The Cousins

Aubrey and Milly shop for gowns for the summer gala at Kayla’s Boutique. As they try on dresses, they discover that the owner, Oona, is the younger sister of Kayla Dugas, Anders’s ex-girlfriend. Oona explains that “[Kayla] died when [Oona] was in high school” (269), and she named the boutique after her sister. She explains that she knew all of the Story siblings, although she was too young to hang out with them very much. Oona tells Aubrey that Kayla died 24 ago, and Aubrey realizes that Kayla died the same year the Story siblings were disinherited. She thinks again of Cutty Beach and that strange line in her father’s novel—“That’s where it all started to go wrong” (274)—and she wonders if something happened to Kayla there. As Aubrey shops for her dress, she is filled with dread at the thought of looking like “the frump in the corner making everyone whisper” (272) while Jonah and Milly look amazing as always. She hears the voices of her father and Thomas, who always make her feel insecure about how she looks. As she looks into the mirror, she feels like she’s “looking into a fun house mirror— a distorted image that doesn’t reflect reality” (278).