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“What do you mean?”
She cocks her head at me. “He’s kissing her, Laura. They’ve been making out all afternoon. Where the hell have you been?”
I shake my head. “God, you are really something else, aren’t you?”
“You don’t believe me?”
“No, I don’t! I know you’re lying!” I turn around.
“Charlie?” I rush after her. I’m about to take the stairs two by two when I catch sight of a white fairy wing peeking out from behind the living room door, and when I pop my head inside, I find Summer leaning back against the wall, her hands behind her back. Further along the wall is Jack. He puts his finger on his lips. “We’re playing hide and seek with the kids,” he says.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I snap. “Do you have any idea what just went on out there?”
I go up to Charlie’s room, Jack follows, looking chastised. But Charlie won’t speak to me; in fact, she’ll scream if I’m in the room, so I leave Jack to it, my heart shattered.
* * *
“Nothing happened!” Summer says later when I’ve dragged her outside. The parents have whisked their children away, half of them in tears. She retrieves her bag from the garage, her big bag full of party things.
“Making out behind the door?” I hiss at her.
“We didn’t.”
She rearranges her dress around her breasts and I wonder if Jack slipped his hands in there.
“I didn’t mean for you to have sex with him in the living room!”
“Oh, Laura please. Don’t be ridiculous. Nothing happened.” She gets her phone from a pocket deep inside the layers of her skirt and taps away.
“And anyway, you said to do something unforgivable. That’s what you said.”
“Actually, I said makehimdo something unforgivable, but okay.”
“What was I supposed to do? Brush dandruff off his shoulder? If that’s what you had in mind, you should have said.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. And anyway, you were supposed to do it in front of Bronwyn, that was the point, not in hiding!”
But just as the words leave my mouth, I realize that the joke, again, is on me. After all, it’s me who’s marrying Jack in two months. It’s me, who is going to be walking down the aisle—sort of, it’s not that kind of wedding—with all the guests watching on thinking,Wasn’t he shoving his tongue down some fairy’s throat at that party?before uploading pictures to their Instagram feed. Hashtag loser.
A taxi pulls up outside. “It’s for me,” Summer says.
“I got your cash,” I say, reaching into my pocket.
She rolls her eyes. “Only if you want to.” She takes it, gets inside the taxi, closes the door and flicks the window down. “By the way, who was it Jack had an affair with?”
“Who was it?” I shrug. “Nobody.”
“Come on, must have been somebody to make Bron leave him like that.”
“Please don’t call her Bron.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s what Jack calls her. It’s weird if you do it. It’s not like you’re her friend.Areyou her friend?”
“Of course not. So who did Jack have the affair with? You?”
“No! Why do you ask?”
