Chloe’s eyes go wide. “I heard that place is intense.”
“Yeah, I guess,” says Teddy, shifting uncomfortably.
His parents are rich on account of the whole surgeon thing, but he’s never quite known how to be a Rich Kid. He gets along just fine with the other kids at his fancy Upper East Side prep school, but I know he’s never quite fully felt like he’s belonged—between his dyslexia and the fact that his parents aren’t really in any of the circles their parents are, he’s always felt separate from the hypercompetitive legacy types he shares locker bays with. Mostly he hangs out with me and my friends, or kids he meets on the GeoTeens app.
But Chloe is practically tipping over like a teapot with excitement. “I heard the valedictorian last year snapped over a grilled cheese recipe and started working at a deli—”
Teddy waves his hand at Chloe. “She’s fine. She’s at Columbia. But she makes a mean blondie, if you’re into desserts.”
“Wow. Yes. So wow.” She turns to me, her eyes just as adulating. “You guys are like … rock stars.”
I once watched Teddy Febreze his own armpits and I frequently lick microwave dinners so intensely that remnants of them end up caked to my nose, but we’ll both take it.
“Sorry,” Chloe says, misinterpreting our silence. “Sorry, sorry, I’m … a lot.”
“Nah. Millie’s a lot,” says Teddy, tilting his head at me. “You’re a normal amount.”
“Excuse you,” I protest. But Teddy knows better than to think I’m actually offended. I am a lot. On purpose. And Chloe is … a lot, and maybe less on purpose. But I can see she’s growing on Teddy, and even though she may be a breathing red flag that my biological mom for some reason didn’t want to keep me in particular, she’s growing on me, too.
Chloe smiles shyly. “Kids my age almost never come to these meetups. I hope you guys come back. They’re, like. Only kind of dorky.”
“Food’s sure great,” says Teddy.
“Amen to that,” I agree. The lasagna’s been wafting into my nostrils since we set foot in the apartment. It smells so good it should be a crime. “Should we get back down to the shenanigans?”
“Yeah!” says Chloe, like she can’t quite believe her luck. “You’ll have to tell me everything about Stone Hall. And everything about your singing. And Millie, oh my gosh, you should definitely be the one who does Katherine’s song, we do sing-throughs of the whole show, if you don’t do Katherine I’ll die.”
Teddy and I exchange a bemused glance over Chloe’s head, and that’s pretty much the theme for the rest of the night. I get maybe within five feet of Beth a few times, but that’s about it. Chloe orbits us both like an inexhaustible moon, alternating between entire monologues of excitement and listening to our answers so raptly that I’m a little worried she’s forgetting to breathe. Teddy eats with great gusto everything that all Beth’s friends bring and wins over all three dozen of their hearts. I sing a few of the Katherine solos with Chloe, reveling in the praise of a bunch of strangers who have never heard me sing before, sticking my tongue out at Teddy when he rolls his eyes at me from the other side of the room.
When it’s finally time to leave, I’m stunned to find that four hours have passed. Usually time is only ever that slippery to me when I’m in the middle of the run of a show. Beth sends us off with extra lasagna, and Chloe puts her number in both of our phones, and we are hugged by too many people in newsboy hats to count before we deposit ourselves out onto the street, stumbling happily back home.
“Thank you for doing that with me,” I say to Teddy, pressing my nose into his shoulder. “Promise you’re off the hook for the next one.”
Teddy wraps an arm around me, pulling me in to his lanky frame. “Are you kidding me? I’m already signed up to bring the chips and guac for it. This is my scene.”
Or perhaps a testament to the fact that Teddy and his family mostly live off Seamless takeout and cereal, but I keep that to myself.
“Also, the timing was nuts. That song must have been some kind of sign,” says Teddy cheerfully.
“What song?”
Teddy pulls out his phone with his other hand, and I groan at the URL before the page even fully loads. It’s the infamous LiveJournal page. Before I can decide what kind of gagging noise to make, Teddy clicks on the post with the track list of the mixtape my dad made for Beth.
“Some Avril Lavigne song,” he says. “‘Things I’ll Never Say.’ That’s what was playing when we walked into the apartment.”
I scrunch my nose, walking on my tiptoes to squint at his screen. “That was on the playlist?”
“Sure was.”
The thrill that runs up my spine might be hope and might be something else. “Weird coincidence.”
“Less of a coincidence that the song that followed it up was ‘Stacy’s Mom,’ which was, chronologically, the exact next song on Coop’s playlist.” Off my disbelieving look, Teddy says, “What? I made a Spotify version. They’re my new geocaching jams. I can send you the link.”
I shudder into Teddy’s arm. Some parts of the inside of my dad’s lovesick coed brain I was never meant to experience. “No and thank you,” I say as Teddy taps the page off his screen. Only then does it fully hit. “Wait. You think she’s still listening to his playlist after all this time?”
Teddy shrugs. “Sure seemed like it.”
I stare out at the traffic beyond us, trying to fathom it. “But it’s been a bajillion years.”
“Your birth certificate begs to differ,” Teddy reminds me.
“Well—does he post about her again? Like at all?” I ask, staring back at his phone. “Like, did she just disappear off the face of Coop’s earth, or—”
“Nah. No more Beth posts; I checked. But is it weird that I low-key am rooting for her to be your mom?” he asks. “She’s the bomb. And Chloe’s a riot.”
I almost miss a step, coming back to myself. In all the excitement of the party and the LiveJournal sleuthing, I’d forgotten the full implications of why we were there and what it might mean. Now it cinches tight in my chest, grounding me back in the truth of what I’m doing, what I’ve already done.
“Yeah. They’re chill,” I agree. It doesn’t quite erase the look of hurt on my dad’s face last night from my memory, but it helps.
Teddy squeezes me closer to him. There are very few things that one of us feels that the other one doesn’t absorb right up like a sponge.
“You still wanna do this?” he asks.
We stop at a light, for once not bullheadedly jaywalking the way we usually do. “Yeah,” I say. I’m not even sure where the conviction is coming from. Maybe the idea that Chloe really is my sister, and that the mere fact of that means there’s more to unpack here than I ever imagined. “Yeah, I do.”
Teddy watches me for a moment, waiting me out. “In that case,” he says, just as we get the walk signal, “I have the perfect ‘in’ for you to meet Farrah.”
“Oh yeah?” I ask. “And what’s that?”