C onflagration is to fire as tsunami is to what? my SAT tutor said in my ear. I kissed her harder , trying to shut out the voice. Lisa moaned a little. Kissing Lisa Freckles is to kissing Ally Ryan as what is to what? Ally’s voice teased. I shoved my fingers into Lisa’ s hair. You hav e to break thirteen hundr ed this time, Jake. For dham does not acc ept scor es beneath thirteen hundr ed , my mom snapped. I pulled away again, faked a cough, and grabbed my drink, downing half of it in one gulp. It didn’t stop the voices. And Lisa was tugging on my shirt. I took a de ep breath and sighed. This was going to be a very long night. A peal of familiar laughter caught my attention, and Shannen, Faith, and Chloe all semistumbled into the room, clearly drunk. They were cracking up uncontrollably as they teetered over and dropped down onto the couch. Chloe was so out of it, she half sat on my lap, then slid of f to the side. “This is the best birthday ever!” she cheered, throwing her arms up. Champagne sloshed over the rim of her glass onto my leg. There’s a reason Chloe hardly ever drinks. She gets sloppy and loud. “You know it!” Shannen said, finishing of f her own champagne. “Oh, but I wish Ally was here.” Chloe stuck out her bottom lip and leaned her head on my shoulder . My heart skipped at the mention of Ally. I shot Lisa a look of apology for the interruption. She sat up straighter and smoothed her hair . “You so do not !” Faith countered, shoving Chloe’ s knee. “W e hate Ally .” “Exactly ,” Shannen said with a nod. “Yeah, but . . . don’t you feel kinda bad for her?” Chloe said, blinking rapidly. “I mean, she lives in a condo, her mom’s all d epressed, and her dad’s, like, a waiter . . . ” She sipped her champagne. “It’ s just sad.” Shannen and Faith looked at one another as if they’d just been told they won a lifetime supply of nail polish. “Wait. What?” Shannen blurted. “Her dad’ s a what?” Faith added. Chloe’s hand flew to her mouth. She looked at me, wide-eyed. “I thought no one knew where her dad was,” Shannen said, sitting forward.
“I don’t. I mean, they don’t. No one does.” Chloe got up, steadied herself on her high heels, and looked around. “Where’ s my cake? I want my cake now. Mom!?” She waved her hands over her head, trying to get her mother’s attention from across the room. Her mother looked over disapprovingly . Shannen got up and grabbed Chloe’s arm. “You know where Ally’s dad is?” “No.” Chloe shook her head. “Yes, you do. You said he’s a waiter,” Shannen said hungrily . “Is he working for your dad or something? At one of his restaurants?” Chloe hesitated. “I can’ t talk about this.” “Chloe—” “No. It’s my birthday, and I don’t have to talk about this if I don’t want to.” At that moment, Chloe’s parents arrived. Chloe looked up at her tall, broad, seriously intimidating father . “Can we do the cake now?” she pleaded. “Of course! Y ou’re the birthday girl!” he said in a booming voice. As her parents whisked her away , Shannen tried to go after them. “Shannen, leave it,” I said, standing. “What?” Her eyes flashed angrily. “No, Jake, you don’t understand. This is huge.” I’ll bet. And I had a feeling that whatever Shannen’ s reasons were for wanting to know where Ally’s dad was, she didn’t have Ally’s feelings in mind. “But it’s Chloe’s birthday , and she doesn’t want to talk about it. Just leave her alone.” Shannen hesitate d. She looked over her shoulder at the front of the room, where two hotel workers were rolling out a huge pink cake. “Whatever . Since when are you all on Chloe’ s side?” she groused. This wasn’t about Chloe. It was about Ally. But I wasn’t going to tell her that. “Just relax, all right? It’ s a party .” “Everyone! Let’s gather around to sing happy birthday!” Mrs. Appleby called out, holding Chloe around the waist tightly as if trying to ke ep her upright. We all moved to the front of the room, Lisa wrapping her arm around me. I held my breath while everyone else sang happy birthday , and I watched
Faith and Shannen whisper in a way that could not be good. Not for Ally. Not for Chloe. Not for anyone.
“Anyone want anything else?” my mother asked, placing her fork down on her empty plate. “No, thank you. I’m stuffed,” Gray Nathanson said, leaning back in his chair with a satisfied smile. “I’m fine, thanks.” Gray’s daughter, Quinn, folded her hands primly in her lap. She had straight blond hair, a smattering of freckles, and the most perfect posture I’d ever seen outside of Chloe’s. I suspected she wasn’t overly happy to be there, since she hadn’t cracked a smile all night and hadn’t said more than three words at a time, but she’d been very polite. “Everything was delicious.” “Seriously , Ms. R yan. I may never eat at home again,” David said. And suddenly everyone was looking at me. “Yeah. It was great,” I said halfheartedly . Really I just wanted to get this dinner over with as quickly as humanly possible. It was the day after Thanksgiving, and Mom had decided to invite over her new boyfriend and his perfectly gorgeous daughter for dinner. Of course, she hadn’t felt the need to share this plan with me until four this afternoon. Until then I hadn’t known about either the dinner or the fact that she considered him her boyfriend. As soon as I heard the word come out of her mouth, I was on the phone with David begging him to join us. Which he had. Because he was the best boyfriend ever . “Did you like your stuf fed p epper , Ally?” Gray asked me. My mother placed her hand on Gray’s arm, which was resting on the table, elbows off, of course. He looked down at her fingers and smiled. Ick. Did people their age really think that the rest of us wanted to be subjected to their PDA? “Ally? Gray asked you a question,” my mother said. “Oh, yeah,” I r eplied, pushing my fork into the grayish mush at the center of the hollowed-out green p epper on my plate—the one thing Gray had contributed to the meal and the only thing I hadn’ t eaten. “It’ s great.”