“Wow."That was one way of putting it."My mother likes Klimt," I explained. She had this, The Kiss, on coasters, a tote bag, and a tea set she'd bought herself for her twentieth wedding anniversay.It wasn't Klimt the painter she liked, so much as the combination of lots and lots of metallic paint and a red-haired woman in the arms of a dark-haired man. "It's me and your dad," she used to say to our collective distress. Little kids don't want to see their parents canoodling. Older kids really don't want to see it. "Hey. You keep rolling your ryes, Sienna Donatella," she would snap, "and they're gonna stick like that. See then if you can find a guy to kiss you!”

“And she says..."I'd been fighting a losing battle with yawning for a while. I was failing fast. "I have no idea.'I'm in love with someone else'?"Nonna snorted hard enough to shake the mattress. "With who? There is no one else like Michelangelo. He is king of the sea! In love with someone else. Pah.""Okay.Fine.Tell me what she said.""Nonna leaned toward me, eyes bright. "She says, 'You do not see me.' And my bisnonno, he says, 'Of course I see you! Every day I see you by the seawall. I see you in my mind, too, in pearls and furs and silks. So, here,here I offer you these things.' And she says...""Thank you?""Per carita!""'No,thank you?'""Ah,Fiorella. I think you are not the child of my child! Rifletti. Use that good brain.""Nonna...""She says, 'You do not see me!' And she sends him away."I wasn't sure I was getting the point. Here's an ordinary girl in ratty clothes who's going to end up a nun if she doesn't get married. Along comes a decent guy with money, promising to take her away from it all...Wasn't that where is usually faded to Happily Ever After?”

“Look,Freddy Krueger, if I thought there was a chance in a gazillion that Alex would even feature you in a nightmare, I might not be saying this so nicely. But I feel sorry for you, so I'm going to give you a tip." The p was sharp,harsh. She leaned in,close enough that I could see the pale,shimmery lipstick caked in the corners of her mouth. "This thing you have for him just makes you look like the world's most pitiful loser. Did you really think you had even the smallest chance with him? Did you?"I didn't answer.Maybe a no would have satisfied her. Maybe not."You are a skank and a freak," she snapped, the hard sounds making me flinch. "You don't belong here. Go back to your greaseball 'hood. The sight of you makes me sick!"Any girl who has ever been face-to-face with another angry girl, especially one with infinitely more spite and social standing knows to run.It's innate, from bunnies to baboons. Don't mess with the alpha female. She'll tear your throat out. So I ran,but not before I got a glimpse of Anna's face.In the second before she turned away, she looked like someone had slapped her. Funny, seeing that didn't make me feel any better.”

“Tina was hosting. She's a thirty-five-year-old version of Sienne, only bottle blonde.Same blind-you lipstick, same taste in clothes,same complete disregard for anyone else's opinion on anything.They hate each other."You hate me!" Sienna wailed.It wasn't Tina's voice that snapped back, but Dad's, "Oh,no. I am not playing that game with you. Do you have any idea what a hundred pounds of filet is gonna cost me? And now you want lobster?""But it's my wedding! Daddy-""Don't you Daddy me, princess! I'm already five grand in the hole for the damned hotel,not to mention two for the dress, and every time I turn around, you and your mother have added a new guest, bridesmaid,or crustacean!"First of all,Dad was yelling.Almost. Second,he was swearing.Even damn is fighting talk for him.I set down my pizza and debated the best route for a sealthy escape.I'd seen the dress.Pretty, in a Disney-princess, twenty-yards-of-tulle, boobs-shaped-into-missiles sort of way. Sienne looked deliriously happy in it. She looked beautiful.The less said about the bridesmaids' dressed, I'd decided, on seeing the purple sateen,the better."No lobster!" he yelled.There was a dramatic howl, followed by the bang of the back door. When I peeked out,it was like a photo. Everything was frozen.Dad was standing over the massive pasta pot, red-faced and scowling, wooden spoon brandished like a sword. Leo and Ricky had retreated to the doorway of the freezer. Nonna had her eyes turned heavenward, and Tina was halfway through the dining room door, smirking a little.”

