Chapter Eight

eight

In hindsight, braving the grocery store on Thanksgiving Day was a rookie mistake. Doing it hungover? Now that’s just plain stupid. But here I am, slogging back into the house sweaty, demoralized, and forty dollars poorer.

I drop my armful of grocery bags onto the counter with a thunk , peeling off my coat to admire the red indents the bags left in my forearms. When I asked Ellie to swing by to pick me up in an hour, I pictured myself dressed and ready to go with a premade pumpkin pie in hand, but according to the clock above the stove, that was fifty-five minutes ago, and I’m still in last night’s clothes with nothing but ingredients to my name. You don’t con your way into a passing grade by showing up to your fake girlfriend’s family Thanksgiving empty-handed.

I tug my laces loose and kick my no-longer-even-close-to-white Converse into the corner before I can track any more of November’s worst into the house. On top of all the remaining sleepover damage, I guess I’ll be cleaning the floors before my parents get home. Before I can organize my mental to-do list, the doorbell rings.

“Be there in a sec!” I shout, although I’m not sure why. No way Ellie can hear me over the long, melodic doorbell song my parents have programmed. Assuming it’s Ellie at the door, of course. I guess it could be a neighbor’s cousin who mixed up the address, or maybe a mailman who doesn’t observe federal holidays. I’d welcome anyone who would buy me just a few more minutes, but one peek through the window and the flash of Ellie’s white-blonde hair confirms that there’ll be no such luck. Damn. I knew I should’ve built in buffer time.

I shuffle toward the door, checking my reflection in a foyer window on my way. Last night’s clothes look about as good as you’d imagine after wearing them for eighteen hours or so, and the half-assed pile of hair on my head is less of a messy bun and more of a disheveled knot. The whole look is only made worse when I tug open the front door. Unlike me, Ellie has showered off any and all evidence of her hangover.

“Hey again,” she says with a playful smirk. “I parked behind you. Hope that’s okay.”

The home security system beeps twice, and I punch in the code to turn it off, thankful that my parents haven’t made good on buying that doorbell with a camera yet.

“Come on.” I wave her inside. “You’re helping me bake.”

“You didn’t say anything about baking,” Ellie says, shedding her coat to reveal a worn black band T-shirt tucked into an emerald silk skirt. And, of course, her Doc Martens. “I thought I was just picking you up.”

“I thought that too before the grocery store was out of pies.”

The look she gives me would be better suited for someone toying with the idea of scaling Everest. “You tried to buy a pie today ?”

“It’s my first Thanksgiving not poolside,” I remind her. “I’m doing my best.”

Having caught on to the very obvious “no shoes” vibe the house gives off, Ellie pairs her Docs neatly by the door, then trails behind me into the kitchen.

“Sorry it’s still a mess.” I wave a hand toward the deflated air mattress that’s still sitting in the center of a fairy ring of crumbs.

“Don’t apologize,” she says. “I helped make the mess, remember? Let me help clean it up.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“And you don’t have to bring anything to Thanksgiving,” she says with a knowing look. Touché.

“Aren’t we supposed to be buttering up your mom?” I remind her. “I can’t do that if I look like a freeloader, showing up without any contribution.”

“Fine, fine,” Ellie concedes, “so long as you promise never to use the phrase ‘buttering up’ in regard to my mother ever again.”

I snort. “Scout’s honor.” Digging into the grocery bags, I pull out two slightly dented boxes of Rice Chex, two jars of peanut butter, and way too many bags of chocolate chips. “This shouldn’t take long.”

Ellie squints at my grocery haul. “Muddy buddies?”

“In this house, it’s puppy chow.” I wedge my thumb beneath the tab of one of the cereal boxes, pry it open, then reach for my phone. The recipe is still pulled up in my browser, and I scroll past the pages of pointless storytelling every food blogger feels inclined to write before landing on the actual instructions.

Step one: In the same bowl, combine one jar of peanut butter and two bags of chocolate chips. Melt until smooth.

I twist the top off a peanut butter jar, peeling back the paper while Ellie collects an armful of last night’s snacks from the living room floor. We work silently for a few minutes—her, cleaning up our mess; me, making a brand new one. Once she has the air mattress crammed back into its storage bag, she wanders back to the kitchen, munching on some leftover pita chips. “These are still good,” she says, holding the bag out. I politely decline.

“Can you make sure there’s nothing in this your family is allergic to?” I ask, fully aware that I should’ve asked an hour ago. I slide my phone across the counter, and Ellie taps the screen, taking her turn with the recipe.

“Only allergy I know of is Aunt Carol, who can’t have shellfish.” She looks up, a no-nonsense look in her eyes. “How much shrimp were you planning to put in these?”

“Three, maybe five bags,” I joke, ducking down into the cabinets and sizing up a gradient of pink mixing bowls. “Should we make a single or a double batch?”

