The Beginning of After

beads. Dad gave me a book every year, inscribed inside the front cover. I’d always thought, Why can’t she just hire a magician or a bounce house like everyone else? Am I supposed to read this book and pretend that I love it even if I don’t?
    Every time I felt like I was going to lose it, I took a sip from my Buddha and stared at the green cap of the low-sodium soy sauce bottle as it sat in front of me on the Lazy Susan. Or I just smiled and laughed and nodded whenever everyone else did.
    It felt right, the people who were here (except maybe Mr. Dill). Fortunately, Andie and Hannah had an away field hockey game and couldn’t come, and I knew that when I invited them. Things with Joe were still so unformed, shapeless. That was an awkwardness I didn’t want in the mix.
    After the appetizers, I got up to go to the bathroom, and Meg rose to go with me. As we walked away from the table and down the hall, I heard Eve ask, “So where are Laurel’s folks tonight?”
    A hush came over the table, but I didn’t turn to look over my shoulder.
    “Keep walking,” said Meg, and she pulled me toward the restroom door.
    When I was done peeing and Meg was done peeing and we had both washed our hands, I knew I was going to have to go back and look at Eve’s face and see that she knew now.
    Screw it. It was my birthday.
    Meg went back to the table first, and I followed her. They were all talking about their favorite “food movie moments,” and Mrs. Dill was describing some scene from a Jack Nicholson film where he was ordering an egg salad sandwich, and everyone made sure to keep the conversation going when I sat back down.
    But as soon as I did that, Eve started crying. Nana put her arm around her as Eve raised her eyes to me, and I looked away. Then, fortunately, the food came, and soon everyone was too busy using eating as an excuse not to talk.
    Later, they brought out a big cake and made the whole restaurant sing “Happy Birthday,” and I opened gifts. For a second, I remembered the Tinker Bell bubble bath David once gave me for my birthday when we were little kids, and wondered where he was at that very moment.

Chapter Twenty-two

    I don’t get it,” said Meg. “This is supposed to be the rice part?”
    “Yeah. Doesn’t it look like rice?”
    We were standing in front of the full-length mirror in her mom’s room, with big slabs of white Styrofoam hanging off our backs. The Styrofoam was attached to straps that hung over our shoulders, which were attached to big colored sacks of material hanging down the front of our bodies. I don’t think either of us was prepared to admit how moronic the whole thing was.
    “No, and these don’t look like pieces of fish.”
    “I think it’ll be better once we put on the seaweed,” I offered, pointing to the green felt sashes lying on the floor, which we were supposed to wrap around our middles.
    “Tell me again why we agreed to do this?” asked Meg, trying to make her rice slab hang straight.
    “You’re the one who likes them so much. And Andie said they really needed a full sushi platter. How could we do that to them? Make them go to the Halloween dance without shrimp and yellowtail ? They’d be laughed out of town!”
    Meg giggled, then gave me a sideways glance. “You don’t like them?”
    “I guess I do. I don’t not like them. They’re nice.”
    “Yeah, they are,.” What she didn’t say was, and they’re popular , and she didn’t feel the need to mention that by hanging out with them, my social score has skyrocketed. And I didn’t feel like reminding her out loud that this is all because they want to look like saints for befriending poor Laurel Meisner .
    There was so much that Meg and I weren’t saying to each other these days.
    “You’re right,” announced Meg, to her reflection in the mirror. “It’ll look better with the seaweed. And Gavin will complete the effect.”
    Gavin was going as a giant pair of chopsticks. I just smiled at her and thought, If things were different with Joe, what would he go as? Maybe wasabi? Would a guy ever like me enough to dress up as wasabi? And how exactly would that work, anyway?
    It was a Friday night and Halloween itself was the following Thursday, which meant I had just five more days to write my essay for Yale and submit it before the November 1 deadline. I still had no idea what to say, especially whether or not to write about my family. Without that, I was having a hard time finding something to say