Lucky Break (15 page)

At the sound of the tinkle of tags coming from the back, Noodles's ears perked to attention. He barked once, hopped right off my lap, and went to wait by the back door, tail flying back and forth. The only time I'd never seen him act like this was when we had leftover pizza from John's.

Pam opened the door and a fat little pug with gray whiskers and a pink bow around her neck waddled right up to Noodles. She snorted and sneezed and wagged her own crooked curly tail in a circle while Noodles showered her with kisses, making me feel slightly less special. Of course, I wanted to be happy for Noodles, but did he really have to pick this week to fall in love?

“It's always hard when they have to part ways after making such a connection,” Pam whispered. I knew
she was a pretty eccentric dog lover, but she actually sounded like she might cry right then. Was her lip really quivering? “If you want, I could put you in touch with Frances's owner. Maybe”—she paused dramatically—“this doesn't have to be good-bye.”

“Sure,” I said, looking down at Noodles. He did look like he'd want to keep in touch with his lady pug. While Pam looked up Frances's owner's contact information on the computer, I had a momentary fantasy about whom she might belong to. What if it was a tall, dark, handsome, and eternally faithful guy who just happened to be single and attracted to girls with just a smidge of baggage? SBB
had
just been telling me to try to see the silver lining in this situation. It could happen, right?

“Here we go,” Pam said, taking out a piece of paper to make a note. “Doris Westerlake of West Eighth Street. Not too far away. Here's her number. When she gets back from her hip-replacement surgery, I'll let her know you might be in touch.”

Hmm, it sounded like Doris Westerlake was not going to be the next great love of my life. It also sounded like I was getting a little delirious. I needed to take Noodles and go home.

“Say good-bye to Frances, Noodles,” I cooed. “Maybe you'll see her again.”

On the short walk back to our brownstone, Noodles was decidedly downtrodden. I'd thought I'd wanted him to give my own spirits a boost, but it was actually kind of nice to wallow in our loneliness together.

“What would you say to an order of lo mein from Tang's and a big long snuggle on the couch?” I asked him. He wagged his tail in response. Neither one of us ever said no to lo mein.

I opened the front door and set Noodles down to give him free sniffing rein in the hallway, then went to check the mail from the overflowing box on our front stoop. I took the massive stack inside and plopped down on the couch to sort through it. Mom's spa catalogues … Dad's golf and wine magazine subscriptions … two boxes of weird earthy products Feb had ordered online … and Patch's Princeton newsletter.

And ooh—a nice stack of Frenchie postcards from the girls. Maybe this would tide me over until we all reconvened tomorrow morning.

With Noodles curled in my lap and the call put into Tang's for lo mein delivery, I started to go through them.

The first was a black-and-white picture of a mustached French man standing along the Seine, smoking
a cigarette and wearing a beret. On the back, Amory had written:

ALL THE FRENCH BOYS LOOK LIKE THIS DUDE—YOU TOTALLY LUCKED OUT GOING TO ITALY! CAN'T WAIT TO SWAP STORIES WITH YOU. XX—A

The second was a print of one of Monet's water lily paintings, and on the back was Harper's note:

MUSÉE D'ORSAY
IS
FANTASTIQUE
. BUT IT WASN'T HALF AS GOOD AS IT WOULD HAVE BEEN WITH YOU BY OUR SIDES. HOPE YOUR WEEK WAS AS TRANQUIL AS THESE WATER LILIES. WE MISS YOU! LOVE, HARP

The third was from Morgan, the history buff. It was a photograph of an aerial view from the top of the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs-Elysées:

IF PARIS REBUILT ITSELF AFTER WORLD WAR TWO AND HAS THIS MONUMENT TO PROVE IT—YOU CAN TOO! ANYTIME YOU NEED A BOY BOYCOTT, JUST SAY THE WORD. HANG IN THERE! LOVE, MORG

When I got to the fourth postcard, I knew it would be from Camille. It was another black-and-white photo of two elderly French ladies sitting at an outdoor café and gossiping. I flipped it over:

THIS IS RIDICULOUS. I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M HERE AND YOU'RE NOT. LET'S NEVER SPEND SPRING BREAK APART AGAIN. LET'S BE THESE TWO OLD BIRDS, LAUGHING LIKE LUNATICS SIDE BY SIDE FROM HERE ON OUT. LOVE YOU, C

Underneath Camille's really heartwarming postcard, there was a fifth and final postcard. Had the girls all written me one together? Was that the Luxembourg Gardens? Why did it look so much like Central Park? I flipped it over:

FLAN,

I STAYED IN THE CITY THIS WEEK. I FOUND THIS POSTCARD IN A LIBRARY BOOK I CHECKED OUT. AT LEAST THERE'VE BEEN SOME GOOD BASKETBALL GAMES TO WATCH.

