Danica settles on a photo and slides her phone to me so I can see her post. “You can’t even tell they’re burnt,” she says with pride.
She’s right. They do look perfect. I scroll through her posts. There’s a selfie of her and Mom dusted with flour, holding a big block of chocolate and laughing, that makes me wish I’d stayed and helped. I read through the hashtags—#motherdaughterbakenight #blackgirlmagicbaking #perfectbrowniesareperfect—before sliding the phone back to her.
“How come you’re not at brunch?” she asks.
Usually I spend Sunday mornings with my best friends at Surf City Waffle, the absolute best waffle place in all of Los Angeles. This morning, though, they’re all busy.
“Everyone’s got stuff,” I say.
“So you’re just gonna hang around here, then?” she asks, and not in a way that makes me think she wants me to hang around here.
I drop my spoon back into the bowl and take a good look at her. Most days, she looks like a supermodel from the ’70s with her enormous Afro, bright glittery makeup and vintage clothes.
Right now she looks even more beautiful than usual. If I had to guess, I’d say she has a date. But I don’t have to guess, because the doorbell rings a second later. A huge smile breaks across her face, and she runs to the door with a squeal.
In the last year, Danica has had eight different boyfriends, which is an average of 0.667 boyfriends per month or 0.154 boyfriends per week. Anyway, my problem is not the quantity or even the quality of her boyfriends （to be clear, the quality could be better. I don’t know why she chooses boys who are so much less interesting and smart than she is）， it’s the fact that she’s dating at all. Why am I the only one who learned the lesson of Mom and Dad’s divorce?
I leave my bowl on the table and try to sneak through the living room so I can avoid saying hello. No luck.
“Hey, Evie,” says the guy. He says “hey” as if it has more than one syllable.
“Hi,” I say back, trying to remember his name. He’s dressed in board shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt, like he’s going to the beach or just got back from it. He’s white, tall and muscled, with long, messy blond hair. If he were furniture, he’d be a really nice-looking shag carpet.
We stand there awkwardly for a few seconds before Danica puts us all out of our misery. “Ben and I are thinking of going to the movies,” she says. “You can come if you want.”
But the look on both their faces tells me two things:
#1: They are not thinking of going to the movies. They are thinking of staying here. Alone. In the apartment. So they can make out.
and
#2: If they were going to the movies, they wouldn’t want me tagging along.
Why did she even ask? Is she feeling sorry for me?
“Can’t. Have fun, though,” I say. The only thing I have to do today is go to the library and get rid of my books, but sharing that will make me feel pathetic. I go upstairs and get dressed.
When I leave, I say bye like it has more than just the one syllable.
* * *
——
I’m on my bicycle and halfway to the library when I remember that today is Sunday. My library is closed on Sundays.
Going back home right now while Danica and Ben are “hanging out” isn’t really an option. It’s one of those beautiful spring days when the morning fog lingers and the air smells wet and new. I decide to head to the park at La Brea Tar Pits, but with a detour through Hancock Park.
The Hancock Park neighborhood is only ten minutes from our apartment, but it might as well be another world. The houses here are as big as castles. All they’re missing are moats, portcullises, dragons and damsels in distress. Every time we drive through here, Mom says it’s a crime that houses like these exist in a city with so much homelessness. She treats a lot of those homeless people in the ER.
I ride slowly, meandering down street after street, gawking at the enormous, pristine lawns and the enormously expensive cars.
Eventually I find myself on a street lined on both sides by jasmine bushes and overgrown jacaranda trees. The branches overhang the street and form a canopy of purple petals. I feel like I’m riding through a tunnel into a fairy tale.
The sun slips behind a cloud, and the air is suddenly colder. I pull over onto the sidewalk and take my jacket from my backpack. As I’m about to ride off again, I spot one of those small wooden neighborhood library boxes. It’s bright blue and looks like a miniature house with a gabled roof and weathered white doors that are latched shut. A small placard reads Little Free Library.