Broken (25 page)

“I'm so done,” I said.

“Boys? You can't live without them. Tell me you know that,” Cara said.

“I appreciate reminders.” Especially ones that I thought were particularly depressing.

“You know Rex Wings?” Cara said.

“I love, love, love Rex Wings,” I said.

“I know.” We pulled up to this Art Deco-style hotel in Tribeca.

Walking into the place was odd. It was like an out-of-body experience. Why hadn't I been to Cara's apartment before? Cara wrapped her arm around my shoulders and I nearly jumped. I kind of thought we were going to my house.

I had to give it to her—the place was hot. Everything was a variation of a gray slate color. Even the kitchen cabinets were the color of gray slate. When you walked in the door, there was an open kitchen that sprawled into the living room. I could spot the bag on the kitchen counter from the door. Rex. I was so ecstatic I just walked into the kitchen and unpacked the goods. It was sort of rude. I realized after getting a healthy whiff of the wings. “I'm sorry.”

“Sugar, please. This is for us, doll face. I also have a selection of only the best teen movies waiting for us.” She pulled up a list of movies: “Twilight,” “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,” “Mean Girls,” “Oz The Great and Powerful.”

For a second, I almost felt thankful I had met Cara. She was saving me. This was the best I had felt all day. Yet I couldn't altogether forget her spying on me.

“Cara, this is so sweet.”

“I had a bad breakup in sophomore year. Good food and movies are the only things that kept me alive.” She laughed. I wasn't at the amusement stage of the breakup yet.

“What should we watch first?” I asked.

“‘She's All That.'”

“Cool.” I snuggled in a white stool at the bar. I noticed the stylish white leather couch. It was thin and sleek, the kind you would find in a psychiatrist's office. The dining room table was white as well. This place was strictly color-coordinated. Nothing like the way Cara dressed. I was reminded when I saw her pink Mary Janes by the door. Fashion-heavy or not, I was beginning to think I had misjudged Cara—only beginning to think that, not totally convinced.

Around the time they made the bet over who would get the girl, Cara snuggled in the L section of the couch under a gray and green throw. She started in on a piece of pecan sweet potato pie. I realized then that no one had really done anything like this for me before. When I couldn't see Noel anymore, no one except Winter had taken care of me. She had moved by then, but she texted me every night. We watched shows together and made jokes via text until we feel asleep. She came to visit me—not the very day Daddy threatened me, but she came for me. Winter always did.

“I knew you were a movie type of girl,” Cara said. I smiled. I kind of was. I hadn't been much of a movie girl lately, though. Work had taken a lot of my time, then studying and boys. I poured myself a full glass of lemonade I found in the fridge. I sat down next Cara. “You never seemed like a music kind of girl to me.”

“I'm not. I don't even have a favorite song.”

“That's weird.”

“My mom always used to tell me how she danced with me to Whitney's ‘The Greatest Love' when I was a baby. It was her favorite song of all time, I think.”

“It is a good song.” I smiled because only I knew I'd never heard it. The housekeeper came over to me.

“I brought you a cover,” she said. I took it and smiled.

“Thank you.”

“I know you.”

“Milan is a supermodel,” Cara said.

“No. Thank you.” I brushed off the supermodel nonsense.

“Well, you are very beautiful.”

“Thank you. You are very kind.” Cara gave me a dirty look. The housekeeper slowly backed away. “She's nice.”

“She is just the help. It's not that deep.”

“I love this part,” I said.

“It's cute,” Cara said. We watched the rest of the movie without speaking. Closed caption would have been nice. But I had seen that movie already.

Halfway through the second movie, Cara went to the kitchen for some more food. When she returned, she had a silver tray with her dinner china full of wings.

“I'm going green, you know.”

“Really?”

“That's right. No more plastic bags or plastic anything unless it's a reusable water bottle. I have even cut my showers down to four minutes. And I recycle.”

“Recycling is the state law.”

“I've been doing it before it was the law.”

Right then, I missed Sierra. She would chime in with an appropriate “As if.”

