This Is Me From Now On Page 6
“My feet?”
“Sorry to ask, but Aunt Sam’s a bit compulsive about her room.” She opened the door very slowly, and we tiptoed in.
And I gasped. I mean, literally gasped.
Because it was the most amazing room I’d ever seen, like a contest in one of Lily’s magazines: “Enter Our Sweepstakes and Win the Bedroom of Your Dreams!”
Samantha Pattison had a gigantic canopy bed. With an actual canopy. Not some dorky Hello Kitty canopy, either—this one was deep purple and gauzy, with matching deep purple sheets and, like, a million rose silk pillows. She had a cream-colored vanity with a chair—a throne, really—covered in that same gorgeous rose color, and a curvy-legged writing desk facing rose-curtained windows. And hanging from the ceiling was an enormous crystal chandelier, which was going plinka plinka plinka from a light perfumy breeze.
“Oh. My. God,” I said, stepping carefully on the velvety cream-colored carpeting. “Whoa, Francesca.”
“Staggering, huh?” She yanked me inside. “Look at this.”
She led me through Samantha’s private bathroom, which had floor-to-ceiling mirrors and a circular whirlpool bath and perfectly folded rose-colored towels all monogrammed
It was a closet. I swear: a giant room-size closet. With racks and racks of clothes—dresses, gowns, nightgowns, you name it, some of them in colors I’d never seen except in Lily’s magazines. Also fabrics: satin, velvet, lamé. Against one wall was a tower—sort of a bookcase, actually—full of shoes. (A lot of them were super-fancy, so it was obvious where Francesca got her stilettos.) Stacked up against the other wall were, like, twenty huge wicker baskets with handwritten labels: gloves. wraps. clutches. sarongs. Sarongs? I tried to remember if I’d come across any sarongs in Lily’s magazines, but I was too gaga to even think straight.
“Why does she have so much stuff?” I managed to ask.
“Oh, you know,” said Francesca vaguely. She lifted a coppery gown from the rack and held it against herself. But it only came up to her shins, and didn’t make it all the way across her waist. “She’s been in lots of plays. And soaps, of course. And she knows a lot of costume people, obviously.”
She started dancing around in big loopy circles. “Evie, can you imagine genius Espee wearing something like this ?”
“No, I can’t,” I said quickly. “Of course not.”
“Me neither. Alas.” She re-hung-up the dress, not noticing that one shoulder slid right off the hanger. “Wouldn’t it be so epic if she did, though? Wonder what Theo Rafferty would say. Oh, wait a sec, look at this.”
She pulled down a wicker basket labeled VINTAGE. Inside was one giant tangle of silver chains and stretchy bracelets and earrings.
“Oh, help,” said Francesca, looking embarrassed. “What a disaster.”
“What happened? It looks like a hurricane hit it.”
“Probably the rabbits.”
‘The rabbits? You mean they come in here and play dress-up?”
She sighed. “Okay, it was me. I was looking for something, and I lost track. So help me fix it, okay?”
We sat on the floor untangling what we could. Francesca’s nails were longer than mine, so she was better at it, and the way she was able to free the snarls by rolling the chains in her fingertips made me think she had done this before. Finally she held up a heart-shaped silver locket on an almost completely knot-free chain.
“Look at this,” she said. “Gorgeous, huh?”
I took it from her. Under the chandelier light, you could see the initials SP and TR inscribed in a fancy, hard-to-read, old-fashioned script: SP. TR.
“Very elegant,” I said. “Does your aunt ever wear it?”
“Lord no. It was a present from Tristan Royce. As far as Aunt Sam is concerned, he can absolutely fry. Ooh, wait, Evie, I think I’ve got them. Here,” she said, forcing something into my hand.
Immediately I recognized the long, fancy earrings Francesca was wearing at Staples. The golden chandeliers. The Oscar earrings.
“You like them? Try them on. Don’t worry,” she added, before I could argue. “They aren’t even real.”
She grabbed a hand mirror that was lying around somewhere and held it up for me. I slipped off my own tiny silver hoops that I’d bought at the mall last summer, and slipped on the long, dangly gold ones.
