I’m thinking about it though. I’m thinking about going with Aunt Angelina to pick up Finny after soccer practice. I’m thinking about the cheerleaders asking me if he is my boyfriend. I’m thinking about sitting next to Finny on the bus the first day of school.
We could have ended up together, I realize as Jamie begins to grind his pelvis against mine. He would have told me that he loved me by now, but he wouldn’t have asked about sex. Not yet.
I can see all of this as if it has already happened, as if it was what happened. I know that it is accurate down to the smallest detail, because even with everything that did happen, I still know Finny, and I know what would have happened.
“I love you,” I say to Jamie.
6
The doll is crying again.
“I’m never having sex,” Sasha says. She kneels between the clothing racks and lifts the doll out of its carrier. The saleslady folding clothes by the register looks over at us. Sasha lifts the doll’s shirt up and inserts the key dangling from the bracelet around her wrist into the small of the baby’s back. It continues crying.
“That’s what they want you to say,” I tell her over the noise. I glance over my shoulder at the saleslady. “I think she thinks that it’s real,” I say. A few moments later, the doll’s crying winds down. Sasha still holds it slung over her arm with the key twisted in it. If she takes it out before two minutes are up, it will start crying again, and if the computer chip inside the doll records that she ignored it, Sasha will get a failing grade for the project and at least a C- in her Family Science class. Sasha looks over at the saleslady and shrugs.
“Well, it’s working,” she says. “I’m never going to have sex.”
“Does Alex know?” I say. I turn back to the sale rack and continue to flip through the clothes.
“If it starts crying during the movie, I’ll break it to him then,” Sasha says, and I smile. The boys are supposed to be meeting us later. It’s been a good semester. I like our new friends and my new clothes. I’m going to have straight A’s and B’s when school lets out for Christmas, and our agreement said Mom wouldn’t be allowed to say anything about how I dress as long as my grades didn’t slip.
I hold up a black faux-corset with thick lace straps. Sasha raises her eyebrows.
“I could wear it with a cardigan,” I say. This time she laughs at me, but I’m serious. I like the idea of mixing something sexy with something school-marmish. I walk over to the saleslady. “I want to try this on,” I say. She looks up at me and nods. I see her eyes flicker over to where Sasha kneels, strapping the doll back into its seat. I follow her over to the dressing rooms and watch her unlock the door. “Thank you,” I say.
“How old are you girls?” she says to me with her back still turned.
“Fifteen,” I say. Sasha’s birthday isn’t until March, but I give her my age anyway.
“Hmm,” she says and turns to leave. Part of me hates this woman, and part of me wants to grab her sleeve and tell her that I’m actually a good kid.
“It’s a doll,” I say. She turns to face me.
“What?”
“It’s a doll. A school project,” I say. She narrows her eyes at me and walks away.
It’s an hour later at a cheap jewelry store, while Sasha is looking for a necklace for her little sister, that I see the tiara. It’s silver with clear rhinestones, the kind they used to crown the homecoming court just two months ago. We laughed and rolled our eyes at the tradition, but at the time, I’d wanted a crown, just not what it symbolized. I pick it up and slide the combs into my hair to hold it in place. I admire my head, turning it back and forth in the mirror, then step back to get the effect with jeans and a T-shirt. I like it.
“What are you going to do with that?” Sasha says, coming up behind me at the register.
“Wear it,” I say, “every day.”
“Hello, Your Highness,” Jamie says to me when we meet them later outside the mall’s movie theater. I’m thrilled to have his approval. I reach out and take his hand and he kisses me hello.
During the movie, the doll starts crying again, and Sasha and I meet each other’s eyes and start laughing. We laugh so hard that I have to go out with her into the hall while she sticks the key in the doll. We stand in the hall laughing together, her with her doll and me with my tiara, and people passing by look at us like we are crazy.
***
It was a good time for us, first semester. It was the sort of happiness that fools you into thinking that there is still so much more, maybe even enough to laugh forever.
7
“So why have you been wearing that tiara?” Finny says. The way he says it reminds me of the way he asked me why I dyed my hair, but for some reason it pisses me off this time.
“Because I like it,” I say. It is Christmas Eve, and we are setting the dining room table with my mother’s wedding china. My father is drinking scotch in front of the Christmas tree. The Mothers are in the kitchen.
“Okay, sorry,” he says. I glance over him. He’s wearing a red sweater that would look dorky on any other guy but makes him look like he should attend a private school on the East Coast and spend his summers rowing or something. He’s walking around the table laying a napkin at every place. I follow behind with the silverware.
“Sorry,” I say.
“It’s cool,” Finny says. It’s hard to make him angry.
“It’s just that I get asked that enough at school.”
“Then why do you wear it?”
“Because I like it,” I say, but this time I smile and he laughs.
At dinner, The Mothers let us have half a glass of wine each. I am secretly giddy to be treated like an adult, and the wine makes me sleepy. My father spends a lot of time talking to Finny about being the only freshman on the varsity team. He seems pleased to have something to talk about with one of us, as if Finny and I are interchangeable, as if his duty to either of us is the same. It’s easy to understand why he would think that way; the only time he is ever home for an extended amount of time is for the holidays, and Finny and Aunt Angelina are always with us then. Perhaps he thinks Aunt Angelina is his other wife.
Mom and Aunt Angelina talk about every Christmas they can ever remember and compare them to this Christmas. This is what they do every year. Every year, it’s the best Christmas ever.
I wish I could always believe that it is the best Christmas ever, but I can’t, because I know when the best Christmas was. It was the Christmas when we were twelve, our last Christmas in elementary school.