So About These Rules

The rules were simple. No tongue. No improvising. Debrief every night.

Ren read them back to me from her phone, one hand on the steering wheel, the lake house forty minutes away. "No unprompted declarations of love. No tearful backstory reveals. And if your Aunt Linda asks how we met, the answer is..."

"Yoga class."

"Yoga class." She glanced at me. "You don't do yoga."

"Neither do you."

"That's the beauty of a lie, Talia. Nobody checks."

I pressed my forehead against the passenger window. The glass was cool and smudged with fingerprints from last summer when I'd ridden up here alone, already dreading this exact week for different reasons. Back then the problem was singular: my mother would ask about boys. Now the problem was plural, sitting in the driver's seat, smelling like cedar shampoo, wearing a white tee with the sleeves rolled to her elbows like she'd stepped out of a catalog for people who have their lives together.

Ren Okada. My best friend. My emergency contact. And for the next seven days, my girlfriend.

Fake girlfriend. That distinction mattered. I'd written it on the rules list, actually. Item number six: "This is fake. Both parties acknowledge it is fake. No one is catching feelings."

She'd read that one out loud with a perfectly straight face and said, "Obviously."

Which was good. Great. Exactly what I wanted to hear.

"Your mother texted again," she said, switching lanes. "Updated schedule. Boat launch at nine Saturday. She wants to know your dietary needs."

"I've eaten her cooking for twenty-eight years."

"She also asked if Ren, quote, 'has any allergies, sensitivities, or preferences I should know about.'"

"Tell her you're allergic to my family."

"I like your family."

"You've met them once. At my graduation. For forty minutes."

"Your mom gave me a Tupperware of dumplings to take home. That's a lifetime commitment in any culture."

I almost smiled. That was the thing about Ren. She made everything sound manageable. Like this was just a road trip, just a week, just a small performance for an audience of twelve Hsus and one catastrophically timed ex-girlfriend.

Paige.

The name sat in my stomach like a stone. Paige Ellery, formerly the person I loved most, currently engaged to a man named David, presently invited to my family's lake house reunion because my mother, who believed Paige and I were "just college roommates," had called her directly.

"She's such a sweet girl," my mother had said on the phone. "I haven't seen her in ages. She said she'd love to come."

I'd hung up and called Ren and said the words that started all of this: "I need you to pretend to be my girlfriend for a week."

She'd been quiet for exactly four seconds. I'd counted.

Then: "Okay."

No questions. No hesitation. Just okay.

I should have found that suspicious.

"We're thirty minutes out," she said. "Last chance to review. Your cousin Tessa?"

"Grad school, Berkeley, too observant for her own good."

"Aunt Linda?"

"Will ask about boyfriends within the first hour. Possibly the first ten minutes."

"And if someone asks about my family?"

"Your parents are in Portland. They're supportive. You came out at nineteen. It went fine." I paused. "That part's true."

"That part's true." She said it simply. Like it was easy. Like coming out was a thing you did over dinner and then everyone moved on and the world kept spinning.

For her, maybe it was.

I watched the trees blur past. Pines. Birches. The occasional gas station. The road getting narrower, the houses getting farther apart, the lake getting closer.

"Ren."

"Yeah?"

Three things I wanted to say. One: thank you. Two: I'm sorry I'm making you do this. Three: a warmth sitting right behind my ribs, inconvenient and persistent and not at all what a person should feel about her fake girlfriend.

"Nothing. Just... thank you."

She reached over and bumped my knuckles with hers. Brief. Casual. The way a best friend would.

"Showtime in thirty," she said.

I closed my eyes. Counted my breathing. Ran through the list one more time. No tongue. No improvising. Debrief every night. This is fake. Both parties acknowledge it is fake.

The driveway appeared through the trees. My mother was already on the porch, waving with both hands, wearing the apron she only wore when she'd been cooking since dawn.

Ren bumped my shoulder. "Showtime."

I squeezed back. Smiled. Opened the door.

And for a second, just a second, I forgot which part was the show.