Dear Diary,
I wish I could afford to visit a modiste to design the gown for my first dance. She would hold up the fabrics one by one—shot silk, crushed velvet, sprigged muslin—until she found the perfect material to transform me into a more radiant version of myself.
But then I’d also need a maid to do my hair, and a carriage to get me there. Not to mention a dancing master to keep me from making a fool of myself.
M.P.M.
would resemble a war-torn landscape: the rubble of buildings, scorched earth, hollow-eyed survivors staggering through the ruined streets. Instead, the ensuing weeks were marked by a climate of remote politeness. It was as if the annual quota for soul-baring had been met and exceeded in that one night, leaving everyone shaky and subdued.
Arden made no further mention of Neill, beyond adding an entry about Egocentric Scoundrels with Poor Table Manners to our guide. Nor did she press Terry and me to find other dates, or demand details from Lydia about her plans with Pittaya. I attributed Arden’s diminished enthusiasm to the pressures of school and being on the dance committee, plus the general frenzy of December, all of which must be exacerbating her scheduling difficulties with Miles. It was no wonder she seemed distracted.
At home, the rest of the family tiptoed around Addie and Van. Mom filled the tea cabinet with herbal blends that prominently featured words like soothing, harmony, and peace. When there were no further explosions, and Cam didn’t rattle the household with additional revelations, we cautiously resumed our normal routines. Dad said hopeful things at the dinner table about clearing the air, prompting Jasper to volunteer, “That wasn’t me.”
This was followed by a gaseous noise we all knew and dreaded.
“Wait.” My brother held up a finger. “That one was.”
We all covered our noses.
Despite the surface calm, it was not without trepidation that I mounted the stairs to the attic the night of the dance. Partly this was selfish; the twins had promised to do my hair and makeup for the evening, and I wasn’t sure how sublimated aggression would translate to cosmetics use. My vanity was a small thing, however, compared to the deep-seated need to see the twins restored to their former place as pillars of my world. They were supposed to be capable and mature, not sharp-tongued and falling apart.
I knocked on the door of their bedroom already wearing the dress Anton had helped me select from the Baardvaark costume department. The cocktail-length black number hailed from a recent production of Henry V, set during the late 1940s. It cinched in at the waist and poofed wide over the hips; according to Anton, this was a signature of Dior’s New Look, and thus perfectly suited to the Parisian theme. When I removed it from the dry-cleaning bag, I found a note pinned to the shoulder in Anton’s spiky cursive: “Try not to break too many hearts.”
“What do you think?” I asked diffidently, when Addie opened the door.
She beckoned me inside. “Turn around.” I made a slow rotation, holding the sides of the skirt as though about to curtsy.
My sister nodded in satisfaction. “You have such a tiny waist. It’s perfect for this dress.”
I looked down at myself in surprise. Where the twins and Cam were willowy and narrow-hipped, a look I’d always envied, my figure had a lot more ins and outs. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing, in this dress anyway. I swished experimentally from side to side. It was like wearing a cloud, only scratchier.
Van got up from her bed to adjust my neckline, which was relatively high-cut but wide enough to expose my collarbone. She twisted my hair into a coil so that we could check the effect in the full-length mirror. “Up or down?”
“Up.” I liked the way it looked: dark dress, pale neck, dark hair.
Van turned to her twin. “Should we give her a beauty mark?”
“People will just think it’s a weird freckle,” I pointed out, not without a modicum of self-pity. My sisters all bronzed in the sun instead of speckling like a springer spaniel.
“It’s winter,” Addie said as she removed the last bobby pin from her mouth and slid it into my hair. “Your freckles hardly show. Anyway, I like them.”
“Addie used to want freckles so badly she Sharpied herself,” Van told me.
“It would have looked better if I hadn’t used red.”
“One of the grading pens?” My voice dropped to a scandalized whisper. We were strictly forbidden to borrow them, as our parents required a steady supply to mark student essays and they tended to slip through our father’s fingers like grains of sand.
“Mom thought she had chicken pox,” Van said.
“But then she realized that was impossible, because you would have had them too.” Addie looked at Van as she spoke. When their eyes met in the mirror I held my breath, lest I disrupt the fragile rapprochement. Van offered a tremulous smile, but Addie’s expression had already shuttered.
“I’m going to check the curling iron.” She kept her eyes on the floor as she hurried from the room.
“What?” Van asked, catching me looking at her. “You think it’s all my fault.”
“I never said that.”
“You always side with Addie.”
“No I don’t!”
Van gave me a look that reminded me of our mother. I supposed she had a point. When battle lines were drawn, I defaulted to Team Addie, in the same way that Jasper and Cam had an unspoken alliance. I’d never thought about where that left Van.
“I’m just surprised,” I said, in lieu of answering her directly.
“That I’m dating a woman?”
“Nobody cares about that.”
