24

THE SONG GIRLS TAKE VALENTINE making very seriously. A valentine is humble and sweet and
sincere in its old-fashionedness, and as such, homemade is best. I have plenty of raw materials from
my scrapbooking, but in addition I’ve saved snippets of lace and ribbon and doilies. I have a tin with
little beads and pearls and rhinestones in it; I have antiquey rubber stamps, too—a Cupid, hearts of
all kinds, flowers.
Historically, Daddy gets one valentine from the three of us. This year is the first that Margot will
be sending one of her own. Josh will get one too, though I let Kitty take the lead on it and merely sign
my name under hers.
I’ve spent the better part of the afternoon on Peter’s. It’s a white heart, edged in white lace. In the
center I’ve stitched YOU’RE MINE, PETER K in pink string. I know it will make him smile. It’s
lighthearted, teasing; it doesn’t take itself too seriously, much like Peter himself. Still, it
acknowledges the day and the fact that we, Peter Kavinsky and Lara Jean Song Covey, are in a
relationship. I was going to make a much more extravagant card, big and beaded and lacy, but Kitty
said it would be a bit much.
“Don’t use all my pearls,” I tell Kitty. “It’s taken me years to build up my collection. Literally,
years.”
Pragmatic as ever, Kitty says, “What’s the point of collecting them if you don’t use them? All that
work so they can just live in a little tin box where no one can even see them?”
“I guess,” I say, because she does have a point. “I’m just saying, only put pearls on the valentines
of the people you really like.”
“What about the purple rhinestones?”
“Use as many of those as you want,” I say in a benevolent tone, much like a wealthy landowner to
a less-fortunate neighbor. The purple rhinestones don’t go with my motif. I’m shooting for a Victorian
look, and purple rhinestones are more Mardi Gras, but you won’t see me saying that to Kitty. Kitty’s
temperament is such that when she knows you don’t much value something, she grows suspicious of it
too and the appeal is lost to her. For a long time I had her convinced that raisins were my absolute
favorite, and she must never ever eat more than her share, when in actuality I hate raisins and was
grateful someone else was eating them. Kitty used to hoard raisins; she was probably the most regular
kid in kindergarten.
I’m hot-gluing white bric-a-brac around a heart as I wonder aloud, “Should we do a special
breakfast for Daddy? We could buy one of those juicers at the mall and make fresh-squeezed pink
grapefruit juice. And I think I saw heart waffle makers online for not very expensive.”
“Daddy doesn’t like grapefruit,” Kitty says. “And we barely use our regular waffle maker as it is.
How about we just cut the waffle into the shape of a heart instead?”
“That would look so cheap,” I scoff. But she’s right. There’s no sense in buying something we’d
only ever use once a year, even if it only costs $19.99. As Kitty gets older, I see that she is far more
like Margot than me.
But then she says, “What if we use our cookie cutter to make heart-shaped pancakes instead? And
put in red food coloring?”