Look - Zan Romanoff Page 0,23

beach?

Lulu doesn’t even really think about it. Yes.

Bea grabs her phone out of her hands. “What’s this!” she asks. “What’s that look about, Lu—” but the Flash has already disappeared. It doesn’t matter. Lulu’s heart is already kicking against her ribs, and her hands move panic-fast. She tugs her phone from Bea’s grasp so hard that it goes flying, landing on one corner of its case before settling, faceup and undamaged, on the ground. Thank god.

“Whoa,” Bea says. “Sorry, Lu.”

Lulu picks the phone up slowly, all of the hot curdled Sloane shame joining with a rush of new embarrassment: at the idea that Cass was even—that there’s something to even be embarrassed—that Lulu’s face was doing something.

“It’s nothing,” she tells Bea, because she can’t come up with a more convincing lie.

Bea assesses Lulu for a long moment before she says, “Okay.” She lets Lulu put her phone in her bag and rearrange her hair. “Froyo?”

This is their post-finals tradition. For every test, a scoop of vanilla with rainbow sprinkles eaten on the sun-warmed hood of Bea’s Audi in a strip-mall parking lot.

“Shit,” Lulu says. “I mean, I guess it wasn’t nothing. I was making plans with someone.”

“Someone who?”

“My friend Cass,” Lulu says. “We met at Patrick’s party the other night—remember, the girl who took me to that weird hotel? And she was talking about going to the beach, and I said I would. I just wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry, B.”

“You have to go right now?”

Lulu looks down at her phone. Cass has written back, Meet me in Malibu in 30-45? Point Dume?

She should go get frozen yogurt with Bea and then go home and study for the rest of her finals. She should stick around and say hi to Owen, remind him how much fun they had the other night.

She’s not going to, though.

“I’m so sorry,” Lulu says again. “Rain check? Double scoop tomorrow?”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

SUNLIGHT IS WHITE through the windshield as Lulu drives the 101 through the Valley, passing Sherman Oaks, Encino, Tarzana, and Woodland Hills before she hits the rows of luxury car dealerships that mark the beginning of Calabasas. It’s been a dry winter and the land is brown, mostly, occasional patches of green scrub sitting low against the shocking blue of the sky.

As she gets off the freeway and starts to climb the curves of Kanan Dume, she rolls the windows down and lets the clear, dry air rush across her body, tangling her hair and raising goose bumps on her arms. The radio’s signal gets lost in the shadows of the canyon and the hush of the wind. From the top of the hill she can see the dark, distant gleam of the ocean.

At the beach, she pays an attendant ten dollars to park, pleased to recognize Cass’s Volvo already there as she cruises toward a spot. The day is bright but windy, and even chillier than it was in the Valley, so the sand is mostly empty. Lulu kicks off her Uggs and carries them with her to where Cass is sitting, her hair flame bright against the pale sand and the ocean’s darkness.

“Hey,” Lulu says, when she’s close enough to be heard.

Cass doesn’t say anything, but she scoots over, leaving Lulu room to join her on her beach towel. It’s faded now, but clearly used to be a bright Barbie pink. It doesn’t look like Cass’s style at all, which Lulu loves. Cass is maybe the only person she knows who doesn’t care if she matches all the time.

Lulu drops down to sit at Cass’s side. They’re close enough that it’s awkward to look at each other while they talk, so instead she stares straight ahead at the restless ocean.

“What’s up,” Cass asks.

“Um,” Lulu says. “You know. Just took a final. Tomorrow I take another one.”

“How was it?”

“I didn’t bomb, I don’t think.”

“Didn’t bomb mine either.”

“Nice.”

There’s a pause before Cass asks, “How’s Owen doing?”

“Fine, probably,” Lulu says. “I don’t know, actually. I haven’t really seen him since you dropped us off the other morning.”

“Oh.”

“We don’t usually hang out that much anymore. That night was kind of an exception.”

“You guys seemed pretty chill, though.”

“We were together for a year,” Lulu says. “We’ve only been broken up for a few months. It’s weird, but it’s almost— It’s actually easier for us to pretend we’re still together, kind of, you know? Like, we know how to be nice to each other, and how to be close. It’s the being distant thing we haven’t figured out yet.”

“Yeah,” Cass