And then I’m just like that girl with the big hiking backpack, rushing past people to get to them. We collide in a group hug so enthusiastic that it momentarily knocks the air from my lungs, makes me realize how right I was to come home. Colette’s Chanel perfume invades my lungs. “You did it!”
“I did it!”
“Do you like the balloons?” They rearrange them again.
“Isurvied.”
Colette sticks out her glossy bottom lip. “They only had oneVballoon in stock at the party store we went to on the way down.”
Divya sighs, thrusting a take-away cup of tea into my hand. “Apparently some bitch Vivian is having a birthday party.”
“Slag,” mumbles Magda, in her trademark black lipstick.
Colette claps her hands, leading us to the exit. Her satin minidress has some sort of neck scarf built in, the cream fabric the same shade as her heels.How does she not get cold?“Let’s go!”
Eike is stood outside a bigger car than usual in the pickup area, on what looks to be a bit of a tense phone call.
“How’s Eike?” I ask Colette, as we head toward him.
“I’m surprised he’s climbed out of my stepfather’s ass long enough to drive us home, let’s just put it that way.”
“Are you going to ask for a new driver?”
“They’re all shit, Ophelia. The next one will be, too. They’re not really drivers. They’re just spies who report back on my every move.”
I glance over at Eike, who is pacing the drop-off zone with his phone pressed to his ear. I can’t help but feel some sympathy for him—I’m sure Colette’s tweed-wearing, old-money stepdad is a nightmare client.
“I’m sorry. We can catch up at Sorrowsong.”
“I wouldlovethat. Apparently, Hemlock is opening up a cozy café in their common room to the other houses.”
“You know it’s been a slow month at Sorrowsong when this is what we’re excited about,” says Divya, as Eike comes over and takes my bag off my shoulder. Magda takes the front seat, sliding her purple headphones over her braids, and I think she’s asleep before we’ve even paid the charge at the airport barrier.
Colette presses a button to put a screen up between us and Eike and then turns to face me like she’s been holding a piece of information in for days. “I caught Belladonna making out with a groundskeeper.”
“What?”
Divya nods, looking like she might burst with excitement at the fact we’re all back together. “And I caught my lecturer making out with Carmichael’s new PA!” She waves her hand like she’s trying to dismiss her own conversation topic. “What am I even talking about? You first! Tell useverything.”
I lean back in the plush leather seat, taking a sip of my tea. Alex’s mom, the fight with his father, the fact that things between Alex and me couldn’t be any better, the flights, Mabel, Fleur.Christ.Suddenly I’m glad the drive is two days long. “We have so much to talk about.”
Chapter 27
ALEX
To say the media storm following the break-in last week has been intense would be putting it mildly. My family and I have become some sort of public fascination, a spectacle for all to see.
I’m tired of it.
My laptop is hooked up to the TV above the fireplace, and I’m sweating so much I look like a glazed donut. I must’ve delivered thirty presentations this year—to politicians, to CEOs, to scarily mean schoolchildren, to shareholders—yet I’ve never been as nervous as I am for this one.
Josie puts down her toy robot to take a fistful of popcorn from Mia’s bowl. “What about school?”
“Well, that’s a really great question, Jo.” I lean against the bookshelves. “You’d have to go to a new school, with new people.”
“What about Fleur and college?” asks Evie, ever the advocate for her sisters.
“I’m not going to college,” interjects Fleur, without taking her eyes off her phone.
