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the paint to pay her back. In the end, we lay down on the drop cloth again, giggling madly. It felt like all we’d been doing was laughing, as though laughter could keep everything else far away.
    “I have a present for you,” I said when we could finally breathe again.
    I hadn’t planned on telling her about it because I’d wanted to surprise her. But somehow, this felt like the right moment to say something about the scavenger hunt I’d planned.
    “If you put another fake spider in my hair, you will pay,” she said.
    I grinned, remembering her manic dance as she’d tried to untangle the sticky legs from her hair. “At least it wasn’t a real spider.”
    “If it had been …”
    I interrupted her. “It’s a real present this time. But I’m not giving it to you until I leave.”
    “And you’re not going to tell me what it is.”
    “So you’ll have something to look forward to.”
    Downstairs, the chimes rang as the front door opened. “Francesca, are you home?”
    “Ugh,” Frankie said. “Already?”
    “Francesca?” Her mom clacked upstairs and into the bedroom on impossibly teetery heels. “Girls, you’re a mess! And we need to leave in fifteen minutes to make it to the gallery opening. Vivian’s already there.”
    “What opening—” Frankie started to say, but her mom cut her off.
    “Vivian will see the gallery in full regalia, so she knows what to expect next month.” She stopped, looking pointedly at our feet. “What are you doing?”
    “Mom, Vivian and Sadie are leaving tomorrow. Early.”
    Frankie’s mom helped us to our feet, careful not to touch any of the wet paint. “All the more reason to have a night on the town, darling. Wait here. I’ll get you some old socks so you can dash to the WC and wash off.”
    We wrestled socks onto our sticky feet and hurried into the bathroom, where we peeled out of our clothes and took turns rinsing off in the shower.
    Frankie’s mom knocked on the door. “Hurry, girls. We’re late.”
    As Frankie toweled off, she rolled her eyes. “Honestly, we wouldn’t want the chauffeur to have to wait.”
    After a few more mad minutes of dressing and brushing our hair and swiping on some lip gloss, we were as ready as we’d ever be. We followed her mom down to the car, and I slid into the backseat. Frankie’s mom had studied the mural while we got ready, and now she analyzed our style and technique while Frankie bristled silently beside me. She hadn’t asked for her mom’s opinion. I stared out the window, trying to catch my breath.
    After Frankie had come home from her trip to New York at Thanksgiving, I hadn’t understood her reluctance to live with her mom. New York was the center of the art world, and I knew her mom spoiled her rotten. Now that I was here, though, I saw how out of place Frankie was. It was likewatching a fish try to do ballet on dry land. But Georgiana didn’t stop moving long enough to notice. Which was worse: a mom who was too exhausted to notice anyone but herself, or a mom who was too caught up in her own life to pay attention to you?
    Women in black dresses, glittery heels, and perfectly manicured nails filled the brick and glass gallery. Frankie’s mom swept us around the room and introduced us to Delores and Diamanté and Diandra. I’d never remember the names, and neither, I assumed, would Frankie.
    After two hours of being petted and cooed over, my feet ached and my cheeks burned from smiling too hard for too long.
    “Nothing like having a pet,” Frankie whispered when her mom turned away to clink glasses with the gallery owner. “Want some fresh air?”
    I nodded and followed her out to the gallery’s front steps. Frankie sat and dropped her head into her hands.
    “I can’t do this. I can’t be this person,” she said.
    “I didn’t think I’d ever fit in when we moved to Owl Creek,” I said.
    “That’s because I was doing my best to make you as miserable as possible.”
    I grinned. “Think of