Page 58 of Masks and Mishaps

“And I’ll pay for it,” I reiterate. “I have the assets. The schools, the loans—anything.”

Essie glares at me—and she’s never glared quite so seriously before. “That’s what you think of me?”

I’m not sure what to say.

Her stare darkens even more. “I’ve said it before: You don’treally know me,” she states, and the words are corrosive.

I feel them—I feel them through skin and bone and into my marrow.

She shakes her head as she opens the car door. “Bye, Dalton. I’ll tell you when I’m ready to talk.”

Twenty-Two

DALTON

EssieandIhaven’tspoken in ten hours; our parents are getting married in eighteen days. I’m trying to decide which of those timeframes pisses me off more.

“I’m getting notes of…fennel. Are you getting fennel?” Everett muses, nodding at Lander before he plunges the mere tip of his fork back into the small terrine on his plate—the third in this multi-course dinner. “Or maybe it’s the enoki.”

“Umami for sure,” Lander agrees, eyes oriented upwards in thought before he reaches for his water glass. “Wow, that’s good.”

Then they both go silent and look in my direction.

“You know,” Everett goes on, glancing at Lander before he fixes his stare back on me, “there may also be a touch of dead souls in here.”

“Sulfur too,” Lander confirms. “It reminds me of Dante’s Inferno. What do you think, Dalt?”

Drink in hand and glaring at my dark phone, I shrug. I have zero idea what these clowns are talking about.

“He’s not going to make fun of us,” Everett realizes, placing his fork on the table. “Not even a quip.”

“Should we call Alyssa?” Lander whispers, leaning toward Everett while he speaks, but he doesn’t take his eyes off me.

I push away my plate of deconstructed soup (or maybe it’s a reconstructed salad). “Do. Not. Call. My. Mother,” I warn. “This is, like, ten percent her fault. Twenty. No, that’s not fair. Fifteen? How do we feel about fifteen?”

Lander bobs his head. His bright blue eyes lock on me amid that sympathetic, sensitive expression he typically reserves for Valeria. “Don’t beat yourself up. It’ll grow back.”

I’m so confused that I put my drink down. “What the actual fuck are you talking about?”

His statuesque face, classically handsome and classically condescending in moments like these, is the portrait of obliviousness. “Were you not referring to your hair?”

“My hair is perfect,” I nearly spit, jabbing my finger onto the tablecloth right next to the pickled daikon (or blanched lemon). “My hair could startandend wars.”

“It’s just, like,” Lander raises his hand and hovers it over the side of his face, waving it over his own light brown hair while he appraises mine. “It’s edgy for an investment bank, no?”

“Get a job, Lander,” I snap, tossing my cloth napkin onto the table. Then I sigh. “But also, don’t get a job. I’m proud of you for prioritizing your mental health.”

“I know.”

“I’m just messing around. I do that.”

“I know,” Lander assures me, giving me a tight-lipped half-smile.

“I’d never be like, ‘Hey! Get a job! It’s super embarrassing that your fiancée makes tons of money by fucking your best friend’s fiancée while the two of you look at old pictures of yourselves at Harvard Law or whatever it is you do all day.’”

“Well, how could Essie not want you?” Lander intones, calling out what’s really bothering me while remaining effortlessly unfazed as usual. After all, that’s Lander’s thing: being a creepy, observant motherfucker.

“Yes, doesn’t she know how lucky she is to have attracted a six-foot-five tequila demon?” Everett tacks on, because that’s Everett’s thing: being a sarcastic, biting motherfucker.

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