Hearts, Strings, and Other Breakable Things

by Jacqueline Firkins

  “I don’t believe everything I read.”

  Edie bit back her acrimony as she slipped the locket over her head. She hated that Maria had invaded her privacy on multiple levels, but in this particular case maybe the ends justified the means.

  “Your mom’s photo is still in there,” Sebastian pointed out. “I got a stronger chain, though, in case some clumsy oaf steps on it again.”

  “It’s perfect. Thank you.” She pressed the locket to her chest, grateful he’d known how important the little token was, that wearing it helped her feel like her mom was still present, offering Edie much needed guidance, encouragement, and reassurance.

  “I made sure the jeweler repaired it right away.” Sebastian nervously drummed his fingers on a fence post. “In case you wanted to wear it tonight.”

  “Aww.” Julia clutched her hands to her heart. “That’s so sweet.”

  “Edie has a necklace to wear tonight,” Maria announced. “You should see what Henry gave her. Diamonds and sapphires and—”

  “Fake diamonds and sapphires,” Edie interjected.

  “I doubt that.” Maria began to file one of her own nails. “Henry doesn’t do imitations.”

  Edie set a hand to her gut, praying Maria was wrong. Even the suggestion nauseated her. It was too much. Way, way too much. Henry might’ve offered the gift without expectations, but others might feel differently, herself included.

  Sebastian shoved his hands into his pockets, awash with disappointment.

  “I didn’t realize,” he said. “I guess there was no rush on the locket then.”

  Edie’s gut churned harder, not like the tentative butterflies she usually felt around Sebastian, but like a fog that refused to dissipate, choosing instead to extend its clammy fingers and wrap them around her neck. She wanted to reassure Sebastian that the locket meant far more than diamonds. It was humble and thoughtful, not lavish and overdone. It was what she wanted, not what he wanted her to have. It was everything Edie thought of Sebastian. And yet, it wasn’t what she’d wear to prom.

  “Save a dance for me, okay?” he asked.

  “Claire won’t mind?”

  “She brought it up, actually.”

  “She did?” Edie eyed him suspiciously. Was Claire plotting something? Was this like that scene in the movies where the prom queen sets the school dork up for some sort of public humiliation? Or had Claire finally let her jealousies go?

  “She’s cool with it.” Sebastian scratched the back of his neck, glanced at his garage, and shook his head. “She, um, she knows we’re just friends.”

  Edie gripped the fence, wondering if Henry felt the same sharp jab every time she called him “just a friend.” She should seriously rethink how often she used that phrase. She should at least stop using it as a shield for all the other things she felt.

  Sebastian waved goodbye and shuffled toward his back door. The girls stood side by side, trailing his retreat. Edie’s hand rose to her locket, turning her mind to hearts, strings, and other broken things. She hadn’t lied when she told Henry he had no real rival. Waiting for Sebastian to pick her over Claire was a lost cause. She knew that in every molecule of her body. Yet every time she tried to let him go, he found a way to reignite a tenacious little spark of hope. It was like that line from Jane Eyre, where the heroine feels like she has a string under her ribs, tightly knotted to a similar string in Mr. Rochester. Some people were simply tied to each other. Some knots never came unraveled. Some strings never broke.

  As the girls finally headed inside to continue their pre-prom preparations, Edie forced herself to extinguish all thoughts of Sebastian. Tonight wasn’t about him. It was about her. She had a beautiful dress to wear, two contentious but beloved cousins to celebrate with, and the company of a guy she really liked, no matter what words she used to describe him. None of them were quite right anyway: friend, date, demon/vampire, slime on rice, Narcissus in tight jeans. Only one word seemed to fit: Henry.

  With that thought, her hand slipped from her necklace and she began to smile.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  * * *

  Transformation

  noun

  A dramatic change in form or appearance.

  A cheerleading squad made up of gender fluid members.

  The effect of eight hours (or two months, really) of smoothing, stripping, straightening, painting, plucking, pinning, pushing, pulling, powdering, primping, shining, and refining every possible flaw until your cousin announces she’s FINALLY not embarrassed to be seen in public with you.

