Broken Hearts, Fences and Other Things to Mend (15 page)

in exercising for vanity when so many people were enslaved and

forced to exercise in labor camps (I think— sometimes I lost track

of all the things that Teddy was against, and the reasons why),

seeing really in- shape guys up close and personal wasn’t exactly

something that I was used to.

Josh ran his hand over his hair, which looked almost black

when it was wet, and shook the droplets away from me. “Hi,” he

said. He smiled like he was glad to see me, but there was defi nite

confusion in it as well. “You look great. But . . . um . . .”

“Yeah,” I said, and was now fully back to feeling mortifi ed after

the enjoyable but brief distraction provided by Josh’s triceps.

I tried to laugh in what I hoped was a carefree manner, but don’t

think I quite pulled it off. “Right. I, um, thought this was more

of a formal party.”

“Well,” he said, “I am wearing a
suit
.” He grinned, and then a

moment later, turned red. “Like a bathing suit,” he hastened to

explain. “It was a joke.”

“No, I got it,” I said, a little surprised. It was just an unexpect-

edly dorky side to someone who looked like he could have been

featured shirtless and holding a puppy on the cover of the Hol-

lister cata log. But I liked it. I was about to say something to that

effect when Hallie rushed up to us.

“Sophie,” she said, her voice strained. Unlike her brother, it

didn’t look like Hallie had gone into the pool yet. Her curly blond

hair was dry, and so was her suit, a cute, retro- style polka- dot

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bikini with a ruffl ed sweetheart neckline and high- rise bottoms.

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“I’m so glad you came!” she said, then she looked down at my

dress again. “But . . .”

“Right,” I said, deciding on the spot that after I made my sec-

ond explanation, I was leaving, getting in Bruce’s monstrosity of

an SUV and driving back home, where nobody would feel the

need to point out that I was wearing the wrong thing, just in case

I hadn’t noticed that already. “I got your text,” I said, suddenly

realizing that this was actually her fault, that I had proof I’d

really been given the wrong dress code. I fumbled with the snap

of the clutch and pulled out my phone. “About how this was

semiformal?”

Hallie frowned. “What? I sent you a text telling you it was a

pool party.” Josh looked between the two of us, and I hoped he

didn’t think that I was a crazy person who just liked to dress up

way too much. Not that it mattered what Josh thought of me, of

course. I was in a mourning period, after all. But still.

“No,” I said, bringing up the text and showing it to her. “Oth-

erwise, I wouldn’t have . . . worn any of this.”

Hallie motioned for me to give her my phone, and she gasped,

covering her mouth with her hand when she read it. “Oh my

god, Sophie,” she said, looking back up at me, stricken. “I’m so

sorry. This was meant for my boyfriend, about an Fourth of July

party. His last name is near yours, and I must have just selected

the wrong contact.”

I nodded as I took my phone back. I realized now that it actu-

ally did explain the “Hi you” greeting, which I had thought was a

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little strange. And it did say “see you then,” not “see you to night.”

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“Hal,” Josh said, shaking his head.

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“I know!” Hallie said, and I could see that a bright red spot

had appeared on each cheek. “I’m
so
sorry, Sophie. And this means

I should probably text Ward, too, otherwise he’s going to show up

to the party on the Fourth in a bathing suit.”

“It’s fi ne,” I said, trying to keep my voice light, like this was

just going to roll right over me. “It’s just an innocent mistake.” I

dropped my phone into my bag and took a step back toward the

house. “But it was nice to see you guys anyway.”

“Wait a second,” Hallie said. “You can’t leave. You just got here.”

“Exactly,” Josh chimed in immediately.

“But . . .” I said. I glanced down at myself, then beyond the

Bridges siblings at the other kids at the party, most of whom

were still giving me sidelong glances. “I’m just not sure that I

should stay, I mean, it’s a pool party . . .”

“It’s not a problem,” Hallie said. “I wasn’t sure what I was going

to wear to night, so I brought two options. You can just wear my

other suit, and give it back to me whenever. It’s brand new, never

been worn.”

“Wow,” I said. “That’s really nice of you, but . . .” I had a feel-

ing that even if I changed, I would still be That Overdressed Girl.

“Oh, please stay,” Hallie said. “I feel so bad about this. At least

let me make it up to you.”

“You should stay,” Josh said, and I saw Hallie glance at him,

surprised, before looking back to me. “Really.”

“Okay,” I said, fi guring that probably nobody else at the party

would even remember what I’d shown up in. After all, I was here

to befriend Hallie, so who cared what anyone else thought? And

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Hallie wanted me to stay. It was a no- brainer. “Sure.”

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“Great,” Hallie said with a relieved smile. “Come on, Sophie.”

I followed her across the lawn and back into the house. She

walked through the downstairs like she knew exactly where

she was going, and I followed more cautiously behind, all too

aware of my heels and the profusion of antiques that surrounded

me. I followed her up a staircase and to a guest bedroom that had

clearly been used as a dressing room for the night— beach bags

and purses and nonbeach cover- up clothes were tossed on the

double beds and piled on the fl oor.

“Here you go!” she said, pulling a bikini out of her canvas bag.

“Thanks!” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic as I took it from

her. The bikini looked like it was the same style as the one she

had on, but with red and white stripes instead of blue polka dots.

