CHAPTER 25

When everyone had dispersed to choose bedrooms, Jack followed me outside through arched French doors and onto a back patio dotted with topiaries and lounge chairs. I wandered to a fountain, where a jumping marble fish sprayed water out of its mouth and into a pond below. Jack stopped beside me, hands in his pockets.

“Sorry about that in there,” he said. “Knee-jerk reaction. I should have let you argue with Elodie if you wanted. I would rather have you stay here, but . . .”

I frowned and tucked my hair behind my ears. “I just think it’s better to have all of us close in case something goes wrong. But if you all think the risk of me being recognized is too much, then I guess I should just believe you.”

Overhead, a pair of birds called to each other, and I leaned against the railing around the fountain and looked up at the surrounding mansions.

We stood in silence for a few seconds, lost in our own thoughts. Finally, Jack held out his arm. I laid my cheek against his chest, and he rested his chin on top of my head. “You know I’d do anything for you, right?” he said. I could feel the words as much as I could hear them. “I don’t care how often we don’t agree. You can argue with me all day, and I’d still—”

He cut off abruptly, and his hand, which had been tracing small circles on my lower back, stilled. I tensed, staring into his shirt. He’d still what?

“I’d still do what’s right for you,” he finished. He rubbed my back again. “I always will.”

I thought about the part of Jack’s past he hadn’t told me about. How helpless he must have felt about Oliver Saxon’s death; how if it were me, I’d do anything I could to not feel like that again. “I know,” I whispered.

He ran his hands up my arms and then pulled away. “Wait here a minute,” he said.

He loped across the garden to a bush heavy with pink roses. He plucked one and ran back, offering it to me. “Tonight, when Colette and Elodie are out doing reconnaissance, let me take you out. A proper date. We’ll have to go somewhere far away from the action, where no one will recognize us, and it won’t be anything fancy, but—”

I was sure I looked skeptical. Really, now? Of all times?

“I’m serious. We never got to go on the date I asked you on in Minnesota. I meant it then, and I mean it a thousand times more now, and everything’s such a mess I don’t know that there’s anything holding us back anymore. Avery West, may I take you on a date?”

I took the rose. This would be good for us. Get things back to normal, if there was such a thing anymore. “Okay. Yes.”

I jumped when a door opened on a balcony at one of the houses next door. A woman swept outside in a red bikini. She was wearing a wide-brimmed white hat, but her long, wild, curly hair and thick winged eyeliner was instantly recognizable. Miranda Cruz, who had won the Best Actress Oscar last year. She leaned out over the balcony, looked around, and saw us looking at her. I ducked back behind Jack, just in case.

On cue, Elodie opened the patio door and gestured for us to come in. “I was looking for you,” she said. “What part of everyone here will recognize you didn’t you understand? Don’t go outside. For two days. Even you can handle that.”

I followed her back into the crisp air-conditioning. “I didn’t go from being the Saxons’ prisoner to being yours. I’ll wear sunglasses or something, but I’m not hiding inside. In fact, why don’t I just wear sunglasses and hide out near the festival tomorrow so I can at least be backup? I’ve been checking the news. All they’re saying is that I might be questioned. It’s not like they’ve put out a most-wanted bulletin. Random locals aren’t even going to notice me.”

“Like sunglasses are going to do anything—” Elodie protested.

“We could disguise her,” Colette said. “I do it all the time. Sunglasses aren’t enough, but you can get away with a lot by changing your hair and clothes. I’ll wear a wig and a huge coat, and I almost don’t even need the glasses. It’s like people don’t see my face when the rest of me isn’t what they were expecting.”

“So that’s what I’ll do,” I said. I looked down at my long, wavy dark hair falling over my shoulder. “I’ll cut my hair.”

“She said a wig,” Elodie said. “The dramatics are unnecessary. Though you do have a lot of hair, and fitting it under a wig . . .”

I touched the piece of hair that had been cut at the wedding. It brushed my collarbone.

“Could use it as an excuse to do something fun,” Colette said with a sad smile. “Cut it off to that length. Dye it pink.”