  The girls stood in the bathroom before a wall-to-wall mirror and a white marble countertop that was completely obscured by beauty products. Maria adjusted her cleavage and checked the slit on the side of her dark red sheath dress, ensuring that it hit her thigh just so. Julia twirled, testing the flutter-ability of eight rows of peach chiffon ruffles. Edie stared at her reflection, still trying to recognize herself. Her hair was piled high on her head in an elegant series of twists. Her dramatic makeup plumped up her lips and made her lopsided eyes look sultry and symmetrical (except when her fake eyelashes stuck together). Her dress, now dry-cleaned, lacked all traces of zombie, cat hair, or sweat. The strapless bodice revealed a pair of bare but surprisingly confident shoulders, between which sat a seriously spectacular necklace. The blue sash dangled from a little knot at her waist. A pair of only slightly teeter-y rhinestone-coated shoes sparkled down below several fluffy layers of white tulle that stopped just below her knees.

  Edie patted the necklace to make sure it was really there. She couldn’t deny that it was stunning, glamorous without being gaudy, the perfect match for her dress. Too bad she felt like she was wearing a hundred carats of guilt around her neck.

  “God, he has good taste,” Maria said.

  Julia stopped twirling and slumped against the glass shower stall.

  “I wish I could wear sapphires,” she said. “My eyes look muddy in blue jewels.”

  “I’m terrified I’m going to lose it or damage it.” Edie cringed at her reflection. “Maybe I shouldn’t wear it after all.”

  Maria paused, mid-boob-lift.

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “If anything happens to it, I’d never be able to pay him back.”

  “Hello? It’s called a present. He’s not expecting you to pay him back.” Maria examined her profile, pulling at her neck and sucking in her cheeks. “If Rupert gave me diamonds, I’d sure as hell wear them.”

  “You have a very different relationship with Rupert than I have with Henry.”

  “Edie, seriously.” Maria spun away from the mirror and planted her hands on her hips. “Ditch those annoying principles already. They’re, like, more tedious than nature documentaries.”

  “I like nature documentaries.”

  “Of course you do. You also think extra credit is a dare.” Maria shot an exasperated look at her sister. “Just be normal for one night!”

  Edie assessed her glamorous reflection again, feeling anything but normal.

  “If you don’t wear the necklace, can I wear it?” Julia asked.

  “Won’t it muddy your eyes?” Maria challenged.

  “Yeah, but come on. That necklace has more right to go to prom than I do.”

  Edie started to laugh, followed soon thereafter by both Maria and Julia.

  “We all look perfect.” Maria corralled Julia and Edie in her outstretched arms, just like when she’d bought Edie’s first pair of heels. “Julia, your boobs look great, no matter how many tissues you jammed into your bra. Edie, you look like a supermodel. I can’t believe I pulled it off. You can thank me later.” She gave them each a kiss. Then she adjusted her neckline one last time and strutted to the door, demonstrating enviable equilibrium in her patent leather heels. “We should get moving. Dear Mama’s been perched on the edge of the ottoman for hours with her camera ready and waiting.”

  “You guys go ahead,” Edie said. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

&nb
sp; Julia and Maria headed downstairs while Edie darted into her bedroom. She wasn’t leaving for prom without sharing a moment with the two people she desperately wanted by her side. First she took a mirror selfie and sent it to Shonda along with a simple text that said, I miss you. I love you. I’ll never stop hoping. Then she opened the dressing table drawer. She took out her locket and popped the lid. Her mom smiled up at her, eternally locked in a moment of joy.

  As Edie stared at the photo, she recalled a night when she was ten years old, sitting in the Denny’s in Ithaca, across from her mom. An almost-finished milkshake with two straws perched between them. Half a dozen cherry stems lay at the base of the glass near a barely legible bill. Edie’s mom counted out a handful of change: nickels, pennies, dimes, anything someone had dropped into her case while she’d been busking that evening. She sighed as she set her last quarter on the table.

  “For the cherries,” she said.

  “But the bus—” Edie started.

  “But the cherries,” her mom replied firmly.

