Hand-Me-Down. Lee Nichols

to school!” I mouthed, as if that were an explanation.

      This didn’t soothe Emily. The man turned to calm her, and I suddenly recognized him.

      I said, “Ian?”

      He saw the word. He nodded.

      I startled backward, almost tripping on a splayed plastic hand— I grabbed an errant elbow to steady myself. The elbow joggled the barest inch and the mannequin underneath twisted slightly. I lunged to steady him—and slipped. My knee whacked Suede Jacket square in the face and she squirted out of the pyramid like a wet watermelon seed. Then Plaid Mini leapt at me from above and grabbed me in an obscene scissors-hold between her thighs. I struggled for air and popped one of her legs off— I twirled and spun as the pyramid collapsed around me in a hail of cheerleaders, and finally ended on my back, with Khaki Cords splayed on top.

      The applause was louder, this time.

      CHAPTER 02

      Emily slammed her bag onto the table at the Coffee Bean and scowled. After the collapse of the Great Pyramid, Jenny decided it was my turn to take lunch—preferably in another state. I didn’t argue, even though Emily was lurking outside the store with smoke issuing from her nostrils. Emily is the middle sister, so she’s supposed to be mild and quiet and timid, but nobody’s ever been foolish enough to mention that to her.

      “Well?” she said.

      “I’ll have a mocha blended?”

      Her eyebrows became an angry V. “You know exactly what I mean, Anne.”

      “Oh, that,” I said with an airy laugh, gesturing back toward Banana. “That was just, y’know. So, what’re you doing at the mall?”

      “Great show, Anne,” Ian said, returning with our coffees to the table. “I wanted to put out a little cup for you.”

      I smiled sweetly at Emily. “And where’d you find him?”

      Ian Dunne was six feet tall with blond hair and blue eyes. He was wearing green shorts, a navy T-shirt and flip-flops, and had a Santa Barbara tan—the deep bronze of the pre-skin-cancer era. He looked even more surfer-delicious than when he’d dated Charlotte in high school.

      “Anne,” Emily said, as calm as the eye of a storm. “You graduated with a low B average with a degree you don’t value. You’re living with Dad. You’re barely employed at Banana Republic. You don’t have the slightest inkling of a career, a future, a—”

      “I’m going back to school,” I said, cringing inwardly at the phrase.

      She brightened. “To get your master’s?”

      “Art school,” I said. “So Ian, how’ve you been?”

      “Art?” Emily said. “You can’t draw a straight line with a ruler.”

      “I most certainly can!”

      “And you know nothing about art theory. If I asked you to choose between appropriationist and cultural predialectic in the structural paradigm of visual art, which would you defend?”

      “Um, the first one?”

      She sighed. “Who’s your favorite artist?”

      “Paloma Picasso?” I said, in a small voice.

      “She makes perfume.”

      “And handbags!”

      “Anne, you need to focus on your future—”

      “I’m fine,” Ian cut in. “How have you been?”

      I winced, waiting for the explosion. Emily would reduce him to paste with a handful of words. But, oddly, no explosion came. Maybe micro-celebrity was calming her.

      “I’ve been good,” I said, after a short silence. “So where did you two—?”

      “We ran into each other in the mall,” Emily said. “Watching you make a spectacle of yourself.”

      “A spectacle? It’s not like I was strutting around in a bikini.”

      “How is Charlotte?” Ian casually asked, and those three words told me everything: he was still in love with her. After all the years—her marriage, her celebrity, and her pregnancy—he was still in love.

      It explained why he’d finagled an invitation to coffee with us. Emily usually wasn’t so welcoming, but she’d responded eagerly to his hints. Of course, her book was out, the early reviews were disgustingly positive, and the publication party was tonight. So she had an ulterior motive: to brag.

      “Charlotte’s fine,” she said shortly, and turned to me. “I told Ian about my book.”

      “Porn Is Film,” Ian said, as if reciting the title of her book proved something.

      “What does that even mean?” I said. “Is Penthouse film? It’s porn. If porn is film, does that mean film is porn? Is The Bicycle Thief porn?”

      Usually I can get Emily worked up and defensive about the title. It’s like bullfighting, you have to know exactly how far you can go before you get gored. As long as she sputters angrily, I’m okay. The minute she says something like “the postmodern praxis of potentiality,” I run.

      This time, she simply asked, “You’re coming to the reading tonight?”

      “I never miss a party.”

      “Party?” Ian said.

      “It’s a reading,” Emily said.

      “With booze,” I said. “So it’s a party.”

      “Are you bringing a date?” Emily asked.

      “Of course.” I hadn’t planned to, but I sure as hell was going to now. There was plenty of time to dig up a date. It was positively…six hours away.

      “Not Matthew,” Emily said.

      I rolled my eyes. “He wasn’t that bad.” He was also out of town, or he’d be the first I called.

      “He was worse. Good thing he didn’t even make par.”

      “What’s par?” Ian asked.

      “Anne never dates anyone more than three months.”

      “That is so not true!” I said. “What about Kyle?”

      “Four months,” she said. “And that was high school.”

      “It still counts,” I said—and noticed Ian’s expression.

      There was something wistful in his deep blue eyes. He was thinking about Charlotte. About tragic, doomed high school love. He knew Charlotte would be at the party, and he longed to see her. He knew she was famous, he knew she was married. He only wanted to watch her from across the room, his heart silently breaking. And, well, I know I shouldn’t have done it. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson last time: never invite Ian anywhere. But I’d learned nothing.

      So I looked at his injured-puppy eyes and said, “Would you like to come?”

      “To the reading?”

      “If you’re free tonight?”

      He smiled. “I’d love to.”

      Emily fiddled with her water glass, and I thought, uh-oh. Not good, inviting Charlotte’s ex-boyfriend to Emily’s party. “That’d be…nice,” she said.

      “If you’re sure,” he asked her politely.

      “Of course,” she said.

      “I wouldn’t want to intrude,” he said.

      “Come or don’t come,” she snapped. “I could care less.”

      “Then I’ll definitely come.”