I started to laugh, but stopped. “Not a bad idea. I could go hipster. Get me some pink streaks, some big glasses . . . This cut piece looks ridiculous, anyway. I’ve been meaning to do something with it.” I turned to Elodie. “Will you do it?”

• • •

When Elodie got back from the drugstore with hair dye, we left the boys and Colette in the main room and shut ourselves in the marble bathroom.

“Time to make you hip. Though that’ll take more than just a haircut,” Elodie said, tossing a pair of scissors and a box of hair dye on the counter.

I took one last look at myself in the gilded mirror and pulled at the ends of my long hair, then sat on the toilet seat. “Is there anything the rest of us can do while you’re at the red-carpet thing tonight?”

Elodie pulled a brush through my hair. “Sit here and be useless.”

I bit down hard on my lip. “Why don’t you like me?”

She smirked.

“I’m serious. I keep trying to be nice to you, and you still hate me. I just want to make sure you’re not going to shave my head right now.”

Elodie snagged a knot, and I flinched. “I don’t hate you. I think this whole thing’s obnoxious, and I kind of wish you’d never come into our lives. But I don’t hate you.”

“Um, okay. Thanks,” I said, not hiding the sarcasm.

She gave an exaggerated sigh. “It’s a compliment. I think you’re handling it okay. I hope you don’t hurt him, though. Jackie. He’s . . . good. Both of them are.”

Oh. So that was what the renewed animosity was about. I thought she’d looked at us all funny on the train this morning. “I thought we agreed we weren’t going to talk about this. Weird relationship stuff not conducive to serious clue following, remember?”

“Funny, you say that, but you keep leading both of them on, anyway.”

I turned so quickly, the brush yanked on my hair. “Ow. I’m not leading anyone on. I had a thing with Jack. Have a thing. Whatever. It’s complicated. End of conversation.”

“But you want to know what Stellan’s tongue tastes like.”

“Elodie!” I whipped around again, this time to the door to make sure no one had heard. I hissed through my teeth when the brush caught again, and I ripped it out of her hand and disentangled it myself.

“Am I wrong, though?” She took back the brush and clipped the top layer of hair tight against my head.

“Just drop it, okay?”

Mercifully, Elodie shrugged and gave the short piece of hair a tug. “You’re sure about this? You have such glamoreux hair. Short hair feels different.”

I shook my head a little and felt my hair tickling my skin. I’d worn it long since our first move. I’d never dyed it, never done anything. Was this crazy? Maybe. Was I sure? No. I glanced up at Elodie’s blunt bob.

She saw me looking and touched her own hair. “Exactly. You don’t want to be like me.”

“I was actually just thinking I like yours,” I said. I’d spent so much time fighting, stubbornly clinging to the idea of having everything how it used to be, when maybe I should be adapting. Adjusting my hair around what had happened rather than trying to cover up the part I’d lost. I inwardly rolled my eyes at the obvious cheesy metaphor there, but I said, “I want it cut. Do it.”

She pursed her lips, studying me like she wasn’t sure if I was telling the truth. “Okay.”

Still, I held my breath when she pulled my hair taut for the first cut. That distinctive sound of scissors snipping was followed by the whisper of a lock falling to the bathroom floor. It was so much longer than I thought the cut part would be. It lay there on the tile, curled in a spiral. It hit like a punch. “Oh God,” I whispered.

“Too late now,” Elodie said.

“I know.” I watched the second lock fall. And the third.

Soon, Elodie stood in front of me, evening out the hair brushing my collarbones. I touched the freshly snipped ends, and they swung freely.

Elodie took down the clip with the next layer of hair. I swallowed hard.

“I don’t hate you, either. Just so you know,” I said, trying to distract myself.

She pulled a strand of hair between her fingers. “I know.” By the time she took down the top section, my head felt ten pounds lighter.

Finally, she ruffled my hair and smoothed it back from my face. My eyes were still shut tight, and I felt her arrange locks over my ears, then grab my chin and tilt my face up. “Open,” she said.

I did, and Elodie’s face was inches from mine. She actually smiled, and took my face between her palms. “Stop looking like someone died, or I’m not going to do the pink.”

I pasted on a smile that felt fake even to me, and she snorted but grabbed the box of dye. Then she looked me up and down and wrinkled her nose. “Please tell me those aren’t the same clothes you had on when we left Greece.”

