“That’s lovely,” Jacinta said faintly.
I could tell this was going to be a complete disaster. Jacinta was acting completely out of character. Okay, so it occurred to me that I didn’t exactly know her character very well, but she sure wasn’t the confident, bubbly girl with whom I’d gone to lunch.
“I’m going to get some lemonade and cookies,” I announced in an unusually high-pitched voice. “Be right back.” I turned on my heel and left, and heard someone rush after me.
“I’m freaking out,” Jacinta whispered urgently as we walked into the kitchen.
“What’s going on?” I whispered. “You were so excited about meeting her.”
“I’m just—I guess—oh, I don’t know,” she fretted as I poured three glasses of lemonade and set them on a tray. “I’ve wanted to meet her for so long, and now I just don’t know what to say. She’s so—her, you know?”
I tried hard to conceal my growing annoyance. I hate awkward social situations, and it feels like they’re always happening around me. I put some snickerdoodles on the tray and pushed it toward her.
“Here,” I said in a voice that sounded oddly like my mother’s. “She’s your guest. You bring her the cookies and lemonade.”
“Don’t leave me alone in there with her!” Jacinta pleaded.
“I have to make a phone call,” I said, sounding colder than I’d intended.
Practically shivering, Jacinta sighed and picked up the tray, walking into the other room. I got out my cell phone, walking out onto the deck and shutting the door carefully behind me.
“What’s up?” Skags asked when she picked up her phone. “How’s everything in the land of moneybags and Botox?”
“Completely weird,” I said. “I had Delilah over to meet this girl who lives next door, Jacinta. She’s this style blogger who thinks Delilah is the next big supermodel, and she threw this crazy party the other night with a Ferris wheel and carnival games and fireworks in the backyard.”
“Look at you, socializing,” Skags said. “Your mother must be delirious with excitement. Her little girl’s making plastic friends!”
“Ugh,” I said. “I don’t think Delilah’s going to be my friend after this. This girl Jacinta is acting crazy. It’s like she can’t even talk because she’s so starstruck.”
“Starstruck?” Skags snorted. “Over Delilah Fairweather?”
“They’re in the living room right now, and it’s just so awkward,” I said.
“You left them alone?” Skags laughed. “Yeah, you’re a really great hostess, Naomi.”
“Well, what else am I supposed to do?” I hissed. “Jacinta’s the one who made me have Delilah over, and I made lunch for us and everything, but I seriously don’t think I can suffer through another hour of this weirdness.”
“Dude, I don’t know what to tell you,” Skags said. “But I gotta go. I’ve got a tennis date at two.”
“With that hot girl we met at the courts that one time?”
“Nope.” Skags sounded very self-satisfied. “You’ll never guess who I’m playing tennis with.”
“Carter?” Carter was our extremely preppy gay guy friend. He was always trying to get us to play tennis or croquet or some other fancy activity.
“Jenny Carpenter.”
“What?” I gasped. “Just the other day she was buying a burrito from you, and now you’re tennis buddies?”
“Dude, I told you,” Skags said. “The girl freaking loves me.”
“No way. Absolutely no way. That girl is straight as an arrow.”
“She asked if I wanted to play tennis. It’s totally a date.”
“But—but—we’re talking about Jenny Carpenter. The Queen Beast!” I was thoroughly baffled. “I mean, she doesn’t even talk to girls who don’t have Louis Vuitton purses.”
“Well, she talks to me,” Skags said a little huffily. “I gotta go. Good luck with Barbie and her web stalker.” She hung up abruptly, and I felt a little guilty for dismissing her Jenny Carpenter fantasy.
I groaned aloud. I knew I had to go back into that living room, but I really, really, really didn’t want to. I stalled in the kitchen for a few minutes, wiping down surfaces that didn’t need to be wiped down, before I resigned myself to reentering the living room.
When I returned to the living room, I was confronted by a sight that confused me even more than Jacinta’s earlier behavior had.
Jacinta and Delilah had both kicked off their shoes. Jacinta sat on the couch with her feet tucked under her, her head propped up in her hand, her elbow resting on the back of the couch. She was leaning toward Delilah, her eyes rapt with attention. For her part, Delilah had stretched out on the couch and draped her legs over Jacinta’s lap. When I walked in, Delilah was laughing gently at something Jacinta had said. The energy in the room couldn’t have changed more drastically. The two seemed like the absolute best of friends.
I stood in the doorway for what seemed like an eternity before Delilah looked up and noticed me.
“Oh, Naomi!” she exclaimed in her sweet girly voice. “We’re having the best time. I can’t believe I finally got to meet the girl behind The Wanted.” She shot Jacinta a look I couldn’t read, and Jacinta appeared to stifle a giggle.
“Oh, um, that’s great,” I said, waiting for Jacinta to look at me and say something. But she remained facing Delilah, her expression blissful.
“Did you guys want lunch?” I asked lamely.
At this, Jacinta turned and smiled at me. “I was just asking Delilah over to see my house, love,” she said. Then, almost as if an afterthought, she added, “And you’re welcome to come, too. But then, you’ve already seen it.”
“Not the whole place,” I said. “Like the non-blue bedrooms. Maybe after that we could come back and have lunch?”
“Of course,” Jacinta said, and she and Delilah rose to their feet.
We walked over to Jacinta’s mansion, the girls murmuring and giggling conspiratorially in front of me while I trailed after. It wasn’t hard to feel left out, though my feeling of exclusion was trumped by my absolute astonishment at the 180-degree turnaround in the girls’ attitudes. “I must see the pool first,” Delilah announced, and Jacinta obliged her by leading us out back to the river pool. Delilah squealed with delight at the waterslides, the footbridges, the whole setup.
“It looks like it’s got a current,” she said with wonder, looking at Jacinta.
“It does,” Jacinta said. “You should come over to swim. Or just to float.”
“I’ll come every day,” Delilah said, and she almost sounded as if she really meant it.
Then it was time for the tour of the indoors, which took quite a while because the place was so huge. Turns out I’d only seen part of the house. On the first floor, I was familiar with the bathroom, main kitchen, dining room, living room, foyer, slightly smaller second living room, cigar room, billiards room, and library. But I hadn’t seen the home theater or the greenhouse attached to the far side of the house, the side not facing my mother’s place.
That greenhouse was really something. When we walked in, I heard Delilah gasp. The whole place was blooming with red and white rosebushes. She looked at Jacinta in wonder.
“It was empty when I got here,” Jacinta said by way of explanation. “I put in a big order at the nursery.”
“It’s beautiful,” Delilah whispered reverently.