“It’s okay. We’re going to be okay, Chlo,” she says, and uses her inner elbow to swat hard at the tears coursing down her cheeks. I think about the power of telephoto lenses and the mechanics of tinted windows. Whether this scene will play out on television screens across the country tonight. If the world will see what I see: two broken people, a loving mother tending to her daughter, or if they will see something altogether different. Us getting what we deserve.

I’ve turned so paranoid, for a second I wonder if this was Paloma’s plan after all—to reveal this moment, us at our most vulnerable and not the sturdier version in front of the yoga studio that preceded this. Nah. Even Paloma is not that diabolical. She’s recovered, though, and looks away from our emotion. Her AirPods are back in her ears, her eyes on her phone.

“Can someone please text Carrie and let her know we need more ice cream?” my mom asks.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Then

Levi, Shola, and I lounge on oversized floats in the pool—a swan, a unicorn, and a flamingo, respectively—trailing our fingertips lazily in the water. It’s eighty degrees in early December, and though we’re supposed to be long past wildfire season, the hills up and down the coast are ablaze. The hint of smoke hangs in the air, like a distant barbecue, or a warning.

“No one is talking to each other. Like Axl is super pissed at Simon, because he told his mom about the drinking thing, which he only did because he thought it was a funny story. He never thought his mom would call the freakin’ school and report it. And Simon is pissed at Axl, because I don’t even know why, and he’s like, ‘Even if we both get into Penn, we’re totally not rooming together now,’ ” Levi says. His face has that fresh-from-Vail chap, and he’s mussed his wet hair into spikes. I wonder when I’m next going to get him alone. Since Thanksgiving break, he’s been either away snowboarding or with the fencing team on weekends, and his schedule is too packed for him to see me after school. I guess that’s the price you pay for a fighting chance of getting into a school like Harvard—you sacrifice innumerable opportunities to hook up with your ready and willing girlfriend.

“Boring,” Shola says, sipping from the LaCroix she tucked into her float’s cupholder.