So, my heart breaking and my mind grumbling, I did my hair and makeup (mostly using sample spoils scored from Brooke’s not-up-for-negotiation job), got dressed (a lightweight knit copper sweater over a short-sleeved shirt and a denim miniskirt Ainsley had altered for my hips), and put on perfume (a half-used bottle of Dior Poison Mom had passed down to me when I told her I loved the smell of it). It struck me, as I looked at the finished product in the floor-length mirror stuck to the back of my door, that today I’d been dressed by the three most important women in my life. Cheesy, but also kind of special. Special in a way that an outfit bought on a Platinum Mastercard probably didn’t feel.

Okay, I had forty-five minutes to go before Brougham was due. That would give me enough time to get through the letters I’d shoved in my backpack yesterday, so I didn’t have to spend all day dwelling on them. Perfect.

With Dad clattering around down the hall, and the smell of toast seeping under the crack in my doorway, I set my laptop up on the empty wooden desk and started working through the letters. It seemed like I’d barely sat down when Dad knocked on my door, but a glance at the time told me I’d been going for thirty minutes already. I knew it was Dad, because Ainsley, who had joined me in sleeping at Dad’s last night so we could drive over together, didn’t knock and wait, she knocked and opened. “Come in,” I called.

I didn’t bother hiding the letters. Dad was … unperceptive, to put it kindly, and if he noticed them at all he would probably just assume they were homework.

He poked his head around the door and screwed up his mouth so his mustache went lopsided. “There’s a boy here.”

“Oh. He’s early.” I still had one letter reply to go. Guess Brougham would have to entertain himself up here while I finished. I wasn’t going to fall behind on my locker duties just because Brougham thought three forty-five meant four thirty and nine a.m. meant eight forty-five. Maybe in Australia time was but a vague concept but in America when we said nine we meant nine, damn it.

Dad pushed the door open farther and stood blocking the doorway, even when I got up. “Who is this boy? What does he want with you? Why haven’t I heard of him before?”

I met Dad’s eyes—and given I’d inherited his height, it wasn’t so hard to do—and folded my arms. “Um, the real question here is why don’t you quiz me like this when girls come to the door?”