Illusions

“The more the merrier; that’s what you guys say, right?” Tamani said, laughing weakly.

“That’s right,” Laurel said. “Hey, I have to go. My parents don’t even know I’m home yet,” she added with a smile.

“Sure. You better go.”

Laurel nodded and turned, heading back to the porch. She pushed the door open and had just stepped in when Tamani called out again.

“Laurel?”

She caught the door before it closed. “Yeah?”

“I’m sorry. About… when I came over. That thing I did. I was out of line.”

“It’s okay,” Laurel said, swallowing back her emotions. “I learned something about… you know. So that was lucky. We’re still friends.” She smiled as best she could. “Have a good night, Tamani.”

“You too.” Tamani smiled back at her. It was not a very convincing smile.

Chapter Fifteen

WITH THAT, LAUREL WENT FROM AVOIDING TAMANI because she was mad at him to avoiding him because talking to him was awkward and confusing. But the plan for the dance was made, and Laurel had a job to do. She stopped by Chelsea’s house the next week, feeling guilty that she hadn’t been making enough time for her best friend lately. She apologized profusely and blamed the SATs.

“So you think you did better?” Chelsea asked brightly.

“I do,” Laurel said, still half in awe at just how much easier the test seemed after studying properly. “And I’m going to do it. I’m going to apply to some colleges.”

“I think it’s really great, Laurel,” Chelsea said, her tone strangely off.

“Really?” Laurel said, prodding a little.

Chelsea looked up at her, a smiled pasted on her face. “I do. David’s totally right about the options thing.”

“Options are good, but it would be easier if I just knew,” Laurel said. “You’ve known exactly what you wanted to do since you were, what, ten?”

Chelsea nodded and then, to Laurel’s surprise, burst into tears.

“Chelsea!” Laurel said, rushing over to the bed and hugging her friend, who was hiding her face in her hands as she gulped for air between sobs. “Chelsea,” Laurel said more gently. “What’s going on?” Empathetic tears sprang to Laurel’s own eyes as Chelsea continued to cry. After several minutes she took a deep breath and laughed as she began to scrub the heels of her hands across her eyes, trying to dry them.

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s stupid.”

“What is?”

Chelsea waved aside Laurel’s concern. “Man, you have so much to deal with right now, you don’t need to hear about my little issues.”

Laurel put both of her hands on Chelsea’s shoulders and waited for her to look up and meet Laurel’s eyes. “If the world was ending tomorrow there would be nothing more important than listening to your problems,” Laurel said, her voice steady and strong. “Tell me.”

Chelsea’s eyes teared up a bit again. She took a deep breath and rubbed at her reddened lids. “Ryan got his SAT scores back a couple weeks ago.”

“Oh no, do they suck?”

Chelsea shook her head. “They’re pretty good, actually. Not as good as mine, but even David’s aren’t quite as high as mine.”

Laurel smiled and rolled her eyes. “Then what’s the problem?”

“I was in his room the other day — he had to go downstairs and talk to his mom — anyway, the printout of his scores was sitting on his desk. And I may have been snooping a little and I looked at his college profile and—” She hesitated. “He didn’t send his scores to Harvard.”

Harvard was Chelsea’s first choice of schools — she’d wanted to go there since she was in grade school. Everyone knew that. Everyone. “Maybe there just weren’t enough slots,” Laurel said, trying to reassure her friend. “The SAT people only do like, four automatically, right?”

“He put down two,” Chelsea said morosely. “UCLA and Berkeley. He didn’t even try and send them to Harvard — I mean, I always knew we might not go to the same school, but he said he’d at least apply!”

Laurel wanted to offer some encouragement, but she didn’t know what to say. She remembered Chelsea telling her that she and Ryan had agreed that they would both apply to Harvard and UCLA, then wait and see what happened with acceptances. Ryan had apparently changed his mind. “Did you… ask him about it?” Laurel finally asked. “Maybe he just didn’t want to let his parents know he was planning to apply to Harvard. You know how pushy his dad can be.”

“Maybe,” she said, shrugging.

“You should ask him,” Laurel said. “Come on, you guys have been dating for more than a year. You should be able to talk about stuff like this.”

“Maybe I don’t want to know.” Chelsea refused to meet Laurel’s eyes.

“Chelsea!” Laurel said with a grin. “You are the ultimate proponent of brutal honesty!” She paused and giggled. “Proponent. That’s an SAT word.”

Chelsea raised one eyebrow. “Seriously. If our relationship is going to end soon anyway, maybe I’d rather not know how early he knew. And if he’s just doing it to appease his dad, maybe it’ll be a good surprise.”

“Maybe,” Laurel said. “But is it going to eat you up inside if you don’t know?”

Chelsea grimaced. “Apparently.”

“So ask.”

They sat in silence for a while and Laurel marveled at how effectively worrying about someone else’s problems stopped her from worrying about her own. Even if only for a little while.

“Hey, Chelsea,” Laurel said softly as an idea began to form in her mind. “Are you busy tonight?”

“Now?” Chelsea asked.

Laurel glanced out the window. “We’ve got an hour if we hurry,” she said, slipping into her sandals.

“Um, okay…”

They headed down the stairs and Chelsea yelled to her mom that she was leaving for an hour. Her mom yelled back that it was spaghetti night and to please be back in time for dinner. Laurel had rarely seen a conversation take place in Chelsea’s house that didn’t involve yelling. Not angry yelling, but the kind of yelling that happens when everyone is rushing around and can’t take the ten seconds that would be required to stop what they are doing and get close enough to hear the other person talk in a normal tone of voice. Then again, in a household with three boys under the age of twelve, yelling probably was a normal tone of voice.

“So where are we going?” Chelsea asked as she pulled her seat belt across her chest.

“Yuki’s,” Laurel said.

“Yuki’s?” And after a pause, “Are we going to spy on her?”

“No!” Laurel said, although she knew the question was entirely rational. “I thought we could go pick her up and take her to Vera’s.”

“For… smoothies?” Chelsea asked. Vera’s blessedly nondairy blended fruit drinks had made it Laurel’s favorite whole foods store.

“Yeah, sure,” Laurel said, flipping on her turn signal as she approached Yuki’s street. “Klea wants me to keep an eye on her, Tamani wants me to keep an eye on her. I was thinking we could all go to that autumn dance together.”

“So we show up on her porch out of the blue, kidnap her, feed her frozen fruit, and ask her on a date. Genius,” Chelsea said sarcastically.

“I’ll buy you one of those carob chocolate truffles you like so much,” Laurel said with a grin as they pulled up in front of Yuki’s house.

Chelsea clapped her hand over her heart, melodramatically. “Using my love of chocolate against me. I have no choice but to crumble like a… chocolate cookie. Or whatever,” she said when Laurel eyed her. “My metaphors suck. Let’s go.”

Yuki’s house was about the size of Laurel’s garage. It was set back from the road and mostly hidden by two