“That is nice.”

“Milan,” she said.

“Yes?”

“You are so simple and nice. Nothing like what one would imagine you to be.” She laughed.

“Thanks, I guess.”

“You do realize, you are monumentally epic?”

“Not really.”

“So if we go downstairs to the magazine store, I won't see a magazine with your face on in it.”

“I don't know. It's work.” I was starting to feel a little awkward.

“I have to say something. I wish I were you.” She laughed.

Now it was creepy. Had she poisoned my food or something? In a movie, this would be about the time someone would say, “This is the reason I have to kill you.” I hadn't forgotten what Winter told me about Cara. They weren't just rumors—they were in her diary, according to Frenchy. I had to remind myself.

“I think if my mom saw me on the cover of a magazine, things could be different.”

“Things could be different maybe anyway.”

“Doll face, if I were you, I would be such a jerk because I know people would love me anyway,” she said.

“Who are you kidding?” It was such a matter-of-fact thought. It seemed so obvious. It just slipped out.

“I see.” Cara shrugged. Then she laughed. “Who
am
I kidding? This is why you're so epic. I'm already a jerk, and people still love me!” Dimitri sure did.

I woke up around 12, sprawled on Cara's sofa. We had watched so many movies I fell asleep. The strangest things came to me at night. It was then I reminded myself of my secret. No one knew Noel was home and that we had spoken. Winter once told me a smart girl always kept her cards close to her vest.

Lying on the coffee table were a white robe, white slippers, and pink pajamas. They were tied together with a pale green Easter kind of ribbon—a reminder I was definitely at Cara's house. The note attached was written in beautiful calligraphy. “Milan, please stay in my guest room. It is down the hall, next to the guest bathroom. I left the fireplace on for you. Bestie! Cara!”

Bestie? Hmmm. I was sleeping over. I guess we were close. I guess?

This was my first time at the twins' house since the breakup. I found myself secretly praying the twins wouldn't hang me out to dry for sleeping over at Cara's. Frenchy hadn't said much to me except “Hi” all week. Sierra was business as usual. If I had a sister, she'd have to be like Sierra (protective), like Frenchy (loyal), and a little like Winter (bad girl only on the outside). Winter could keep a secret like no other.

In the car on the way to the house, I was reminded of my Nana—something about the way my uniform smelled. She washed and ironed everything. It smelled like her, like sweet roses. Even though I wasn't a little girl anymore, at night, when I slept over, my grandmother would come to my room and brush my hair and put it into a tight ballerina bun. Then she'd beat on my arm the rhythm of the jazz music that she and Grandpapa adored. They played jazz every night and danced like butterflies to what she called the greats: Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, and Ella. I wondered if my father was adopted. He was nothing like them. My Nana was inquisitive—nothing like Daddy. She wanted to know why I had come to see them so often. I told her there was no reason. She said, “Pretty girl like you. There is boy trouble, no?” I wondered what she would think of me if I told her. It didn't matter. I couldn't bring myself to tell her.

“I don't want to be home alone,” I said.

“Your father should be home? He works, you know,” she said. Like that, I suddenly became tired and we said good night.

When the car pulled up, I felt butterflies in my stomach. I didn't have anything with me but my school bag. I was a poor excuse for a hobo. Sierra's closet was mine. And mine was hers.

“In the elevator,” I texted Sierra.

“Hold your breath,” Sierra texted.

“Why?”

“I'll wait for u 2 at the door.” I watched the golden elevator doors open.

“Funny? Huh?” Sierra said.

“Is Sierra even home?”

“Milan, stop playing!” Sierra said.

It was then my mouth dropped.

“Oh, my god! You look just like Frenchy.”

“No, I don't. Not
just
like. Maybe highly similar.”

“I thought you were her.”

“Word.” Sierra's face lit up with glee. Strange.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

Sierra let out a deep sigh. I watched the black hairs dance around her face. “Yesterday, you were honey blonde. I don't see you for one day and suddenly you're a Frenchy doll!”

