Page 38 of Seven Percent of Ro Devereux
I sink to my butt in the dirt, cold-packed and solid under a fine fur of weeds. There’s no way. There’s no, no, no way.
You do realize how weird it’ll look if you don’t go? Together??
You’re going. We’ll talk details on Monday.
Maybe we can send a photographer.
A pause, silent except for the chickadee that flits past me, wailing as she goes.
Happy Thanksgiving, Mo.
22
Formal is on a Saturday, which means Maren’s over at two so we can get ready together. With Dad at Beans and Vera in the hospital, the house is quiet.
“How’s she doing?” Maren asks as she comes through the door.
I know exactly who she means, but some stupid thing inside me wants to distance myself from the question.
“Who?” I ask.
“Vera,” she says, of course. “When’s she coming home?”
She isn’t, I know. She’s been gone for sixteen days, and each time I see her there’s less of her there to see. But that same stricken person inside me answers Maren all on her own. “Soon, I think.”
“Good.” Maren smiles, leaning close to hug me. I’ve been avoiding hugs lately, on the whole. Hugging Miller is one thing—it’s a job, and I shut myself down every time it happens. But hugging Maren, and especially hugging my dad, feels dangerous. Leaning into someone, being offered a place to break down. Inthe surround-sound silence of someone else’s arms, the sadness threatens to swallow me whole.
I go stiff against Maren, and she takes a step back.
“Autumn’s picking us up at six,” she tells me. “Miller’s meeting us at the docks, right?”
“No,” I groan, motioning for her to follow me upstairs to my room. “I told him to, but he thinks it’d look suspicious.” Switchback Ridge High always hosts winter formal at the Snowberry Room, a restaurant right on the lake with floor-to-ceiling windows over the water. Last year, Maren and I went together. This year, well. “He’s coming here at six, too.”
“That boy is anunrelentinggoody-two-shoes,” Maren says. She lays the garment bag she’s carrying across my bed. “Did you coordinate outfits?”
“God, no.” I drop into my desk chair and watch her unzip the bag. Felix wanted to style us, but I’d finally put my foot down. This wasn’t an official MASH event; I wasn’t going to wear some color-complementary couple’s outfit in front of my entire school. “I have no idea what he’s wearing.”
“Well,” she says, pulling out her dress with a flourish. It’s floor-length and silky, the color of liquid copper. “Here’s what I’m wearing.”
“Perfect,” I tell her, smiling. She drops it and steps over to me, reaching to tug at the end of one of my curls.
“But first, hair,” she says. “You gonna let me straighten this?”
I almost never straighten my hair; the curls are part of me, unpredictable and uncontained. But Maren loves the transformation—and has the patience for the full hour it takes toget my hair to lie flat. I shrug, and she grins at me.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she says. “Let’s do this thing.”
When Miller shows up, I’m still in my track pants. He’s early, totally predictably, and I hear the slam of his car door just as I’m headed to the closet for my dress. Maren’s ready, hair piled on her head and the copper dress catching in the setting sun through my window.
“I’ll get him,” she says, standing from my bed. When she peers out the window, she laughs. “Oh my god, Ro.”
She waves me over, and we both watch him walk up my driveway. His hair’s combed back and he’s carrying a plastic box and—the kicker—he’s wearing the tuxedo.
“No,” I say, and she throws her head back to laugh again.
“Yes,” she says. “The infamousIliadtux.Man.He looks good though, huh?”
I step away from the window as he reaches the front door. “He looks like Miller.”
