Page 58 of Seven Days in June

“I wore my new platform booties yesterday,” started Parsley, “and Sparrow goes, ‘Oh, I ordered the same ones from Urban Outfitters last weekend.’ Bitch, no you did not. You just need an alibi for when you come to school wearing my shit.”

Fighting off an eye roll, Audre gave the mildest response she could muster. “Maybe she did buy them. We all buy the same stuff. Look, we’re both wearing the Keith Haring Vans.”

“Vans are ubiquitous,” scoffed Parsley, who Audre suspected didn’t know how to spell “ubiquitous.”

This isn’t about Sparrow stealing your booties, thought Audre.This is about Sparrow stealing your bat mitzvah entrance song. As if anyone had the monopoly on “Old Town Road.”

Audre didn’t want to discuss this anymore. The good news was, distracting Parsley was easy. “Your brows arethe cutest. Did you get them microbladed?”

“Yes! At Bling Brows. They’re good, right?”

“Iconic.” Audre stifled a yawn.

Parsley squealed and then checked her reflection in her iPhone. She stuck out her tongue, threw up a peace sign, and snapped a selfie. “I’m so cute,ugh.”

Perfect. Now Audre could mope in peace.

All day, she’d been holding back tears. But since her brand was Consistently Composed, none of the four other kids in Cheshire Prep’s strikingly low-stakes detention would’ve noticed.

Audre could count on one hand the number of times she’d been outwardly bummed at school. Or said a really inflammatory cuss word, like fuckshit. Or trashed a friend behind her back. No one ever knew how she really felt.

Audre Zora Toni Mercy-Moore was a leader, after all! And in the wrong hands, this social power could inspire cliquey shenanigans. Thusly, Audre always tried to seem positive, chill, sane. If her day sucked, she’d just go home, sketch something, readYou Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life, and cuddle in bed with her mom.

Audre’s emotions were hers to deal with. Other kids really just wanted to talk about themselves, anyway. If you let them, unobstructed, they trusted you. Besides, therapists should never introduce their feelings into a session. (She’d learned this in third grade while reading Freud’sA General Introduction to Psychoanalysis.)

So despite being stuck in detention and devastated, she was cool. Never mind that the day before, her mom had implied that Audre was the reason she had no life, no love. No real happiness.

I’m a robot, so you can be a butterfly.

Had she always felt like Audre was holding her back? Had her birth been a mistake?

Audre and her mom had never had an all-out brawl before. They were bickerers, not fighters. But yesterday, in Cheshire Prep’s main hallway, her mom had glared at her like she was the catalyst for all the stress, strife, and strain in the world.

I’m ruining her life, thought Audre.I can fix everyone I know but her.

And it stung, because Eva was her best friend. Of course, Audre adored her dad and his big, bustling extended family in California. On Sunday, she was flying out to spend the summer in Dadifornia—and she already knew it’d be a blast. Her dad was vacation, though. Eva was home.

It had been only the two of them forever. Girling about, creating inane rituals for the hell of it. Taking adventure walks every Saturday. Watching midcentury musicals on Wednesday nights. Collaging vision boards to manifest Oscar wins. Attending drag-queen bingo every Easter. Ordering the entire menu at their June brunch at Ladurée (steak au poivre, macarons, chocolate éclairs, lavender tea, and a Pepto Bismol chaser!) each year before Audre’s flight to California.

Tweens were supposed to hate their moms, because most mothers had forgotten how confusing it was to be twelve, thirteen, fourteen. How pointless and powerless you felt. But Evagother. She validated her thoughts, her opinions. Besides, she wasn’t like other moms. She was like the young, quirky aunt on a network sitcom. The one you ran to when your actual mom was too uptight to discuss Plan B.

Audre idolized her.

When Audre was four, she’d tried to hop into the shadow that Eva cast on the walls. What she wouldn’t have given to try her on.

On her sixth Christmas, she’d asked Santa to make Eva the same age as her so they could be BFFs.

In second grade, she’d snuck up on a napping Eva and colored her entire forearm with a highlighter. Because she was “important.”

On days when Eva was too busy to notice, she snuck her special ring out of her room and wore it. To be like her and to feel protected by mommy magic.

And to this day, insomniac Audre still crawled into bed with her, every night around 3:00 a.m. And Eva, usually balancing an ice pack on her head, big-spooned her back to sleep, her warm hand cupping her cheek. Her sheets always smelled of the peppermint and lavender oils she rubbed on her head at night. Audre loved sinking into this scent. And if Eva wasn’t in too much pain, she’d sing her an old lullaby.

Dors, dors, p’tit bébé

’Coutes le rivière

’Coutes le riviere couler

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