“As if! No one would ever make a doll out of Frenchy.”

“You don't have a leg to stand on with that one,” I said. This was so confusing. Sierra and Frenchy wouldn't be caught dead with the same hairstyle. I sat in the pink La-Z-Boy recliner in Sierra's room, contemplating the possible reasons for this fiasco.

“I'm in math class yesterday, AP Calc. Frenchy has it too in the morning, first thing. The teacher handed me my first 56! Then she pulls me aside and says, ‘You better come after school for tutoring.' So at 2:30, I waited. I was still in shock. I couldn't believe I got so many questions wrong. I studied. I studied really hard.”

“It's okay. It is just one test.”

“It's not okay. Professor Alexandra asked me to drop the class.”

“No. She can't make you.”

“She said one more grade like that, even with 90s on every other test, I will have a hard time scoring above a C at the end of the semester.”

“I don't believe that. Did you try out some averages? Maybe she is trying to spook you,” I said.

“I'm not a horse.”

“How many tests are there?”

“Four,” she said.

“You won't fail the next test.”

“I was the only person there for tutoring.”

“Don't feel bad. I've failed tests before,” I said.

“Frenchy got a 92 on that test.”

“Is that why you changed your hair?”

“I'm better at math than she is. And all of my teachers like me except this one.”

“What does Frenchy think about Professor Alexandra?” I said.

“You couldn't guess. ‘Oh, Professor Alex'—that's what she calls her—‘Professor Alex is a genius. Finally, there's a class that makes going to school worthwhile,' she says.”

“She said that?”

“You know it.”

Frenchy sauntered into the room with her hair pulled up in a ballerina bun.

“Only after I told her I got a 56.”

Frenchy slumped into the pink La-Z-Boy across from mine.

“What do you think about Professor Alexandra? Is she nice?” I asked.

“To me, yes. She said I reminded her of herself when she was in college,” Frenchy said.

“Today, she made me sit in on a regular calculus class. She said she doesn't think I can pass the Advanced Placement exam,” Sierra said.

“Well, she can't make you do anything,” Frenchy said.

“But, if I fail that class I won't graduate.”

“Nonsense. Dimitri failed so many classes in high school that he had to go to another school for classes,” I said.

“I can't go to summer school,” Sierra said.

“She's too perfect. Me? I don't care,” Frenchy said.

“Of course not, you're passing all of your classes. You know your college will see your final transcript,” Sierra said.

“So what! Get off your high horse. The grade portion is over. You can get all Cs and still go to the college you selected. Once they admit you, they can't take it back because of your final grade second semester. School will be over,” Frenchy said.

“Dad is watching,” Sierra said.

“Afraid you won't get a gift for good grades this semester?” Frenchy said.

“If it wasn't for your girl, you would never get those presents. He only gives them to you out of default. I earn them,” Sierra said.

“You look like me now. He won't ever be able to tell the difference. Who got good grades, who didn't,” Frenchy said.

“He can smell the difference. You and your pot-smoking boyfriend make it easy.”

“It's not pot. It's hookah,” Frenchy said.

“Whatever.”

“It's legal. It's tobacco, not weed,” Frenchy said.

“They all cause cancer.”

“Pot is prescribed for people with cancer in some states.”

“If he wasn't a pot smoker, you wouldn't be so defensive,” Sierra said.

“Stop, you guys. Frenchy, can you help Sierra pass the class?” I asked.

“No. She already thinks she's smarter than me. Let her pass on her own. And she looks like me—that should get her a few extra points in and of itself,” Frenchy said.

“You had to know that was coming, Sierra,” I said.

“I'm desperate to pass this class. Even if it means looking like Meanie over there,” Sierra said.

“How will Cara tell you guys apart?” I asked. Sierra gave me the dirtiest look I'd ever seen her conjure up. “Sorry,” I said.

“Whatever. It is simple to tell us apart. Cara doesn't have to cuff her boy when she's around me,” Frenchy said.

“Excuse me,” Sierra said.