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“You shouldn’t be down here by yourself.”
Jamie looked up, his dark eyes already looking bored with the conversation. “Are you going to say I should spend time with my friends?” He wiggled the book. “Because I am.”
“You know Mom wants you to be with people, not off alone.”
He frowned at that. “They were playing a card game where they needed pairs. I’m number five. Was I supposed to just sit and watch?”
I crouched in front of him, folding my arms over my knees. “I know you hate these things, Jamie—”
“You hate them too,” he cut me off, looking as if he’d made some grand point.
And he wasn’t wrong. I also knew that fighting it wasn’t worth the trouble. My gaze fell to his book, the way his fingers curved protectively over it. “How did you even get that past Mom and Dad?”
“I snuck it under my coat.”
Oh, Jamie.It made me think about the Stella wig, tucked safely away in a box.
Before pushing to my feet, I grabbed Jamie’s tie, fitting it back over his head. He didn’t fight me on it, but he did scowl. “At least take it back to the other kids,” I told him, standing up. “You can read your book while they play cards.”
“Why can’t I stay here and do that?”
“Because you don’t want to,” Margot answered for me, and I turned to find her sauntering closer, my pink Claire-Haute coat slung over her arm. “Once you’re branded as an outcast, you can’t take it back.”
Her expression was even, but I still felt a stab of sympathy toward her. “Maybe I want to be an outcast,” Jamie muttered, but he closed his book.
“You think that now,” Margot said. “But trust me, okay?”
Margot and I hadn’t always been friends. There weren’t many kids our age who attended the fundraisers, and though we’d both been coming to these since middle school, I hadn’t really spoken to her until last year. Mom would never let me. Her parents didn’t always attend the country club events anymore, but always forced Margot to go.
Her taste in fashion branded her as an outcast quickly. “What kind of woman wears asuitto aparty?” I’d hear people murmur, judgment dripping from their posh tones. Somewhere along the way, Mom sided with them, and didn’t want us being friends at first.
I never really understood why—what, was she afraid Margot’s fashion sense would rub off on me? Was she afraid the wild, free-thinker Margot Massey would teach me to think for myself?
Honestly, I wished.
Though Margot never appeared bothered by it, sometimes it would slip through how much the indifferent treatment affected her.
Jamie relented and pushed to his feet. He walked ahead of us, and when we got to the primary area, Nellie’s eyes lit up. “Jamie, perfect timing! Will you be my partner this next round?”
“No, I want Jamie,” a boy with messy hair complained, frowning. “You can’t have your twin as your partner. That’s cheating.”
“How so?” Nellie demanded, all while Jamie looked back and forth between them, almost as if surprised.
“Thanks,” I said to Margot as I pulled my coat on, then buttoned it up. “And hey, you’re not an outcast.”
Margot shrugged, her shoulder pad twitching with the movement. “Around here, I am. And that’s okay—I’d be much more terrified if I fit in.”
I thought of how easily Mrs. Holland chatted with me, how quickly she believed my smile.
After a second, Margot withdrew her own car keys from her pocket, offering them to me. “Take my keys. I’ll grab your mom’s checkbook.”
She had an eight-ball looped around her key ring and a chain that said#1 Daughter. “Where am I going?”
“I’m breaking you out. Your very own fairy godmother. You should be honored.”
An image of Margot with wings came to mind, and I snorted. “I appreciate the sentiment, but my parents—”
“You’ve been making your rounds all night. When I give your mom her checks, I’ll tell her you went to the bathroom. She won’t even notice you’re gone.”