  Edie glared at the mound of change. She appreciated her mom’s generosity and maybe the cherries did warrant an extra tip, but she wasn’t convinced they’d be worth the long walk home. Her mom took Edie’s hands and held them, palms upward.

  “Anything you keep in these is temporary.” She laid a hand on Edie’s cheek and gently tapped her temple. “This is where you keep the good stuff.” She set a hand on Edie’s heart. “This thing’s fickle, but check in with it once in a while. Just bring that thing with you.” She tapped Edie’s temple again. “The two together can take you places no bus will ever go, and if anyone tells you otherwise, tell them to fuck right off.”

  A lump rose in Edie’s throat as she pictured her mom standing behind her now, relaying another unique pep talk, gushing with compliments, and trying not to happy-cry. Norah would’ve called the well of emotion temperamental, but it was exactly what Edie craved in that moment. She might look perfectly polished on the outside. Inside she was a bundle of nerves. She was about to walk into a room full of people and she doubted she’d be able to disappear into a corner, not while dressed in a giant white ballgown and with Henry by her side. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to disappear but she didn’t know what to do with that thought. It wasn’t one she was familiar with.

  When Edie couldn’t force herself to return the locket to the drawer, she found a safety pin and fastened the little heart to the inside of her bra, tucking the chain around it. Tonight she’d wear two hearts: one visible, one hidden. She laid a hand against each of them and took a final look in the mirror.

  I may let my heart drive tonight, she thought, but I promise to copilot with my brain. Aloud and full of conviction she added, “This one’s for the cherries.”

  By the time Edie entered the living room, Rupert and Maria were posing for pictures by the fireplace. Norah kindly let them pause so Edie could give Rupert a hug.

  “Wow, you look great,” he said. “You all look great, not that you’ve ever not looked great, Maria, but you look even greater tonight, or is it more great? Greater-est?”

  “We’ve always been proud of our girls.” Norah tucked a stray curl behind Julia’s ear, making thoughtful use of her talent for improving people.

  “Always,” Bert murmured as he beamed from the corner of the sofa.

  “Speak up, dear,” Norah barked. “No one likes a mumbler.”

  “Tonight I’m proud of all four of my girls.” He darted each of them a sweetly loving look. “I have an overabundance of riches.”

  “Speaking of riches,” Rupert said. “That’s quite a necklace, Edie.”

  “Henry gave it to her,” Julia noted.

  “Henry?” Rupert’s eyes shot to Maria’s. “Not the same Henry who—?”

  “Yes, Rupert.” Maria linked her arm through his and patted his hand.

  “The guy you—?”

  “Yes, Rupert,” Julia said.

  “But I thought—”

  “It’s all good, sweetheart,” Maria said.

  Rupert scratched his head, accidentally releasing a heavily pomaded cowlick.

  “I don’t know how he does it.”

  “I didn’t know who else to ask,” Edie explained. “It’s not serious.”

  “If you say so, but that set of rocks sure looks serious. He must really like you.”

  “Look at the time.” Maria practically leapt away from Rupert. She kissed her parents on their cheeks and told Julia and Edie she’d see them after dinner. With a strained smile, she yanked Rupert out the front door and slammed it behind her.

  “She grew up too fast,” Bert lamented, his eyes still on the door.

  “Don’t be maudlin, dear.” Norah slyly dabbed the corner of her eye. Twice. “She grew up at the same rate everyone else does.”

  “Exactly,” he said. “Which is too fast.”

  W.B. arrived a few minutes later. He clumsily pinned a corsage to Julia’s dress. The couple posed for photos while Norah squinted at his neck where the edges of his tattoos peeked out above his collar. When she offered him a tissue to wipe off the “bit of dirt” at the base of his jawline, he graciously took it. Then he ushered Julia out to his motorcycle, which she’d instructed him to park a block away.

  Edie sat fidgeting with her dress, her nails, and the tassels on her sash while Norah rattled on about how lucky Edie was to enjoy “a real prom” at “a real school.” The conversation/monologue was virtually unbearable until Bert snuck Edie a wink behind Norah’s back. The gesture didn’t erase two months of exclusion and forced gratitude, but for a moment, it helped dull the sharp sting of her mom’s absence.

