Well Played, стр. 11
I shrugged and tried to look casual, but that sense of triumph only increased, like victory trumpets sounding in my brain. “It’s what I do. Or used to.” Back in college. Back when I’d had a future. Bad memories surfaced, and that little surge of triumph fizzled and floated away.
“Well, I hope you still do,” Emily said. “We have to decide on bridesmaid dresses, and besides, we’re getting new outfits for next summer, remember? You know I’ll need your help for that. Without you I’ll keep calling a corset a bodice. Then I’ll pick out something that’s ten years out of date and Simon will probably call off the whole wedding in retaliation.”
I didn’t even try to suppress a giggle; Simon really was a perfectionist when it came to Faire. “Don’t worry,” I said as the food arrived. “I’ll have your back.”
“Thank God for that.” Emily took a bite of her omelet before spearing some potatoes with her fork. “Okay. Now, flowers. Stacey, did you have a chance to ask your mom . . . ?”
“I did, and she wrote down the names of the florists she likes for you.” I reached around for my little backpack, which was hanging on the back of my chair. I dug out a slip of paper and passed it across the table. “She also had thoughts on caterers. Of course, she has no idea what kind of food you want for the reception, so I think this is just a list of her favorite restaurants, but it’s a start.”
Emily nodded. “Great. I’ll start making some calls next week. I was thinking something like . . .”
“Oh, Jesus Christ.” April put down her fork. “We don’t need to plan this entire wedding in one day, do we? This will probably be the thing we talk about the most for the next year or so, so can we just stick a sock in it for now and enjoy the morning?”
Emily blinked at her sister, a little startled, and I just smiled into my mimosa. April was definitely the more direct of the two sisters. I didn’t know her all that well, but I found her bluntness to be refreshing. Too many people danced around what they wanted to say, myself included.
To my surprise, Emily didn’t fight her. “Point taken. Sorry.” She raised her glass to the two of us. “I promise I will do my best to not turn into a Bridezilla.”
I toasted her back. “I’ll hold you to that.”
“Me too.” April took a healthy sip of her own mimosa.
“Okay, then. New topic.” Emily took another bite and turned to me. “Stace, what’s new with you?”
“Nothing.” The word came out a little harsher than I’d intended, and I focused hard on cutting into my waffles. Nothing pretty much summed it all up, didn’t it? That unanswered Facebook message flashed through my mind, along with that fizzled-out reminder that I wasn’t doing anything exciting with my life.
“Nothing?” Emily echoed. Her smile was still in place, but her eyes looked quizzical. “That can’t be right. You’re always going out. You’ve always got stuff going on.”
For a split second I imagined telling her. Telling them both how my life had stalled out. Saying, I need to get my shit together. I’ve been doing nothing but existing for the past few years, working an uninteresting job and going to happy hour and karaoke nights like that’s all I want out of life. Because it’s all I’ve got. I pictured filling them in on Drunk Stacey and her laptop a couple nights ago, but I couldn’t decide if they would be amused or horrified.
But I wasn’t ready to share any of that. It was all too messy, too complicated, to be able to fill her in over one brunch. So instead I put my smile back on. Fixed it in place so I could hide behind it. That was the Stacey that had been invited to this brunch. “That’s me,” I said, as I forked up a bite of waffle. “Always something going on.”
“I detect sarcasm,” April said.
Emily snorted. “That’s because you’re the master of it.” April pretended to look offended, but instead just grinned into her drink.
“Maybe a little,” I conceded. My smile slipped a fraction, but I pushed it back in place. “I think I’m still in that post-Faire letdown, you know? Eleven more months till it starts up again.”
“Counting down already?” Emily rolled her eyes with a smile. “You’re as bad as Simon.”
I shrugged. “When you grow up doing it, you look forward to it, you know?”
“I can see that.” She nodded and nibbled at her toast. “Not to mention that guy. I bet you look forward to him too, huh?” She raised her eyebrows at me suggestively.
“What guy?” I felt a guilty tingle across the back of my neck. I thought Dex and I had been more subtle than that.
“That guy you were seeing over the summer. And last summer too.” She frowned. “Is it the same guy? You kept sneaking off to see him. Someone from Faire, right?”
“Ooh.” April leaned forward, her eyes eager. “What guy?”
Emily pointed at her sister with a piece of bacon. “I thought you didn’t like gossip.”
“This isn’t gossip,” she said mildly. “This is girl talk. Very different.” She turned back to me. “So who’s the guy?”
I took another bite of my waffle to stall for time. “I don’t know about . . . Who are you talking about?” My heart pounded in my throat, making it hard to swallow. How did she know?
“Stacey.” Emily put down her fork and looked me square in the eye. “Don’t play coy with me. You sent me texts. With little fire emojis. And something else . . . eggplants or something.”
“Oh,” I said. My heart calmed down. “Yeah.” I’d forgotten about that. It had been a particularly long, particularly . . . creative night with Dex. And Emily had been going through a