Page 58 of Touch the Sky
I whip my head around and spot Jacinthe emerging from where I must have missed her in one of the bigger groups of guests.
As soon as we lay eyes on each other, I feel my jaw drop.
Jacinthe stumbles to a halt a few feet away from us, her eyes flaring wide with disbelief.
Gabrielle bursts out laughing.
“Les filles, what is this?” she demands, looking back and forth between the two of us.
We’re wearing the exact same outfit.
There are some slight variations in colour and cut, but other than that, we’re a mirror image: dark leather dress shoes, black jeans, pressed button-downs, and brown houndstooth blazers.
“Did you…copy me?” I ask.
Her eyes narrow. She plants her hands on her hips.
“Didyoucopyme?”
Gabrielle continues to titter with laughter. “Mon dieu. This is something else.”
The door swings open behind us. Maddie and Natalie clamber out onto the deck.
They pause to take in the scene in front of them: Jacinthe still down on the lawn, standing in a face-off pose like a football player waiting to charge.
“Are you…matching?” Maddie asks.
“She copied me,” Jacinthe says, jerking her chin up at me.
“Hey, now! I didn’t even remember I owned this blazer until, like, yesterday,” I announce, “and I haven’t seen you all day.”
Natalie steps down off the porch so she can size us both up.
“Oh my god,” she says. “You two seriously wore the same outfit by accident. Brooke has to see this.”
She dashes into the crowd and returns a moment later with her girlfriend in tow.
“See!” she cries, pointing a finger at me and Jacinthe in turn. “They’re twinning!”
Brooke lets out a shocked laugh. “Wow, you weren’t joking. Huh. You two must be really in sync or something.”
Natalie slings an arm around Brooke’s shoulders. “Kind of like us.”
They’re both in blue tonight: Brooke in a navy cowl neck dress that makes her blonde hair look extra bright, while Natalie wears a sky blue collared shirt under a wool sweater, with some navy slacks that are the exact same shade as Brooke’s dress.
“We didn’t plan this either,” Brooke says.
The back of my neck heats at the insinuation that Jacinthe and I have a psychic connection, but I’m saved from having to say anything about it. Natalie gets the bright idea to have me and Jacinthe mirror each other’s movements to ‘see if anyone can tell us apart.’
We get a few laughs out of some other guests nearby as we wave our arms around in tandem. Then Maddie announces they’d better start getting everyone seated.
I find my place card—or rather, place leaf—across the table from the leaf with Jacinthe’s name. We’re a couple seats down from the head of one of the tables. I glance around at the other names and realize I’ve been placed right in the heart of the Balsam Inn owners’ circle with Maddie, Natalie, Brooke, and Gabrielle.
I figured I’d get a gap filler place since I’m here alone. There’s a strange tightness in my chest as I pull my chair out to sit among the most important people in Jacinthe’s life.
I do my best to shove the feeling aside. I’m just being dramatic. They must have put me here because I don’t know anybody else very well yet.
Jacinthe, Maddie, and Natalie are all busy running around getting the meal started, but as the spots fill up, I’m joined by Natalie’s parents as well as her brother.
