“Oh, I would but...after you texted, George texted me and invited me to go to a party with him and his brother tonight. He said they were already coming here to get your sister so they could pick me up in a little bit, too. You don’t mind, do you?”
“We don’t mind,” Jane says quickly, flashing Hannah a smile.
I bite my lip, and frown a little. Because I kind of do mind, though I can’t exactly articulate why. Who cares if Hannah only wants to stay a little bit and then go out? But since when does George go to parties with John and Izzy’s friends?
Dad walks out into the hallway and says hello to Jane and Hannah before I can say anything. “I hope you girls are hungry,” he says, and he ushers them both into the kitchen, where he sets out bowls of chili and corn bread.
It’s like Izzy hears the bowls hitting the table from all the way upstairs, because thirty seconds later, she’s in the kitchen, too, looking ridiculous, wearing her red checkered bathrobe, her hair up in big pink curlers. She is going all out for this reunion with John, like he’s going to forget how she normally looks after one whole week.
“Oh,” she says, catching sight of Jane and Hannah, her mouth actually falling into an O of surprise. “I didn’t know you had friends over, Em. Sorry for how I look,” she apologizes to them.
Jane shrugs, like she doesn’t care or even notice, and she digs into her chili. “This is delicious, Mr. Woodhouse,” she says, and Dad beams.
Hannah stares at Izzy, wide-eyed, and reaches for her own mess of red curls to smooth them down, somewhat self-consciously. I wonder if she’s nervous going out with a group so much older than her for New Year’s Eve? I couldn’t have even fathomed how to handle that as a freshman, and I think maybe I should say something vaguely comforting. But then, of course, Izzy does it first. “Hey, I hear you’re coming with us.” Izzy smiles reassuringly at Hannah in between spoonfuls of chili.
“Yeah...I mean...I hope that’s okay. George invited me.”
Izzy shoots her another smile. “Sure, you’ll have a great time. Jessi throws the best New Year’s Eve parties.”
I struggle to remember which one of Izzy’s friends is Jessi. And I can’t. I wish I’d paid more attention last year because for some reason I want to picture exactly where George and Hannah are going to be tonight, what they’re going to be doing. And why Hannah looks so dressed up and so nervously excited at the same time.
Izzy rushes through her chili and goes upstairs to get dressed, and we’re almost finished when the doorbell rings again. “I’ll get it,” I say. Izzy is still upstairs, and Dad is eating his chili and asking Jane and Hannah to tell him more about our app and how we’re preparing for the competition. Jane is talking about how she worked with the servers, and Hannah is telling him how she implemented the UI, so no one else even moves but me.
I open the door, and there’s George, standing on my porch, all dressed up in the same suit he wore to the fall formal. He steps inside the foyer and his cheeks are ruddy from a week of Mexican sun, his nose peeling a little.
“Hey,” I say, reaching out to gently hit him on the arm. “How was your trip?”
“I guess it was good...if you like the beach.”
“The beach is the worst,” I say in all seriousness.
“Right?” George says. “Sand is the most annoying substance in the world, and then it gets everywhere. In between your toes...seriously, so gross.”
We both smile a little, like we’re thinking we’re the only two people in the world who feel this way about the beach, and we can’t understand how everyone else doesn’t agree with us. “How was your break?” he asks.
“Nice actually. Iz and I have just been hanging out. Baking and playing lots of Ping-Pong. It’s been kind of amazing to turn my brain off for the week.”
“Ping-Pong,” he says. “I still want a rematch.” He suddenly reaches his thumb up to my chin. “Here, you have a little something...” A wayward spot of chili I haven’t noticed until right now. He wipes it away gently with his thumb, and then doesn’t move his hand away right away. We stand there just staring at each other for a few seconds, George’s hand on my face.
“George!” Hannah squeals from behind me, and he quickly drops his hand. I take a big step back. Hannah runs up and gives him a hug, reaches a hand up to touch his nose. “You forgot your sunscreen,” she admonishes him.
“I didn’t!” he’s saying. “The sun was just too strong, and it didn’t work...”
He’s still talking about his sunscreen, but I turn, and suddenly notice Izzy standing at the bottom of the steps. I didn’t hear her come down, and I reach my hand up to my chin, wondering how long she’s been standing there.
George notices her, too. “John’s in the car, with the heat on. It’s chilly outside.”
“We should go,” Izzy says, grabbing her coat. She shoots me a weird look, and I have a feeling she wants to say something, but she doesn’t.
“Have fun, and be safe!” Dad calls from the kitchen, and then the three of them are gone.
* * *
Dad goes into his office after dinner, saying he needs to prepare to get back to work later this week, and Jane and I sit on the couch and scroll through Netflix looking for a movie. We end up deciding on an old generic romantic comedy. Jane says, “Research,” as she selects it, but I can’t tell if she’s kidding or not. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan bore me, and it’s obvious from the beginning they’re going to get together, but there’s no logical reason for it, either. It’s like the screenwriters just made it up and think everyone will buy in to the fact that they’ll fall in love because they tell us it’s so. I’m already yawning halfway through.
“Do you ever wonder what it would be like to fall in love with a guy who adores you as much as Tom Hanks adores Meg Ryan?” Jane says out of nowhere in the middle of the movie. “To just feel something like that...something more intense than you’ve ever felt before. So intense that it would make you dumb and crazy. And happy. Just really, really happy. Meg Ryan looks so happy, doesn’t she?”
I’m so surprised she’s asking me, in light of what I know about her parents and how we both agree that love is pretty stupid. And how what we’re watching right now is a movie, not real life. But she’s still staring at me, waiting for a response. Finally, I shake my head. “Not really. No.”
“Really? You never even think about it? Not even a little bit?”
I shrug, and think about George trying to beat me at Ping-Pong so I’d make a match for myself in our app, and how there was no way I was going to let that happen. “I know we joke around,” I say. “And...I’m not saying I’d never want to fall in love. Someday I might want to get married or have kids.”