“Depends,” Ellie says, “Are we using three bags of shrimp or five?”

A laugh explodes out of me, bouncing off the vaulted ceilings. “Double batch it is.” I grab two bowls on the bigger and pinker end of the spectrum, then unleash a chocolate hailstorm into one of them as I rip open four bags of chocolate chips with my teeth. “Grab that rubber spatula, wouldja? We need to scrape both jars of peanut butter into here.”

Ellie pauses, eyeing the mixing bowls. “Are those microwave safe?”

“Probably. Let’s find out.”

While I dump the first box of Rice Chex into the empty bowl, Ellie meticulously scoops every last smear of peanut butter onto the pile of chocolate chips. She’s an artist at work, scraping every inch of the jar with laser focus. The pink tip of her tongue peeks out between her lips in pure concentration, and I’d tease her about it if it weren’t so cute. I can’t imagine being so diligent about a recipe that boils down to dump a bunch of good stuff in a bowl and stir.

“Can I help you with something?” Ellie asks, glancing up just long enough to catch me staring.

“It’s okay if you don’t get all of it. You know that, right?”

She juts her chin toward my phone. “The recipe says two jars of peanut butter.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t have to be perfect to be good.”

Her attention doesn’t budge from the jar. “But if we can make it perfect, why wouldn’t we?”

“I think you’d have a lot in common with my mom,” I mutter.

Ellie breathes a laugh. “Just what every girl wants to hear.” She drags the edge of the rubber spatula along the lip of the mixing bowl, adding a fraction of a gram of peanut butter. “Are the two of you close? You and your mom?”

“Closer than it sounds like you and your mom are,” I say, although based on previous conversations, that’s not saying much. “I think we’ll get along better once I move out though. Like, even now, I’d love to be in Florida with them, but the time apart is sort of refreshing.” I look up from the second box of cereal I’ve been struggling to open, locking with Ellie’s narrow gaze. “All relationships need a little space, right?”

“Makes sense,” she says, then mushes her lips together in thought. “Do you think that’s true for you and Kat too?”

“I…I don’t know. This semester is the first time we’ve been apart.”

“In how long?”

“Since we met,” I say. “Since we were six.”

“Wow.” Ellie’s hand stays suspended in midair, wielding the rubber spatula like a magic wand. “I wish I had a friend like that. The longest friendship I have is from”—she squints out the window as her lower lip stiffens—“second semester freshman year, I think.”

“Of high school?”

She shakes her head. “College. We moved around a lot when I was a kid, and I just never really clicked with anyone once we got to Geneva. Even with the art kids, I always felt like a weird extra because everyone else had been friends for so long.” Deeming the first jar of peanut butter officially empty, Ellie picks up the second one and resumes her work. Meanwhile, I’m fighting off the pity creeping into my chest. Everyone deserves a friend like Kat, the kind of long-term friend you can show all your cards to without questioning the consequences. The kind of person you can answer a FaceTime call from while you’re on the toilet, who, even the morning after a fight, will pick up your call on the first ring. Some of that is just the side effects of a fifteen-year friendship, but I imagine there are other ways people end up that close.

“I don’t think it’s always about how long you’ve known a person,” I say. “If it were, we’d all be best friends with our moms.”

“Fair,” Ellie agrees. A golden thread of hope outlines her voice. “So you have newer friends that you’re close with?”

My argument collapses. “Well, no,” I admit.

“Oh.”

“But I’ve also barely left Geneva,” I remind her. “I’m not really meeting people out here. Before remeeting you last night, it’s been years since I’ve made a friend.” My own word choice doesn’t sit well with me, and my stomach churns in protest. Are Ellie and I friends? That’s what she wants, right? Maybe we’re just partners on the world’s most deranged group project. In a different world, we might’ve been something more, but given the circumstances, I’d be stupid to waste my time on what-ifs.

Before either of us is brave enough to break the silence, the microwave does it for us with three loud beeps. I pull the bowl out, confirming that the peanut butter and chocolate are sufficiently nuked. “Wanna stay on scraping duty?”

Ellie bows a little. “It would be my honor.”

The churning in my stomach subsides with her smile, and I hand the bowl off to her and watch as she scrapes it onto the cereal with expert precision, leaving only a few skinny streaks of glossy chocolate and peanut butter behind. When I rinse the bowl, the water runs just about clear.

“Are you this much of a perfectionist about everything?” I ask.

“I prefer detail oriented,” Ellie corrects me. “It’s what makes me a good painter.”

“So painting is your main…thing? Art form?” This seems like the sort of thing a convincing girlfriend should know.

“Medium,” Ellies corrects me. “It’s my primary medium. You can get a generalized art degree, or you can get a concentration in your medium, so I’m an art major with a concentration in painting. And I picked up a psychology minor to help with grad school apps.”

