I scoff. “Total supportive friend…”
“Start over. You were crossing the courtyard, underwear came out, and… go!”
“And a guy I don’t know picked up my bra.”
She makes a noise.
“And he made a joke,” I say.
“About the underwear.”
“About the underwear…”
“Was it agoodjoke?”
I consider lying. “It was a decent joke,” I say instead.
Ivy falls sideways on the bed, laughing.
“Ivy.”
“I’m fine. I’m dying, but I’m fine.” She rolls onto her back. “Was he cute?”
“That is not important.”
“It isveryimportant.”
I try to keep my face composed. I try to be the Halden Girl who hears this question and gives it the little amused shrug,oh, I didn’t really notice. But, suddenly, months of practice and a day full of lectures by my mother abandon me.
“He was,” I say.
“He washot.”
“He wascute.”
“You’resmiling.”
“I am not.”
“Sloane, you aresmiling with teeth.”
I cover my mouth. Too late.
Ivy sits up and points at me. “Okay, my mission this year, myonlymission, is to get that face out of you as often as possible. I will die for this cause, and I’m too beautiful to be a martyr.”
I want to tell her to stop. I want to tell her I have retired, for very good and very specific reasons, the version of myself who smiles with teeth at cute boys. I want to say the last time I did that, my parents had to hire a lawyer and a PR person.
But I don’t say any of that, because it’s nice to already have a friend in this place I was so unsure about. So instead, I grab the pink bralette out of the duffel and start re-folding it, very carefully, along the seams.
“You’re folding a bra,” Ivy says.
“Yes.”
“Nobody folds bras.”
He does, I think.
“I do,” I say.
