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“Yes,” she says loudly. “Why are you acting so weird, James? You knew she was staying with us.”
He shakes his head as if to dislodge something. “You’re all grown up,” he says quietly. He sees that Ginny is now 19. Why on earth does he seem surprised that I grew up too? Then again, the last time he saw me I had braces, glasses, and was so skinny that my nickname was “Skeletor”. And Ginny’s so small she looks a lot less 19 than I do.
The guy beside him grins and extends a hand. “What my stammering friend here meant to say is that you are stunning, and we are happy to have you here for the summer. I’m Max.”
“We have another roommate too,” says Ginny. “Dan. But he’s like a groundhog. You’ll only see him for a few minutes a month.”
“How was your drive?” James asks politely. He still seems unsettled by my presence here. He hasn’t smiled once.
“Good,” I say. “I went to DC first, to see my mom.”
He nods. “I’m sorry … Ginny told me about your parents and uh, everything else.”
I flush. I suppose ‘everything else’ is the picture — now all over the internet — of me entering a restaurant with Edward Ferris by my side.
“Come upstairs and I’ll show you our room,” Ginny says, pulling me away. I follow her, but not before I hear the following exchange:
“Damn, dude,” says one of the guys.
And then James’s voice. Deep and unhappy. “I know.”
Ginny frowns as we take the stairs. “Well, they all liked you,” she sighs unhappily. “I feel like I just brought Kate Upton into the house.”
“James didn’t seem too happy about it.”
She waves a dismissive hand. “I don’t know what that was but he’ll get over it.”
“You still haven’t told me why he’s even here. What happened to his internship?”
“Oh Jesus. He’s such an idiot,” she says. She opens the door to her room. Our room, I guess. It’s immaculate, something I’d have expected had I thought about it, because Ginny always was ferociously organized. Her clothes are ordered by shape and then by color. Her books by topic, and then height. She keeps her life’s goals on her wall in a complicated Venn diagram. I still remember the first one she did — she was seven.
“Okay,” I say, plopping down on the bed opposite hers. “Now tell me how James is an idiot.”
She groans and smacks her forehead. “So he gets that same sweet internship he had last summer, right? Tons of money, guaranteed associate’s position next year after he graduates, and he freaking bails after the first day. The first day!” she cries. “And now he’s saying he doesn’t want to be a lawyer and he’s not sure he’s going back to school at all!”
“Wow,” I say quietly. It’s a pretty spectacular derailment, especially for the firstborn of the hyper-achieving Campbells. Though no derailment could be as bad as mine. “What happened?”
“I have no freaking idea! Last summer went just fine. I mean, he said it was boring, but whatever. Suck it up, right?” she asks. “Allison thinks he’ll come to his senses, but he can kiss that associate’s position goodbye.”
“Who’s Allison?” I ask, something sinking in my stomach already.
“Oh,” she says, looking at me blankly. “She’s his girlfriend. And Dan’s sister.”
Given that I haven’t even seen the guy since I was 14, the words hit me surprisingly hard. “Girlfriend?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says. “I can’t believe I never mentioned her. She’s awesome.” This is somewhat redundant. As if James would date someone who wasn’t awesome. “She’s brilliant. Law review, dean’s list, the whole deal. He’s totally going to marry her.”
The sinking in my stomach was a small boat capsizing. Now it’s the Titanic. I think of the beautiful boy downstairs with his brooding eyes and his dark brows and the way his mouth quirks up to the right when he’s trying not to smile and all I feel is loss. It’s as if I’ve spent my whole life training for a race only to discover I’ve gotten to the starting line five minutes too late. “He’s marrying her?” I gasp.
“Well, he hasn’t asked yet, but he will. I mean, they’ve been together for nearly a year, and she’s just amazing. She’s beautiful but she also just has her shit together, you know?”
I kind of wish Ginny would stop talking. A girlfriend was bad enough. A girlfriend I could never compete against? One he’s planning to marry? That’s a whole other level of bad. The word ‘horrific’ comes to mind. “So what does he want to do instead?” I ask weakly.
“Who cares?” she asks. “What he needs to do is finish his freaking degree and pull his head out of his ass.”
Ginny came out of the womb ruthlessly ambitious. She’d chosen both her college and law school back in the days when we still believed the stork brought babies. Certainly I benefited from it — in elementary school, she created an online form for our Girl Scout cookie orders, and devoted inordinate amounts of time to cutting down overhead at our lemonade stand.
Even I seem relaxed by contrast, and that’s saying something.
