"Oh thank God," Eliza's mother said, tugging at the pearls around her neck anxiously.
"I don't know how long we'll have the juice, but we might as well use it while we have it," Jeremy said. "Power'll probably go out soon."
Eliza watched as Jeremy expertly put up all the windows, hammering and pushing and figuring out the complicated instructions. She hoped her parents could see what she saw in him.
He was working on the attic bedroom windows when she brought him a bottle of water. "It's not cold, I'm sorry."
"No, this is good, thanks," he said, wiping the sweat from his brow. He leaned against the bracing and put his body into it. The joint snapped right into the window, and he smiled in satisfaction. "There, that should do it. You guys have enough towels, right? And a radio?"
"We have a little battery-powered Sony Watchman--my dad found it in the basement. So I think we'll be okay," Eliza said.
Jeremy
nodded. "That's good." He sat down on the floor and gulped down the water.
"What happened to you this summer?" Eliza asked, sitting next to him on the carpet.
"What happened to me*. What happened to you?" Jeremy said, peeling the label of the water off.
"I don't know--you like, pushed me away. I didn't think you wanted me anymore," she said. "You never called. You didn't even want to see me."
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"Eliza, the only reason I took that internship at Morgan Stanley was so I could be someone you could respect. Someone from your ... world" Jeremy said, making quotation marks with his fingers when he said "world."
"You did that for me?"
"I did, but it turned out I still wasn't good enough. Your parents made that pretty clear at dinner. I figured, I'd never change their minds about me, so why should I even bother?" He shrugged.
"Why botheri" Eliza said, incredulous. "Because I don't think like my parents do, that's why. And that's pretty shitty to judge someone based on their family," she said. "People can't help where they come from."
Jeremy looked embarrassed, but then he said, "Yeah, but then I heard about you and Ryan, so . . ." He trailed off.
It was Eliza's turn to looked embarrassed.
"I missed you," she said matter-of-factly.
"I missed you too," he agreed. "I saw you on TV last night," he offered, unexpectedly lightly.
"You did? Where?" Eliza asked, surprised.
"On Sugar's show. You were asking for a dress back and she wouldn't give it to you." He chuckled. "And at the end some old French designer guy in big black glasses was saying that he would never dress Sugar Perry again. It was pretty funny."
"Karl Lagerfeld?' Eliza asked, but Jeremy just shrugged. Maybe Sugar would get her comeuppance after all. Eliza looked at Jeremy. Even talking about some stupid TV show, he was still
266
ten times more soulful than anyone else she'd ever met. She'd missed him so much.
"It's just . . . you were always so busy," she said, tentatively pulling at the bottom of his pant leg.
"Yeah, no kidding. I hated that job. Anyway, I quit. You can't believe the amount of bullshit you need to put up with. I'm working at the Perrys' again next summer."
"You are?"
"Yeah, I just told them I'd be back." He finished the last of the water and put down the empty plastic bottle.
Eliza was still processing all this new information. "I thought you didn't like me anymore," she said.