Vi leans in their doorway. “Bea? Will you braid my hair for the party?”
“Sure.” Bea gestures to the floor in front of her green velvet armchair.
“Wait, what? Are you coming with us?” Des asks. Her littlest sister is only fifteen: too young, in Des’s opinion, for farm parties. “Did Gram say it was okay?”
Vi nods. “I’m not a little kid anymore, Des.” She smooths her teal skater dress, which is printed with cute purple and green dinosaurs. Vi has always had a quirky style that’s all her own.
“That dress is super cute,” Bea says.
Vi’s face falls. “Cute? I don’t want to look cute!”
“What’s wrong with cute?” Des asks, baffled.
“Cece isn’t cute. She’s gorgeous.” Vi sprawls on the floor.
So that’s why Vi wants to go to the party: because Cece Pérez will be there. Vi’s yearlong crush on Cece is enormous and adorable and, as far as Des can tell, entirely one-sided.
Bea sinks into the high-backed reading chair, brush in hand. “Cece is beautiful, and so are you. There are a billion different kinds of pretty.” She grabs a copy of The Beauty Myth from her bookshelf. “You should read this.”
Vi eyes it warily. “Nonfiction isn’t really my thing.”
Des hides a smile. Bea’s been bugging her to read Bad Feminist for months, but Bea’s the only one of them who devours essays.
“Let’s do braids around the crown of your head. You’ll look like a fantasy princess.” Some of the tension goes out of Vi’s slim shoulders as Bea brushes her hair.
Des gets up and stares into her closet. She and Em used to judge other girls for taking dumb drunk selfies. They used to tease Kat for spending hours watching YouTube makeup tutorials. But somehow the rules changed when Des wasn’t looking, and now Em cares about makeup and fashion and good angles for selfies. What will she think if Des shows up at the party like this, barefaced, in jeans and her Le Petit Prince T-shirt?
Des sighs. “Fine. What should I wear, Kat?”
Kat reappears almost instantly, holding a black cold-shoulder top. “This. With your nice jeans.”
Des wonders if her sister’s been lurking in the hall, just waiting for her to change her mind. She examines the shirt, which has a deep V-neck in addition to the cutout shoulders. It’s not something she’d wear to the store, where she’s constantly leaning over to shelve books. But it is a party. “I’m not wearing heels. Or eyeliner. It gets in my contacts.”
Kat produces a tube of mascara, some peachy lip gloss, and a pair of black flats. “Here. You can wear my shoes if you promise not to step in cow shit.”
“There are going to be cows?” Vi perks up. “Do they have horses?”
“You are not spending all your time with the horses, you weirdo.” Kat glances at Vi’s tote bag. “Do you want to borrow a clutch? Wait—are you bringing a book?”
Vi shrugs. “I bring a book everywhere,” she says as Des wriggles into her nice jeans.
Bea laughs. “You know, this is the first Pennington party we’ve all gone to.”
“It’s our last summer together,” Vi says. “Who knows if you’ll even come home next summer? You’ll probably have some amazing internship at the Washington Post already.”
“Don’t be silly. Of course I’ll come home for the summer,” Bea says, but her jaw is tight, her smile forced. Des can tell Bea is super stressed out about something. She feels bad that she hasn’t ferreted out what it is yet.
“I can’t wait to get out of this stupid town!” Kat leans over Vi to apply brown eyeliner to her upper lash line. “Two more years, and then I’m going to New York. Or maybe Los Angeles. But probably New York.”
“New York. Then we can be roommates.” Vi holds her hand out for the peach lip gloss. She confided in Des last week that she’s thinking about going to NYU and then becoming a children’s book editor.
Des’s stomach sinks. They all want to leave Remington Hollow. Is that what the next four years will be—a series of goodbyes? Bea will head to DC in August, Kat will leave for New York in two years, and Vi will follow her in three. They’ll come home for Christmas break and summer vacations at first, until they get internships and their own apartments. Until they get serious boyfriends and girlfriends. Until they’re too busy and too big-city for Remington Hollow. What if they all start to think of it as a stupid hick town—and of her as their boring big sister who never went to college and never left home? Whose life hasn’t changed since high school?
“Don’t worry, Des,” Kat says magnanimously. “We’ll still come visit you and Gram.”
“Gee, thanks.” Des forces a laugh, but it stings that they assume she’ll still be here, the same old Des, working at Arden and living with Gram.
That never used to bother her. It’s what she assumed too. Now she wishes she were less predictable.
• • •
When they pull up outside Tia Julia’s, Paige is already waiting on the sidewalk. Des made her sisters crowd into the back seat, which Kat has been complaining about nonstop for the five blocks from their house to Arden. She stops whining midsentence when Paige jumps into the car, and Des catches all three of her sisters gawking in the rearview mirror.
“Paige, these are my sisters Bea, Vi, and Kat. Guys, this is Paige,” Des says.
“You’re Des’s friend?” Kat asks, as if there must be some mistake, as if this glam stranger has stumbled into their car by accident. Paige is dressed all in black, with her purple hair pulled into a high ponytail. She’s wearing a septum ring and heavy, black eyeliner.
“Yep.” Paige fastens her seat belt and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. “Do you mind if I smoke, Desdemona?”
“Yes,” Vi answers for her, and Des cringes. “Des has asthma.”
“No worries. We need some tunes, though.” Paige plugs in her phone, and soon a party playlist is pounding through the car.
“You’re squishing me, Bea,” Kat complains. “Why didn’t you get a ride with Erik?”
“He’s camping with his dad,” Bea says.
“Camping?” Kat says. “Gross.”
“Who’s Erik? Your man?” Paige asks. As they turn down the Penningtons’ long gravel driveway, passing fields of corn and soybeans, Kat and Vi gush about Bea’s boyfriend.
“He’s a big nerd, but he’s sweet. And patient. Like, super patient.” Kat rolls her eyes. “He’d have to be to put up with Bea.”