  When the doorbell finally rang, announcing Henry’s arrival, Edie jumped up and answered the door. There he stood, the demon/vampire with the laughing eyes, the upturned lips, and the . . . holy shit, he looked good in a tux.

  He opened his mouth as if to say something but he stopped before words emerged. Something was wrong. Was Edie’s dress slipping down? Was her false eyelash creeping across her forehead like a lopsided caterpillar? Oh, god, was the necklace missing?! She set her hand against it, trying not to panic.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  Henry laid his hand on his heart and staggered back a step.

  “Breathless, Edie Price. Breathless.”

  He smiled his most honest-looking smile to date. As his lips curled upward and his eyes went glassy, a few dormant butterflies tickled Edie’s belly, feeling less like their usual confusion and more like joy because these butterflies were allowed to fly.

  Chapter Thirty

  * * *

  The hotel ballroom was packed by the time Edie and Henry arrived after dinner. Blue and green streamers hung down from a ceiling of balloons, Mylar confetti scattered every surface, and a quartet of disco balls shot dizzying dots of light around the room. Two hundred people bobbed up and down on the dance floor while others sat at a ring of tables, shouting over the music, taking selfies, and poorly pretending they were sober.

  Edie and Henry wove their way across the room and joined the Saint Pen’s girls at a table near the corner of the dance floor. Maria’s friends were all present, except for Claire and her boyfriend. The missing pair was either out on the dance floor, still at dinner, or attending a more . . . private function. Edie dismissed that thought as she introduced Henry to anyone who didn’t already know him. The girls all flashed signs of approval while Maria cocked a questioning eyebrow at Henry. He simply smiled and returned his attention to Edie. As she set her purse on the table, he pulled out two folding chairs and settled in beside her, knee-almost-to-knee, though his precise distance was hard to gauge under a billowing mass of tulle.

  “I like your necklace,” he said.

  “Thanks.” She set a hand against the stones. “My personal stylist picked it out.”

  “Tell me about this stylist.” He leaned in, his dark eyes dancing the way they always did when he was teasing out hidden truths as though he alre
ady knew them.

  Edie pretended to consider the matter.

  “Well, he’s vain,” she mused. “He’s also shallow and insincere. But I suspect he has a few hidden talents up his sleeve.”

  Henry shook out his arm and tugged on his shirt cuff. Edie suppressed a laugh.

  “Don’t you dare pull a rose out of there,” she warned.

  Henry laughed outright.

  “Didn’t I already try that once?” he asked.

  “Twice, actually.”

  “Tonight I’ll try to be less predictable, especially if I have to compete with some devious designer.” He picked up the end of her sash and studied the embroidery, slowly tracing it with his thumb, much like he’d once traced the curve of Edie’s hip bone, and with much the same effect. “That conceited jerk better not show up here tonight.”

  “I hope you practiced your swashbuckling,” she teased, dizzily distracted.

  “Oh, I buckled my swashes. I buckled all my swashes.”

  Henry scooted closer, all steady confidence and smoldering eye contact. For a brief but breath-catching moment, Edie imagined him tugging the sash, pulling her forward, and pressing his lips to hers as she willingly yielded to the desire that swam through his eyes. She waited, perfectly still. He watched her, relishing the moment. Seconds passed, uncountable and unknowable, until he let the sash fall to her lap, breaking the tension between them.

  Right, Edie thought, snapping into awareness. Prom. Balloons, streamers, disco balls, bad music, cheap cookies, other people.

  Henry soon engaged Rupert in a discussion about the drive between Mansfield and Boston. Rupert proved himself a good sport by responding with mild enthusiasm, despite his clear discomfort to be sitting next to his rival. While they man-chatted, Taylor announced that she’d been cast as Blanche in a summer production of A Streetcar Named Desire. After a thorough round of congratulations, Phoebe asked Edie how her scholarship application was going. Edie admitted she was still floundering but she hoped divine intervention would endow her with a jolt of brilliance before the impending deadline. Through it all—much to Edie’s relief—Maria kept her eyes and hands glued to Rupert, letting neither wander unnecessarily to Henry.