Then I peeked at myself.
I moved my head. The earrings swished.
Plinka, plinka, plinka.
“All right, Evie, now listen to me: You’re keeping them,” Francesca said, laughing. “No arguments.”
I took a breath. “Don’t be crazy, Francesca.”
“Why not? Aunt Sam has a million others; she won’t even notice they’re gone. Or care. And, anyway, they look utterly brilliant on you.”
I had to admit they did. They shimmered. They lit up my used-to-be-blonder hair. They made my eyes glow.
But. “They belong to your aunt,” I said. “Besides, I’d never wear something like this. In a majillion years.”
“I know,” she said thoughtfully. “And that’s your problem.”
I pretend-laughed. “My problem is I won’t wear these earrings? I thought you said my problem was—”
“Your problem, Evie, is that you have all these bloody rules about yourself. Good earrings and bad earrings. Chocolate chip ice cream and veggie burgers. You know, sometimes your life just needs a little jolt.”
“Oh, come on, Francesca. I didn’t say they were bad—”
Suddenly we heard a door bang open. “FRANCES-CAAAA,” a loud voice called.
“Help, it’s Aunt Sam,” Francesca muttered. “We shouldn’t be in here.”
She yanked my arm.
“Wait,” I hissed. “The earrings.”
“No time,” she said. “Just take them, Evie. Go.”
She shoved me into the hall. I ran down the steps and slipped my feet into my sandals.
“Where are you, sugarpie?” Samantha Pattison called from the kitchen.
“Coming,” Francesca answered casually.
I snatched my backpack, which I’d left at the front door when we spotted the rabbit. And it was only when I was nearly three-quarters of the way home that I realized we’d never written that letter to Angelica Beaumont’s sister.
chapter 8
When I walked into the kitchen, Mom was on her cell, stir-frying some veggies with her other hand. “I completely agree, the mudroom is hopeless,” she was saying. “And my professional advice is, get rid of that wall. Yup. Just rent a bulldozer and knock the whole thing down.” She noticed me. “Dinner in ten minutes,” she mouthed.
I nodded, which made the earrings jiggle. So I immediately stopped nodding.
The kitchen phone rang.
“Just a minute, Caroline,” Mom said into her cell. “Evie, can you answer it, please? Bring it into the living room, take down any messages, and then immediately go wash up for dinner.”
Yes, Your Majesty, I thought. I moved an earring out of the way, and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Evie? Where’ve you been?” Nisha was asking. She sounded worried. “Why didn’t you answer your cell? I’ve been calling you all afternoon.”
“Sorry,” I said. “My cell was in my backpack. And I was at Francesca’s but I kind of got distracted.”
“With what?”
“Oh, you know. Talking about the project.”
“Really? Well, you’re excused.” She rolled her eyes. I mean, over the phone I couldn’t hear her eyeballs actually rolling, but I was sure that’s what she was doing. That’s how well I knew her. “So how did it go?” she asked.
“Fine, actually. We had the house to ourselves.”
“Sweet.” She paused. “And did she let you try on all her glamorous little outfits?”
“Hey, Nisha, I like how she dresses. It’s original.”
She didn’t answer.
Which in a way was an answer. Then she said, “And you read the diary? It actually exists?”
“Of course it exists.”
“Well, I’m glad for you, then. At least it wasn’t a total waste of time.”
“Right,” I said. I could hear Mom in the kitchen doing her Delightful Laugh. “No, it wasn’t.”
“Aaanyway,” Nisha said. Her cell was making a swooshy noise; probably she was moving to a Mrs. Guptil–free location. Or trying to. “Have you heard about Kayla? She’s going around telling everyone she likes Zane. She says he’s, like, the cutest boy in the eighth grade, and that he’s quote-unquote sensitive.”
“To what?”
“I don’t know. Her, I guess.”
I bit my lip. “I thought she was going out with Ryan.”
“They broke up. She caught him texting Sierra Kaufman.”
“Oh. Well, that’s . . . interesting.”
“You don’t even care?”
“Why should I? Kayla can like whoever she wants.”
