THE NEXT DAY Lulu gets an email from [email protected]. She opens it to find one of the fanciest email invites she’s ever seen. Even the gold edging on the graphic looks luxe, somehow; gilt-flecked instead of cheap and cheesy. Ryan is throwing a New Year’s Eve party at The Hotel.

She texts Cass a screenshot with the message, Does this mean it’s open

I wish I knew, Cass responds.

He didn’t tell you? that’s shitty

He didn’t tell me about the party at all
Which
I’m sure seems like not a big deal but again we used to tell each other everything

Have you told him about us?
It’s fine if you did I’m just wondering if maybe like
He feels like you have secrets so now he does too

I didn’t
Tell him
I didn’t know what to say tbh

Lulu doesn’t know how to respond to that. She types and deletes, types and deletes. Then she FaceTimes Cass.

When she answers, Cass is sitting in her backyard, under a tree that dapples her face with leafy shadows and makes her expression hard to read. “Hey,” she says. “What’s up?”

“I didn’t know what to say.”

“You called . . . to say you didn’t know what to say.”

“Yes. No. I called— Usually when I don’t know what to say, I don’t say anything.”

“That doesn’t seem like such a crazy strategy.”

“It isn’t. But it can be. Sometimes I don’t know what to say, but that doesn’t mean I—” Lulu comes up short. For all the language she’s learned in the last few months, she still doesn’t know the words for this.

“It doesn’t mean you don’t—” Cass says.

“It doesn’t mean I don’t want to say something.”

There’s a long pause. “I think I get it,” Cass says.

“Whatever you told him would be fine with me.”

“You sure about that? What if I told him you were the curse incarnate, come to seduce me and kill me and make me The Hotel’s most gruesome legacy?”

Lulu laughs. “Ryan doesn’t really believe in curses,” she reminds Cass.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

ON NEW YEAR’S Eve, Lulu tries on approximately a zillion outfits. It takes her two hours to get dressed, in part because she has to run back and forth between the half mirror in her bedroom and the full-length one in the bathroom down the hall. Then she has to do her makeup.

Naomi kicks her out of the bathroom twice to pee during this process. “This seems very exhausting,” she says on her way out the second time.