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no doubt in his glory tonight, showing off lovely tech-savvy James and telling stories about their glamorous lives.
    But me? I was on Sullivans Island, drinking really lousy wine with my roommate, mooning over a man I didn’t know, who didn’t even know I had a pulse, and wondering how to become a world-famous artist. Persevere, I told myself again and again, and my life would come together. I was sure of it. All I had to do was to keep trying. The more I painted, the better I got. Even I could see that in my work.
    I thought again about what Mary Beth said about renting the house out and all that. It sure would be great to make fifteen hundred dollars in two hours. Could we get away with it? How could we plan it without them finding out? Charleston was a really small town. I hated secrets. I didn’t want to lie to my parents. I only wanted to prove them wrong. Maybe I’d run it by Ivy.
    I texted him at eight o’clock the next morning. He was probably still sleeping. It was five to him, body time, so no way he was up. Then again, knowing Ivy, he was probably still up from last night!
    Wanna meet me at Starbucks on Calhoun Street? I hit the send button.
    That particular Starbucks was probably the most convenient for him. A few minutes passed and my smartphone pinged the notice of his reply.
    Sure! How’s nine?
    Perfect!
    I hopped in my car and zoomed over the bridges to downtown, all the while thinking of how much I loved my brother. He was so smart and so sweet. And he loved me. He really, really loved me and accepted me. I wished that he didn’t live so far away.
    I parked on the street across from the college and for a moment I indulged in a twinge of nostalgia. A herd of freshmen were crossing the street, guys in their flip-flops and shorts wearing old T-shirts and girls with flat-ironed long straight hair, and I thought, Man, they look so young. I remembered being a freshman and couldn’t remember ever looking like them. They were absolute babies.
    There was a line at Starbucks so I got in it and waited, letting other people go ahead of me until Ivy showed up.
    “Hey you!” I said and gave him a hug.
    “Hey, Ashley River,” he said.
    I giggled and said, “Aren’t you happy that our mother didn’t name you Cooper?”
    The Ashley and Cooper Rivers surrounded the peninsula of Charleston.
    “Please! I have enough scars as it is! So what are you having?”
    “A venti skinny latte, no sugar.”
    “I think I want a skinny cappuccino. Grab a table. This is mine.”
    “Okay, thanks.”
    I parked myself at an empty table, folding up a newspaper left behind by another person. I wiped the table clean of crumbs just as Ivy sat down to join me.
    “So what’s going on? Sorry about last night. I ran into a bunch of people I hadn’t seen in years . . .”
    “I figured as much. No biggie. About Friday night?”
    “Isn’t James fabulous?”
    “Yes. Totally. He probably thinks we’re completely messed up.”
    “No, he doesn’t. All families are permanently messed up. You should hear his stories. His grandmother runs the whole family from Beijing. They call her Dragon Lily. She makes the Impossibles look normal. No lie. But you want to know what he said about you?”
    “I don’t know. Do I?”
    “He said Mom is jealous of your relationship with Maisie. Especially when Maisie started talking about you looking like Juliet . . .”
    “Oh, come on . . .”
    “Listen to me, Ashley. James is an excellent judge of character. It isn’t that she’s jealous of you and Maisie, so much. Well, actually she sees Maisie loving you to death and it’s sort of a knife in her heart. On top of that she hates getting older. She looks at you and remembers her modeling days and then she sees your youthful skin and all you’ve got going on and it reminds her those days are long gone for her and never coming back.”
    “Really? And just what should I do about that?”
    “I don’t think there’s much you can do except be