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Something glass, maybe a bottle, shatters on the pavement outside my window. A group of students drunkenly crack up. “So why wouldn’t you want to say you’re taken? It’s not like you had to give them my name and social security number.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.” He sounds pained. “That’s the last thing I want. I was trying to protect you, I was trying to keep you in the good part of my life.”
“But I want to be in all of it. Ugly parts included.”
“You sure about that? Because I have a lot of ugly parts.”
“Everyone does.”
“What are yours?”
“I get jealous when I think about other girls liking my boyfriend.”
“I get jealous when I think about Sébastien. And all of the guys at school who still get to see you every day.”
I snort. “You can stop worrying. No one is interested in me.”
“Nikhil likes you.”
I’m startled. “What?”
“Nikhil Devi. I overheard him talking about you to one of his friends once.”
Nikhil is the younger, nerdier brother of Rashmi and Sanjita. Not that I’m in any position to judge. He’s a sophomore this year. “That’s weird. What’d he say?”
Josh laughs once. “Oh, so you can leave me for him?”
“Yeah.”
“Nikhil likes your caboose.”
“I take it back. I didn’t want to know that.”
He laughs again.
“I’ve missed your laugh. I miss you.” I want to reach through our phones and touch his hand on the other side. “Thirteen days until I’m home. How will we survive?”
Josh sucks in his breath, and there’s a long and terrible pause. “That’s…the other thing I got permission to call you about.”
Oh, no. Please. No.
“My family has been invited to Thanksgiving dinner at the White House.”
The…what now?
“Isla?”
“The White House,” I say.
“Yeah.”
“As in, where the president lives? That White House?”
“Yeah.”
“Ha,” I choke out. “Ha!”
“It’s insane. I mean, a ton of families were invited, not just us. But still.”
“My boyfriend was invited to the White House.”
“Your boyfriend – who was expelled from high school – was invited to the White House.”
I begin laughing for real.
“My dad used to know the president, back in the day.”
I laugh harder. And I’m crying.
“Oh, Isla.” It sounds like his heart is breaking through the receiver. Whenever he says my name, he takes a part of my soul. I want him to say it again. “Please tell me that you know I’d give anything not to attend this dinner.”
“I guess it’s hard to say no to the White House.”
“Impossible.”
“What about winter break?”
“New York, I swear.”
I pick at a loose thread on my map quilt, a green thread that belongs to Central Park. “You’re sure you won’t be invited back for Christmas?”
“We’re Jewish.”
Shit. “I’m sorry. I know that.”
“I know you do.”
“I’m just upset. I feel so far away from you.”
“I know.” And his voice disappears into the ether. “Me, too.”
Chapter twenty-two
“You look sad to be home,” Maman says with her light accent. She just made a fuss over Hattie’s wild, self-trimmed hair, and she’s gearing up for a second fuss over me.
The cab pulls away with Kurt still inside, headed the final two blocks to his house. Dad picks up my suitcase in one hand and Hattie’s in the other, and we trundle upstairs to our landing. Our house smells like pumpkin bread. Maman has decorated everything in leaves and acorns and gourds. A garland of ribbons and red berries wraps around the bannister leading upstairs, and beeswax candles glow inside every room. Maman loves the holidays. And she loves having all three of her daughters at home.
“I’m not sad,” I assure her, thinking about the airport. Josh departed a mere two hours before our arrival. The timing still feels freshly cruel.
“You are. And you’re never the sad one.”
“When does Gen get in?”
She tuts at my obvious evasion but cheers as she answers. “Late tonight. Just in time for Thanksgiving Day.” Hattie shoots past us and slams her door shut, and Maman grows mournful again. “Oh, mon bébés. You will not ruin your beautiful hair, non?”
“No, Maman,” I say.
She’s the only family member without red hair – though, scientifically speaking, she must carry the gene somewhere – and this has made her overly protective of ours. Her own hair is the colour of coffee beans. Maman and I do share the same height and the same upturned nose. Gen is tiny like us, while Hattie takes after our dad, tall and slim with sharp features. But Dad’s the only one with a scruffy, burnt-orange beard.
“A package arrived for you this morning,” he says. My father is generally mellow, so the way he announces this news is peculiar. It’s hesitant. Maybe even a tad hostile. “I put it in your bedroom.”
My brow furrows. “What kind of package?”
“It was delivered by courier. I think it’s from Joshua.”
Joshua. I’m getting the sen
se that he does not like this Joshua, but my entire being perks up. “Really? I wasn’t expecting anything.”
“The box is heavy.”
I’m already bolting upstairs.
“He is still your boyfriend, oui?” Maman says, and I grind to a halt. “Because we saw him on television saying that he does not have a girlfriend. I do not like this, Isla.”
I frown. “He was protecting me. Josh didn’t want the press to hassle me.”
She shrugs, slow and full-bodied. “It sounded like he was looking for tail.”
“Tail? Oh mon dieu.” I can’t believe she’s forcing me to defend this. I haven’t even been home for five minutes.
“Why didn’t he deliver the box himself?” Dad asks. “He’s been in this city for three whole weeks, but he can’t be bothered to introduce himself to your parents? It’s the least he could do after what he’s put us through.”
“What he’s put you through?” I throw my hands into the air. “No, forget it. I’m not going over this with you again. And he sent a courier because he had a plane to catch. To go to the White House. To have dinner with the president. Remember?”
“It’d still be the polite thing to do,” Dad says.
“Why? So you can harass him about school?”
“We do want to know what his plans are for the future, yes.”
“Do you even hear yourself?”
Maman cuts back in. “We just want to meet this boy who is so important to you.”
“You’ll meet him next month.” And I storm the rest of the way upstairs.
“Will we?” Dad calls up. “Will we?”
In spite of everything, I’d been looking forward to coming home. Now I’m not so sure. My energy levels are at an all-time low. It’s taken everything I have to maintain my grades – Dartmouth – and, even though we’re okay, things still aren’t back to normal with Kurt. I’m in detention so much that we hardly see each other. Josh has sneaked in a few more calls, here and there, but it’s harder now because his mom is less distracted now that the election is over.
And Dad harassing me about Josh’s future is particularly stressful, because the last time we talked, Josh said his mom wants him to finish the year at a private school in DC. When I suggested he take the GED instead, he replied, “Why would I waste my time when they’re just gonna put me in another stupid school anyway?”