ALEX

Alex? Was this some kind of joke? Or some sort of hate letter in secret code? I didn't get it. If he was just going to send a cryptic postcard, why had he bothered to write at all? My hands were shaking. What was he trying to do to me?

Since late March in Manhattan often meant late-season snowfall, my friends and I had agreed to forgo our normal meeting spot on the front steps of the Met and convene Monday morning in the Thoney freshman lounge for hot chocolate and even hotter debriefing.

I arrived early, to give myself some time to figure out how to position The Postcard Incident. I was doling out mini-marshmallow cocoa toppings when the girls burst through the door.

“Oh my God!! There she is!”

It was the best kind of ambush: all my Thoney girls, dressed to
les neufs
, running full throttle toward me. I dropped the bag of marshmallows, and the girls and I flung our arms around each other, resulting in the most convoluted, tangled group hug our school had ever seen. Morgan actually tumbled over from the
excitement of the heap and almost knocked over the Fiji water cooler.

“We missed you sooooooooo much!” the girls all shouted.

“Tell us all about Italy!” Harper breathed. “And Thailand!” Amory said, squeezing my hand.

“And Sydney,” Morgan said, shaking her head in disbelief.

“Seriously,” Camille said. “I know your family is a walking travelogue, but you bring new meaning to the word
Flood
.”

“It was a crazy week,” I acknowledged. “But I missed you guys so much. You have to tell me all about the GPA ASAP.”

“You mean
l'aventure Parisian d'or
?” Amory said, in a pitch-perfect Parisian French accent.

“
Oui, oui, bien sûr!
” I grinned, taking in her ombre-washed mauve jeans. “Love these pants! Are they Jade Moodswings?”

Amory shook her head. “Zadig & Voltaire, my new favorite store. But Harper's getup is a Moodswing orig. It's from the new line, Sophistiqué.”

Harper spun around to show off her navy blue sheath dress topped with a pea green cardigan with a peacock-feather neckline.
Sophistiqué
it was.

Amory turned to whisper conspiratorially to Camille, “Should we do it now or later?”

“As if we could wait another second.” Camille laughed, pulling out a huge crepe paper–wrapped package out from her metallic leather Dior satchel. “Speaking of Moodswing originals …” She grinned, shoving it into my hands. “We brought you
un petit souvenir
. Okay, it's
un grand souvenir
.”

“And since Jade already had your measurements,” Morgan added, “it's totally couture. You'd better love it!”

I held the package in my hands, feeling out its magic. Whenever I unveiled a Jade Moodswing outfit, it always felt like Christmas morning. But as I looked around the lounge at all my friends' expectant faces, this particular unveiling felt even more special. It was tangible proof that I had some really amazing friends at Thoney.

A lot of cliques might have felt like they had to tiptoe around the juicy details of a trip that one of them had missed. But we weren't the type to waste any time on awkwardness. Especially when there were stories to be swapped and couture to be unwrapped.

“You guys!” I practically screamed when the last piece of wrapping paper fell away to expose a glittering red cocktail dress.

It was a tea-length, strapless, fluffy-skirted gown with gold embroidered poppies under a sheath of gauzy red silk. I'd never in my life seen anything so exotic—and after this week, that was saying a lot.

“This is unbelievable,” I breathed.

“It'll be even more unbelievable,” Camille said, holding it up to me, “on you!”

Looking down, I was instantly and completely obsessed with the dress, but somehow it didn't match up with my perception of Jade's couture. Come to think of it, neither did Harper's outfit. I loved them both, but it was kind of weird not to recognize the new sophisticated style of my very favorite designer. Had that much changed in fashion in the month since I'd last seen Jade?

