Chapter 38

By the time I've finishedcleaning up, a game of Monopoly is well underway. I usually love Monopoly, but tonight I have a headache, and it's no fun jumping in after people have already snatched up property. I linger in the kitchen and mix up a fresh pitcher of sangria. I love the idea of sangria. Wine and juice. It sounds like they wouldn't work together, but they're absolutely perfect. Chelsea wanders in as I'm slicing the apples and hangs her head over my shoulder.

"Careful. Sharp knife." I lay it down and turn around to face her.

She leans into me and sighs. "Everything feels off tonight."

Understatement of the year. "It'll be fine."

"Ryan and Chase got into a fistfight."

"Slapfight." I wipe my hands on a dishcloth and comb her thick, frizzy hair with my fingers.

"Emily literally smashed a mirror on your head."

"She didn't mean to."

Chelsea pulls back and studies my face. Her dark eyes are unreadable. "I think she did."

"She shoved me. That's all."

"Into a pane of glass." She glances over her shoulder at the living room. "Everything is falling apart. I just have a bad feeling. I wish we could read the cards or something."

"The cards are a game." I wish they weren't, though. After Emily's claim about Chelsea and Ryan, there are a few things I'd like to know too.

"They're tools," she insists. She looks so earnest. "They show us what we already know. Instinctively. Knowledge we feel but can't access. I know you're not a believer. But you not believing something doesn't make it not true." Chelsea sighs and looks toward the stairs. Then her eyes light up. "Let's do it," she whispers. "No one will think anything of us going upstairs. They'll think we're going to your room. Which we will. Emily's cards are still in the attic." She nods with big eyes.

I look at my half-finished pitcher of sangria. "I'm busy."

Chelsea lifts the handful of apple slices and dumps them into the pitcher. "Done."

"You didn't wash your hands. Now I have to start over."

"Kennedy, none of us need to be drinking tonight. Come on."

I sigh and follow her up the stairs. "Emily is the reader," I whisper. "You've never done it."

"I have the sight." She closes my bedroom door behind us and locks it. "Remember?"

I remember her as a child again, sitting in the attic with her teacup, looking so lost. Seeing nothing. "Of course. How could I forget. Still, isn't there an art to reading tarot cards? Doesn't each one stand for something specific?"

"Yes." Chelsea lowers the stairs to the attic, and I follow her up. "But I remember some of them. We've been watching Emily for years. Haven't you been paying attention?"

"Sort of." Not really. When we were little, it was fun to have Emily predict who liked us and what we were going to get on our birthdays, and if we were going to be in the same classes. That sort of thing. But why would I bother listening to the drawn-out explanations about what exactly each card meant and why it indicated that we'd all end up with Mrs. Oglebie, or that Chase was secretly in love with Emily? This result came up repeatedly, which was mostly why I thought the cards were full of shit. I honestly don't know why Chelsea has any faith in them. Maybe she has her own read on them and thinks Emily's interpretation is skewed by what she wants to see. But when I look at the cards, all I see are pretty pictures. A game.

We tiptoe across the floorboards and arrange ourselves in front of the cards, and Chelsea gathers them and begins to shuffle them carefully, almost reverently.

"They're not going to turn to ash if you bend one," I say as she meticulously slides one half of the deck into the other, making sure to keep the cards perfectly straight. She's touching them like they're made of glass or something.

She glances up at me. "You want Emily to know we were up here messing with them without her?"

I sigh. "Just hurry up."

She presents them to me. "Cut the deck."

I divide the cards twice the way Emily always has us do it. "We haven't thought of a question."

Chelsea chews her lower lip. "Will Emily and Chase end up together?"

"Fair litmus test. The cards always seem consistent on this point."

"One-card draw?"

I nod. "The fewer cards, the less likely we are to get confused."

Chelsea turns over the top card and sets it down between us. It's the Queen of Cups. "Interesting," she says, nodding her head.

"All I remember is that the Queen of Cups is also the Queen of Hearts, and all I remember about her is Alice in Wonderland."

Chelsea shakes her head. "No, she comes up over and over. She… Something about art? Love. I think Emily gets her a lot. Or was it me?"

"It was you." I do remember the Queen of Cups. Because I always thought it was funny—it made me think of Solo cups, some kind of drinking game. It's so hard for me to take this tarot game seriously. Chelsea always got the Queen of Cups. I wonder if this means Chelsea is supposed to end up with Emily or Chase. But it is just a silly game. So I play along to make Chelsea happy. "Maybe it means they'll get together, but only if you help them."

She nods. "Interesting." She looks down at the cards. "What next?"

"Will Ryan and Chase work out their problems?"

"Good one." She flips another card. The Nine of Swords. It's a pretty bleak-looking card. Nine swords hang in the air, pointing down at a woman bent with her head in her hands, apparently heartbroken. "Hmm."

"All signs point to no," I say.

"Well, it's all in your interpretation. Maybe it just means they have to have a painful talk. It obviously goes way beyond Ryan hitting on Mila. He doesn't want anyone to know this, but Ryan was cut from the team."

