Page 129 - What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

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SO . . . WHO is a Homely Wench?
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DAY WROTE about Luca, muscular and much-pierced Luca, and how that first
Eurovision they spent together his hair was the same shade of pastel mint as the
dress he wore. He and Thalia were a bit older, in their early twenties. By day he

sold high-fashion pieces: “Everyone wants to fly away from here but not
everyone can make their own wings . . . so they buy them from me . . .” By night
he was an unstoppable bon vivant, deciding what kind of buzz was right for that
night and mixing the pharmaceutical cocktail that had the least tortuous
hangover attached. He’d had nights so rough he could hardly believe he was still

alive: “But this can’t be the afterlife. Ugh, it can’t be.” Luca laughs long and
loud and his body shakes as he does so. He’s better at forgetting than forgiving;
he says this is the only thing about himself that scares him. Speaking of him
Day’s father says, “So . . . vulnerable,” at the same time as her stepdad says,
“Brazen!” Neither is quite right. When Luca was younger he got kicked out of
his parents’ house for a while; they’d hoped it’d make him less brazen, but it
didn’t—he stayed with friends and got brasher, and when he came home it was

like he took his family back into his heart rather than the other way around. Day
knew Pepper and Luca were together. She’d also heard that Luca liked to pursue
straight men. Thalia referred to this tendency as “Luca’s danger sport.” Pepper
said Luca’d be fine. “He’s got us.”

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OH, AND THALIA—DAY had to talk about T. Thalia’s aesthetic was the most
civilian (Pepper had learned the most from her YouTube makeup tutorials) and
Thalia was her full-time name. She was composed, reserved, she lived with an
older man none of her friends had met; the only reason her friends even knew
about the older man was because of a week when T had been ecstatic because
she’d sold five triptychs and received a really considered, insightful note about
them from the buyer. But then she found out the buyer was her boyfriend, so she

was furious for a couple of days, and then the fury mingled with elation again.
Luca argued that the boyfriend was merely investing in an artist who’d be
famous one day, and whenever Thalia heard this she said, “Care,” to indicate
that she didn’t. Thalia painted scenes onto mirrors, dramatic televisual two-shots