“Dad's in D.C. all week," he said as we climbed out, "so I get to use the garage. Parking's a bitch around here."I didn't know whether to roll my eyes or sympathize."Is your mom home?" I really didn't know how I felt about seeing Karina Romanova in her own home. Well,no.Truth: I was worried how she would feel about seeing me in it."Will she mind my being here?""Why would she?" Alex gave me an odd look as he pushed open a small door onto a wide brick patio. "But no, she's at the studio until midnight. It's just you,me,and the lacrosse team."I could see myself with amazing clarity in the huge glass wall that was the entire back of the house. I was small, dark, and frozen. "You're kidding, right?"Next to mine, Alex's reflection looked twice as big and ust as still. "You're kidding. Right?"I nodded. Clearly not emphatically enough."Christ,Ella. Who do you think I am?"I sighed. Honestly, I didn't know. "I think you're probably a terrific guy, Alex. But let's be truthful here.We don't really know each other.""Oh,come one.We've gone to school together for two and a half years. I've been to Marino's..." He stopped. Sighed. "Okay.Fine.So let's change it. Now." And he unlocked the door to his house.”

“They came in to look. I watched them. Most people go through museums like they do Macy's: eyes sweeping the display, stopping only if something really grabs their attention. These two looked at everything. They both clearly liked the bicycle picture. Yup, Dutch, I decided.He was a few steps ahead when he got to my favorite painting there. Diana and the Moon. It was-surprise surprise-of Diana, framed by a big open window, the moon dominating the sky outside. She was perched on the windowsill, dressed in a gauzy wrap that could have been nightclothes or a nod to her goddess namesake. She looked beautiful, of course, and happy, but if you looked for more than a second, you could see that her smile had a teasing curve to it and one of her hands was actually wrapped around the outside frame. I thought she looked like she might swing her legs over the sill and jump, turning into a moth or owl or breath of wind even before she was completely out of the room. I thought she looked, too, like she was daring the viewer to come along. Or at least to try.The Dutch guy didn't say anything. He just reached out a hand. His girlfriend stepped in, folding herself into the circle of his outsretched arm. They stood like that, in front of the painting, for a full minute. Then he sneezed.She reached into her pocket and pulled out a tissue.He took in and, without letting go of her, did a surprisingly graceful one-handed blow. Then he crumpled the tissue and looked around for a trash can. There wasn't one in sight. She held out her free hand; he passed over the tissue, and she stuck it right back into her pocket. I wanted to be grossed out. Instead, I had the surprising thought that I really really wanted someone who would do that: put my used Kleenex in his pocket. It seemed like a declaration of something pretty big.Finally,they finished their examination of Diana and moved on.There wasn't much else, just the arrogant Willings and the overblown sunrise. They came over to examine the bronzes.She saw my book. "Excuse me. You know this artist?"Intimately just didn't seem as true anymore. "Pretty well," I answered."He is famous here?""Not very.""I like him." she said thoughtfully. "He has...oh, the word...personism?""Personality?" I offered."Yes!" she said, delighted. "Personality." She reached behind her without looking. Her boyfriend immediately twined his fingers with hers. They left, unfolding the map again as they went, she chattering cheerfully. I think she was telling him he had personality. They might as well have had exhibit information plaques on their backs: "COUPLE." CONTEMPORARY DUTCH. COURTESY OF THE ESTATE OF LOVE, FOR THE VIEWING PLEASURE (OR NOT) OF ANYONE AND EVERYONE.”

“I like your hair," he said quietly, "but I think you'd look good whatever you did with it."Here's the thing.He looked like he meant it, and like it had been the most natural thing in the world to say. I blinked at him."Okay," I said. "You want to know something about me that I don't really want to tell you? How about this. I dont get it.This.I hate that I don't. I wish I were the kind of girl who took guys like you as my sovereign right in life. But I don't.""Yeah,I've sorta figured that out,too." He let go of my hair and put his hand on my waist, so his thumb was against my skin. I shivered. "Here's my first reveal for the night. One day, not so long ago, I'm just sitting in the dining room, digesting, minding my own business-literally. Trying to decide whether the second hamburger had been such a good idea and whether to break up with my girlfriend of a year and a half. Then I try to stand up, and suddenly there's this really pretty girl doubled over and looking at my book like it was covered with crap-""I wasn't.""Yeah.You were. So there you were, with that amazing face and a yard of hair that smelled like flowers, and all this stuff drawn on your jeans. I really liked that.""You liked my jeans.""Among other things.But, jeez, Ella. After that, if you weren't making me feel like I had the IQ of a stone, your friends were looking at me like I'd crawled out from under one. I won't even go into what you obviously think of my friends.""Chase Vere is a reptile.”