I clap a hand over my mouth. "So that's why he was so upset about the lacrosse story at dinner."

Chelsea nods emphatically. "Yeah. It's a lot of things. Losing his place on the team, his grades are slipping, and Chase doesn't get it. Ryan feels like he's just losing everything right now. And honestly, I think Ryan really does feel weird about the Emily/Chase dynamic. I don't know if there's something new that I missed, but… he seems really fed up with it."

"Right." My legs are starting to cramp under me, and I stretch them out. "I got that sense earlier, too."

Chelsea tilts her head and looks over at me. "You don't think Ryan…?"

I burst out laughing and then clap my hand over my mouth, glancing down at the floor. We should wrap this up. "If Ryan ever had any interest in Chase, that ship has definitely sunk. But I don't think so."

"Right." She hesitates. "So what were you implying earlier with the secret-lover thing?"

"Oh my god, Chelsea." I flip my hair over my shoulder uncomfortably. "Look, obviously you and Ryan had some kind of thing while we were broken up."

She shakes her head vehemently. "It's not true."

I stare at her. I don't get it. There are lies that are justified, but right here, right now, I don't understand how she can look at me and lie to my face. Not if she wants everything to go back to the way it was. "Something. Maybe not everything. But something happened."

She pauses. "It's not what you think. I wouldn't betray you."

"Then tell me." I reach for her hand. "If you want us to trust each other, we have to be honest with each other. Screw everyone else. Screw Ryan and Chase and even Emily. We come first, we come last. What happened with Ryan?"

Chelsea meets my eyes for just a flickering second. "Nothing that matters. I love you."

But she's wrong. Everything matters. I gather the cards and set them down, face-up. The devil smiles up at us.

Chelsea slowly turns the card over. "We didn't ask a question."

"That one didn't count," I say.

But his grinning face sticks in my head as we climb back down the ladder, carefully fold it up, and join the rest of the group. The game is still dragging on, but no one seems to be feeling it. Mila is hanging over Chase's shoulder, sipping a glass of the sangria. Chelsea was probably right about the drinking—we've been at it for a while now. I can feel a definite buzz, and it's going to take a while to wear off. Chase is drumming his hands on the table, humming under his breath and rattling the hotels on his side of the board. Emily is glaring unabashedly up at Mila, fanning her money between her fingers, and Ryan is drinking straight brandy, no ice.

"Bored," he says in a monotone.

"Guess I win, then?" Chase sweeps the contents of the board into the box, and Emily swats his arm.

"I didn't concede. I had Park Place. That's a draw."

Mila yawns. "Who cares? This game is the worst. Don't you have any movies or anything?"

"No." I take her glass off the table and place a coaster under it. "This is a lakeside retreat. You don't come here to watch television."

"You sound like a timeshare seller." She smiles lazily, and I try to hide my annoyance.

"Well." I sit down on the leather armchair. "How may I entertain you?"

She falls into Chase's lap and fishes an apple slice out of her glass. "I don't know. What else is there to do?"

"We could go night swimming," Emily says. "Skinny-dipping if you're feeling daring."

"Nope." I begin to gather glasses. "No drinking and swimming. Too dangerous."

"But, Mom," Chase whines.

"House rules," I say. He knows the rules. And they're fair. It's not like I don't allow swimming after a glass of wine or a beer. But all of us have been really going at it tonight. And when that's the case, it's just not safe. There have been tragedies on this lake before. At least a couple every year. A girl drowned not far from our house when I was a baby, and my parents immediately put me in infant swim lessons. And let us not forget my attempted murder via the dripping man. My dad has hammered these rules into my head since I was allowed to step onto the boat. Not only to keep me safe, but because we'd be personally liable if someone else had an accident on our property. My father the lawyer, ladies and gentlemen. But as coldly pragmatic as it may sound, he's right. And if I sound coldly pragmatic, I'm right too.

"I want to see the stars," Mila says. She grabs Chase's hand and tugs him toward the back door. "Come take me."

Chase looks helplessly back at me. "Sorry, guys. I've been claimed."

"I said no." I don't mean to say it so sharply, but all three of them look up at me, a little surprised.

"Sorry." Mila exchanges a bewildered look with Chase.

"She didn't want you here," Emily says.

I stare at her furiously. "That is not true."

Emily shrugs. "I just think we should be honest. You said we should push her out like the lady no one cares about in The Sound of Music. The gold digger."

Mila looks so hurt for a second that I want to hug her and shake Emily at the same time. It's true, but it's not the truth. Parts of the truth are just as deceitful as blatant lies. But Mila's expression transforms so quickly, so smoothly, that I see my window for forgiveness close forever right before my eyes. "The one who doesn't inherit seven brats? Easy pass."

I turn to Emily, but all that comes out is one word. "Why?" I already know the answer, though. I betrayed her. I chose Mila. And as my punishment, she took Mila away.