“Is she still doing the urban grit line?” I asked, and immediately all the girls shook their heads.

“No, she's sort of moving into a space that's more glam than grit,” Harper said seriously. “You
have
to see what she did with her atelier,” she gushed, smoothing out the already perfectly positioned peacock feathers on her cardigan.

I nodded, but wondered when I was going to have the chance to do that—and how many trends would have come and gone by then.

“Luckily, Morgan took about a thousand pictures
so you'd be able to see it from every angle.” Camille laughed.

I turned to my fellow photo-savvy friend and realized I was breathing a sigh of relief. “Really, you took pictures for me?”

“
Took
pictures doesn't exactly cover it.” Morgan laughed. “Bennett got so annoyed with my camera obsession, he threatened to glue it to my face if I didn't put it away for at least one course of a meal.” She started cracking up. “But I wanted you to be able to see everything. We found that fondue place in Montmartre that you'd listed in the GPA binder. Did you know they serve all the drinks in baby bottles?”

“As if the boys needed another excuse to act like infants,” Harper joked.

Morgan winked at me. “I'll hook you up. I already have plans for a whole Flan-specific slide show, complete with sound track. It'll be like you never missed a thing.”

I looked down at my feet and things got quiet for a moment. So maybe we
were
having the requisite awkward moment. I really was glad the girls had had such an amazing trip, and I loved, loved, loved my dress, but there was no getting around the fact that I
had
missed a thing. I'd missed a lot of things.

“Who wants cocoa?” Camille triaged, filling our
cups with hot milk and stirring the cocoa in. “An extrarich one with double marshmallows for Ms. Flood, who will proceed to tell us all about her tri-continental extravaganza.”

My friends all huddled around the table, grabbing seats and mugs of hot chocolate. They looked up at me with expectant faces.

“Well,” I began, wondering how in the world my week could compete with theirs, “Sorrento was really pretty. Basically Mom and Dad spoiled me with cheese and ice cream for three solid days. Then I went to Thailand to visit Feb and had this really enlightening experience with a guru. Then I hung out in Sydney to help SBB with this movie she's making.”

The girls waited.

“That's it?” Morgan finally asked.

“Ice cream? Guru? New SBB flick?? Details!!” Amory begged.

“Well, I also got this postcard from Alex,” I said, reaching into my bag. “The truth is, I have no idea what to make of it. I can't get it out of my head.”

The girls exchanged knowing looks.

“Okay,” Camille said. “Let's have it.”

I held up the image side of the postcard and swung it around the table for their perusal, exhibit-A style.

“Central Park.” Amory nodded. “Civil and yet nonspecific.”

Then I plunked the postcard on the table so my friends could read Alex's frustratingly cryptic message.

They read and reread, bit their lips, and scratched their heads. Amory slurped up a marshmallow.

“Who cares about basketball games?” Morgan said finally, breaking the silence.

“I
know
,” Camille sounded appalled. “And what is up with this library book reference?”

“So it's not just me?” I asked. “He's being weird?”

“
So
weird,” they all agreed, bobbing their heads.

“Look, Flan,” Camille said, pulling her hair out of its bun, then putting it back up—her sign that she was not just collecting her hair but also her thoughts. “I should tell you something. Xander told me Alex was pretty miserable over spring break.”

“But that doesn't make sense,” I said. “You kept telling me he was at the Knicks game, and—”

“Yeah but just because he physically existed in places doesn't mean he was
happy
. You were in freaking Bangkok and I can tell from your face that you hated every second,” she said, poking my side. “Yeah, we know you. You suck at the poker face. Look, we
didn't tell you sooner because we all thought you needed time and space away from the situation. Right, girls?”

My friends nodded gravely.

“We didn't want to pull you back into the emotional turmoil while you were on your getaway.” Camille shrugged. “But now that you've had some space, maybe you'll both be ready for some closure.”

“I don't know,” I said.

“Look, he can't just cheat on you, then send you weird postcards and expect it to be okay,” Morgan huffed.

“Exactly,” Amory said. “You need to call him out on this stuff and then put an end to the
communicado
.”

“It's the only way you're going to make any progress,” Harper agreed.