“Okay, Evie. I just thought you’d want to hear about it before school tomorrow.” Nisha sighed. It sounded like a tornado in my ear. “So you’re meeting us in the morning, right?”
“Actually,” I said quickly, “can you wait a few minutes if I’m late? I need to return something to Francesca first.”
“Oh yeah? What?”
“It’s kind of a long story.” I suddenly felt warm, as if I’d shoplifted the earrings and just felt a security guard’s tap on my shoulder.
But apparently Nisha wasn’t in the mood for a long story. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “Because if you’re going over to Francesca’s in the morning, won’t she want to walk with you?”
“I guess.”
“So maybe we should just meet you at school.”
“You sure? I’ll be really quick, I promise.”
“It’ll just be easier. I’ll tell Lily.” Then she hung up.
I went upstairs, surprised and hurt that my best friends were refusing to wait for me, even if (and we didn’t know this for a fact) Francesca would be tagging along. Plus, I really didn’t appreciate hearing all that stuff about Kayla and Zane. And why was Nisha obsessing about my Attic Project? It felt like she almost wanted the diary to be a fake. Which was incredibly weird of her, and also unfair. Because she had that amazing scrapbook; why should she even care about the diary?
So it was perfectly okay that I’d lied to her about seeing it, I told myself. Even though technically I didn’t even lie: all I said was that the diary existed. And I had no reason to think that wasn’t true.
But by now it was starting to bother me that we hadn’t written that letter to Isabel Beaumont. How exactly had we lost track of it? I tried to think about the long afternoon, how one thing had just led to another, like a rabbit scampering around a big, empty house. I couldn’t let Francesca mix me up like that, I scolded myself. Not if we were going to be partners on this project. I had to stand up to her, make sure we got focused. And I would. Starting tomorrow.
I locked myself in the bathroom and stared in the mirror. I swished the earrings. I shook my head. I nodded like crazy. Oh yes, Zane, I’d love to go with you to the movies on Saturday. Yes, Fudge Caramel Whatever is MY favorite flavor too! The earrings still went plinka plinka plinka, but in the privacy of my own bathroom they just looked wrong. I didn’t think they were bad earrings, I told my reflection in the mirror. It’s just that they were all Hollywood starlety, and I was more of a mosquito-in-amber sort of person.
So I slipped them off, wrapped them up in some toilet paper, and immediately washed my hands for dinner.
At seven the next morning I rang Samantha Pattison’s bell. It was one of those obnoxious Big Ben chimes that took, like, thirty seconds to shut up, and I was terrified it would wake the whole street. But finally Francesca opened the door wearing a purple satin bathrobe.
“Evie,” she said, squinting in the sunlight. “You’re so early.”
“Sorry. I wanted to give you back these.” I forced the toilet-paper wad of earrings into her hand.
She blinked at them. “Oh, you didn’t have to. I told you, Aunt Sam has thousands—”
“I know,” I interrupted. “They’re really, really nice. But I felt funny about just taking them like that. Thanks anyway.”
She shrugged. “Come in. I need to get dressed.”
“Thanks, but I’ll just wait here.” Probably I was overdoing the Standing Up to Francesca routine, but I was thinking that if I went into Samantha’s house, we’d start chasing rabbits or something, and then somehow we’d forget all about Morning Homeroom.
About five minutes later she showed up at the door wearing lime green biking shorts, black patent-leather ankle boots, and a short, white zebra-patterned jacket trimmed with black fur. Immediately I imagined another snarky comment from Nisha. “Don’t worry, it’s faux,” she said, fluffing up her collar.
“I wasn’t worried about that,” I said truthfully. “But aren’t you kind of boiling?”
“Maybe a tad. Oh, well. We’ll just have to find another lawn sprinkler—”
“Gah. No, Francesca.”
“Only kidding! My God. You take everything so seriously.”
“Not everything,” I insisted.
We started walking, and I yelled at myself, NOW! SAY IT NOW. DON’T LET HER GET YOU DISTRACTED! So I added, “But can I say something? I am really serious about our Attic Project. And I’m a little upset we never wrote that letter yesterday.”
