“Hey, whatever works,” Ms. Rothschild says, breaking a piece of cookie off and popping it into her mouth. “I go to SoulCycle; that’s where I find my center.” If Margot were here, she’d roll her eyes at that. Ms. Rothschild made me go with her once—I kept losing the beat and trying to find it again but to no avail. “Lara Jean, you’ve got to come with me again. There’s a great new instructor who plays all Motown music. You’ll love it.”
“When can I go with you, Tree?” Kitty asks. That’s what Kitty’s taken to calling Ms. Rothschild. I still think of her as Ms. Rothschild, and I slip up from time to time, but I try to call her Trina to her face when I remember.
“You can come with me when you’re twelve,” she says. “Those are the rules of SoulCycle.”
It’s hard to believe that Kitty is eleven already. Kitty is eleven and I’ll be eighteen in May. Time goes by so quickly. I look across the table at Daddy, who is looking at Kitty with a sad kind of smile, and then at me. I know he must be thinking the same thing.
He catches my eye and sings, “Lara Jean, don’t you worry ’bout a thing,” in his best Stevie Wonder voice, and we all groan. Biting into his makeshift ice cream sandwich, Daddy says, “You’ve worked hard; everything will turn out the way it’s supposed to.”
“There’s no way in the world that UVA would ever say no to you,” Ms. Rothschild says.
“Knock on wood,” Kitty says, rapping the kitchen table with her knuckle. To me she says, “You knock too.”
Dutifully I knock on the table. “What does knock on wood even mean?”
Daddy perks up. “Actually, it’s thought to come from Greek mythology. According to Greek myths, dryads lived in trees, and people would invoke them for protection. Hence knocking on wood: just that added bit of protection so as not to tempt fate.”
Now it’s Ms. Rothschild, Kitty, and me exchanging a look. Daddy’s so square, and Ms. Rothschild seems so young compared to him, even though he’s not that much older than her. And yet it works.
*
That night I can’t fall asleep, so I lie in bed going over my extracurriculars again. The highlights are Belleview and my internship at the library last summer. My SAT score is higher than the UVA average. Margot got in with just forty more than me. I got a five on the AP US history exam. I’ve known people to get into UVA with less than that.
Hopefully my essay gave me a bit of shine. I wrote about my mom and my sisters, and all the ways she’s shaped us—when she was alive and after she wasn’t. Mrs. Duvall said it was the best she’d read in years, but Mrs. Duvall has always had a soft spot for the Song girls, so who knows.
I toss and turn for another few minutes, and finally I just throw off my covers and get out of bed. Then I go downstairs and start measuring out ingredients for chocolate chip cookies.
5
IT’S THURSDAY, CHARACTERS DAY, THE day I’ve been looking forward to all week. Peter and I spent hours going back and forth over this. I made a strong case for Alexander Hamilton and Eliza Schuyler, but had to back down when I realized how expensive it would be to rent Colonial costumes on such short notice. I think couples costumes might be my favorite part of being in a couple. Besides the kissing, and the free rides, and Peter himself.
He wanted to go as Spider-Man and have me wear a red wig and be Mary Jane Watson, mostly because he already had the costume—and because he’s really fit from lacrosse, and why not give the people what they want? His words, not mine.
In the end we decided to go as Tyler Durden and Marla Singer from Fight Club. It was actually my best friend Chris’s idea. She and Kitty and I were watching it at my house, and Chris said, you and Kavinsky should go as those psychos. She said it would be good for the shock value—for me, anyway. At first I balked because Marla isn’t Asian and I have my only-Asian-people-costumes policy, but then Peter’s mom found him a red leather jacket at an estate sale, and it just came together. As for my costume, Ms. Rothschild is loaning me clothes from her own wardrobe, because she was young in the nineties.
This morning, Ms. Rothschild comes over before work to help me get ready. I’m sitting at the kitchen table in her black slip dress and a fake mohair jacket and a wig, which Kitty delights in messing up to get that crazy bedhead look. I keep swatting her moussed-up hands away, and she keeps saying, “But this is the look.”
“You’re lucky I’m a pack rat,” Ms. Rothschild says, sipping coffee from her thermos. She reaches into her bag and tosses me a pair of high, high black platform heels. “When I was in my twenties, Halloween was my thing. I was the queen of dressing up. It’s your turn to take the crown now, Lara Jean.”
“You can still be the queen,” I tell her.
“No, dressing up in costumes is a young person’s game. If I wore a sexy Sherlock Holmes costume now, I’d just look desperate.” She fluffs up my wig. “It’s all right. My time has passed.” To Kitty she says, “What do you think? A little more gunmetal eye shadow, right?”
“Let’s not take it too far,” I say. “This is still school.”
“The whole point of wearing a costume is taking it too far,” Ms. Rothschild says airily. “Take lots of pictures when you get to school. Text them to me so I can show my work friends. They’ll get a kick out of it. . . . God, speaking of work, what time is it?”
Ms. Rothschild is always running late, something that drives Daddy crazy because he’s always ten minutes early. And yet!
When Peter comes to pick me up, I run outside and open the passenger-side door and scream when I see him. His hair is blond!
“Oh my God!” I shriek, touching his hair. “Did you bleach it?”
He grins a self-satisfied kind of grin. “It’s spray. My mom found it for me. I can use it again when we do Romeo and Juliet for Halloween.” He’s eyeing me in my getup. “I like those shoes. You look sexy.”
I can feel my cheeks warm up. “Be quiet.”
As he backs out of my driveway, he glances at me again and says, “It’s the truth, though.”
I give him a shove. “All I’m saying is, people better know who I am.”
“I’ve got you covered,” he assures me.
And he does. When we walk down the senior hallway, Peter cues up the Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?” on his phone, loud, and people actually clap for us. Not one person asks if I’m a manga character.
*
After school, Peter and I are lying on the couch; his feet are hanging off the end. He’s still in his costume, but I’ve changed into my regular clothes. “You always have the cutest socks,” he says, lifting up my right foot. These ones are gray with white polka dots and yellow bear faces.
Proudly I say, “My great-aunt sends them from Korea. Korea has the cutest stuff, you know.”
“Can you ask her to send me some too? Not bears, but maybe, like, tigers. Tigers are cool.”