to Dre between dinner and dessert, but Mindy slipped in before I could close the door.
“So this is the bedroom of Dean Arnault?” she said. “It looks like a hotel room.”
“I like things to be neat. It makes them easier to find when I need them.”
“Figures.” Mindy wandered around my bedroom, touching the books on my bookshelf and my debate awards and picking up the framed photos, most of which contained pictures of my parents and me on trips around the country and the world. It took a supreme amount of effort to refrain from politely asking her not to touch my belongings.
“So, uh, what do you study in school?”
“Same as you, probably.”
“What do you want to study?”
“The queer agenda, how to dismantle the patriarchy, maybe Victorian literature.” Mindy pointed at a photo. “Who’s this?”
“My friend Tamal. I bet you’d like him.”
Mindy glanced over her shoulder at me. “Probably not.” She sat on my bed, giving off the impression that she was settling in. “Who are you waiting for a call from?”
“Excuse me?”
“You keep touching your phone through your pocket, so either that’s not your phone and you’re just touching yourself inappropriately or you’re waiting for a call or a message or whatever from someone important.”
I pulled my desk chair out and sat across from Mindy. “Just a friend.”
“Mm-hmmm.”
“I swear!”
“That makes me think it’s definitely not ‘just a friend.’”
There was something about the probing way Mindy was looking at me that made me want to be anywhere else at the moment. “Maybe we should go back downstairs. My dad made petits fours for dessert. One season of that baking show and now he thinks he’s star baker.”
If Mindy was interested in going downstairs, she didn’t show it. “How do you put up with all this fake shit?”
“Excuse me?”
“These people are awful,” she said. “That one guy, the one with the mustache—”
“Mr. Palmer.”
Mindy nodded. “Him. He spent ten minutes telling me how it was fine for women to work so long as they didn’t neglect their families, because it’s what God wants for them. And the whole time he was staring at my tits, which God probably would not have approved of.”
“I’m sure he wasn’t—”
“He was.” Mindy regarded me quietly for a moment, and I didn’t know what to say to her, so I kept my mouth shut. “You don’t like me much, do you?”
The question felt pointed, but also not like an accusation. “That’s not true—”
Mindy brushed my attempt to lie aside with a sweep of her hand. “You’re not my type either. Do you know why your mother invited me tonight?”
I shook my head, afraid to speak because Mindy was kind of scary.
“Because my parents asked her to,” she said. “Apparently they’re worried because I’ve never had a boyfriend, and they absolutely adore you. They never shut up about what a perfect specimen you are.” Mindy stuck her finger in her mouth and mimed puking. “But, look, I don’t need a boyfriend because I’m happy with my girlfriend.”
“You were serious about that?”
Mindy made a Duh! face at me, and I felt like a fool. “So if we could just hang out up here a little longer and let my parents get the wrong idea about what’s happening, that would be great.”
“Uh . . . sure.”
“And I’d really appreciate you not mentioning this to anyone. My parents are freaks and they’d send me to some pray-the-gay-away camp if they found out.”
I had no idea what to do. I’d never felt so awkward in my own room before. In a way, it was a relief to know I wasn’t the only person pretending to be someone I wasn’t, but it was also a little sad. “I’m sort of seeing someone,” I said. “My parents don’t know. They wouldn’t approve.”
For the first time all night, Mindy seemed like she was doing more than merely tolerating me. “No shit?”
“We had our first kiss.” The memory of kissing Dre was so strong, I could feel his soft lips and taste the espresso and milk on his tongue like it had just happened. “It was amazing.”
Mindy was nodding appreciatively. “Doesn’t it piss you off, though?”
“What?”
“Having to hide,” she said. “Shouldn’t our parents just be happy we’ve found someone who makes us happy?”
“Maybe they could be if we gave them the chance.”
Mindy snorted derisively. “Keep living in that dream world.”
My dad’s voice called from downstairs to let us know dessert was ready. Mindy stood and headed for the door. “I’ll go down first so they’ll think