“Because Darcy is, like, famous now,” Carla said. “And there are frequently famous people in her living room.”
Darcy rolled her eyes. “Come on, guys. I’ll introduce you.”
“Introduce us?” Sagan asked, sputtering on his corn chip. “But I didn’t bring my copy of Bunyip.”
“This isn’t a signing, Sagan,” said Carla. “It’s, like, Darcy’s living room, somehow full of famous authors.”
“It’s just my housewarming party,” Darcy said, though suddenly none of it seemed believable to her either. She turned to confirm her own existence in the wall of mirrors.
“But what if I go all fanboy?” Sagan said. “Because Bunyip.”
Darcy smiled. “You should fanboy her about Dirawong instead. Kiralee’s pretty much over Bunyip, because everyone loves it so much, and because . . .”
She left the rest unspoken, but reminded herself to ask Sagan later about using Hindu gods for purposes of YA hotness.
“Right,” Carla said. “Like John Christopher was totally bored of Tripods.”
Sagan nodded. “Ravel hated Boléro by the end.”
“Jimi Hendrix and ‘Purple Haze,’ ” Darcy said, then waved her hand. “This game is already stupid. Come on over, guys. She’s awesome.”
Darcy took a step toward Kiralee, but her friends didn’t move.
“What?”
“I think we need a second,” Carla said, her gaze drifting along the floor. “We haven’t even unpacked yet.”
Darcy saw the rolled sleeping bags shoved beneath the desk, along with two small suitcases. “Right. Sorry. You just got here, and I’m dragging you around my party. Hostess failure.”
“We should have arrived before your party started,” Sagan said. “The Amtrak timetable incident may have been my fault.”
“Finally you admit this!” Carla said.
Darcy knelt to pick up the sleeping bags. “I’ll put these in your room.”
“We’ll stay here,” Sagan said. “Your party is nervous-making, but I don’t want to miss anything.”
“No problem.” Darcy extended the handles of the suitcases and wedged a sleeping bag under each arm. She managed to wheel her way through the throng without knocking anyone over, and soon was alone in the guest bedroom.
“Crap, still no pillows,” she muttered, letting the sleeping bags fall to the floor. She rolled the suitcases into a corner, wondering how illustrious Carla and Sagan would think she was when they saw their room.
The makeshift bookshelf was looking particularly lopsided this evening. Darcy knelt to adjust the cinder blocks, but instead found herself reaching for the familiar green-and-gold spine of Bunyip. There on the back cover was Kiralee, much younger and perhaps a little photoshopped, and not nearly as distinguished as she looked now. Worse, she had two fingertips pressed thoughtfully against her forehead, like the poster for a mind-reading act.
The door closed behind her, and Darcy turned.
It was Imogen, beer in hand.
“Hey,” Darcy said, the word sounding loud in her ears. The closed door muffled the party to a rumble, and suddenly she could hear her own breathing. “What’s up?”
“I missed you.”
Darcy rose to her feet, her lips buzzing again. “Me too. Is that weird?”
“The absence of old friends one can endure with aplomb,” Imogen said. “But even momentary separation after a first kiss is unbearable.”
Darcy frowned. “Is that a quote?”
“Oscar Wilde, adapted.” Imogen smiled at Bunyip in Darcy’s hands. “I hear that’s a good book.”
“My friends say it’s awesome.”
Imogen knelt beside the bookshelf, sliding her finger across the spines. “That’s the only book of Kiralee’s you own? She’ll hate that.”
“I’ve got all of them!” Darcy exclaimed. “And extra reading copies for my first editions. This is, like, one percent of my library. Dad was driving up some stuff, so my little sister picked these out to send along.”
Imogen turned to look up at Darcy, her eyes narrowing. “Your dad drove them up?”
“They were in my room . . . at home.” Darcy knelt beside Imogen, not quite meeting her eye. “So there was this thing I was going to tell you before the party started. But you were late. And I was going to tell you up on the roof, but then we were kissing, and I forgot to.”
Imogen barely nodded, waiting. Darcy took a steadying breath, her mind flashing through all the previous, much better moments she might have chosen to reveal her age. But as she’d felt more comfortable here, more real as a writer and a New Yorker, the urgency to confess had faded.
But now that they’d kissed . . .
“We went to high school together, Carla and Sagan and me.”
“You told me,” Imogen said. “But you didn’t say when.”
“No.” Darcy’s voice dropped. “We just graduated.”
“As in, a month ago?”
“Pretty much.”
Imogen nodded slowly. “And that explains why you’ve never . . .”
“I guess. Though many people kiss in high school, I’ve heard.” Darcy found herself talking in Sagan’s flat cadence. “I’m sorry, Gen.”
“For what?”
“For not saying that I’d just got out of high school! For failing to mention that I’m a teenager!”
Imogen inspected her own fingernails. “I guess it didn’t come up.”
“I think it did, a couple of times,” Darcy said. “You asked me what I’d majored in once, and I changed the subject.”
“Yeah, I sort of noticed. So you’re, what, eighteen?”
Darcy nodded.
“Well, that’s just f**king ridiculous.” Imogen stood up.
Darcy stayed kneeling by the bookshelf, her face burning. She couldn’t make herself look up, and so stared at the back cover of Bunyip. A young Kiralee Taylor gazed back at her with an expression of profound contemplation.
“I mean, seriously,” Imogen said. “You wrote a book that good at eighteen? That’s just . . . galling!”
“I was seventeen when I finished it,” Darcy said softly.
“Fuck! I was writing Sparkle Pony fan fiction when I was seventeen!” Imogen sank to her haunches again, sighing. “Actually, I still do. Just not full-time. So you’re blowing off college to write, like that’s no big deal?”