The Last Best Kiss (19 page)

Dinner’s incredible. It’s in a tent that’s been decorated inside and out with slender branches of sparkling lights. Over the entrance the lights spell out Star Bar.

“This is the place,” Hilary says, and leads us inside.

I’ve seen the twins’ father before, at school functions and stuff like that, but all I’ve retained from those brief encounters was the impression of a baseball cap, a fit physique, jeans, and a T-shirt. Oh, and black glasses.

My memory’s accurate. When we walk into the tent, which is lit unevenly by standing lamps in each corner that create strange shadows on all the faces, the figure that detaches itself to greet us is slim and wearing jeans, a T-shirt, a baseball cap, and glasses.

“There you are!” says Mr. Diamond. He gives his girls quick kisses on the cheeks. “What the hell are you wearing?” he asks Lily.

“Leather corset,” she says calmly.

He shrugs. “Cool.” He turns to the rest of us. “You guys know me, right? Hil and Lil’s dad. Hope you’re having a great time.” The light falls more directly on his face, and for a brief moment, you can see that the guy is solidly in his fifties; there are lines around his eyes that the glasses can’t hide and gray glints in his face stubble. Then he shifts, and his face falls in shadow and he could be our age.

We all tell him how happy we are to be there and thank him for his generosity. He waves his hand dismissively. “All I ask is that you talk it up afterward. Tell your friends it was the best weekend of your lives and that they should buy tickets for next year as soon as they go on sale. Will you do that for me?” We all say that we will, and he says, “Help yourself to the food, guys. There’s soda too.” He turns back to his daughters. “I’ll see you two in the suite tonight. I want you back no later than one. Which means in the limo by twelve forty-five. Understood?”

“Yes, Daddy,” says Lily with an angelic blink of her beautiful dark eyes. He turns back to his adult guests.

The buffet is laid out on a long table that runs half the length of the tent. It is, according to a sign, both vegan and organic, but despite that, it’s pretty good. I especially like the kale chips they’ve put out in bowls around the room. They’re crunchy and salty, and I keep eating them. “These demand alcohol,” says Lily, who’s dipping into the bowl as much as I am.

“Why isn’t your mother here?” I ask. I’ve seen their mother only once or twice, but I remember her as being incredibly hip, with a youthful body and a shaggy rocker haircut. She was born in Korea, and her father’s a dentist, but she gives off a vibe that’s pure Hollywood.

Lily shrugs. “She never goes to Dad’s work parties. That’s why Hil and I get to go to all the awards shows. Basically Mom and Dad don’t do anything together unless they can’t help it. I think they kind of hate each other.”

“But they’re still married,” I point out. “So they can’t hate each other as much as my parents do.”

“You are so competitive,” she says, and we laugh.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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fifteen

A
fter dinner we decide to split up. Phoebe, Eric, Oscar, and Hilary want to see the band that’s about to play on the Galaxy Stage, but the rest of us want to check out the two smaller bands on the other stages—one’s from Ireland and has a loud, raucous rock thing going on, and the other’s got a country vibe and a fiddler.

We all agree to meet up at the North Stage in an hour, so our group decides to start at the South Stage and then head up to catch the second half of the other band’s act.

On our way Lily threads her arm through Finn’s. “Let’s push all the way to the front this time,” she says to him. “I want to be close enough to smell them.”

As they move ahead of us, Lucy grabs my sleeve. “Hey, look—isn’t that Jackson’s friend? The one who’s your cousin?” She points, and I see Wade Porter standing in line for a water fountain next to another guy. He glances around just as I look over there, and I wave. He squints at me in the dark then waves back with sudden recognition. He nudges his friend and leads him toward us.

Lucy and I stop to wait for them. Finn and Lily don’t notice and keep walking. We call after them, but it’s too noisy and they don’t seem to hear us. Doesn’t matter—we’ve got our phones. We’ll figure it out.

Wade gives me a hug and says hi to Lucy, whose name he remembers, and then introduces his friend. Connor has bright red hair and the pale skin and freckles that seem to go with that.

