The Dolls(93)

Caleb looks at me with sad, almost desperate eyes while Drew slips the corsage onto Liv’s left wrist. When Drew is done, Caleb holds up his little box. “For you,” he says, handing it to me.

It’s a beautiful cluster of white roses, a white lily, and a sprig of baby’s breath, wrapped with a deep green ribbon trimmed in gold. “It’s gorgeous,” I say.

“Well, put it on her!” Liv urges with a laugh.

Caleb clears his throat and steps forward.

“Roses for strength, a lily for peace, and baby’s breath for hope,” he whispers. As his fingers touch my wrist, I feel a jolt of electricity shoot through me. From the way he looks at me, I know he feels it too.

“Thank you,” I say once he slips the corsage onto my wrist and looks away. I take a deep breath and lean in to kiss him on the cheek. I exhale in relief when nothing shows up on his face.

He offers me his arm and I lock the front door behind us. I feel like I’m floating down the driveway as we head toward his Jeep.

“I’ll let them pull out first,” Caleb says, after he shuts the passenger door behind me and climbs into the driver’s seat. We watch as Drew helps Liv into the old Nissan he’s borrowed from his mother. Liv giggles and blushes, and Drew almost trips over his own two feet as he hurries to the driver’s seat to get in. “They’re kind of cute together,” Caleb says.

Drew starts his car up, and the two of them head out without looking back. I look over at Caleb, expecting that he’ll turn the key in the ignition too, but he just sits there staring straight ahead.

“Caleb?” I ask after a moment.

He turns to look at me. “Eveny,” he says after a pause. “You really do look beautiful.” He stares at me for another long moment, then he leans across and touches my cheek so gently I can barely feel it.

“I wish things were different,” he says. He doesn’t wait for me to respond before starting the car. We drive into town in silence.





UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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30


The ball is even more spectacular than I imagined. I attended Homecoming my sophomore year in Brooklyn—Mer and I went stag together—and I suppose I’d expected an upgraded, Carrefour-ized version of that: a punch bowl, streamers hanging from the rafters, maybe a deejay. But the Lietz Theater on Main Street has been transformed into a wonderland of cascading gold sheets, deep purple uplighting, and a million twinkling lights overhead. The oval dance floor is a deep ebony, and instead of a deejay, there’s a small orchestra in the corner. Tuxedoed waiters circulate with trays full of champagne flutes and appetizers.

“This is amazing,” I say. The whole town seems to be here. I even recognize a bunch of Drew’s friends from the Périphérie, and I assume that many of the adults clustered near them are their parents or their parents’ friends. The men are all wearing tuxes or dark suits, and the women around the room are all in elaborate ball gowns. It’s decadent, outlandish, ritzy, and over the top.

Peregrine’s and Chloe’s mothers both make a beeline for Caleb and me as we walk through the door.

“Your aunt isn’t here, is she?” Peregrine’s mother asks once they’ve both hugged and air-kissed us.

I shake my head. “I don’t think she’s coming.”

Peregrine’s mom makes a tsk-tsk sound. “I wish she had even a little of your mother’s courage.”

I feel a surge of annoyance in defense of my aunt. “Maybe she doesn’t feel like it’s her duty to fight your battles.”

Peregrine’s mother looks at me. “Honey, this is your battle as much as it is ours. And she’s your blood. You’d think she’d want to help you.”

Chloe’s mother cuts in. “Or perhaps she just knows things are in your hands now and there’s nothing more she can do.”

I bite my tongue and resist the urge to tell them that maybe if they and their daughters had practiced even a little self-control, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Instead I kiss both of them on their cheeks, just in case. When no lipstick mark shows up, I excuse myself and hurry away.

I spend the next hour greeting everyone with cheek kisses and reapplying my lip gloss every few minutes. I’m sure I look like a crazy person, and I’m beginning to wonder if maybe I am. Maybe it’s madness to have put my faith in an old tube of gloss, but I know Boniface cares as much about the fate of this town as I do, and that has to mean something. Plus, I trust my mom. If she believed this would work, then I do too.