Val's eyebrows gathered as she inspected my face. "Are you okay?"
"Her dad would never go for it," Vickie explained. "He puts her under a lot of pressure."
"Yes, I'm aware," Val said. "I have eyes and ears."
"USC is all he's talked about for months," I said, my voice sounding far off. "For my life." This had happened a few times lately, this rise of panic in my chest. I thought about USC a lot, but when I began to really think hard about the details, all the ways it could go wrong, my breathing became shallow. What if it wasn't enough? All the volunteering, studying, rigorous SAT prep and near-perfect score. What if my letter never came? What if it did, and the classes were so hard that I flunked out my first semester? Would Dad begin to look at me the way he did Tiffany, distantly, as if she'd wound up in his presence by mistake somehow?
"He doesn't have to know about it," Val said. "You could always apply without telling him."
"You can use my address," Vickie said excitedly.
"She'd use Tiffany's obviously," Val said. "She's her sister."
Oddly, their bickering calmed me a little. It wasn't like giving myself options, adding a little unknown to my life, was a crime. Surely, my dad would see that . . . but what if he didn't? If I asked to apply somewhere else and he said no, pursuing it would be defying him. But if I never gave him the chance to say no . . .?
There were other things he didn't know about the past few months-like how I'd stopped showing up to piano because I hated piano, and it was already on my application so who cared? Or that I'd spent the night at Val's a few times when her mom wasn't home so Val and I could stay out on the boardwalk until midnight or drink wine coolers on her couch and watch Party of Five.
I hadn't wanted to lie to my parents, but Val had made a valid argument. "You're going to be on your own soon anyway," she'd said. "If you don't start slowly, you'll go crazy when college starts and eventually have to drop out because you can't control yourself."
It'd made sense to me, but I knew it wouldn't to my dad, so I'd done it behind his back.
I supposed this was kind of the same thing. I'd gotten a job before the holidays serving yogurt and smoothies at a country club, so I had a little money saved I could use for applications.
"I think we lost her," Val said.
I blinked a few times. "Sorry."
"It's okay. You need a ride?"
Vickie blanched. "I already said I'd give her one."
"She's on my way home." Val pulled my elbow. "Come on."
"Are you sure?" Vickie asked. "I could always stay for dinner in case things get weird."
"Weird?" Val stopped pulling. "Why? What's for dinner?"
"Six-foot-five inches of delicious man meat," Vickie said.
I looked over at her. "You've never even seen him."
She shrugged. "I've heard rumors. Tiffany said he was that tall, at least, and that he looks like he should be riding a horse across a Tuscan landscape. Like an Italian model."
"Wait, Tiffany's boyfriend is coming over?" Val asked, bouncing on her toes.
I wrinkled my nose at Vickie, irritated. She was being rude and flippant about something that really mattered. Manning was so much more than a handsome face. "What Italian models do you even know?"
"Please let me come for dinner," Val said.
"No," I said. I hated them both in that moment for making light something I'd been agonizing over for more than a year. "It's not that kind of dinner. It's for family."
"Yeah," Val said and resumed pushing me toward her 1979 convertible Beetle. "Family only, so run along, Vickie."
Vickie scowled, watching us go. "Fine. I have better things to do anyway."
Val had a noisy car you could hear coming from down the block. My dad hated it, said it left grease stains on the street outside our house. By all reasoning, he should've hated her, too. Her skateboarding in our driveway, her revealing outfits, and her single, airhead mom who wore red lipstick to match her Mustang. He'd met Val a few times, though, and called her "a smart girl," nothing more. That meant he liked her. He rarely volunteered much about any of my friends.
Val and I tumbled into the house. I threw my backpack onto the kitchen counter and opened the fridge.
"Lake?" Mom said from upstairs. "Is that you?"
"And me, Mrs. Kaplan," Val called.
"Oh, hi, Val." Mom came down with a mild grin, dressed in a gray skirt and blouse. "What are you girls up to?"