Free All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill

Finn’s hand and gives me an awkward hug while the driver loads the last of the luggage.
    “When I was little,” I say into his ear, “I had an imaginary friend named Miles. He was a purple kangaroo.”
    “Um.” Connor lets me go. “Okay.”
    “No one else knows that,” I say. “No one.”
    “Oh, so that’s how—”
    “That’s how I’ll know to trust you,” I say.
    “Got it.”
    Finn touches my elbow. “Bus is ready to go.”
    “See you later, I guess,” Connor jokes. I blink and see him riddled with holes, his kind face spattered with blood as he falls to the floor. I blink again, and he’s standing in front of us, smiling and young and whole.
    “You’re the best, Mike,” I say, and when he walks away, I add him to the list of people I hope I never lay eyes on again.

Six
    Marina
    James eats his orange in the back of the hired car as it drives us toward the Mandarin Oriental. Somehow he misses the powdered sugar still clinging to one corner of his lips from Luz’s empanadas. If I were Sophie or Tamsin, I would lean forward and wipe it off for him, my fingers lingering seductively at the edge of his mouth. It would drive him wild with lust, and he would take me in his arms and kiss me. I try to make myself move. I reach for him but lose my nerve with my hand hovering in the air and reach for my hair instead, brushing a nonexistent strand back into place. I can’t do it. Instead I sit frozen in my seat and don’t say a word about the sugar. At least I can appreciate how cute it looks.
    Finn, in an ill-fitting tux, is waiting for us outside the hotel. He performs an elaborate bow as we climb out of the car. “My Lord Shaw! And Lady Marina of the House of Snobs!”
    He reaches for my hand and actually kisses it, and I snatch it back before anyone can see. Why does he always have to try to make me feel stupid?
    “Did you bathe in that cologne?” I ask. The cloud around him is thick enough to choke a cat. “You know, there’s this thing called soap —”
    “It’s Eau de Homme ,” he says, straightening his bow tie. “You know you can’t resist it.”
    I gag.
    “Oh, by the way, man,” Finn says, inclining his head at James, “you’ve got food on your face.”
    James wipes the sugar from his lips and shoots a mock glare at me, and I hide a smile.
    We walk inside, following the stream of well-dressed people to the hotel ballroom. The vice president is speaking tonight, so security is tight. Secret Service agents are posted at regular intervals throughout the hotel, and our invitations and IDs are checked thoroughly before we’re directed through metal detectors. Once we’re cleared, an attendant leads us to our seats, three chairs at a large round table near the back of the ballroom. Two other couples are already seated, and I see the distinct darkening of their faces as three teenagers join their table.
    The expression on one woman’s face changes when she recognizes James. She raises her wineglass with a hand weighted down with jewels— new money , my mom would say—and whispers to her husband behind it. The man’s head swivels to stare at James, who’s too preoccupied with turning off his cell phone to notice. I’m about to ask them if their parents taught them it was rude to gawk, which will make dinner a little uncomfortable but be worth it, when Finn clears his throat loudly beside me. Everyone automatically looks at him, and he’s staring at the woman and her husband with a steeliness I’ve never seen in his goofy expression. The couple immediately turns away.
    James looks up from his phone. “You okay? I think they’re bringing water around.”
    “Nah, I’m cool,” Finn says, winking at me, and I turn away.
    Dinner is served by waitstaff in tails and white gloves, and the speeches begin. I can tell James is taking in every word, but after twenty minutes, Senator Gaines begins to sound like one of the grown-ups from a Charlie Brown cartoon episode to me: mwamp mwamp