Late to the Party - Kelly Quindlen Page 0,56

underwear on when we got out of the water,” I said, overdoing my smile. “But Samuel hasn’t noticed yet.”

Lydia blinked, and then she started laughing in the silence, and I scooped up the T-shirts and helped her carry them downstairs.

* * *

Early the next morning, before Lydia’s family could wake up and realize they had eight teenagers passed out in their basement, we slipped out of the house and trudged back to the park with bleary, half-asleep eyes. We hugged each other quietly and automatically, stifling our yawns behind our hands and muttering that we’d see each other later.

And in the spaces between everyone’s goodbyes, Lydia looked at me. I can’t describe it any more than that. She didn’t smile, she didn’t flutter her eyelashes, she didn’t do anything that could be read as outright flirtatious, but the truth was she kept finding me.

“Ricky,” I rasped when we were tucked inside his truck, “I think Lydia might be for real.”

I told him about the conversation in her bedroom as we drove back out to the main road, the faint six -o’clock sun peeking through the clouds. Ricky laughed and dropped his head back, looking like something was obvious.

“Of course,” he muttered.

“What?” I asked eagerly.

“This wasn’t some random hangout Lydia dreamed up on a whim. She had it because she wanted to invite you. That’s why she called all our friends first, to make sure we were free so she wouldn’t look stupid if you said no.” He nodded to himself, thinking. “And Natalie must know. That’s why Cliff called to invite me, because Natalie would’ve told him to.”

“Wait…” I said, putting the pieces together. “Natalie kept looking at me funny last night!”

“Sizing you up.” Ricky nodded. “Trying to see if you like her best friend the same way her best friend likes you.”

“Do you think that means Cliff knows, too? Or you think Natalie just told him to check if you were free?”

Ricky seemed to wake up at the idea. “I don’t know,” he said vaguely. “The idea of Cliff helping Lydia get with a girl is … I mean, I wouldn’t expect it…”

He seemed lost in thought, almost like it was a wondrous possibility.

“Maybe you don’t know Cliff as well as you think,” I said.

Ricky was still zoning out. “Maybe…” he said slowly. Then he snapped back to life, blinking quickly. “Although…” he said, a grin inching up his face, “after that skinny-dipping last night, I’d say I know everyone pretty well.”

12

My quiet euphoria took a couple of days to get used to. Every interaction I had with Lydia seemed to confirm more and more that she actually liked me. We were texting regularly now—on a group chat with the others, but also individually between ourselves—and I took to dropping by the café to drink free lattes with her and Natalie after our morning shifts. Ricky was wholly supportive, asking for the latest updates every time we went for a drive, and I was always ecstatic to tell him about it.

It was late June now. The days were hotter, the insects buzzed louder, and the sunlight stretched past nine P.M. Maritza, JaKory, and I went to the movies twice in one week, sneaking grocery store candy and a bottle of Coke into the theater. We didn’t feel guilty about it because we still splurged on a large popcorn to share between the three of us, and I thought longingly of Lydia and how much she would have loved it. My brother and I fell into the same late-night routine, staying up until ungodly hours, holing away in our bedrooms but sometimes finding each other in the kitchen at one in the morning. He even offered me the rest of his ravioli one night, gesturing to it in the overlarge pot, and the two of us ate at the counter while our parents slept soundly upstairs. And my portraits, meanwhile, continued to draw fierce interest: First Terrica asked for one, just as Natalie had guessed she would, and then Samuel followed her lead, trying to downplay his excitement about it. I painted them on back-to-back days while they sat there and teased each other, and the looks on their faces when I showed them the finished versions were priceless.

One afternoon, when I popped into the café after the breakfast shift, Natalie surprised me with an invitation.

“Can you come to Lake Lanier with us for the Fourth?”

My stomach skipped. I’d heard them talk about their previous Fourth of July parties like