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Same with Elise. And Catherine and me. But their parents didn’t murder ours, so I think they win.
“You have heat in your apartment, you know.” Elise uses this low, lovey voice with him, and it’s obvious that he’s hot for it. “I won’t die of hypothermia while you’re in the shower.”
Gabriel leans down, careful because of his cracked ribs—how gross are cracked ribs?—and nuzzles Elise’s nose with his.
“You brought her all this stuff because you’re taking ashower? How long are you going to be in there, like a week?”
He picks his head up and looks at me, a wrinkle forming between his eyebrows. “You think it’s too much? Should I stop?”
“Oh my God, no. Somebody should have been doing this for Elise all along.”
Gabriel frowns. “I don’t love the sound of that.”
Elise pulls Gabriel in for a quick kiss. “I would never have let anyone else bring me a throw blanket. You’re the only one.”
I avert my eyes while they say how much they love each other. It’s kind of annoying. I’m…kind of jealous. What if nobody ever loves me enough to miss me while they’re in the shower?
“Okay. Have a great talk, ladies. Hope to see you soon.”
Gabriel leaves. Elise listens until water runs through the pipes, her cheeks pink. “Okay. Now that we’re alone, I wanted to talk to you. Gabriel’s almost ready to go back to work, and I want to reopen the bakery, which means…we need to talk about school.”
“Ugh.” This is the last thing I want to talk about. Going to school has not been on the top of anybody’s list for the last few weeks, what with Gabriel getting hurt, and my dad’s heart taking him out, and…and everything. “I feel like I just left.”
“You don’t have to go back to Pembroke.”
I bolt up in the chair. “Um. What?”
“Gabriel and his brothers are pretty influential in the city, so you and Nate have plenty of options.”
Oh my God. I thought I’d have to go to Pembroke, and Nate would go somewhere else, and we’d never see each other because school is an insatiable time vampire.
“Hmm.” I look out the window and purse my lips, pretending to think of all the different schools I’ve heard of. Elise buys it, I think. Then I act like something has just occurred to me. “Has Nate made a decision on where he wants to go yet? It doesn’t really matter. I’m just curious.”
“Gabriel talked to him about it this morning. As far as I know, he hasn’t made a decision.”
I definitely don’t care where he wants to go to school. It just seems so much easier for both of us to go to the same place. Driving-wise, I mean, assuming Gabriel has someone drive us. Or we could take the subway together. Elise probably wouldn’t like that, but safety in numbers, right?Ifwe went to the same school.
“Okay. That’s—that’s cool. I’m glad I don’t have to go back to Pembroke. I hated that place.”
“I know you did.” Elise picks up her phone, and mine vibrates a second later. It’s a link to a Google doc. “I put together a list to start from.”
“Oooh. Very formal.” I open up the doc. The first phrase that jumps out at me isfine arts. “Are these—what kinds of schools are these?”
“Some of them are just, you know, schools. Nice ones. Other ones have more of a concentration on art.” Elise sips at her tea. Nowshe’sthe one pretending to be casual. “Ifthat’s something you wanted to do.”
My parents called my sketchesdoodles.They’re not doodles. They’re more important than any of the work I’ve done at Pembroke.
“How did you—these are, like, annotated?”
Below the name of each school and its website link and address is a short description, like from a recruitment brochure. Underneaththatis a single bullet point with a different kind of note. One of them saysoil painting instruction by Turner Prize winner—specialty in landscapes.Another one saysformer MacArthur Fellow in visual arts department—specialty in figure drawing.
“Oh, Mason’s friend has a…brother-in-law? A brother-in-law who has art world connections.” Elise shrugs. “I thought you might want to take those into consideration, too.”
Woah. Way too many emotions. “This is awesome, Elise.”
She stands up from the couch, comes over, and gives me a hug. “Anyway, that was it. No biggie. Let me know if you want to tour any of them. You probably shouldn’t miss too much school. You know?”
“Probably not!”
