ALSO BY RACHEL COHN & DAVID LEVITHAN
Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist
Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List
Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares
The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily
ALSO BY RACHEL COHN
Very LeFreak
Gingerbread
Shrimp
Cupcake
You Know Where to Find Me
Beta
Kill All Happies
ALSO BY DAVID LEVITHAN
Boy Meets Boy
The Realm of Possibility
Are We There Yet?
The Full Spectrum
(edited with Billy Merrell)
Marly’s Ghost
(illustrated by Brian Selznick)
Wide Awake
How They Met, and Other Stories
The Likely Story series
(written as David Van Etten, with David Ozanich and Chris Van Etten)
Love Is the Higher Law
Will Grayson, Will Grayson
(written with John Green)
The Lover’s Dictionary
Every You, Every Me
(with photographs by
Jonathan Farmer)
Every Day
Invisibility
(written with Andrea Cremer)
Two Boys Kissing
Another Day
First published in Australia by Allen & Unwin in 2018
Copyright © Rachel Cohn & David Levithan, 2018
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.
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ISBN 9781760293857
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Cover design and illustration by Kirby Armstrong
To my Bubbe and my Bebe grandmas
—RC
To Grandma Grace and Grandma Alice
—DL
CONTENTS
one ILSA
two SAM
three ILSA
four SAM
five ILSA
six SAM
seven ILSA
eight SAM
nine ILSA
ten SAM
eleven ILSA
twelve SAM
thirteen ILSA
fourteen SAM
fifteen ILSA
sixteen SAM
seventeen ILSA
eighteen SAM
nineteen ILSA
twenty SAM
twenty-one SAM & ILSA
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
People need, demand fantasy. I try to help them do this for a little while, to help them forget work and problems and enjoy, vicariously, a folderol of fun, good music and fancy dress. I give them a little recess from the humdrum.
—LIBERACE
INVITATION
WHAT: Recess from the Humdrum! Dinner Party
WHO: Sam & Ilsa
WHEN: May 16, 8 p.m.
WHY: Last dinner party at Czarina’s Palais de Rent
Control! Sad face!
Also, Liberace’s birthday.* Sequin face!
WHERE: Sam & Ilsa’s grandma’s** (map attached)
WEAR: Garish***
*If you don’t know who Liberace is, we don’t know how you got invited to this party. But you can ask Mr. Google if you need help.
**Don’t worry, Czarina is out of town and will leave us alone for the evening!
***Ask yourself, WWLW: What Would Liberace Wear?
one
ILSA
My brother is way too obsessed with our grandma’s sex life.
“I think Czarina has taken a lover,” Sam says, holding out his hand to me. “Spatula. Stat.” My job is to maximize the chef’s surgical efficiency by passing him the gadgets he requests. I hand him the spatula. “That’s an egg-turner spatula. The spoon spatula, Ilsa,” he says, like it’s so obvious. “Observe!”
I look at his bowl, filled with cheese and spinach. Seems like any old spatula could work in that bowl, but if it were up to me, we’d order takeout from Zabar’s and not bother with DIY cooking at all. Sam’s an amazing cook. But all that work! No, thank you. He gets me for a half hour as sous-chef, and the rest of the meal is on him. My job is planning fabulousness, not catering it. I should have been the gay man, not my twin brother.
I hand Sam the spoon spatula. “What makes you think Czarina has taken a lover?”
“She’s gone to Paris three times in the last six weeks.”
“She’s a fashion buyer. That’s her job.”
“There’s something different about these trips. I feel it. Did you notice how…nice she seems when she gets back? It’s upsetting.”
“What are you really upset about? That she’s been nice, or that she took Mom and Dad and not you to Paris with her for the weekend?” I love when Czarina goes away and lets us use her apartment. Then I get to be the queen of her castle, and not have to share Sam with her.
“That’s the thing! She never takes Mom and Dad anywhere. Says they’re bourgeois bores.”
“I love ’em, but they kind of are.”
“Don’t be bitchy.”
“Don’t ask me to be anything other than who I am.”
Sam laughs, then raises an eyebrow at me. “Aren’t you just a little concerned? Czarina even said we didn’t have to leave her bedroom door locked. Of all the dinner parties she’s let us host in her apartment, her one and only strict rule has been”—and here Sam mimics Czarina’s gangster-worthy growl—“ ‘no teenage miscreants shall miscreant in my bedroom.’ ”
“Yeah, that’s why she always shows up during dessert, despite saying she was taking a night out to go to the symphony, and even when she’s locked away all the liquor. The control freak can’t take our word for it that we won’t let anyone in her bedroom or break into her booze.” I reconsider what I just said, and then amend my statement. “I mean, take my word for it. She knows Sam the Saint won’t break her rules.”
“Not true. Remember the party when #Stantastic wanted to see Czarina’s vintage Dior gowns?”
“You texted Czarina and got her permission to go into her closet. That’s not rule breaking.”
“#Stantastic had a beer!”
I let out a sigh. “Scandal.”
What constitutes legit rule breaking? Perhaps that party two years ago when Parker and I jimmied our way into Czarina’s brandy collection and then ended the party making out on her bed, with the bedroom door locked so no one else could get in. Best aperitif ever. Miscreants, and proud! Czarina was in Milan, so I knew for a fact she wouldn’t be barging in. My parents say I’m too reckless, but even I know not to expose myself to Czarina’s in-your-face wrath. I know exactly how that brutal wrath works, because it’s the primary trait of hers I inherited. That, and we both look good wearing almost any shape of hat.
I aspire to