I glanced at Hallie and realized we were probably around the

same size, though it looked like she was probably a little curvier

than I was— though this, unfortunately, wasn’t that surprising.

“I’ll just change,” I said, as I crossed the room into the attached

bathroom and shut the door behind me.

I looked away from my refl ection, no longer pleased with my

semi- formal look, now that I knew it had been the absolute wrong

thing to go with. I changed quickly, and was happy to fi nd that

the suit fi t pretty well. The top was a little big, but things got

better when I adjusted the straps, and I really didn’t think that

anyone else would notice.

I folded up my clothes into a little bundle, held the shoes care-

fully by the heels, and stepped back into the guest room, where

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Hallie was sitting cross- legged on the fl oor and scrolling through

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her phone. She looked up at me and smiled. “You look so cute!”

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she said. “Seriously, that looks better on you than it ever did on

me.”

“Not at all,” I said as I dropped my clothes and shoes on the

fl oor by the nearest bed. “But thanks so much for lending it to

me.”

“I wasn’t going to leave you stranded in a party dress after it

was my fault you were wearing one,” she said. Her glance fell to

where I’d left the party clothes. “Those shoes are amazing, though.

Sure you don’t want to consider wearing them with the bikini?”

I laughed at that. “I think I’ll just go barefoot.”

Hallie laughed too, then snapped her fi ngers as she looked at

the suit. “Just let me do one thing.” She reached out and grabbed

the dangling tags. The barcodes were still on, but the prices had

been torn off, I’d noticed when I’d put the suit on. She gave the

two tags a hard yank, then tossed them in the trash.

“Ready?” I asked, adjusting the straps and wishing I hadn’t

spent quite so long blow- drying my hair.

“Wait a sec!” Hallie said. She leaned forward and looked at me

closely. “Are you going to go swimming?”

“Probably,” I said. I had just assumed that I would. Maybe it

was because of Bruce’s second wife, but I just didn’t understand

girls who wore bathing suits and then refused to actually get in

the water.

“In that case,” she said. She grabbed her canvas bag and pulled

out a makeup pouch, then tossed me a pack of makeup- removing

wipes. “To avoid the dreaded raccoon eyes,” she said.

“Thank you,” I said gratefully, pulling one out, having sud-

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denly had a vision of myself coming up out of the water with eye

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makeup— and I had put a
lot
of it on tonight— running down my

cheeks. “So,” I said as I swiped off in a second what had taken me

nearly an hour to achieve, “you said your boyfriend’s going to be

here on the Fourth?”

“Yes,” Hallie said, practically lighting up. “If all goes accord-

ing to plan, that is.” She held up her hand. “Fingers crossed.”

“It must be hard,” I said, “to have him gone.”

“It is,” she said with a sigh. “Especially because it’s so new.

Not exactly the best time to take a break from each other, you

know?”

I didn’t. Teddy and I had been almost an insta- couple, and we

hadn’t really been apart since we met— that is, until he broke up

with me. But I nodded anyway. “Right.”

“Plus,” she said, glancing at her phone again before setting it

down, “the stuff that matters, you fi ght for.”

I didn’t know how to reply to that since, while I knew exactly

what she meant, my version of it had involved trying to make her

as unhappy as possible. I fi nished taking off my eye makeup, and

she nodded.

“Better,” she said. She pushed herself to her feet and gave me

a smile. “Ready to take the plunge?”

O O O

An hour later, I was no longer feeling like people were star-

ing at me, or that anyone remembered me as the person

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who’d clearly come to the wrong party. And anyway, my dress

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faux pas was quickly eclipsed when the guy who was hosting the

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party— Hallie introduced me to him briefl y; it turned out his

name was Todd— did a belly fl op so intense (and apparently

painful) that he’d spent the rest of the party recovering on a

lounge chair.

I sat on the edge of the pool, my legs in the water. Hallie was

standing off to the side, talking to a guy in a red baseball cap

with a blue lobster embroidered on it who didn’t really seem to fi t

in with the rest of the partygoers— at any rate, I noticed that he’d

been on the edge of the group all night, and seemed to talk to

only Hallie.

I was feeling much more relaxed than I would have believed

possible, especially because when I’d fi rst started talking to people,

I was terrifi ed someone would call me on my lie. I kept waiting

for someone to start laughing, or call me out, or just scoff and

say, “
You’re
not Sophie Curtis. Who are you trying to fool?” But

the more I talked to people, the more I relaxed into my new

identity.

It wasn’t like I was acting like a different person. I had de-

cided that would be much too confusing, not to mention poten-

tially dangerous, in terms of getting caught, if I forgot or mixed

up the identity that I’d created. So I was basically being me, but

with Sophie’s name, and blurring the biographical details when

necessary. And luckily, the conversations I’d been having with

the other partygoers had all stuck to the superfi cial, so it wasn’t

really like I was even saying anything I wouldn’t have said any-

way, aside from my name:
I’m from Putnam. I’m staying in Quon-

set. Yep, that was me in the heels— I thought it was a different

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party.

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Hallie was still deep in conversation with red baseball cap

guy, but she looked over at me every now and then, like she was

making sure that I was okay. I had nodded and smiled back at

her, but with a lump in my throat. In a way, it made me glad to

see that it seemed Hallie was still a good person, a good friend.