“She’s all right. She’s pretty tough.”

“And how’s . . . the rest of your family? Everything all right?”

Chris shrugs. “Sure. Everything’s fine.”

Hmm. If Chris doesn’t know, how bad could things be with Genevieve’s family? Either not that bad or, more likely, just another one of Genevieve’s deceptions. Even when we were little she lied a lot, whether it was to get out of trouble with her mom, in which case she’d blame me, or to gain sympathy from adults.

Chris peers at me. “What are you thinking about so hard? Are you still stressing over your sex tape?”

“It’s not a sex tape if you’re not having sex in it!”

“Calm down, Lara Jean. I’m sure Peter’s grandstanding did the trick and people will leave it alone. They’ll be on to the next thing.”

“I hope you’re right,” I say.

“Trust me, there’ll be someone or something new to obsess over by next week.”

It turns out that Chris is right, that people have moved on to the next thing. On Tuesday, a sophomore boy named Clark is caught masturbating in the boys locker room, and it’s all everyone can talk about. Lucky me!

12

ACCORDING TO STORMY, THERE ARE two kinds of girls in this world. The kind who breaks hearts and the kind who gets her heart broken. One guess as to which kind of girl Stormy is.

I’m sitting cross-legged on Stormy’s velvet fainting couch, going through a big shoe box of mostly black-and-white photos. She’s agreed to join my scrapbooking class, and we’re getting a head start organizing. I have several piles going. Stormy: the early years; her teenagehood; her first, second, and fourth weddings—no pictures from her third wedding, because they eloped.

“I am a heartbreaker, but you, Lara Jean, are a girl who gets her heart broken.” She lifts her eyebrows at me for emphasis. I think she forgot to pencil them in today.

I mull this over. I don’t want to be a girl who gets her heart broken, but I also don’t really want to break boys’ hearts. “Stormy, did you have a lot of boyfriends in high school?”

“Oh, sure. Dozens. That’s how we did it in my day. Drive-in on Friday with Burt and cotillion with Sam on Saturday. We kept our options open. A girl didn’t settle down unless she was supremely, supremely sure.”

“Sure that she liked him?”

“Sure that she wanted to marry him. Otherwise what was the point in ending all the fun?”

I pick up a picture of Stormy in a sea-foam formal gown, strapless with a full skirt. She looks like she could be Grace Kelly’s sneaky cousin, with her pale blond hair and the lift of her brow. There’s a boy standing next to her, and he isn’t very tall or particularly handsome, but there’s something about him. A glint in his eye. “Stormy, how old were you in this one?”

Stormy peers at it. “Sixteen or seventeen. About your age.”

“Who’s the boy?”

Stormy takes a closer look, her face wrinkling like a dried apricot. She taps her red fingernail on the picture. “Walter! We all called him Walt. He was a real charmer.”

“Was he your boyfriend?”

“No, he was just a boy I saw from time to time.” She waggles her pale eyebrows at me. “We went skinny-dipping out by the lake, and we got caught by the police. It was quite the scandale. I got to ride home in a police car in nothing but a blanket.”

“And so . . . did people gossip about you?”

“Bien sûr.”

“I’ve had a little bit of a scandale of my own,” I say. Then I tell her about the hot tub, and the video, and all the fallout. I have to explain to her what a meme is. She is delighted; she’s practically vibrating from the salaciousness of it all.

“Excellent!” she crows. “I’m so relieved you have some bite to you. A girl with a reputation is so much more interesting than a Goody Two-shoes.”

“Stormy, this is on the Internet. The Internet is forever. It’s not just gossip at school. And also, I kind of am a Goody Two-shoes.”

“No, your sister Margaret’s the Goody Two-shoes.”

“Margot,” I correct.

“Well, she certainly seems like a Margaret. I mean, really, every Friday night at a nursing home! I’d have slit my wrists if I was a teenage girl spending all my beauty years at a damn nursing home. Excuse my French, darling.” She fluffs up the pillow behind her. “Oldest children are always high-achieving bores. My son Stanley is a frightful bore. He’s the worst. He’s a podiatrist, for God’s sake! I suppose it’s my fault for naming him Stanley. Not that I had any say in it. My mother-in-law insisted we name him after her dead husband. Good Lord, she was a crone.” Stormy takes a sip of her iced tea. “Middle children are supposed to have fun, you know. You and I, we have that in common. I was glad you hadn’t been coming around as much. I was hoping you were getting into trouble. Sounds like I was right. Although you might’ve come around a bit more.”

Stormy’s terrific at making a person feel guilty. She’s mastered the art of the injured sniff.

“Now that I’ve got a proper job here, I’ll be around a lot more often.”

“Well, not too often.” She perks up. “But next time bring that boy of yours. We could use some fresh blood around here. Give the place a jolt. Is he handsome?”

“Yes, he’s very handsome.” The handsomest of all the handsome boys.