“Sounds beautiful,” I say, embarrassed that I’m suddenly picturing myself with Caleb on a beach watching the sun come up. Stupid overactive imagination. “So you think you’ll get out there again soon?”
Everything in his face immediately shuts down. “Things are different now. It’s a long story.” He stares straight ahead, and I have the strangest feeling he’s suddenly mad at me.
I try to make casual conversation as Caleb turns onto the road leading up the hill toward my house, but his only replies are one-word answers.
By the time he pulls up my driveway and sweeps the Jeep around in front of the house, the silence and tension in the car are so thick I can feel them.
“Well,” I say awkwardly, grabbing my sopping backpack from the floor, “thank you again.”
When he doesn’t reply, I get out into the rain, which is pounding down so hard that I barely hear him say, “Rock on, Eveny,” in that perfect, deep voice of his, just before I slam the door closed.
And then, before I have the chance to react, he’s already pulling away.
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9
The storms pass by that evening, but the humidity lingers in the air, making it hard to breathe. Drew will still be out sick for the next couple of days, and I try calling him a few times but it goes straight to voice mail. I remind him he’s invited to Aunt Bea’s bakery opening on Wednesday night, but he texts back that he’s not sure he’ll feel well enough to be there.
I eat lunch Tuesday and Wednesday inside the caf with Liv and her friend Max, a scrawny, smart guy who wears thick hipster glasses and announces right away that he’s gay. “Just so you don’t accidentally develop a crush on me,” he adds quite seriously. “It’s been known to happen.” He tells me that he’s from central Carrefour instead of the Périphérie, but that he’s always been kind of different from the other kids at Pointe Laveau, so he has that in common with Liv.
“You may have noticed,” he says stiffly, “that unless you get a blessing from Peregrine and Chloe, you might as well not exist around here.”
Liv chomps angrily on her burger and says, “Eveny hasn’t noticed, considering the Dolls are, like, totally fixated on her.”
And as bizarre as it seems, she’s right. Peregrine and Chloe beam at me in English class, wave hello to me in the halls, and seem bewildered when I say I’ll be eating in the caf instead of the Hickories.
“But no one ever turns down an invitation to eat with us,” Chloe tells me Wednesday, looking truly baffled as she wanders away from me and heads outside.
The thing is, even though I know it’s supposed to be some kind of huge deal to be invited into the Dolls’ inner circle, I’d prefer to eat with people I like. And I like Liv and Max. They remind me of my friends back in New York, but more than that, they’re normal. The Dolls, on the other hand, seem like they’re from Planet Glamour. I look out the window at their tree-shaded spot overlooking the school, and I see both Peregrine and Chloe gazing at me coolly, as if they can read my mind.
“Told you that you couldn’t just automatically become one of us,” Arelia trills as she passes me in the hall on the way to fifth period.
“I never said I wanted to,” I reply sweetly, although she’s already disappearing around the corner with Margaux. But I feel a little annoyed that she apparently thinks I’ve been banished from the Hickories for not being cool enough.
Caleb Shaw is the one flaw in my plan, because if I exile myself from the glamazons in the Hickories, I’ll be writing myself out of his life too. He doesn’t even look at me in American history, the one class we share, though I have the weirdest feeling he’s aware of my every move. He shifts in his seat each time I shift in mine, and sometimes I can feel his eyes on me even though he’s always gazing off into space when I turn around.
Boniface picks me up after school on Wednesday and drives me the short distance to Aunt Bea’s bakery for the opening.
“Any luck finding the key for the parlor doors?” I ask him on the way. I still can’t shake the nightmares I’ve had twice now, and I’ve begun to think that the only way to convince myself they’re just dreams is to get inside the room.
“Not yet, Eveny,” he says, and the uneasy feeling sticks with me as we drive the rest of the way to Main Street in silence.
Bea is rushing around like a flour-covered maniac when we get there, and the bakery smells heavenly. The plan for the opening night party is that she’ll have miniature versions of a dozen of her signature pastries circulated by two waiters. Because the shop is so tiny, the celebration will spill out onto the street, so Boniface heads outside to set up a few high-top tables and tablecloths while I go into the back to help frost miniature cakes.