Rules for Being a Girl

I grin at him. “I’m kidding.” I reach back and take his hand, lacing our fingers together and squeezing once before releasing him. “Come on.”

We pull a couple of warm cans from a thirty-pack in the kitchen, watching as Elisa grabs Lydia a Diet Coke from the fridge before pulling Dave in the direction of the backyard. Gray lets out a low whistle.

“Check out book club,” he says with a smile. In the end almost everyone who was at the potluck wound up coming, all of us rolling down the windows in Lydia’s mom’s van and singing along to the radio at the tops of our lungs. “Ready to rage.”

“I was surprised they all showed up tonight,” I admit as we edge through the crowd into the living room, where someone has pushed aside what looks like a hundred-year-old leather sofa to make room to dance on the knotty wood floors. “To the potluck, I mean. Honestly, I’m surprised they show up at the actual meetings too, but you know what I’m saying.”

“Kind of.” Gray shrugs, tilting his head back against the wall in between two ancient-looking botanical prints. “They’re showing up because of you though.”

I laugh. “Maybe you are.”

“I’m serious,” Gray counters with a frown. “It’s not just me. It’s cool, what you started.”

“Well,” I say, suddenly self-conscious. I look out in the living room, where Dean Shepherd is attempting an extremely rudimentary pop-and-lock situation near the enormous stone fireplace. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” Gray lifts his chin. “You want to dance?”

I raise my eyebrows. “Do you?”

“Always.” He takes my hand, pulling me into the living room. “Come on.”

Gray is the most enthusiastic dancer I’ve ever met, which in no way means he’s good at it—arms and legs everywhere, a goofy, uncoordinated shuffle. I wonder what it’s like not to care about what people think—although, yes, it’s certainly easier not to care what people think when you’re a six-foot-tall lacrosse star with a reputation for getting a million girls.

Just for tonight though, I don’t want to worry about that. I close my eyes and shake my hair and let Gray twirl me around—liking the winter-woods smell of him, the feeling of his chest pressed against my back.

Eventually Dave comes and rounds us up for a game of book club beer pong; I promise to meet them outside before detouring toward the powder room tucked underneath the staircase in the front hall. I twist the creaky glass knob, pulling the door open—and almost trip right over Chloe, who’s sitting with her knees pulled up on the tile. “Whoops,” I say, holding up my hands to show I come in peace. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Chloe mumbles, tipping her head back against the peeling toile-patterned wallpaper. Her eyeliner is migrating down her face. “I was just leaving.”

She curls her fingers around the sink, pulling herself unsteadily to her feet. “I—whoops.” She stumbles a little, bracing her free hand against the wall.

I frown. So this was what she meant by “other plans.” I haven’t seen her this drunk since fall of freshman year, when we experimented with the peach schnapps at the back of my parents’ liquor cabinet and wound up throwing up all over my basement by 9:00 p.m.

“Are you okay?” I can’t help asking.

“I’m fine,” she snaps, then immediately turns and barfs up a stomach full of bright blue party punch. She makes the toilet, thank God, but just barely; I reach over and gather her hair back like an instinct, just like she did for me last year when I puked in the bushes behind her house after spring formal. Both of us can just barely fit in here at once.

When she’s finally finished I pass her a wad of TP to wipe her mouth with, tucking my hands in my pockets and looking discreetly away as she pulls herself together.

“Um,” she says, clearing her throat and swiping her thumbs under her eyes to wipe the makeup away. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” I say, with the kind of polite Don’t worry about it smile you offer someone when they’ve only got one item at the grocery store and you’re letting them cut ahead of you in line. “You got a ride home?”

I’m prepared for some variation of You’re not my fucking mother, but instead Chloe just nods.

“Emily is going to take me,” she says, and I nod back.

“That’s good.” We stand there for a moment, looking at each other. This is Chloe, I remind myself, who taught me how to do an understated cat eye and is allergic to apples unless you microwave them for ten seconds first and can recite the entire second season of Parks and Rec from memory. I know her like I know Gracie; I know her like I know myself. But it feels like I’m looking at a stranger.

“Okay,” I say finally. “Well. Have a good night, then.”

“You too,” Chloe says. She looks at me for a long moment, her eyes suddenly clear and focused. “Listen, Marin—” she starts, then abruptly breaks off. “Never mind,” she says, and it’s like I can see the moment she changes her mind about saying whatever it is she’s got to say to me. “I’ll see you.”

“No, hey, wait.” I’ve been edging out of the

tiny bathroom, but suddenly I stop. “What’s up?”

Chloe shakes her head. “It’s nothing,” she says, curling her fingers around the doorjamb for balance and brushing past me. “I’ll see you around.”