She gave me the semi-dazzling smile. “Oh, don’t worry, Evie. I took care of it last night.”
“You mean you wrote it? By yourself?”
“Uh-huh. Aunt Sam has the most brilliant stationery.”
“That’s great,” I said, wondering how paper could be brilliant. “So what did you write?”
“Oh, lots of stuff. It was late at night, I really don’t remember.”
“But you asked about the diary? I mean, that she should send it?”
She stopped walking. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
“I believe you,” I said carefully. “But I think I’d like to see the letter. I mean, because it’s my project too, right?”
“Of course. But it’s already in the envelope. Sealed.”
“Well, we can unseal it, can’t we?”
“Fine,” Francesca said, frowning. “If you insist.”
She unbuttoned a pocket of her zebra jacket and handed me a small, stamped envelope the color of spearmint Trident.
Aug 28
A little past midnite
Dearest greatest Greatest-grandma Isabel,
How are things in San Fran? Is yr hip any better? Does yr new nurse speak louder? I hope so!!!
I’m extremely well. I LOVE staying with Aunt Sam its so much better than Montblane Academy which was an utter eatastrophy, did Dad tell you? I miss Daddy desprately of course but NOT Saudi AT ALL. Mom is in Paris now, did you know that? She e-mailed Aunt Sam about a new ahem friend so maybe we’ll be invited for a spring weding but qui sais? School is a deadly bore as usuall, all the teachers are useless except for History, she’s desperately in love with the Art teacher. The kids here are what yd expect normal and completely smug they have NO CONCEPT of the real world, or anyway life beyond Blanton, I do have one good friend tho. The rabbits are a bloody pain in the you know what, how is Snowball?
PLEASE write back!!!
Lovelovelove,
Frankie
PS!!! Do you rember Angelica’s diary in yr attick? The earthquake one, can you send it, please? Ask Uncle Teddy to find it, I’m sure he knows where it is. Kisses, ily, thanx!!
I handed it back, feeling incredibly ashamed of myself. Angelica Beaumont was real, her sister Isabel was real, and Francesca had written a real letter. Her writing was worse than Ashley Scavullo’s, which meant I’d better type up the project myself, but I was sort of expecting I’d have to, anyway. “Sorry about your mom,” I said, only because I couldn’t t
hink what else to say.
“What for?” she asked, not looking at me.
“I don’t know. Because she’s in Paris.”
“Evie,” Francesca said. “Please. Living in Paris is not so bloody tragic.”
“I meant—”
“I know what you meant. And I’m utterly fine with her living wherever she wants. I don’t even like veggie burgers.”
“What? I wasn’t talking about veggie burgers.”
“No, actually I think you were,” she said, fixing the button on her collar. Then suddenly she changed the subject. “By the way. Did you notice the stationery?”
“Not really.”
She handed me the letter again. “Look at the top. The monogram.”
I stared at it. But all I saw was
“SP,” Francesca said patiently. “Like Espee. Samantha Pattison, Stephanie Pierce. Same initials, Evie. Isn’t that such a fascinating coincidence?”
I glanced at her. “Fascinating in what way?”
“Oh, we haven’t figured that out yet,” she answered, smiling.
chapter 9
When we got to school, Lily and Nisha were sitting on the grass. Lily was talking to Can You Please Pass the Syrup, but as soon as we plopped down, he got up and ran away.
“You okay?” Lily asked me immediately. “Hi, Francesca.”
“Okay about what?” Francesca asked cheerfully.
“Nothing,” I muttered. “It’s totally unimportant.”
“Well,” Lily said. “Actually, Evie. Something just happened, but Nisha says you probably don’t want to hear it.”
I pretend-smiled. “Yeah? Then I probably don’t.”
“It’s about Evie’s crush, isn’t it?” Francesca asked. They stared at her. “Didn’t she tell you? I’m psychic about these things.”
“Psychic,” Nisha repeated. “Right.” She turned her back to Francesca and rolled her eyes at me. “Gaby’s telling everyone that Kayla and you-know-who are going out.”