Jennifer DuBois - Cartwheel

That night, Lily didn’t show up until nine, a bit later than she’d said she’d be.

“Hey,” she said, when Sebastien opened the door. She was wearing long and overly involved earrings. Her hair was slightly damp and brushed back behind her ears.

“Dear Lily,” said Sebastien, and kissed her. He could smell the implausible scent of her down-market perfume—freesia, wisteria, cyanide, whatever—that she’d probably bought at a pharmacy somewhere. When he pulled away, he saw that she was looking at him patiently. He glanced over at the table, where an oily epidermis was growing across the top of the mauve casserole and bleeding out onto the paper plates. He had set the food out too early.

“Sit down,” he said. The words came out too soft: Somewhere during the kiss his voice had dissipated along his sternum, it seemed, and become a kind of effervescent fizz. “Sit down,” he said, more loudly. “I have something for you.”

“You do?” She sat.

“Here,” said Sebastien, producing the bracelet from behind a lamp and dangling it before her. It was heavier than it looked. He had not wrapped it because he did not want Lily to feel that she could not decline it. “Do you want this?” There was more Sebastien might have said, but he had vowed to talk less.

“What is it?” said Lily. Her eyes widened, so he knew she already knew.

“A bracelet.” Sebastien’s mouth was so dry that he was sure Lily would be able to hear something wrong in the way he was talking, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“I see that. Is it real?”

At this, Sebastien felt something within him collapse; something fragile that was holding back a floodgate. She was being crass. She was being, he thought grimly, American. Did she think he would try to give her some sort of toy jewelry? How little she must think of him. How little she must think he thought of her. He cocked his head to the side and laughed. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Is anything?”

“Where did you get it?”

“It was my mother’s, if you really want to know.”

“You can’t give me something of your mother’s.”

“She hasn’t registered any protest, actually.” Sebastien’s despair was a rhizomatic root now, digging its stems into his heart. He would manage not to show it. He would manage to keep his gaze even.

“You can’t,” said Lily. “I won’t take it. I’m sorry, thank you, but you can’t.”

“All right,” said Sebastien. He took it back. What did she think he was going to do—beg her to accept an heirloom? Even his devotion had its limits. “All right. I’ve got all kinds of this stuff lying around. And it doesn’t look like much on me—my wrists just aren’t delicate enough. But all right.”

Lily looked stricken and sorry, which Sebastien loathed. He had a vertiginous sense of observing this tableau from the outside in, and he could imagine how pitiful it would look.

“You don’t have anyone else to give it to?” said Lily.

“Apparently not,” said Sebastien. “I mean, there are elderly aunts off en France somewhere, but I wouldn’t want to give them heart attacks. I suppose there’s always eBay.”

“No one helped you clean out the house? No one came for you when they died?”

Sebastien took a deep breath. He did not deserve to be angry that this had not occurred to her already. She did not owe him this kind of consideration. She did not owe him, in the end, anything at all.

Carefully, lightly, he said, “Who would possibly have come?”

Somehow, when Lily wasn’t looking, Buenos Aires had become ugly.

The change had been gradual but unmistakable, she decided, as she walked back across the lawn from Sebastien’s house. The city’s light, previously so luxurious and elevating, had become brittle and harsh. Her bug bites had healed but had not disappeared, and she was beginning to fear she might be scarred for life. The wine made her sluggish; she struggled to stay awake in classes, she dragged her feet through ever-longer afternoons. So many thoughts in her head these days were “I feel” statements—actually phrased that way, I feel tired, I feel lonely, I feel dusty , little declarative sentences, like her own consciousness was some kind of barely mastered second language.

And this night with Sebastien—with that awful, incomprehensible offer of the bracelet—seemed to confirm Lily’s worst suspicions somehow. Over the past couple of weeks, Sebastien had developed an interest in Lily that was sustained and unlikely and, entirely possibly, completely faked. He texted her almost every night now to invite her over for “nightcaps”; about half the time she went, and they’d banter twitchily on the couch for a bit before making out in the dark. It was always dark in that house, no matter the time of day. The living room had French windows overlooking a mangy overgrown garden, but what little light came through them was somehow always dusty; the clock and collectibles cast strange shadows, even during the afternoons. Sebastien LeCompte, it seemed, had a very tenuous relationship with lightbulbs. I feel sorry , Lily thought. She could hear the dry grass snap underneath her feet. I feel bored .

She was back at the Carrizos’ at five past midnight, which was, she thought, a depressingly reasonable hour to be home on a Friday night. But when Lily walked into the kitchen, she found Beatriz sitting at the counter, reading a women’s magazine and looking annoyed. Katy was already downstairs—studying beatifically before a wholesome eight-hour sleep, no doubt—and Lily knew, with a vestigial childhood certainty, that she was in trouble.

“No more of this, okay, Lily?” Beatriz sounded tired, even though she was still dressed. Lily remembered how early Beatriz got up—around five, to make Carlos breakfast before he commuted to the City Porteña—and Lily realized she’d been waiting up for her, and she was sorry. Still, Lily wished that it were Carlos, not Beatriz, who was waiting up. He’d probably wink at her about the late return. Beatriz was not the winking type. “You don’t know that boy very well,” she said.

“He’s my friend.”

“He’s your friend? You’ve known him two weeks. We brought him over here two weeks ago, exactly.”

“I think he’s lonely.” Lily said it as an excuse but realized immediately that of course it must be very true.

“Well, sometimes people are lonely for a reason,” said Beatriz. “And anyway, I can’t imagine your parents would like to think of you sneaking out nights to spend time with a boy.”

“They wouldn’t mind. My parents respect my autonomy.”

“When we invited him over, we just thought it might be nice for you to know someone young. We thought you all might be friends. The three of you.” Beatriz nodded her head toward the bedroom, where Katy was likely now dreaming of sustainable microloans.

“I’m sorry.”

“And you need to remember to lock the door when you come back in the house. Other people live here, too.”

“Okay. I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just stop it. Okay?”

Lily was surprised that Beatriz was going to make her lie. “Okay,” she said.

In the bedroom, Katy was still up reading. She looked up when Lily walked in. “Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” said Lily, sitting heavily on the floor.

“Are you in trouble?”

Lily maneuvered her right sneaker off with her heel. “A little, I guess.”

Katy sat up and stretched. “Hope he’s worth it.” She ran her fingers through her hair—her sun-dappled hair, Lily couldn’t help thinking, though on anyone else it would have just been dirty blond. What was it about Katy that made you search for lyric descriptions?