“I haven’t exactly had time to go shopping.” I touched my hair, trying to sneak a peek over my shoulder into the mirror.

“No! Don’t look.” Elodie jumped in front of me and pointed at the partition at the end of the room that hid the shower stall. “Your hair needs to be wet, anyway. Shower, and I’ll have Colette bring clean clothes, then we’ll do the dye.”

Almost an hour later, I was showered, my hair was dyed, and Elodie produced a blow-dryer. She kept me facing away from the mirror, and I could feel her twirling my waves around her fingers. When she was done, she actually smiled. “Approved. You can look.”

I stood and smoothed the black sheath dress Colette had brought. She and I weren’t anywhere near the same size, but the dress was drapey, so it didn’t matter.

I took a centering breath and turned around.

I didn’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this.

Elodie had cut my hair in a long blunt bob that fell to my shoulders. I’d wondered if the short hair would make me look younger, but I looked more sophisticated. Older, in a good way. Without the length of the hair pulling down, my cheekbones stood out more, and my eyes looked bigger, but somehow more proportional at the same time. I looked like me, but not.

And the color. If pink hair could ever look natural, this looked natural. It was bright—it was incredibly bright. It wasn’t just pink, it was magenta. But all the pink chunks were on the under layer, and Elodie had woven them in so they peeked through the curls on top. At first you only got a glimpse, but if I tossed my hair or turned my head quickly, it was a flash of neon.

“I love it,” I said. “I love it. You’re a genius.”

“I’m going to remember you said that and use it as blackmail,” Elodie said, but she looked pleased.

“I don’t look like me.” I did, but still different enough to walk down the hall at Lakehaven High without anybody recognizing me. “This will work.”

“We’ll have to put you in baggy clothes, probably, make you look bigger, but it’s a start.”

I nodded. “Anything. I’ll do anything.”

Between the hair and the dress, I looked so . . . together. Capable. Confident.

“Thank you,” I said. “I couldn’t have—thank you.”

“You’re not going to hug me, are you?” Elodie took a step back.

I felt a real smile creeping across my face. “I won’t hug you. But thank you. I like it.”

“Well,” she said, opening the bathroom door, “now we’ve wasted half the afternoon, so hopefully it was worth it.”

We headed down the stairs. Colette intercepted us in the hall and clapped her hands excitedly, then took my arm and led me into the living room. “What mischief have you all been up to while we’ve been gone?” Elodie said.

Neither of the boys answered. They peered around her, trying to catch a glimpse of me.

When they did, Jack’s mouth dropped open. I don’t think he’d believed I’d actually do it. Stellan looked just as shocked. All of a sudden, I felt far more self-conscious than I had a minute ago. Colette flipped the ends of my hair, and I chewed my lip. “Do you like it?” I asked Jack.

“Yes! Yes. Absolutely. Looks brilliant,” he said, snapping out of it. “Pink hair, then. That’ll make a good disguise.”

“You don’t like it.”

“Don’t be such an old person,” Elodie said. “She looks fabulous. S, tell her she looks fabulous.”

“Fabulous,” Stellan echoed, but he barely glanced at me as he toed the ground with one boot.

“Well, I like it,” I said with as much confidence as I could muster. This was about being able to leave the house without getting recognized, not about looking pretty. And I did like it.

“You look great,” Jack jumped in again. “I just—it’s so . . . different. I—”

Elodie frowned at him and threw her arm around my shoulders and led me to the front window.

“I hate them,” Elodie whispered in my ear. “I’ve hooked up with both of them, and they were both terrible.”

I hiccuped out an appalled laugh.

Elodie made a face. “Okay, that’s a lie. It’s a complete lie. But I hate them, anyway.”

I glanced over my shoulder. “That was the worst pep talk I’ve ever heard,” I whispered.

“It doesn’t matter what they think,” she said. “Every gay boy in Cannes will want to touch your hair.”

I touched my forehead to her shoulder.

“Too much like a hug,” she said, pulling away. “And now, Lettie,” she said, grabbing Colette’s arm, “it’s our turn. Surveillance time in less than four hours.”