Her freshman year, at least, Rachel still texted all the time. She’d send funny posts to me on Instagram, and we’d FaceTime whenever possible. She was home for the whole summer after, and it was almost as though her year away hadn’t happened. It was almost like nothing had changed.
But then she started her sophomore year, met Paul, and everything’s shifted.
Mine’s great too, I type. And then that feels like enough so I move my phone to my desk to charge it and go back to my careful research of Jordi. I don’t learn much that I don’t already know. When she’s tagged in photos it’s with the same group of friends I’ve seen her with at school. The bands she follows seem local and obscure, which I would have guessed, and I don’t look any of them up because there’s nothing wrong with liking pop music and I’m afraid Jordi’s cool music will make me feel silly.
I mean, not that I don’t feel silly with about a million tabs all devoted to Jordi Perez open in my browser right now. I remember doing this with Maliah, many months ago, analyzing Trevor for any possible defects. It would definitely feel less creepy if I were doing this with my best friend, but there are two huge obstacles: mainly that Jordi has no real interest in me, and also that Maliah thinks Jordi is some hardcore criminal.
I guess it’s also fairly creepy to not care if Jordi is some hardcore criminal. But I really, really don’t.
The four of us—Maliah, Zoe, Brooke, and me—are somehow magically all free to go shopping on Sunday afternoon. We take Maliah’s Mini Cooper even though if we do any serious buying there’ll barely be enough room for the four of us plus bags. Maliah always seems vaguely offended if Brooke offers to drive us in her banged up old Nissan, which, true, is not an adorable mint-colored British car, but does have plenty of room for friends and shopping bags.
“Did you hear there’s a party at Denny Nuckles’s on Friday?” Zoe asks as we stop off at Starbucks on our way to the mall. I’m not sure I need to prove to my friends that I’m now sophisticated about coffee, so I do order a Frappuccino.
“And what else did you hear, Zo?” Brooke asks her with a very knowing smile. We’re basically a team of two sets of best friends. Just like Maliah and me, Brooke and Zoe have known each other since childhood. And also just like us, they’re sort of physical opposites. Maliah’s dark-skinned with perfect ringlets of sun-kissed hair (it’s whatever chemical mix they use at her salon but it looks sun-kissed) and fits into sample sizes, while I’m one of the palest people in southern California with cotton candy hair and a plus size dress size. Brooke is tall and blond in that all-American natural way magazines say is in most seasons, while Zoe is just under five feet tall with a pouf of bright red hair—also natural even if Vogue would never refer to that shade as such.
“Okay, fine,” Zoe says, as her whole face flushes. I’ve never seen someone whose forehead even turns red. “Brandon’s going to be there.”
Zoe has nursed a crush on Brandon Salas since high school started and they ended up in the same algebra class. He’s quiet and therefore supposedly sensitive, and all of us are used to dissecting the small morsels of conversation he’s shared with Zoe for clues about his potential interest level.
There’s a chance I’m getting ahead of myself, but if Zoe and Brandon are at the same party, it seems hugely probable that they’ll fall in love. Then two out of three of my closest friends will be in relationships. And considering how pretty and confident and smart Brooke is, she can’t be far behind. I’ll be the only forever alone one left standing.
I was hoping that wouldn’t happen until college, and by then I’d be having my cool single fashion life in New York anyway and I wouldn’t care.
“I’m in,” Maliah says. “Trevor’s going out of town this weekend.”
Why does she have to say that? She could just say she’s coming to the party without making us feel like we’re her second choice.
“Tell them how you know about the party,” Brooke tells Zoe, poking her with her Frappuccino straw when she doesn’t answer immediately.
It turns out that Brandon messaged Zoe to see if she was going. We make her read the texts aloud as we head through and past the mall to the Americana, which is the outdoor shopping center next to the Galleria. The two-story Forever 21 is always our first stop, but we’re in less of a hurry today as we comment on each of the messages Brandon sent. There is no doubt to any of us how much he likes her, from the first greeting (Hi!—exclamation point use always seems very positive) to the most recent (Hope I see you on Friday.—sure, not definite plans, but heavily hinting at them).
With three of us, plus Zoe, analyzing these messages, it feels like there’s a science to it. Brandon’s interest seems without question, and I’m, I realize, jealous. I have no such confirmation of Jordi’s interest, unlikely as it may be. There were things she said on Friday night I know we could spend the rest of our shopping trip turning over and over.
“What?” Maliah asks as I drift in her
