Six Years

To my confusion, Dani waits in front of me while I take my clothes off, completely unfazed by my discomfort. I discard my plain little white dress on the floor and pull the red one over my head as fast as possible—with Dani's help. She's right, doing it by myself would have been a nightmare. For all its beauty, it's so heavy I hope I won't have to do much more than sit at a table for the rest of the evening.

When we finally manage to get the red dress on, I face the mirror.

It looks even more beautiful than it did on the hanger. Even more perfect. The long, bouffant skirt reminds me of the drawings in the storybooks I used to devour when I was little.

"What's your story?" Dani asks. I can see her frown in the mirror, as she concentrates on the monstrous task of pulling the laces through the more than fifty eyelets of the bodice.

"What do you mean?"

"How long have you and James known each other?"

"Um..." I take a moment to consider my words. If I tell her I just met him last night, she'll think—rightly so—that I must be insane to show up here. Pretending to know him well will backfire faster than Jess's car on a particularly bad day.

I go for a neutral, "We met recently."

Her eyebrows shoot up in surprise, and the thinnest rivulets of sweat ooze on my temples. What did he tell her about me? He must have told her something. But if he did, I need all the cunning in the world to find out what.

"So are you applying to Stanford?"

"God no. I've been admitted to Oxford," she says proudly, "to study English literature."

"Congrats," I say, slightly surprised. For some reason, I can't picture Dani, with her black hair and slightly tanned skin, in a place without sun. In a place as sad as England. But maybe England is just sad to me. "I'm a fan of English literature, too."

For some reason, my comment brings a particularly bright smile to her face. "You're one of the very few people who didn't cringe and suggest I take up medicine or law."

"Well, I think everyone has the right to study what they want. Jess, my best friend, is studying history."

Her delicate hands have almost finished lacing up the bodice. "Not everyone can be business freaks like you and my brother," she winks.

Aha. What else did he tell her about me?

"He's quite smart, your brother."

And hot. The word forms in my mind by itself, and I'm glad Dani is so preoccupied with the eyelets. My cheeks turn almost as red as the dress.

"Please don't let him know you think that. Won't help that pigheadedness of his in the slightest."

I squelch the urge to laugh as best as I can because she says this in such a solemn tone that I'm sure she'd be highly offended if I didn't take her seriously. There is a slightly awkward pause while she laces the very last eyelets, in which the only sound is a high-pitched laugh from one of the girls in front.

When she's done she takes a few steps back and looks at me approvingly. "You look beautiful."

"Your turn," I say. "Which dress is yours?"

She picks a white dress from the nearest metal bar and hands it to me. I make a point of keeping my eyes on the beautiful white chiffon while she discards her robe. After a few painful minutes, I manage to get her in her equally heavy dress without ruining her hair. She turns around and I start on the eyelets. I'm halfway through them when an eerie harp tune comes from Dani's robe. She completely ignores it.

"I think that's your cell," I say tentatively.

"I know. It's probably my boyfriend, trying to make up for completely bolting last night," she says through gritted teeth.

I proceed with the eyelets in silence.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" she blurts.

"Yes. I mean no," I say, taken aback by the sudden turn of the conversation. "We broke up a few weeks ago."

"Oh. I'm sorry. How long had you been together?"

"Six years." To my relief, the usual painful heartache that accompanies any thought of my failed relationship isn't happening. "You should answer that. Or switch it off," I say, pretending not to notice her shocked glance in the mirror as the phone starts ringing yet again.

She bends and picks the phone from the pocket of her robe with a rather sour expression that turns to affectionate annoyance when she notices the name on the screen. It's not her boyfriend.

It's James.

She presses the phone to her ear. "Where's the fire?"

I don't hear anything more than a buzzing noise coming from her phone, but it's enough for my stomach to give a little jolt. I can't even fathom what it'll do when I see James.

"But I'm not ready," she protests when the buzzing noise stops.

I signal to her in the mirror that I'm almost done.

"Okay, okay, I'll be there in a minute," she says, giving up and closing the phone.

"I need to go. Will you be okay on your own? Just stick to the girls, they know where the ballroom is. I'll find you there," she says and runs off. "Make sure to take a mask from the closet," she calls over her shoulder before disappearing altogether.

With nothing left to do, I pick up my white dress, bag, and robe and put everything on a hanger, then walk to the closet and discover a set of black masks. I grab one and make my way to the front of the room, wondering if the laughter is becoming louder, or if I'm just imagining it. One glance at the cup of champagne each girl is holding tells me I am not. There are only four girls left now, and they are all gathered in a circle.

"Someone get Dani's friend a cup," one of them says in a disturbingly high-pitched voice, forcibly reminding me of a lark.

"I'm fine," I say.

"Oh, right, she's not allowed to drink," a redhead who looks vaguely familiar giggles. It takes me a moment to realize they think I'm the same age as Dani, a school colleague of hers. For some reason, I don't want to correct that impression. I have a hunch they are the last people who should know who invited me here.

Their next words confirm this very thought.

"I bet Sophie'll get some tonight," the lark says, applying another layer of red lipstick on her full lips.

"Why me?" Sophie, the one who cemented my underage status, says with fake indignation.

"Because you're the only one among us who hasn't," the girl next to her chortles. She'd give any swimsuit model a run for her money. "And James's had an eye on you for some time."

"He had his chance last night and nothing happened," Sophie exclaims as if she couldn't imagine anything more offensive. With a flash, I realize why she looks familiar. She was the redhead standing next to James last night. I withhold a smile as an unnatural sense of triumph fills me at Sophie's indignation.

"Maybe it's your turn again," Sophie continues, eying the lark. "You did hook up with him last week."