‘You worked at the Last Chance?’
‘That’s how I met your dad,’ she said. ‘He’d just had his faculty interview at Weymar and came in for lunch. It was slow, so we started talking. And it just went from there. At the end of the summer, my mom got better for a little while, so I said good-bye to your dad and left. But once I was in New York, it just didn’t feel right. I didn’t have the hunger for it anymore.’
‘Really.’
She drew in a breath. ‘I’d come here planning to leave as soon as I could. It was a pit stop, not a destination. I had my whole life mapped out.’
‘So what happened?’
‘I guess that map didn’t turn out to be mine after all,’ she said. ‘So I left New York, married your dad, and used my money to open Clementine’s. And weird as it sounds, it felt perfectly right. Totally different, but perfectly right.’
I thought of her face when I’d come home that night, the sad way she’d told me about her talk with my dad. ‘Does it still? Feel right, I mean.’
She looked at me for a moment. Then she said, ‘Actually, yes. Of course, I wish things were different with your dad and me right now. But I have Thisbe, and my work… I have what I wanted, even if it isn’t perfect. If I’d stayed in New York, I would have always wondered if that was possible.’
‘No tinge,’ I said.
‘What?’
I shook my head. ‘Nothing.’
Heidi pushed her chair out, getting to her feet. ‘In the end, I went away for the summer, fell in love, and everything changed. It’s the oldest story in the world.’
The way she was looking at me as she said this made me suddenly uncomfortable, and I turned my attention back to my purse in my lap. ‘Yeah,’ I replied, pulling my phone out. ‘I guess I have heard that before.’
In response, she said nothing, instead just running a hand over the top of my head as she passed by me. ‘Good night, Auden,’ she said, stifling a yawn. ‘Sleep well.’
‘You, too.’
And the thing was, I knew I would. Sleep, that is, and maybe even well. That was one thing that had definitely changed for me in my time here. The love part, and everything else… that didn’t apply. But you never knew. I had a prom date, with it another chance to draw my own map. The summer wasn’t over yet, so maybe the story wasn’t either.
• • •
‘Okay,’ Leah said, hiking up her dress to examine the hem. ‘I am having major flashbacks right now. Didn’t we just do this?’
‘We did,’ Esther told her. ‘In May.’
‘And why are we doing it again?’
‘Because it’s the Beach Bash!’ Maggie said.
‘That’s a statement, not an explanation,’ Leah replied. ‘And it’s definitely not reason enough to go through all this again.’
We were in Heidi’s bedroom, where she’d sent us after hearing us complain, en masse, about not being able to find anything decent to wear to the Beach Bash Prom. My stepmother continued to surprise me. Not only was she a former cold bitch, but a shopaholic, as well. She had tons of dresses, in a variety of sizes, that she’d bought over the years. Vintage, classic, entirely eighties, you name it and it was there.
‘We need dates, too, remember,’ Leah said. ‘Unless Heidi’s got some hot guys tucked away behind those shoe boxes.’
‘You never know,’ I said, peering into the deep recesses of the closet. ‘At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised.’
‘Dates aren’t mandatory, this time,’ Maggie said. ‘Let’s just all go together. It’ll be easier not having to deal with boys anyway.’
Leah shot her a look. ‘No way. If I’m having to get all dolled up and wear a nice dress, I want a cute boy to go with it. It’s a deal breaker.’
‘Well,’ I said, opening up the other side closet door, ‘tonight is Ladies’ Night at Tallyho.’
‘Finally!’ Leah pointed at me. ‘Someone understands.’
‘Easy for her to say,’ Esther said. ‘She’s the only one with a date.’
‘But not a dress,’ I replied, pulling out a black, low-cut sheath, then immediately putting it back. It was a small detail, I knew. And it wasn’t like this was a real prom. But it would probably be the only one I’d ever attend, so I was determined to make the most of it. So far, though, everything I’d found had been too something: too bright, too short, too long, too much.
‘Oh, man!’ Esther spun around, holding against herself a pink fifties-style dress with a full, stiff crinoline. ‘How much will you bet me to wear this without any sense of irony?’
‘You have to,’ Maggie said, reaching out to touch the skirt. ‘God. It’s perfect for you.’
‘Only if you wear that black one you had on earlier, the Audrey Hepburn–looking one,’ Esther told her.
‘You think? It’s so dressy.’
‘So wear flip-flops with it. They are your trademark.’
Maggie walked over, picking up the black dress from the bed. ‘That could work. What do you think, Leah?’
‘I think,’ Leah, who was pulling a bright red number over her tank top, said, ‘that if I’m going to go to this thing dateless, I could wear a garbage bag and it wouldn’t matter.’
‘Why do you need a guy to dress up?’ Maggie asked. ‘Aren’t we, your oldest and dearest friends, good enough company?’