Van looked disappointed. No doubt she had a speech prepared.
“What bothers me is that you’re having an affair.” My heart pounded as I waited for Van to respond.
Her brow furrowed. “Except neither of us is married.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s not cheating.”
“I’m not—wait, you think Phoebe’s with someone else?”
It should have been a relief to discover Van didn’t know, but she looked so crestfallen I almost wished I’d kept my mouth shut.
“Who?” she whispered.
I braced myself. “Alex. Alex Ritter. I saw them together at auditions.”
Van was silent for a long moment. Then she bent forward, gripping the edge of the dresser. Her shoulders shook.
“It’s okay!” I patted her with both hands. “You’ll meet someone else, and they’ll be so much better. You deserve someone faithful and true . . . ” My voice trailed off as I realized my sister was laughing, not weeping. Had she succumbed to nervous hysteria? Maybe I should slap her.
Addie walked back into the room shaking a bottle of red nail polish. “What’s so funny?”
Van wiped her eyes before taking a deep breath. “Mary just informed me that Phoebe is dating someone behind my back.”
Addie’s arm fell to her side. “I’ll kill her.”
“Wait!” Van waved her to silence. “You haven’t heard the best part. Guess who it is?”
“Who?” Addie directed the question at me.
I sighed. “Alex Ritter.”
Addie looked away, pressing a hand to her lips, but not quickly enough to hide that she was laughing at me too, albeit with more restraint. How wonderful they’d finally found something to agree on. I was sorely tempted to walk out and leave them to their mirth-filled reconciliation.
“I’m sorry.” Addie gasped for breath, clutching her ribs. “I shouldn’t laugh. You didn’t know.”
I looked from her to Van, who appeared to be on the verge of another fit. “Know what?”
“Alex is Phoebe’s brother,” Van said, clearly relishing the word. “Not her boy toy.”
Phoebe was Alex’s sister? I thought of their slender frames and curly wheat-blond hair, the dark lashes and blue-gray eyes. It was . . . not impossible.
“But he came to Trivia Night.” This was not a protest so much as a question—the first of many circling my brain like moths around a porch light.
“He heard me telling Phoebe about it. Said it sounded entertaining.” I felt Van’s eyes on me. “Maybe he had another reason for showing up?”
Addie set down the nail polish. “Is there something you want to tell us, Mary?”
“Me?”
“Who else would he have gone there to see?” Addie asked.
“You. Van. Random strangers. How should I know?”
“Pretty sure he knows I’m spoken for,” Van pointed out.
I sniffed. “That didn’t stop him before.”
Addie frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Antony and Cleopatra,” I reminded them. “With what’s-her-name? She had a boyfriend at the time, and then Alex came along and suddenly people were sobbing in the prop room and slamming doors.”
Van made a noise of disgust. “Oh please. Julia and Tad were like the low-rent Heathcliff and Cathy, way before Alex Ritter showed up. We ordered sandwiches after rehearsal once and somehow it led to this huge crisis with Tad locked in the bathroom and Julia rolling around on the stage yelling ‘hey nonny my ASS.’”
“Over condiments,” Addie recalled. “She was not a mustard person.”
I must have missed that day. “But what about you guys? Didn’t he, you know—”
“Flirt with us? Oh yeah. It was adorable. He was like a baby Lord Byron, without the sleaziness. Or the incest.” Van grinned at me. “Too soon?”
“It was harmless,” Addie put in. “Flattering in a way. You could tell he didn’t really mean anything by it.”
“Oh.” It must be nice, to be able tell things like that.
“He wasn’t the best-looking guy in the world, but he made you think he was.” Van picked up a brush and began running it through her hair. “That’s the power of charisma.”
“Magnetism,” Addie agreed. “The sparkle in the eye that hints at inner life.”
I huffed in disbelief. “You’re kidding, right? Alex Ritter is extremely handsome.”
The twins exchanged a glance. Addie spoke first. “Are the two of you—”
“Dallying?” Van finished.
“No! Not at all.” I looked at my hands, twisting in front of me. “That would be stupid.”
“Why?” Van asked.
“Wouldn’t you guys warn me away from someone like that?”
“I would never tell you who to love,” Van said loftily. “I trust you to follow your heart. If it ends badly, so be it. You have to be open to new experiences. What’s the point of living otherwise?”
There wasn’t enough room in my brain to process what she was saying. “It doesn’t matter. He’s not really interested.”
Van waved a finger at me. “Don’t sell yourself short, Mare-Bear. I thought the same thing about Phoebe, but we Porter-Malcolms are not without attractions of our own.”
“Be true to yourself and other people will see your worth. If they’re worth your time.” Addie’s words seemed directed to her twin as much as me.
While Van smiled, a thread of unease settled in the pit of my stomach. They made it sound so easy, like riding a bike—but I had come late to that skill, too.