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* * *
“Cassel told me all about you,” Lila tells Audrey. Her smile changes her from homeless vagabond to regular girl, even with her matted hair.
Audrey looks from me to Lila and then back at me, as if she’s trying to decide whether this is part of some game.
“What did he say?” asks Jenna, taking a long swig of her Diet Coke.
“My cousin just got back from India,” I say, and nod in Lila’s direction. “Her parents were living in some ashram. I was telling her about Wallingford.”
Audrey’s hands go to her hips. “She’s your cousin?”
Lila scrunches her eyebrows for a moment, then a wide grin splits her face. “Oh! Because I’m so pale, right?”
Stacey flinches. Audrey looks at me like she’s trying to see if I’m offended. Wallingford’s idea of political correctness is never to mention anything about race. Ever. Brown skin, especially ambiguously light brown skin like mine, is supposed to be as invisible as red hair or blond hair or skin so white it’s marbled with blue veins.
“No, it’s all good,” says Lila. “We’re stepcousins. My mother married his mother’s brother.”
My mother doesn’t even have a brother.
I don’t lift an eyebrow.
I don’t smile.
I don’t admit to myself that scamming the girl I might still be in love with is making my pulse race.
“Audrey,” I say, because I know this script pretty well, “can we talk for a minute?”
“Cassel,” says Lila. “I have to cut my hair. I have to take a shower. Come on.” She grins at Audrey and grabs my arm. “It was nice meeting you.”
I keep my gaze on Audrey, waiting for her to answer.
“I guess you can talk when you get back to school,” says Jenna.
“She could use the shower at the dorm,” Audrey says hesitantly.
I am a very bad person.
“So we can talk?” I ask her. “That would be great.”
“Sure,” she says, not looking at me.
As we all walk back to Wallingford, Lila flashes me a grin. “Smooth,” she mouths.
* * *
Audrey and I sit on the cement steps in front of the arts building. Her neck is blotchy, the way it gets when she’s nervous. She keeps pushing her red hair out of her face, hooking it over one ear, but it tumbles loose with every breeze.
“I’m sorry about what happened at the party,” I say. I want to touch her hair, smooth it back, but I don’t.
“I’m an independent woman. I make my own decisions,” she says. Her gloved hands pull at the weave of her gray tights.
“I just meant that I—”
“I know what you mean,” she says. “I was drunk, and you shouldn’t kiss drunk girls, certainly not in front of their boyfriends. It’s not chivalrous.”
“Greg’s your boyfriend?” That certainly explains his reaction.
She bites her lower lip and shrugs.