“I can’t believe you’re here!” Wade says. He decided to come at the last minute, he explains. He and Connor didn’t have any plans for this weekend—except the usual college application and school stuff—and heard an ad on the radio just that afternoon saying that you could get discounted festival tickets through some ticket site. So they did. They arrived only about half an hour ago.

“We’re headed over to the South Stage now,” he adds. “I was just waiting to refill my water bottle.”

“We’re going there too,” I say.

“Fantastic—wait for me.” He turns away but then turns back with a grin. “This festival just got much better.” He heads over to the fountain.

Connor rocks awkwardly on his heels, then tucks his hands under his armpits and nods at both of us. “So,” he says. And then. Nothing.

Lucy takes pity on him. “You having fun?”

He glances around warily. “About to.” He untucks his hands, reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a joint. “We were going to find some place quiet to smoke this before the next show. Want to join us?”

I’m neutral. Weed isn’t my thing, but I’m happy to pass one around in a group and have a hit or two. I look at Lucy, trying to gauge her level of interest. She looks equally uncertain, and then Lily suddenly appears at my elbow—she and Finn must have done a U-turn when they noticed we were missing, and now she’s back and instantly zoning in on the object in Connor’s hand.

“Is that what I think it is?” she asks.

He closes his fingers quickly. “No.”

“She’s our friend,” Lucy tells him.

“Oh, then yes,” he says, opening his fist back up.

Wade returns, screwing on his water bottle cap. He shoves the bottle into his backpack. “Better hide that,” he says to Connor. “There’s a security guard about ten feet away. But I think I know where we can smoke it.” He hesitates and looks at me. “I mean, if you guys want to.”

Lily says, “Lead the way. I’ve been hoping someone would come up with some weed.”

I glance at Finn. Back in ninth grade, he used to maintain that anyone who used drugs was an idiot. “Brain chemistry is so fragile,” he once said to me. “Why would you ever screw with it?” But I guess he’s become more open-minded, because he just stands there, apparently willing to go along with whatever Lily wants. Maybe that’s love?

Lucy is now quizzing Connor about his source. He says, “I wouldn’t trust anything I picked up here—I bought this from my regular guy back home. He’s captain of the tennis team.”

“All right, then I’m in,” says Lucy. I raise my eyebrows at her, a little surprised. She shrugs. “We’re here to have fun, right?”

“I guess. I just thought you’d—”

Lily interrupts me impatiently: “Come
on
.”

Wade tells us all to follow him and takes my arm. I fall into step next to him.

I check him out as we’re walking. He’s wearing jeans and a blue V-neck sweater over a T-shirt. He catches me checking him out and grins at me. Confident I’ll like what I see. And I do. I like what I see. What’s not to like?

Lily can’t stop giggling.

“Could she be more of a cliché?” Lucy whispers to me. She and I are relatively sober. We each took one hit of the joint, but it was super strong and we waved it away after that. I don’t like feeling either paranoid or catatonic, and too-strong weed makes me both. And Lucy never takes more than a puff or two—enough to get a little relaxed without losing any real control.

Finn didn’t have any, so I guess he’s still into protecting the, uh,
fragility
of his own brain. But the other three have been passing the weed around for a while, and now Lily seems to find Connor’s hair the funniest thing in the world.

“It’s just . . . the whole redhead thing . . .” She gasps. “It’s so weird. And why do they call you gingers? Have you ever seen ginger? It’s
tan
. Blond people should be gingers! I don’t get it.”

It seems to take Connor a while to process what she’s saying, to think about it, and to formulate an answer, but finally he manages to get out, “It’s because we’re so
spicy
,” and he and Lily snort with laughter.

We’re sitting in a small circle, all the way at the edge of the field, in a dark, unused corner to the west of the South Stage. We’re all sitting very close together, creating a tight wall with our bodies so the burning tip won’t give us away in the dark. Not that the security guards seem to be cracking down on any kind of smoking. As far as I can tell, from the clouds of fragrant smoke we’ve been walking through all evening, they’re okay with anything that requires inhalation. It’s only underage drinking they seem determined to prevent.

Still, we don’t want to take any chances.

Lily shifts over toward Finn and rests her cheek against his shoulder. “You’d look good as a redhead,” she says, gazing up at him dreamily. “You have a redheaded personality.”

