“Daniel stood up and loomed over Sadie. "Sing?""Sorry?""Do.You.Want.To.Sing.With.Me?"For a count of five, nothing happened. Then,a thousand sad wallflowers at a thousand loud dances were redeemed in that moment. Sadie positively lit up. "Yes," she said, sitting up straight. "I do.""Okay." He started for the stage. "Lose the jacket."She paused halfway out of her seat. "What?""The jacket," he said over his shoudler. "It's freaking ugly."I watched as Sadie froze."C'mon, Sadie. I'm aging here."Sadie slid the jacket off her shoulders. It caught at her elbows for a second, then she let it drop to the chair. Underneath, she was wearing jeans and a red cashmere sweater. She looked terrified, mortified, and really good. "Excellent," Daniel said. "Let's go.”

“I am going to end up alone," he moaned."Not in any conceivable universe!" One of Sadie's best qualities is the ability to say "Are you effing insane?" with such sweet conviction and nicer words."I am going to end up alone in a one-room apartment over a dry cleaner.""A dry cleaner?""He could have said a bar," I offered."True," he conceded.Frankie was on a roll. "I am going to end up alone in a one-room apartment over a dry cleaner with a cat. Who bites me.""Oh,Frankie-""I am going to end up alone in a one-room apartment over a dry cleaner with a cat who bites me and pees in my closet full of moth-eaten sweaters.""Well,maybe," Sadie said, reaching around to hug both of us. "But the sweaters will be Dolce & Gabbana." One of her other fabulous qualities is that underneath the sweet conviction, she does have a sense of humor.Frankie did laugh. Then he gave a sigh that I could feel all the way through me. I knew Sadie did,too. "I liked him," he said, very quietly. "I really did. And I thought he felt the same way. I bent and twisted and distorted everything that happened between us to fit my pretty little picture. God, I believed my own hype. How stupid, how incredibly stupid was that?""Not stupid." Sadie squeezed. "Hopeful. And if we're not that, what's the point? El? Help me out here."I wanted to.I really did. But all I could think of was the fact that at home, exactly where I'd put it in my bag, which was still exactly where I'd dumped it on the floor, was the evidence that Edward had let me down. I was keeping that to myself, at least for the moment. Twisted it to fit my pretty little picture. I didn't think I could take Frankie's complete lack of surprise that a guy (even a dead one) had let me down-or Sadie's sympathy. Not on top of my own anger.Because,plain and simple,it wasn't okay to look at another woman like that, not when you met the love of your life and gave a big flipped finger to the people around you so you could be with her. Not okay even if she was dead, because I, Ella, really really want to believe that sometimes love does conquer all, and sometimes some things do last foever.Truth: Yes,I really am that naive."You're perfect," I said to Frankie. And I meant it.”

“Five years from today. Where, exactly, do you want to be?"Her eyes lit up. Sadie loves that kind of question. "Ooh. Wow. Let me think. December, getting close to Christmas. I'll be twenty-one...""Passed out under the tree with a fifth of Jack, half a 7-Eleven rotisserie chicken, and a cat who poops in your shoes." Frankie returned our startled glances with his lizard look. "Oh, wait. That's me. Sorry."I opted to ignore him. "Five years to the day,Sadie."She glanced quickly between Frankie and me. "Do we need a time-out here?""Nope," I said. "Carry on.""Okay. Five years. I will be in New York visiting the pair of you because, while NYU is fab, I will be halfwau through my final year of classics at Cambridge, trying to decide whether I want to be a psychologist or a pastry chef. You," she said sternly to Frankie, "will be drinking appropriate amounds of champagne with your boyfriend, a six-three blond from Helsinki who happens to design for Tory Burch. Ah! Don't say anything. It's my future. You can choose a different designer when it's you go. I want the Tory freebies." She turned to me. "We will be sipping said champagne in the middle of the Gagosian Galley, because it is the opening night of your first solo exhibit. At which everything will sell."She punctuated the sentence by poking the air with a speared black olive."I love you," I told her. Then, "But that wasn't really about you.""Oh,but it was," she disagreed, going back to her salad. "It's exactly where I want to be. Although" -she grinned over a tomato wedge- "I might have the next David Beckham in tow.""The next David Beckham is a five-foot-tall Welshman named Madog Cadwalader. He has extra teeth and bow legs.""Really?" Sadie asked.Frankie snorted. "No.Not really.”

“There is absolutely nothing wrong with me.""Yeah?""Yeah." He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. For a second, he looked exactly like Daniel: cynical, bored, and liable to bite. "Well,that's funny," he drawled. "I think you're lying through your teeth."My stomach clenched. "Why?""Because," he said calmly, "in all the time I've known you,you have never once said those words.""What words?""'There is nothing wrong with me.'""Oh,don't-""Never. You are a walking litany of imaginary flaws.So." Frankie unfolded himself and rested his elbows on the table. It wobbled. He didn't. He studied me over his tented fingers. "Truth or Dare?""It's Sadie's turn to ask.""She passed," he snapped."Hey," I protested."Hey." Sadie actually waved a hand between us. "Maybe we can talk about this tomorrow.""We could," Frankie replied with suspicious agreeability. "Except I want to do it now. So,here's the question, Marino. What-""Dare.""Sorry?" he said."Dare. I'll take a dare/""Really?" he demanded."As long as it takes ten minutes or less. I have to go." All I wanted, really, was to leave.Frankie didn't say anything-or move-for the longest time. He just stared at me. Then, finally, he blinked, lowered his hands, and shrugged. "Sing.""Oh,come on-""Sing," he repeated. "You know how. Or concede."That, I thought, would be so easy. It would also break something precious. In all out time together, none of us had ever conceded a dare. "Sadie. Sing with me?"She nodded,but Frankie shook a finger at her. "You will not. Marino, you're on your own here."I pretty much stomped way may to the stage. Stavros's son Nic was manning the karaoke machine. His brows shot up when he saw me. "A first.”

