A few journal entries later she mentioned that Ali and Emily had attended a field hockey party where Emily had met none other than Cassie Buckley. Cassie bragged about how good vodka and Red Bulls were, Emily had written. When I asked if I could try one, Cassie ignored me, and Ali was like, “No, Em, I think vodka–Red Bulls are a little out of your league.” She and Cassie laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world.
Emily still remembered that party like it was yesterday. Cassie had answered the door with the front pieces of her long blond hair braided together and fastened at the back with a clip; only a few days later, Ali showed up to school with her hair done in the same way, and then all the other girls in their grade copied her. Once inside the house, Cassie had mixed drinks effortlessly, like she was an adult. She’d slung her arm around Ali’s shoulder and invited her to a “secret” party upstairs, making it clear Emily couldn’t come. Emily had wandered around the party for a little while longer, but no one spoke to her. She’d slipped out the door, holding in her tears until she was halfway down the block.
She closed the journal, pulled her laptop onto her lap, and typed Cassie Buckley’s name into Facebook. A profile of the Technicolor-haired, pierced girl popped up. Emily scrolled through her pictures; Cassie wasn’t smiling in a single one. Nor had she included any photos from her blond, preppy, field hockey days. Why had she undergone such a dramatic makeover? If Ali would have lived and remained friends with Cassie, would Ali have transformed, too?
“Who’s that?”
Emily jumped. Carolyn stood in the doorway, a laundry basket in her arms. “Uh, no one,” Emily said.
Carolyn dropped the laundry basket on the couch and studied the screen. “Is it a new girl you have your eye on?”
The words sounded forced coming out of Carolyn’s mouth. Emily wondered what Carolyn really thought about Emily’s sexuality—she wasn’t exactly the accepting type.
“Does Emily have a new girlfriend?” Beth asked, wandering into the room with a bowl of microwave popcorn.
“Maybe.” Carolyn folded a Rosewood Day Swimming T-shirt and set it on the chair. “Show her, Em.”
“Let me see, let me see!” Beth plopped down next to Emily and tilted the laptop in her direction. When she saw Cassie’s picture, she frowned. “Whoa. She looks tough.”
“She’s just this girl who’s working at Santa Land with me,” Emily protested, figuring their mother had told her siblings about Emily’s mission. “She’s definitely not a girlfriend.”
“What about her? She’s cute.” Beth clicked on another profile. It was tiny, gamine, short-haired Heather from Santa Land. In Heather’s info section, it said she liked South Street Philadelphia, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, and The Anarchist Cookbook.
“What are you guys doing?” Jake grabbed a handful of popcorn from the bowl as he entered the room.
“Trying to find a new girlfriend for Emily.” Beth clicked on the profile of a girl named Polly whom Emily didn’t recognize.
“Are the girls hot?” Jake’s eyes lit up. “I’ll help.”
“You guys!” Emily grabbed the laptop from Beth and slammed the lid shut. She suddenly felt like her siblings were turning this into a pet project. It reminded her of when she was little and they decided that she was half-girl, half-cat because she was so young, small, and nimble. Felina, they called her, as though she were a superhero mutant. They’d developed training sessions for Emily to make her even more catlike, squeezing her under fences, folding her up inside cupboards, and forcing her to walk across a balance beam that straddled the small pond down the street. Emily put up with it because she liked the attention—it was hard being the youngest and left out of everything. It was only when they started talking about letting Emily jump off the roof to see if she’d land on her feet that Mrs. Fields got wind of it and put a stop to things.
“I don’t want a girlfriend,” Emily said now.
“Sure, you do,” Beth teased.
Emily groaned, stood up, and stormed into the kitchen, where her mother was standing at the stove minding a pot of pasta, a chicken-print oven mitt on one hand. When she saw Emily, she dropped the spoon into the pot and rushed over to the kitchen table.
“How did it go today?” she said in an excited whisper.
“Um, not too bad.” Emily ran her hand through her hair. “They invited me to a party.”
Mrs. Fields squealed giddily as though Emily had just announced she’d been awarded a full scholarship to Harvard. “That’s wonderful. And you’re going to go, right?”
So ironic. Usually, Emily had to beg her mom to let her go to parties. “You don’t care that it’s a Sunday night and I have school tomorrow?” she asked.
“You can go in late to school if you want,” Mrs. Fields said.
Emily almost swallowed her gum. Who was this woman, and what had she done with her über-strict mother?
Mrs. Fields started listing off points on her fingers. “Now, be sure to tell me everything they say, including any pranks they might want to pull next. In fact, try to record it on your phone if you can. Or write it down so you don’t forget. And don’t drink.” She wagged her finger at Emily.
“Got it,” Emily said.
The kitchen timer sounded, and Mrs. Fields stood up again. “You’d better get upstairs and figure out what you’re going to wear. I can have Beth set the table instead of you. Go on.”