones. And I’ve never done this before.

“You’re really going to steal his eye tonight,” she says, pulling one of her dresses—a deep plum number—down over my head. Her breath smells of alcohol, and her pupils are dilated and glossy.

“Who?” I say, not sure how she knows anything.

She pauses to look me in the eye. “Oh, c’mon. There’s got to be someone.” She doesn’t even give me time to nod. “Then it’s time for you to claim him.”

“She’ll never let him go,” I find myself saying, even though I’ve never said anything to anyone about Jayhe. Well, except Gigi.

She rubs makeup into my cheeks, puts shadow and liner on my eyes. Then she speaks again. “The thing is,” she says, “you have to realize that this isn’t about her. It has to be about you.”

I don’t know if she’s talking to herself or me, but her words ring true.

I feel hopeful in Bette’s capable hands, I’ve become glittering and shimmering and sweet and sexy. Somehow Bette’s makeup skills have made me look brand-new. I am all flawless skin and
deep-set eyes and a throaty, heady laugh that will make all the boys want me. I am who I’ve never been before, and may well never be again, if I’m honest. I’m everything Bette wants me to be, and for right now, I’m okay with that. My reflection in the mirror allows me to believe I am a girl Jayhe could want—that any boy could want. I smooth the front of the dress and like my profile, for once.

I’m in a cab with Bette and Eleanor, and we’re racing down the West Side Highway, the windows wide open and the spring air blasting through, heading down to the Meatpacking District to some club Bette knows the bouncer at. I’ve had way too much to drink. Bette pushes another mini vodka bottle into my hand. I shake my head no this time. I text Jayhe. Maybe he’ll come here and see me and choose me once and for all. Maybe he’ll see the new June—colorful and beautiful and pretending to be bright again—and fall head over heels. For real.

We all climb out of the cab, and the guy waves us in, not even asking for ID. I’ve never been to a club, but this is just what I imagined, the music pounding through me like a heartbeat, the crowd pressing in on all sides, moving in unison, one big collective soul.

As soon as we walk inside, we see the others. Gigi, Alec, Will, and everyone. It seems tonight all is forgiven, we’re putting on a united front. For tradition’s sake.

I should be self-conscious, worried about the way I move, but I just let myself shake it out with the music, go with the flow. Will takes my hand and starts twirling me, and it feels too familiar, too much like ballet, so I pull out of his grasp.

“Thanks for not saying anything. I was so paranoid. Everything is fine. No, everything is great.” His words are slurred and wet as he yells in my ear. I nod and try to slink away. He grins, then points to the bar. He disappears to get drinks.

Gigi is beaming, wasted. She glows with happiness, or maybe it’s just the black light, as her face falls in shadow and her teeth sparkle like little white lights in her mouth. She spins and shakes and shimmies and giggles, and I find myself doing the same, dancing close, laughing, just like real girls do. Like friends do. She shouts something toward my ear, but the noise is too much, it just absorbs the sound of her voice like she’s said nothing at all. Then she points toward the door and I see them. Sei-Jin and her girls. And Jayhe, trailing sheepishly behind them.

Suddenly all my drunken happiness washes away, gone instantly, like what I’d imagine a sober, regretful, hungover morning would feel like. Like what tomorrow will feel like. That’s why he never texted me back.

Will bring back drinks, glowing bright neon green in clear plastic cups. I snatch mine from Will and down it. Then I grab his hand and start grinding up on him, putting on a show. Will is surprised, but he catches my eye, then follows my gaze, willing to play along. Will might be gay, but Jayhe doesn’t know that.

I try to lose myself in the pulse of the dancing again, to forget that Sei-Jin and Jayhe are here, to recapture that energy I’d felt just moments ago. But it’s gone, and I’m suddenly, utterly drained.

“Restroom!” I shout to Will, then start to push my way through the crowd. Sei-Jin and her girls are all on one side of the dance floor. They scowl at me as I pass. When I finally get to the ladies’
room, there’s a line a mile long, winding deep into the club, all the way back to the bar. I look at my watch. 2:34 a.m. What am I doing here? This isn’t me. This will never be me. I should just leave the others, hop in a cab, head back to the dorms. The performance is tomorrow. Maybe Gigi will be too hungover to dance?

I’m pondering the best route out when I feel it—that familiar way he traces his fingers along my hip, up my side, to my shoulder, the way his fingers splay on the back of my neck, luring me close, leaving no space between us.

“Hey,” he whispers, his breath hot in my ear. “I’m sorry.”

He pulls me in even closer and kisses me. Right there, in the club, in front of a million people, where anyone can see us. “I’ve missed you.” He kisses me again. And again. And again. And all I want to do is lose myself in him, in the way he makes me feel. Like there’s only the two of us in the world.

But instead I pull away, and the anger floods back, tears pricking at my eyes. I never cry. I just don’t. I won’t cry now. “Too bad,” I say, and push him way, clawing my way forward through the crowd, toward the door. He follows me out onto the cobblestoned streets, just inches behind me as I stumble and nearly fall. He catches me.

“Hey, wait, June,” he says, grabbing my arm in that familiar vise, the one that I can’t get away from. “Wait, I came here for you.”

“No you didn’t!” I’m shouting, but no one notices. “You’re here with her. It’s always her.”

He’s shaking his head, and there’s a sadness in his eyes that tells me it’s not true. That he really is here for me. Even if it never feels that way, even if everything else rings false. “Can we go somewhere?” he says, already leading the way.

Minutes later, we’re in the backseat of his car in one of the parking garages, the beat-up old Camry his dad used to drive to church when we were kids, the silver faded to gray, the shine long gone. It’s eerily quiet, like we really are alone in the world, even though the thump of the club is just half a block away. And he’s looking down at his hands, worn and cut up from chopping vegetables at his mom’s restaurant, the exhaustion I feel reading heavy on his face. He’s pondering what to say, how to fix it, worried it’s too late.

Then suddenly I’m sobbing. And his hands stroke my hair, my face, and he’s whispering that it will be okay. But it won’t. Nothing will ever be the same again. Because now I know.

“I have a father,” I say through tears. “I know who he is, finally.” I’m shaking, but I have to tell someone. I have to tell Jayhe. “And he doesn’t want me. Nobody ever wants me.”

I don’t let him say what I know he’ll say. That he does want me. That he never stopped wanting me.

So when he turns to me, finally, and opens his mouth, about to fill the space with unnecessary words, I just kiss him. To make it quiet again, to go back to that warm, safe place. But this time it’s not soft, not safe, like it was in my room that one time. This time, it’s urgent, now or never, decision time. And every part of me is saying it’s time to give in, to say yes, to put the past behind us and
make the future look bright. Like Bette said, it’s time to claim Jayhe, to make him mine. To have one thing that’s real.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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