“You didn’t mention the psych minor last night,” I point out.

She smiles, a tiny, tight-lipped smile that holds back a laugh. “And you didn’t mention that you were failing accounting with Professor Meyers,” she says. “So I guess we both left things out.”

I flip the faucet off and dry my hands on my jeans. There’s no arguing against that.

“That’s a good thing to know going into today though,” Ellie goes on. “That I have a painting concentration. Mary would’ve known that, obviously.”

“Right. And what are we telling your parents about the fact that my name isn’t Mary?”

“That they’re getting old and they must’ve misheard me when I said Murphy,” Ellie says.

“Okay, so gaslight your parents,” I say. “Got it.”

Ellie goes on without acknowledging my joke. “And like I said earlier, I think we should stick with the story that you’re opening a small business consulting firm after you graduate.” My hand instinctively hovers over my phone, ready to google the details of what that entails, but Ellie does the work for me. “Essentially, you would be doing all the stuff you do for Sip now, but for lots of businesses instead of just one.”

“Got it.” I stamp the air with my chin with one firm nod.

“Out of curiosity, though, what do you actually want to do after you graduate?”

“U of I, remember?”

Ellie rolls her eyes. “After that .”

I plant my forearms on the counter, leaning my weight against the quartz. “Move to Chicago. Same as everyone around here.”

“Not everyone,” Ellie says. She wiggles her fingers in a wave. Right. I’m in the presence of the great midwestern exception.

“What exactly is it about New York that makes you want to move?” I ask. “It just seems like a bigger, more overwhelming Chicago.”

“It’s less about the city and more about the schools,” she explains. “I’d move to the middle of nowhere if that’s where the best master’s programs were. I’m glad I don’t have to, though. Especially after four years at U of I, which is essentially in the middle of a cornfield.”

I snort a laugh. “One girl’s cornfield is another girl’s dream school, but I guess anything beats staying here.”

Ellie pinches a stray piece of cereal off the counter and adds it to the bowl. “I promise you’ll think Geneva is cute once you leave it.”

“Yeah,” I agree. “Like I said. All relationships need a little space.”

Ellie and I take turns mixing, switching off whenever our wrists get tired and only crushing some of the Chex along the way. When the cereal is sufficiently coated, she watches me rearrange the freezer drawer like a bad game of Tetris, maneuvering ice packs and bags of frozen vegetables to create enough space for the mixing bowl. It won’t quite fit, so in true midwestern form, we set the bowl out on the back patio, letting Mother Nature’s freezer do the job. Once the rest of the dishes are stacked in the sink, I grab Ellie a LaCroix (avoiding the lemon for her sake), then glance at the time. Three o’clock. Could be better, could be worse.

“What time are we eating?” I ask.

“Around five thirty or six.”

“Perfect.” I tip my head toward the staircase. “Cool if I go get ready real quick?”

Ellie frowns. “You’re not ready?”

I snort a laugh, but when Ellie doesn’t join me, I make a face that can only be described as “frog that’s been run over by a truck.” “You know these are the clothes I wore last night, right?”

She lifts a shoulder, looking a little too pleased with herself. “And they look good on you.”

“Almost as good as they smell.” I pinch the collar of my Cubs shirt, pretending to take a whiff. Only when you’ve been wearing the same clothes for two days, there’s really no pretending. I smell rank. “Be down in twenty, ‘kay?”

I take the stairs two at a time and slink into the bathroom, locking the door behind me and stripping down before turning the shower handle all the way to the right. It feels like there’s half an inch of bar grime that needs to be singed off my skin, but speed is the top priority today. The water hasn’t even heated up to the temperature I like by the time I step out and towel off.

I catch my reflection in the mirror, wishing I had showered long enough for it to fog. The bags under my eyes are beyond what concealer can save, even if I had the time, and my eyebrows haven’t been tweezed since senior prom. I’m not sure I’d be particularly proud to bring me home to my parents, but I guess it’s nothing that Professor Meyers hasn’t seen before.

Once I’m dry enough not to leave footprint puddles behind me, I sprint across the hall in my towel to dig through my closet, then opt for the first decent, clean outfit I can find: a loose-fitting tan sweater and black jeans. Better than I’ve ever dressed for class but not as nice as I would for our family’s semiannual pilgrimage to Catholic Mass. If only I had a pair of Docs like Ellie’s to give the look the edge it desperately needs.

After two pumps of moisturizer and an ungodly amount of dry shampoo, I deem myself good enough and head back downstairs, where Ellie is posted up at the counter, her back facing me. It’s strange to see her in my parents’ kitchen, almost like we’re in high school again and I volunteered my house for a study session. It’s closer to the truth than I want it to be. After all, she and I are working for a grade. My grade.

