Rules for Being a Girl

“I . . . yes,” Mr. DioGuardi admits. “But without corroborating—”

“So it almost kind of feels like you owe her an apology.”

For a moment Mr. DioGuardi looks like he’s going to argue, but in the end he just sort of sags.

“I’m sorry, Marin,” he says, the words as stiff and awkward in his mouth as if he’s trying to speak Klingon. “I know you’ve been through a lot these last couple of months.”

It’s not exactly stellar, as far as apologies go, and it turns out that I don’t actually give a shit if he’s sorry or he’s not. I told the truth. Bex is gone. And Chloe and I are friends again. All told, I could have done worse. “Thanks,” I say, cool as a glass of my gram’s iced tea on the hottest day of summer. “I appreciate that.”

Once he’s gone I look around the hallway, then back at Chloe. Her expression is a shocked, delighted mirror of my own. “You wanna skip first period and go to the diner for breakfast?” I ask her. “Just you and me?”

“You know,” Chloe says thoughtfully, “I think that is the best idea I’ve heard all year.”

We link arms again and head back out into the parking lot. The sun is warm on the back of my neck.

Thirty-Seven

I go by Sunrise after school on Friday and find Camille standing at the nurses’ station, humming quietly to herself while she fills out some paperwork. Her Crocs are hot pink today, her scrubs printed with toucans and flamingos. An enormous Dunkin’ iced coffee sweats at her side.

“I’ve got something for you,” I tell her, digging around in my backpack for a moment before pulling out an Amherst T-shirt.

Camille’s mouth drops open. “Oh, Marin, you didn’t have to do that!”

“A promise is a promise,” I say with a shrug. “I’m just sorry it’s not from Brown.”

“Are you kidding?” she says. Her grin is wide and white. “I’m so proud of you, honey.” She raises her eyebrows. “Are you proud of yourself?”

I consider that for a moment. “You know,” I say finally, “I actually really am.”

“Good,” Camille says, reaching out and squeezing my shoulder before nodding down the hallway toward Gram’s suite. “Let me know if you need anything, okay? She had a pretty good morning, but just in case.”

I nod. It’s the first time I’ve been back here on my own since the day Gram didn’t recognize me—Mom and I went together one morning, and Gracie tagged along with me the time after that—and I can feel my heart thumping unpleasantly as I make my way down the hallway.

It’s just Gram, I remind myself firmly. Whether she remembers you or not, it doesn’t change who she is to you.

“Hey there,” I say, knocking lightly on the door.

“Hi, Marin-girl.”

I let a breath out, relief coursing through me at the sound of my own name. Gram is sitting on the love seat with a biography of Katharine Graham in her lap. She’s wearing a linen shift dress and a pale pink cardigan, her hair pulled into a wispy knot at the base of her neck. The line of her lipstick is a tiny bit wobbly, but otherwise she looks like herself.

“Dad made a ciambellone,” I tell her once I’ve kissed her hello, hefting the Tupperware carrier up as evidence. It’s an Italian tea cake that she used to make when I was a

kid, lemony and dense. I remember wandering around her yard with a hunk of it in my fist, Grandpa Tony’s toy poodle Lola trying to nibble bits of it out from in between my fingers. “He used your recipe, so he said he wants your honest opinion about how it turned out.”

“Oh, that’s lovely!” she says, sounding genuinely pleased. “I got that recipe from my mother-in-law, did I ever tell you that? She was not a nice lady, your great-grandmother, but the woman knew her way around a kitchen.”

I laugh, cutting us both slices and bringing them over to the coffee table, running my thumb over the edge of the delicate scalloped plate. “You got a crossword around here anywhere?” I ask. “I’ve been practicing.”

We pass the better part of our visit that way, filling in the puzzle and catching up on my last few weeks of school. I’m telling her about the dress I got for spring formal when something about her expression, a wary uneasiness, stops me. “Everything okay?” I ask.

Gram nods. “You know,” she says, and it sounds almost like an accusation, “I used to make a cake just like this.”

I bite my lip, trying to keep my face neutral. “I know, Gram,” I say gently. “It’s your recipe, remember?”

She narrows her eyes then, and I know all at once that I’ve lost her.

“It’s delicious, isn’t it?” I ask, instead of trying to get her to remember. It’s better not to push her when she gets like this, Mom explained after that last disastrous solo visit; she’ll come back on her own when she’s ready. It might be this afternoon, or it might not be. At some point she might not come back at all. “It tastes like spring.”