Always and Forever, Lara Jean
Page 24

“They haven’t even been dating that long! How long has it been, six months?”
“A little longer than that. But Gogo, they’ve known each other for years.”
She stacks up the slices of foiled pizza and says, “Can you imagine how weird it’ll be to have her living here?”
Her question gives me pause. Ms. Rothschild is at the house a lot, but that’s not the same as living here. She has her own ways of doing things, and so do we. Like, she wears shoes at her house, but we don’t wear them here, so she takes them off when she comes over. And, now that I think about it, she’s never slept over here before; she always goes back home at the end of the night. So that might feel a little weird. Also, she stores bread in the refrigerator, which I hate, and to be quite honest, her dog Simone sheds a lot and has been known to pee on the carpet. But the thing is, since I’m not going to UVA, I won’t be around much longer—I’ll be away at college. “Neither of us will be living here full-time though,” I say at last. “Just Kitty, and Kitty’s thrilled to death.”
Margot doesn’t respond right away. “Yes, they do seem really close.” She goes to the freezer and makes space for the pizza, and with her back facing me she says, “Don’t forget, we have to go prom-dress shopping before I leave.”
“Ooh, okay!” It feels like two seconds ago that we were shopping for Margot’s prom dress, and now it’s my turn.
Daddy, who I didn’t realize had walked into the kitchen, pipes up with, “Hey, maybe Trina could go too?” He casts a hopeful look my way. I’m not the one he should be looking at. I already love Ms. Rothschild. It’s Margot she has to win over.
I look over at Margot, who is giving me wide panic eyes. “Um . . . ,” I say. “I think it should just be a Song girls thing this time.”
Daddy nods like he understands. “Ah. Got it.” Then he says to Margot, “Can the two of us spend a little daughter-dad time together before you leave? Maybe take our bikes on a trail?”
“Sounds good,” she says.
When his back is turned, Margot mouths, Thank you. I feel disloyal to Ms. Rothschild, but Margot is my sister. I have to be on her side.
* * *
I think maybe Margot’s feeling guilty about cutting Ms. Rothschild out of the dress shopping expedition, because she keeps trying to make it more of a thing. When we go to the mall the next day after school, she announces that we’ll each pick two dresses, and I have to try all of them on no matter what, and then we’ll rate them. She even printed out thumbs-up and thumbs-down emojis and made paddles for us to use.
It’s cramped in the dressing room, and there are dresses everywhere. Margot gives Kitty the job of rehanging and organizing, but Kitty’s already given it up in favor of playing Candy Crush on Margot’s phone.
Margot hands me one of her picks first—it’s a flowy black dress with fluttery cap sleeves. “You could do your hair up for this one.”
Without looking up, Kitty says, “I would go with beachy waves.”
Margot makes a face at her in the mirror.
“Is black really me, though?” I wonder.
“You should try wearing black more often,” Margot says. “It really suits you.”
Kitty picks at a scab on her leg. “When I go to prom, I’m going to wear a tight leather dress,” she says.
“It can get hot in Virginia in May,” I say, as Margot zips me up. “You could wear a leather dress to homecoming though, since it’s in October.”
We study my reflection in the mirror. The dress is too big in the bodice, and the black makes me look like a witch, but a witch in an ill-fitting dress.
“I think you need bigger boobs for that dress,” Kitty says. She holds up the thumbs-down paddle.
I frown at her in the mirror. She’s right, though. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”
“Did Mommy have big boobs?” Kitty asks suddenly.
“Hmm. I think they were on the small side,” Margot says. “Like an A?”
“What size do you wear?” she asks.
“A B.”
Eyeing me, Kitty says, “And Lara Jean’s small like Mommy.”
“Hey, I’m practically a B!” I protest. “I’m a large A. An almost B. Somebody unzip me.”
“Tree has big boobs,” Kitty says.
“Are they real?” Margot asks as she pulls down my zipper.
I step out of the dress and hand it over to Kitty to hang. “I think so.”
“They’re real. I’ve seen her in a bikini, and hers spread when she’s lying down, and that’s how you know. The fake ones stay in place like scoops of ice cream.” Kitty picks up Margot’s phone again. “Also, I asked her.”
“If they were fake, I doubt she’d tell you that,” Margot says.
Kitty frowns at her. “Tree doesn’t lie to me.”
“I’m not saying she’d lie; I’m saying she might be private about plastic surgery! Which is her right!” Kitty just shrugs coolly.
I quickly put on the next dress to get off the subject of Ms. Rothschild’s boobs. “What do you guys think of this one?”
They both shake their heads and reach for the thumbs-down paddle at the same time. At least they are united in their dislike of my dress.
“Where’s my pick? Try mine on next.” Kitty’s pick is a skin-tight, white, off-the-shoulder bandage dress I would never in a million years wear, and she knows it. “I just want to see it on you.”
I try it on to appease her, and Kitty insists it’s the best dress of all the dresses, because she wants to have the winning pick. In the end, none of the dresses are my style, but I’m not bothered by it. Prom is still more than a month away, and I want to scour vintage shops before I commit to anything from a regular store. I like the idea of a lived-in dress, a dress that has gone places, seen things, a dress that a girl like Stormy might’ve worn to a dance.
When Margot leaves for Scotland the next morning, she makes me promise to send pictures of potential dresses so she can weigh in. She doesn’t say another word about Ms. Rothschild, but then, she wouldn’t, because that’s not her style.
 
 
13

LUCAS SAYS, “I THINK PROM is a lot like New Year’s Eve.” He and Chris and I are hanging out in the nurse’s office, because she is out to lunch, and she doesn’t care if we lie on her couch. Since we’re so far into senior year, all the teachers are in a pretty generous mood.