“Ready,” I announce, and Ellie jolts a full inch off her stool, a puff of powdered sugar erupting around her as she whips her head over her shoulder. The Tupperware I left out is sealed and waiting at the end of the counter, presumably full of puppy chow, and as I get closer, I see she’s been drawing in the thin layer of powdered sugar on the countertop. There’s half a dozen loops, a handful of hearts, and her own name scrawled in the light dusting of white. Part of me wishes she would’ve cleaned up instead of finger painting, but another part, an increasingly expanding part, would watch her create anything, even a mess.

“The puppy chow seemed pretty cooled off,” she explains. “So I went ahead and finished up. Hope that’s okay.”

“More than okay. Thanks.” I nod toward her powdered sugar art. “Impressive work,” I say, and her smile comes on all at once.

“Speak for yourself.” Ellie dusts the powdered sugar off her fingertips, her eyes drawing a straight line from my thin gold necklace to my worn wool socks. A buzzy warmth traces the same route along my nerve endings.

“The sweater seemed family friendly,” I say, holding my arms out like a paper doll. “Bland. Nonthreatening. Does it work?”

“It works,” she says, chewing her lower lip. I pause in the silence—a warmer, more inviting silence than any we’ve suffered through today.

“There’s, um.” Her eyes flutter over the crown of my head. “You’ve got some dry shampoo marks.” She gestures toward her own roots, and I rub the heel of my hand against my scalp, trying to remove any proof that this hair hasn’t been properly washed in four days.

“Worst-case scenario, we say it’s powdered sugar,” I joke, then crouch down, leveling the top of my head with her line of vision. “Is it better?”

“Mmm…Just let me.”

Ellie waves me a little closer, then pushes her fingers into my hair and starts fluffing. Her tongue inches past her lips, focused again. So am I, on the crinkle of her brow, the twitch of her bright blue eyes as she tousles the white residue away. Her fingers linger a little longer than they need to, but not nearly as long as I’d like. “There. All better.” She leans back to admire her work. “You look…”

I blink back at her, waiting for her to finish the thought. I look what? Tired? Unshowered? Like a convincing fake girlfriend?

“You look like exactly my type.”

My chest locks tight, and I’ve never been so aware of the volume of my heartbeat or the flutter of my breathy laugh. How am I supposed to respond to that? Breeze past it? Thank her? Go back in time and ask her to homecoming? Before I can iron out the details of time travel, Ellie’s hand floats back up to my scalp, giving my hair another gentle tousle before trailing her fingers down the frame of my face, landing on the stretch of skin just below my earlobe. She’s tender and deliberate, the pads of her fingers resting on a part of me people don’t usually notice or consider or ever, ever touch. But here she is, tracing the shadow of my ears, her fingers searching for the parts of me worth forgetting. My lips part on a breath, the beginning of a question, but Ellie steps back before I can ask.

“Perfect,” she says, admiring her job well done. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you washed your hair today.” With a small smile, she adds, “My mom won’t question a thing.”

Every bubbling feeling in me goes flat.

“Right,” I choke out, forcing a smile of my own. “One totally-has-her-shit-together girlfriend, reporting for duty.”

The twinkle of a ringtone interrupts this sinking ship of a moment.

“Shit.” Ellie jumps down from her stool, and the fingers that rested so gently on my skin moments ago are prying her phone out of her back pocket and holding it up to her cheek. “Hey Mom, yup, almost ready, be over soon.”

If there’s more to the conversation, I don’t hear it over the sound of my own heartbeat pounding in my ears. Her mom. Of course. We have a dinner to attend and a show to put on. When Ellie hangs up, she smiles sheepishly, just enough to show her top teeth. “We should go.”

“Sounds good,” I say, but my nervous laugh gives me away. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

I fumble with my sneakers and slip back into my jacket, and at the front door, I watch as Ellie pinches a stray blonde hair off her camel-colored coat, letting it float to the ground next to her. I can’t quite explain why it makes my toes curl. Maybe just knowing there will be evidence that she was here. God, I need to get it together. “Ready?” I ask.

“Yup.” She hands the puppy chow container off to me, but before I can reach for the door, her eyes narrow into that signature Meyers stare. “Real quick, though. I wanted to ask: what made you change your mind?”

I flinch. “About what?”

“About coming today,” Ellie says. “And, well, playing pretend.”

I roll my lips over my teeth and fidget with the zipper on my coat as I weigh out a portion of the truth. “Well, it’s like you said. I want to pass accounting, you want your mom to pay for grad school.”

Ellie nods, and I pause to watch as she lifts a thumb to her lips, wets it with the tip of her tongue, and rubs a blotch of powdered sugar out of her T-shirt, all while seemingly oblivious to the way it has me hypnotized.

What I don’t say is the acting isn’t going to be nearly as hard as I thought.