“It is time,my darling.""Oh,Frankie,no-""You chose dare," he reminded her."I did," she agreed sadly, stepping up. "You're right."It hadn't been entirely fair of him, starting the game in the middle of Neiman Marcus. The King of Prussia Mall, a zillion acres of retail-and-food-in-a-box, is many people's idea of perfect therapy. Me? If given the choice, I might opt for swimming with sharks instead. But today was about Frankie."So," he told her, "I pick out three outfits,head to toe. You put them on.""Fine." Sadie pulled her jacket closer around her.This one was a muddy pruple, and had a third sleeve stitched tot he back. "But if you pick anything like that"- she pointed to a tiny tartan dress that seemed to be missing its entire back- "I will cry.""Have faith," he replied with a slightly twisted smile, and dragged her toward women's sportswear. "What our sport is," he said apropos of very little save the sign on the wall, "I have no idea."Ten minutes later, Sadie was heading into the dressing room with an armful of autumn color and a look like she was on her way off a cliff.”

“I Can't Make You Love Me.' Bonnie Raitt.""Oh,Fiorella."I glared at him a little as I climbed down. "Was that delightful list for your benefit or mine?"Frankie grabbed my hand and, when I didn't pull away fast enough, tugged me onto his lap,where he wrapped his arms so tightly around me that I couldn't escape. Sometimes his strength still surprises me.He tickled my cheek with his nose. "Don't hate me just because I'm hateful.""I never do."Here's the thing. Frankie's taken a lot of hits in his life. He never stays down for long."Excuse me!" The mannequin's evil twin was glaring down at us fro her sky-high bootie-heeled heights. Her NM badge told us her name was Victoria. "You cannot do that here!" she snapped."Do what?" Frankie returned, matching lockjaw snooty for lockjaw snooty.She opened and closed her mouth, then hissed, "Canoodle!"I felt Frankie's hiccup of amusement. "Were we canoodling, snookums?" he asked me. "I rather thought we were about to copulate like bunnies."I couldn't help it; I laughed out loud. Victoria's mouth thinned into a pale line. The whole thing might have ended with our being escorted out the store's hallowed doors by security. Sadie, as she so often did, momentarily saved us from ourselves.She stomped out of the dressing room and planted herself in front of us. Ignoring the angry salesgirl completely, she muttered, "I look like a carved pumpkin!"Frankie took in the skirt, layered shirts, and jacket. "You do not, but I might have been having an overly Michael Kors moment. This will not do for a date.Take it off." He nudged me, then added, "Right here.Every last stitch of it."As soon as Sadie was back in her own clothing and coat-which got an unwilling frown of respect from Victoria; apparently even Neiman Maruc doesn't carry that line-we moved on. Sadie did better in Frankie's second choice-a lip-printed sweater dress from Betsey Johnson,but wouldn't buy it."We're just going to a movie!" she protested. "Besides,Jared's not...not..." She gestured down at her lippy hips. "He's practical and sensible and quiet.""Oh,my God!" Frankie slapped both palms to the side of his face,and turned to me. "Sadie has a date with a Prius!"He had to invoke the sanctity of Truth or Dare before he could even get her into Urban Outfitters. "Sometimes I love you less than other times," she grumbled as he filled her arms with his last choices."No,you don't," he said cheerfully, and sent her off to change.”

“Teddy Roosevelt?" I suggested. Sadie and I had been trying to figure out the second mathlete's costume for a few minutes. He was wearing a 1930's-style suit,had his hair slicked down carefully, and was sporting a fake mustache."No glasses. And I can't even begin to imagine the connection between Davy Jone's Locker and Teddy Roosevelt." Sadie pulled a long gold hair from her pumpkin-orange punch and sighed.Maybe her mother hadn't topped her Sleepy Hollow triumph, but it wasn't from lack of determination. What Mrs. Winslow hadn't achieved in creativity (she'd gone the mermaid route), she'd made up in the details. The tailed skirt was intricately beaded and embroidered in a dozen shades of blue and green. It was pretty amazing.The problem was the bodice: not a bikini, but not much better as far as Sadie was concerned. It was green, plunging, and edged with itchy-looking scallops. She was managing to stay covered by the wig, but that was an issue in itself. It was massive,made up of hundreds of trailing corkscrew curls in a metallic blonde. To top it all off, the costume included a glittering, three point crown, and a six-foot trident, complete with jewels and trailing silk seaweed."Sadie," I'd asked quietly when she'd appeared at my house, shivering and tangled in her wig, "why don't you..." Just tell her where she can shove her trident? But that would just have been mean. Sadie gives in and wears the costumes because it's infinitely easier than fighting. "...come next door and we'll see if Sienna has a shawl you can borrow?”