Look - Zan Romanoff Page 0,35
by a guy who she wanted to pay attention to her? Have him pay so much attention to her that all she could think about was escape? Has Naomi ever stood in line for the bathroom and listened to someone retching, helplessly, miserably sick, on the other side of a door? What are the odds that she’s ever been that person?
Lulu looks at her sister. Naomi is wearing jeans and sneakers and a worn-in Georgetown sweatshirt. Her long, dark hair is loose around her face; thin gold hoop earrings are threaded through each earlobe, but she doesn’t have on any other jewelry, or any makeup. She has their father’s strong, sharp features, and his seriousness too. For most of their lives, Lulu has felt like Naomi was at least part stranger, someone she’s never really known.
Lulu asks, “What do you mean by bad?”
Naomi shrugs.
“You can’t ask me about mine if you won’t talk about yours.”
Naomi twists her mouth. “I know you’ve probably done it all,” she says. “But it makes me feel like an irresponsible older sister to tell you.”
Lulu snorts. “I will respect you so much more if you tell me you ever broke a rule,” she says.
“Lulu, of course I broke rules.”
Naomi isn’t a stranger at all, and unwillingly, Lulu knows exactly what she means: Lulu breaks dumb rules—about drinking, and kissing boys, and girls too. Naomi broke Lulu’s Rules for How to Get By. She breaks them every day.
She’s not a stranger, but she and Lulu still don’t understand each other at all.
“Whatever your bad nights were, though,” Lulu says, “you survived them.”
“I did. I did. It’s just that—what if survival wasn’t really what mattered?”
“Huh?”
“Like, yeah, I lived through it. I grew up. I’m fine now. I just think it could have been easier.”
“If you’d never been allowed out of the house on your own? To make your own mistakes?”
“If, after I’d made my mistakes, I could have come home and talked to someone about them.”
Naomi looks at Lulu, so level and direct that Lulu can’t bring herself to look away.
“I’m trying to be someone you can talk to,” Naomi says. “That you want to talk to, even.”
“I’m not one of your projects,” Lulu says. “I’m not some kind of self-improvement thing.”
“Of course not. You’re my sister,” Naomi says. She forks a raspberry off of Lulu’s plate.
In the spirit of sisterhood, Lulu lets her.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
LULU STANDS OUTSIDE of The Hotel’s gates with empty hands. Cass texted her the code this morning, with an invitation to come hang out. Lulu recited it to herself on the drive over, across the long, hot plane of the freeway, and then as she wound her way through the lush, quiet neighborhoods, up and up into the hills.
She knew it was stupid to be scared, but she worried anyway—that she would get there and the message with the code wouldn’t load on her phone, that she wouldn’t be able to call Cass and ask to be let in, that she was in some kind of fairy tale where, when you tried to come back in daylight, on your own, you couldn’t even find the door.
But The Hotel isn’t a fairy tale. It’s just a place. Lulu enters the numbers and the gate swings open for her as easily as it does for Cass. Lulu steers her car along its tree-lined driveway with the windows down, one arm stretched out to grab palmfuls of the warm, dry air.
The front door is unlocked, but she can’t find Cass or Ryan in the lobby. Upstairs, they aren’t in either of the finished rooms. She’s about to go back down when she hears Cass call, “Ryan?”
“No,” Lulu says.
“Hey, Lu!”
“Where are you?” Lulu turns in a circle in the hallway, like Cass is camouflaged in it somewhere.
“Walk to the end of the hall,” Cass calls. Her voice is muffled by the space between them; she sounds like she’s underwater. “Through the last door on your left.”
In the room, Lulu is hit by a wall of sunlight, echoing white off the floors and the walls. She holds a hand up to her eyes instinctively, squinting.
This must be where whoever works on The Hotel when she’s not around leaves their tools: The ground is littered with tarps and rollers and tool kits and cans of paint. Past them is a sliding glass door that opens onto a balcony. Cass is sitting out there in a folding chair with her back to Lulu. Her hair glimmers copper under the sun.
“Come