Free Wedding in Great Neck (9781101607701) by Yona Zeldis McDonough Page B

quickly. She picked up the birth control pills and examined them closely—not that she hadn’t seen similar packages, either brought in by the school nurse and passed around during sex ed class or flashed by some precocious classmate in the girls’ bathroom. But those anonymous rectangles or rings carried no weight, no meaning, and were utterly unlike the package of pills—four were already missing—actually used by her aunt. Her heart sped up even more, and Justine felt a little queasy. Now,
that
was dumb. Angelica was a grown-up. Of course she was having sex with Ohad. But knowing this in the abstract and seeing the intimate, indisputable proof were light-years apart.
    Large grayish spots quivered in front of Justine’s eyes; a headache instantly bloomed, causing her left temple to throb horribly. She was having an attack of the mean greens. Right here, right now. That was the only explanation for this behavior and the grip of her compulsion. She adored Angelica; rummaging through her things was not only crazy; it was despicable. Despicable, yes. Another good SAT word. Justine let go of the package. It fell to the floor, and after she had retrieved it from under the dresser, she put it back where she had found it. She had to get out of here—immediately.
    But before she could escape, her attention was snared by a tangle of jewelry that sat in an open leather case. Here was the heart-shaped locket Angelica always wore, and her braided gold chain, and her charm bracelet. How Justine had loved that charm bracelet when she was little; Angelica told her it had been a gift from Grandma Lenore, who had worn it when she was young.
    Why was all this stuff sitting here? Then Justine remembered: last night, after the dinner, Angelica had gone to a local spa for something called a brown sugar scrub and a facial; she had invited Justine and Portia to join her. Portia had gone, but Justine said no. Not that she hadn’t wanted to spend time with Angelica. But not if it involved the idea of allowing a stranger to slather nasty brown sludge all over her body. Anyway, Angelica must have taken off all her jewelry and not put it back on yet.
    There, at the center of the case, winked a diamond ring. Not just any diamond ring either; it was Angelica’s engagement ring, which had been shown to and admired by all the women in the family. All except Justine, who thought that the mining of diamonds was a
truly
despicable act, even worse than snooping through someone’s stuff. As far as she was concerned, the glittering stone might as well have been dipped in blood. The mean greens were not over, no; they were just hitting their full stride. Justine’s hand, an appendage not governed by her rational mind or will, reached over to pluck the ring from its nest. She held it for a moment, felt its cold, hard weight, before she tucked it into the pocket of her denim shorts.
    Pumped by the audacity of the act, she sped to the door, but before she could seize the knob, it flew open, and there stood Angelica. She was dressed in a pair of ancient, faded jeans and an oversized white linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up; the latter must have belonged to Ohad. At the base of her white throat was a tantalizingly crude hunk of turquoise that hung suspended from a smooth black cord. She looked the way she always looked: perfect.
    “Justine, baby!” Angelica said. “What are you doing in here?” Mute with remorse, Justine opened her mouth and then closed it. She was horribly aware of the ring jammed into her pocket; she could almost believe it would start to beep or squawk or something. She wanted—oh, oh, how badly she wanted!—to put it back, but obviously she couldn’t do that now.
    Angelica, however, seemed oblivious to her distress. Without waiting for a reply, she breezed by her niece into the room, depositing a quick peck on Justine’s flaming cheek as she passed.

Six

    R eaching for her reading glasses—their cherry-red frames the exact