“I don’t know what that means,” he says with a smile.

“This,” she says, and rises up a little so she can put her mouth right on his.

Okay, it doesn’t make any sense, but as a move, it totally works. Given the fact they end up kissing. Right here, in front of all of us.

In front of me.

Lily’s clearly driving this thing, but Finn’s hands willingly slip around her, scooping her body against his. She may be stoned, but he isn’t. He knows what he’s doing. And even though she started it—I mean, she really did; he was keeping some space between them, and then she put herself right in his lap and pressed her mouth against his—he doesn’t seem to mind.

And why would he? They’ve been moving in this direction for days. Weeks. Just because he seemed to pull back a couple of times recently when she was acting especially . . . you know . . .
Lilyish
, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t still like her. Maybe deep down I was hoping it did, that every time she did something that annoyed him, she pushed him away a little bit. But I guess that was me seeing what I wanted to see. What’s that physics thing about momentum? How things are hard to stop once they’ve started moving in a certain direction? That’s them. Moving in a direction. Hard to stop.

Even so, I kept hoping. . . .

I don’t know what I kept hoping.

Well, I tell myself with a sort of gallows humor, at least I know that Lily’s got a condom in her pocket.

The thought does not console or amuse me the way I might have hoped.

I reach forward and snatch the joint out of Connor’s hand. He’s so stoned, he barely reacts. I take a long hit and let it burn in my lungs. It might help. It might not.

I hand the joint to Wade, and our fingers touch. He looks at me while he takes a drag and then after he hands the joint back to Connor he moves a little toward me, so our shoulders are touching. I was sitting with my knees up, but now I tilt them in his direction and let them rest against his leg.

He cocks his head at me with a sort of amused, inquisitive expression.

What the hell, I think.

I mean, really—what the hell? I have no one I need to be loyal to, and my head is now spinning nicely in a way that makes nothing seem to matter all that much. Why not have some fun? So I lean in toward him. And we kiss. I start it, but he responds pretty quickly.

Wade turns out to be an excellent kisser, which is a relief. He doesn’t smush my lips; he doesn’t try to lick the inside of my mouth; he doesn’t clank teeth—he doesn’t commit any of the cardinal sins of bad kissing. And he doesn’t push for anything more than mouth contact, thank god. I’m not in the mood for more.

Speaking of which, even though the lower half of my face is busy, my eyes drift over toward Finn and Lily. They’re still kissing. Their bodies are intertwined, but otherwise they’re keeping it pretty clean, which is a relief.

I’m not a prude. I just don’t think I can bear to be present if these two got any more intimate.

After a few minutes of this, I hear Lucy give a loud, fake, extremely annoyed cough. I dodge Wade’s searching mouth long enough to check on her—and just in time to see Connor lean forward toward Lucy with his own lips pursed.

“You have
got
to be kidding me,” Lucy snarls as she shrinks back, away from him.

It takes Connor a full three seconds to absorb that, then he sits back with a thud and takes a last hit of the almost-gone joint. He drops it almost immediately and sticks his fingers in his mouth.

He got burned.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

sixteen

T
hanks to a flurry of texts and some good luck in the form of an extremely tall man with a shaved head who’s standing next to Oscar, we’re able to meet up with the others at the North Stage in time to see the band we wanted to watch together.

The set starts. Up near the front of the stage, the audience is packed so tightly, people can hardly move, but back where we are everyone is either standing and dancing or lying on the grass being mellow. I’m one of those: I recline against Wade, who wraps his arms around me and takes the weight of my head against his chest.

His nice, manly chest, I might add.

Lily’s all curled up on Finn’s lap—I guess it’s her property now—and Phoebe’s doing the same thing on Eric’s. Those two feel like an old, established couple compared to the rest of us. Lucy’s got her head on Oscar’s shoulder; he strokes her hair idly and stares at a guy a few feet away who’s wearing tight plaid pants and a leather vest over his naked chest. I wonder where Connor went to, but I can’t dig up much concern. That last big hit made me sleepy. Plus . . . it’s hard to care about Connor.