“I’m not sure what your plan is,” Elle drawls, “but this doesn’t go with youroutfit.”
She unclasps my necklace and hands it to me. I hesitate before dropping it carefully into mypurse.
“Thanks. Art is art,” I say, turning to inspect myself from the side. “But they need to sell drinkstoo.”
Elle lifts a brow. “You sure you want to dothis?”
I take a deep breath. “No.”
4
“What’re we celebrating?”I call over the music as Beck slides a shot down the bar atLeo’s.
“Landed an audition.” He lifts his glass and clinks mine, and we bothdrink.
The alcohol burns down my throat, welcome and bracing atonce.
The first two days back to school are turning out to be a rude awakening but not for the reasons Iexpected.
Our fridge is broken, ruining the food I bought on the weekend. Our landlord is dodging me, and the guy I called today to fix it said he’d come by tomorrow between eight and whenever he feels likeit.
I had my first weekly guitar lesson this afternoon with my intensive professor—the guy who’s assigned to oversee my development—during which he wanted to lecture me about the “evolution of mystyle.”
Which probably could’ve been avoided if he hadn’t insisted on referring to it as the “evolution of mystyle.”
At Leo's, I’m ready to forget all of it for a few hours. A full third of the crowd is from Vanier, but they're here tounwind.
Hell, maybe someone’ll catch my eyetonight.
Because that worked so well the lasttime.
“Congrats on the audition,” I tell my friend as I set my empty glass on the bar next tohis.
He tells me about the new TVseries.
“You’d leave school if you gotit?”
“Sure. That’s what we’re all herefor.”
Apparently, that’s why Annie’s here. I can’t stop thinking about her words at the assemblyyesterday.
I’ve thought about what I’d say if I saw Annie Jamieson again, but she caught me off guard, here in the last place I expected, and all I could think was how part of me that’d been dead for a year suddenly wokeup.
It took everything in me not to drag her out of that hall to somewhere private and demand she tell me what the hell is goingon.
“You ever think about her?” Beck’s voice drags meback.
“Who?”
“Meara. She left for LA before the summer. You guysdated.”
I shrug. “Not really. We were friends. We went out a few times.” She gave me indications of wanting to date, but we both knew the deal—there were more important things than eachother.
When she landed a part in LA, I took her to the airport with Beck and some other friends, hugged her, and went on with myday.
We’ve texted a few times since just to say hey and see how things aregoing.
“So, that’s not why you were brooding allsummer.”