My hands are shaking and I have to take the Medusa book out from under my arm and set it on the desk so I don’t drop it. Adrenaline fills my bloodstream.
I’ve never felt so completely thrilled and excited and terrified all at once. Not even when I saw that minotaur walk into the dim sum parlor. Not even when I saw Gretchen at Synergy.
“Yeah,” she says, flipping her hair forward to dry the back. “And?”
How can she be so blase about this?
Gretchen doesn’t talk about her adopted parents. Ever. She just says that she ran away when she was twelve and never looked back. Which, I suppose, tells me everything I need to know.
But this has nothing to do with them.
This is going to knock her to the floor.
“Gretchen,” I say, my mouth spreading into a shaky smile, “we’re not twins.”
“We’re not?” she asks, lifting her head and paying attention for the first time.
If I weren’t freaking out, I might take a moment to gloat, because she looks a little disappointed, sad, even, at the suggestion that we’re not sisters. But there’s no time for gloating. This news can’t wait another second.
“No.” I slowly shake my head, still full of disbelief. “We’re triplets.”
Chapter 15
I’m telling you, Veronica, an ice sculpture would be tacky on a colossal scale.”
“But Greer,” the edging-on-whiny voice of my Immaculate Heart Alumnae Tea co-chair pleads, “can you imagine our school mascot in beautiful crystalline ice, wings spread wide over the buffet? It would positively be a miracle.”
“Until it melts.” I absently rearrange the sample place settings I’ve laid out on the formal dining table. The gold flatware looks cheap next to the aqua china but goes beautifully with the violet-trimmed porcelain. Perfect. “Then we have a big puddle of dragon all over the hors d’oeuvres and petit fours. Less miracle, more disaster.”
“We can keep the air-conditioning cranked,” she suggests, not willing to let her horrid idea go. “If the temperature stays below—”
“The guests will all freeze.” I’m bored with this debate. Especially since the main reason Veronica’s so married to this idea is that her boyfriend—her poor, starving, tortured artist boyfriend—has recently taken up ice sculpting to pay the bills. I am not about to let the wealthy, powerful, and influential alumnae of Immaculate Heart shiver through afternoon tea so Veronica can indulge her latest fascination with some lowlife guy. Time to end this discussion. “We are not having an ice sculpture.”
“But—”
“Final decision.” The doorbell rings, giving me the perfect excuse to hang up—not that I need one. “The petit four samples have arrived. Must go.”
Before she can get in one more plea, I end the call and set my phone on the foyer table. That girl seriously needs to find another way to get her parents’ attention. Slumming it with that sad, talentless excuse for an artist is only going to turn into a tragic after-school special.
I reconciled myself long ago to the fact that my parents aren’t the demonstrative, caring, supportive type. They’re too busy running Fortune 100 companies and making sure they stay on all the right social lists. In a good week, I see them a couple of mornings before school. In a less good week, not at all.
I could wallow in self-pity, indulging in destructive and unproductive behavior, hoping they’ll start paying more attention if my behavior gets bad enough. Or . . . I could act like an adult, accept that no one is going to coddle me in this world, and forge my life into what I expect it to be.
Not hard to guess which option I chose.
Or that Veronica chose the opposite.
I am long past regretting not fighting her bid to be co-chair. If I had known she’d be such a constant thorn in my side, I’d have made certain Emily won the position instead. Oh well, what’s done is done.
Pushing Veronica and her taste for losers aside, I do a quick check in the gold-edged mirror hanging above the foyer table. Not one escapee from my meticulously straightened, crisp chignon; subtle lip sheen still in place; princess-cut diamond studs—real, of course—glinting from each ear. I dust a small speck of lint from my sky-blue cashmere crewneck before deeming myself ready for public appearance. Waving off Natasha, who is only now emerging from the kitchen to answer the door—if she weren’t an impeccable chef, my parents would have fired her long ago—I release the dead bolt and grab the handle.
“Henri, you’re early,” I say with a charming smile, swinging the door wide. “I didn’t expect you until—”
My welcoming comment dies in my throat as I see that standing on my stoop is
Shock does not even begin to describe my reaction.
Not that I allow it to show on my face.
“Greer Morgenthal?” the one on the left, wearing generic blue jeans and a cheap graphic tee, asks.
I rest my hands on my hips. “And who might you be?”
She grins. “We’re your sisters!”
When she starts forward, arms wide like she’s going to hug me, I step back and thrust my palms out to deflect her approach. Her face falls. Is she certifiable?
“I don’t have sisters.”
“I should have printed out the records,” the overfriendly one says. “I just never thought—” She looks at my face and then the other girl’s. “I thought it would be obvious once you saw us.”
The other one rolls her eyes, her dark look matched by her gray cargo pants and fitted black tee. She looks like a walking Army-Navy surplus ad. I wouldn’t be surprised to find daggers hidden in her combat boots.
“I’m Grace,” the cheerful one says, recovering from her disappointment at my reaction. “And this is Gretchen.”
Gretchen crosses her arms in what could be a defensive move, although it is more likely an intimidation gesture. I cross my arms to match her stance. I’m not afraid of her, no matter how many scars and muscles she has.
When I don’t respond, Grace continues. “How funny, we all have names that begin with
“Stop making nice,” Gretchen grumbles, looking bored. “Get to the point.”
“The point?” Grace’s brow furrows. “Oh yeah, the point.” She looks nervously around. “Can we come inside?”
Inside? These girls may look like me, but I don’t know them. For all I know, they could be some new high- tech gang of genetically altered thieves who work their way into houses by posing as the owners.
All right, an unlikely scenario. That’s what I get for electing to read the collected short stories of Ray Bradbury for my extra-credit English project. Too much science fiction.
Still, these girls are strangers. I’m not about to grant them open access to our silver drawer.
“Um . . . no.”
Grace looks slightly taken aback by that, as if she expected me to swing the door wide and say, “Come on in and help yourselves to our priceless art and antiques.”
Undeterred, she repeats slowly, as if I have a hearing problem, “We’re your sisters.” She takes a deep breath, checks the empty street again, and blurts, “And we’re also descendants of the Gorgon Medusa.”
“Excuse me?” I exclaim, losing my well-practiced icy demeanor at her outrageous claim. “I’m sorry. Medusa?”
“You might have wanted to bury the lead a little on that one,” Gretchen mutters.
They are
