Girls We Love Read Free

House, and all of this sounded much more fun than some house party with loud music and obnoxious people. “I’ll go get dressed.” I put down the beer, glad that I had something to do, because I was sort of hating drinking it.
    â€œIt’s not till, like, nine,” Arno said, sounding just like the pretty, not-very-bright guy who’d been teasing me about drinking beer a few minutes ago.
    â€œOh, okay. Sure,” I said, and then they went back to watching the movie and I went out front because I heard a cab pulling up in front of the house.
    I stood on the stone steps and watched as the cabdriver took three really big suitcases out of the trunk and put them on the sidewalk. Then Livgot out of the backseat and paid him and came running up and threw her arms around me.
    â€œOh my God, it’s so good to see you!” she squealed.
    â€œYou too,” I said, and then I couldn’t help but say, “You look amazing!”
    And she did, too. She had gotten really tall and chesty and her skin was all golden from being out west. Liv used to be this girl with frizzy hair and a mouth that was freakishly large, but now it was like she had grown into her face, and the size of her mouth and the cat eyes—the whole thing just worked. Evidently somebody in Montana really knew how to do awesome-looking highlights, too. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. I’ve grown in all those ways, too, except for the skin tone part, since no matter what I do I’m really pale, but still, it’s weird when you haven’t seen somebody in a while and note how they’ve changed and gotten all … sexy looking.
    Especially if that person used to wear maroon turtlenecks.
    â€œYou think so? Wow, thanks. I mean horseback riding is so different in the west and you know … ” Liv kept talking while we hauled herhuge bags up to my room. It didn’t even occur to me how much stuff this was, because we had so much catching up to do.
    We talked the whole time we were getting ready to go, and even though Liv had brought three suitcases of clothes, she ended up wearing this powder blue scoop neck C&C California shirt of mine with a jeans miniskirt I’ve had forever. I ended up sticking with my yellow sundress, but I put on a double strand of my mom’s pearls and put my hair in a twist so it would be a little more beach-girl-goes-formal. I told her all about Remy, and what a dick he ended up being, and she told me all about her boyfriends at the Cattington School. Her many, many boyfriends.
    Getting dressed really can be the best part of the night sometimes, and when it was time to go I was almost disappointed. But that’s maybe just me being a little shy.
    Anyway, at some point Arno knocked on my door and then poked his face in and told us the ship was leaving. Liv gave me this OMG-he’s-cute look, and then we took big breaths and followed him outside.
    We were in a cab, cruising uptown, when I said, “Hey Patch, where are the rest of your friends?”
    Arno turned around in the front seat to look atPatch, and then Patch said, “We’re meeting all of them there.”
    â€œOh, okay,” I said, trying not to sound like I cared too much. Which I didn’t, although I did want to be … prepared, I guess, in case Jonathan ended up there, too. He can be annoyingly, like, knowing about stuff sometimes, but in some ways I suspect he’s my best friend, or maybe soul mate, which makes it all the more weird that I haven’t hung out with him in so long.
    I stared out the window for a lot of blocks and had a lot of thoughts about Jonathan and how difficult he was and how we argued all the time but also kind of enjoyed watching TV together in my parents’ bed when they weren’t around. And that’s basically all the time, as I’ve mentioned.
    At the corner of Fifth and Seventy-second there were a bunch of carriages in a row. This driver