But two months ago, Rachel texted to say she wasn’t coming home. She got an amazing internship near campus and also her boyfriend and it just makes more sense financially and also her boyfriend. I have met her boyfriend, Paul, and I can’t imagine wanting to be around someone more who has an old-timey twirly mustache and a thousand opinions on avant-garde films from the 1930s. Paul is a guy I’m convinced that Rachel and I would have made fun of together before he became her boyfriend.
“How was the big internship?” Mom asks almost as soon as I walk in because now it seems she’s always about two feet from the front door. Our house is a little bungalow that was always the right fit for the four of us, but even with Rachel away at college—and I guess maybe forever from now on—it’s gotten way too small. Mom’s food blog turned into a monthly morning news segment, and then a weekly one, and now Eat Healthy with Norah! is a brand. It’s also the thing that takes up most of the living room, dining room, and my parents’ bedroom. Only my room and the bathroom still feel safe, and that’s only sort of true given that, right now, there’s a pile of Eat Healthy with Norah! reusable tote bags on Rachel’s unused bed. The other week Maliah spent the night, and it ultimately ended up being easier for her to just sleep underneath the bag-covered comforter than move anything.
“It was great,” I say.
“Oh,” she says, and then, “good,” which is fine, because if I’m lying to her, I can’t be annoyed she’s pretending to be happy for me.
“You’ll be running the place before long, kiddo,” Dad says, looking up from a pile of paper samples. I decide not to correct him because even interns with less sad prospects aren’t exactly next in line to run places, and so he’s probably not being literal.
“I’m going to hang out with Maliah,” I say, because by the time I left Lemonberry, I had three texts from her about hanging out poolside at Trevor’s. My friends Zoe and Brooke had checked in with me to see how my first day went, but they’re not nearly as forceful as Maliah is. The thing I didn’t really learn from rom-coms is that after the happily-ever-after, your collective friends are often forced to co-mingle. This is why I have more than a casual knowledge of lacrosse bro lingo now.
“Be home for dinner,” Mom says. “I’m trying something very exciting tonight.”
When other moms say things like this, they’re probably referencing tacos or delicious sandwiches, but the last time my mom made tacos, it was just chicken wrapped in pieces of lettuce. She kind of made it look like tacos, which is the sort of thing she features all the time on Eat Healthy with Norah!, but I more than occasionally just want to Eat Normally with My Family.
What’s so bad about a few tortillas anyway?
“I’ll be home,” I tell Mom before sidestepping her and Dad to get to my bedroom. Maliah texts again while I’m changing, so I tap out a quick reply before switching to a bright blue casual dress and my matching Converse. They can’t make you get into a pool if you’re not equipped with the right wardrobe, right?
It takes me about twenty minutes to walk to Trevor’s house. I ring the front doorbell a few times, even though I can hear everyone yelling and splashing behind the house. I haven’t fully worked out the etiquette and customs of the rich, preppy, and athletically inclined.
I text Maliah that I’m there after my repeated doorbell rings result in absolutely nothing. She opens the gate to the backyard and sticks her head out.
“Come on back, weirdo,” she says, which is how she’s referred to me for forever, but forever ago it didn’t feel like it does right in this moment. Forever ago, Maliah wasn’t wearing a sparkling bikini with all the confidence in the world while I actually worked out a backstory on why I didn’t bring a swimsuit. And Maliah would have definitely managed to get through a day at Lemonberry less awkwardly than I had.
“Did you ask Brooke or Zoe?” I ask as we round the corner and step out into the backyard proper. There are a few girls—though none I know—but it’s mainly dudes running around and leaping ridiculous cannonballs into the pool. Maybe if I liked guys, I would understand all of this—find it cute, even—but I don’t think so. It hardly seems like a key selling point, especially when plenty of other guys at school seem funny and smart and interested in things besides sports and beers.
Not that I’m not going to take a beer. It’s here, after all.
This has been a new world for me, though, since Maliah and Trevor became serious. This group of guys could be pulled straight from a movie about rich jocks partying their summer away. I think it’s safe to say I never thought I would be even an extra in a scene from that kind of story.
“I wanted to see you,” Maliah says, and even though I’d love for a higher percentage of people I know to be here, I like being someone special to my best friend.
“So how was your first day?” she asks me.
“It was …” I shrug. “I don’t know.”
“Did you get any free dresses yet?” Maliah asks.
“No.” I pop open a can of PBR, because even rich boys in fancy houses have cheap beer. “There’s another intern.”
“Did she get any free dresses?” Maliah makes a face. “Unfair.”
“No one got any free dresses,” I say. “I thought that this would be … just mine. The way it’s always been.”
“One girl in all the world,” Maliah says
