Modern Lovers Read Online Free

raining, and trying to get a cab in the rain in Ditmas Park was like trying to hail a polar bear. It just wasn’t going to happen. Zoe sat in the driver’s seat of their Honda, idling in the driveway. They had twenty minutes to get there. Jane had taken the night off, which meant that she was probably standing in their kitchen instead of the restaurant’s kitchen, on the phone ordering twenty pounds of heirloom tomatoes from a purveyor in New Jersey, chewing on the end of a penuntil it looked like the gnarled root of a tree. The radio was tuned to NPR, which Zoe wasn’t in the mood for, and so she hit the button to find the next station, and the next. She stopped when she heard the chorus to “Mistress of Myself” and Lydia’s signature shrieking. It was a good song, sure, but really it had just been the right song at the right time, sung by the right mouth.
    At Oberlin, Lydia hadn’t been anything special. She was a little doughy, like most of them, a few new layers of fat added by the cafeteria food, the soft-serve ice cream and Tater Tots they ate at every meal. They’d all been in the same dorm, South, which was across campus from where most of the freshmen lived, but housed lots of conservatory students. When her parents dropped her off, Zoe had watched a girl and her mother maneuver a full-size harp up the staircase. But Zoe and her friends weren’t musicians, not compared to the conservatory kids, all prodigies who’d been chained to their instruments since birth. Zoe could play piano and guitar, and Elizabeth had been taking guitar lessons since she was ten. Andrew was a rudimentary bass player at best. Lydia was supposed to be their drummer, but she didn’t have a drum set, just a pair of sticks that she would bang against whatever was closest. Back then, her hair was brown and wavy, like the rest of the girls’ from Scarsdale. Of course, once Lydia became Lydia, she wasn’t from Scarsdale anymore.
    Zoe heard some shouting from the house. She shut the radio off and rolled down the window. Ruby and Jane both hustled out the front door, Ruby in the white fringe dress and Jane in a mask of disbelief.
    â€œAre you kidding me with this?” Jane said, poking her head into the passenger-side window.
    â€œMom, God, it’s just a
dress
,” Ruby said, slumping into the backseat.
    â€œThat is definitely not an entire dress.” Jane let herself collapse into the seat, her heavy body rocking the small car as she pulled thedoor shut and buckled her seat belt. She spoke without turning to face Zoe. “I can’t believe you agreed to let her wear that.”
    â€œI’m right here, you know,” Ruby said.
    Jane kept staring straight ahead. “Let’s just go. I can’t even.”
    Zoe put the car in reverse. She caught Ruby’s eye in the rearview mirror. “We’re so excited for you, sweetie.”
    Ruby rolled her eyes. It was an involuntary gesture, like breathing, an automatic response to whatever her mothers said. “I can tell,” she said. “You could always just drop me off with Chloe’s family, they’re going to the River Café for dinner.”
    â€œThe River Café isn’t what it used to be,” Jane said. “Those stupid Brooklyn Bridge chocolate cakes. It’s for tourists.”
    â€œI know,” Ruby said, and turned to look out the window.
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    W hen they got to the school, Jane hopped out and switched places with Zoe—someone was going to have to circle the block to find a parking spot, and they both knew that Ruby would have a meltdown if she had to drive past her school three hundred times before going inside. All the seniors and their families were milling around in front and in the lobby, everyone dressed like they were going to the prom. Whitman didn’t have a prom, of course—that was too square, too suburban. Instead