Bookish Boyfriends Page 20

  “Dig out some masks from the trunk, will you?” he asked.

  Toby only made it four pages of Pow! Bam! Crack! before the eyes behind his superhero mask began to yo-yo up and down. By page six, they stayed shut, and I swapped his book for my own. I tried to read with the same punchy cadence, but it was hard to add Zip! Slam! to scenes about Jane catching a cold while visiting Bingley at Netherfield and Lizzy having to go act as nursemaid.

  Once I was sure he was definitely asleep, this nursemaid was ready to find her own bed. I carefully removed his mask and tugged a blanket over him, then paused to check the math homework on his desk—pulling a my mom and asterisking the ones he needed to redo. I could’ve done my own problem set at the same time, but lingering in his room while he was sleeping felt creepier. I’d do mine in the morning while eating breakfast. At least, that’s what I told myself while I put on PJs and brushed my teeth.

  But instead of opening Hannah’s book and seeing what the space crew was up to, or rescuing Blake from the dust bunnies beneath my bed and finishing Fall with Me, I opened my laptop and began to type up my first Pride and Prejudice reaction journal:

  It is a truth universally acknowledged that being a middle child comes with its own set of challenges. Well, maybe not “universally,” but it’s known to me and Lizzy Bennet and all the other middlers of the world. Like Lizzy, I’m bracketed by sisters: an older one who feels controlled by others’ expectations and a younger one who seems to get away with anything. Stuck in the middle—well, my job is . . .

  I typed until my eyes started to go blurry. When my phone buzzed on the desk beside me, I picked it up, grateful for a distraction that saved me from myself, because my navel-gazing had started to feel like a belly-button-lint excavation. There was a difference between writing all the ways I identified with the main character and using the journal as a therapy session where I identified as the main character.

  Maybe after reading the journal entry, Ms. Gregoire would rethink the punishment. Or refer me to health services. One or the other.

  I rubbed at my eyes, shut the lid of my laptop, and read the text. How’s the patient?

  My eyes flicked to Toby’s darkened windows before I responded. Who is this?

  Fielding Williams.

  Funny how having his name on the screen changed the tone in which I read his first question. From curious to gruff. Begrudging. Like he was frustrated by having to ask. I wondered why he had—except: dark windows. Toby had medded and bedded. So Fielding Williams was stuck with me. I typed: Ambulatory. Mostly. I think he’s planning on school tomorrow.

  Excellent. Thanks.

  I didn’t want him to have the last word, but I wanted something wittier than you’re welcome. I wanted something that would make him spend the rest of the night feeling inferior to my cleverness. I typed and backspaced. Typed again. Until the pressure of minutes ticking past on the clock felt more pressing than wit. Gah. And I knew he’d have the three dots on his screen. A dead giveaway that I was being an angsty try-hard. I gave up and sent: Have a good night.

  I watched my phone for the dots that would indicate he was typing back—because, really, common courtesy dictated a “you too.” And then I could walk away and pat myself on the back about being civil. Maybe even reward myself with some midnight ice cream. But there were no dots on the screen. And after four minutes of watching and waiting for them to appear, my posture was hunched, my grip on the phone was knuckle cracking, and my lip was chewed like a German shepherd puppy’s squeaky toy.

  I tossed the phone onto my bed. Fine. He could just be like that. I didn’t care. But since I was now wide awake, I might as well do my math homework. And really, there’s nothing like sheer irritation to fuel calculations. By the time I’d completed the last factorial, I was beyond ready for sleep. But when I went to plug my phone in, I saw I’d missed a text.

  Even though I’d just put on lip balm, I pressed my face into my pillow to hide the rogue grin that I couldn’t stop from stretching my cheeks. I rolled over and peeked at the screen again. Yup, it really did read: You too. Sweet dreams.

  27

  There was no one around when my alarm went off Thursday morning. Well, no one but Rory. It was like the scene in Home Alone where Kevin realizes he’s been left behind while everyone else went off to Paris. Except substitute Kevin for me and Paris for Haute Dog. Which is kinda, sorta, not exactly French.

  Clearly Mom and Dad and Lilly had forgotten that I don’t have a license or a car—and that Toby was currently hobbling on crutches. So even if Rory and I could make the trek to school—he couldn’t. Either that or they’d assumed Eliza’s current grad student, Nancy, was driving us. Maybe/definitely because I’d told them she was? And then forgotten to follow up and tell them she couldn’t when I found out Eliza had a dentist appointment.

  “No big,” Toby said—after I’d climbed down my balcony, up his, and then traipsed through his super-white house to find him in his super-white kitchen drinking cranberry juice that looked like it was begging to be spilled on the alabaster countertops so it could drip down the cabinets and pool like melted rubies on the tile floor. “You and Rory can ride with me and Fielding.”

  Oh, he was wrong. It was a big. A very big. I’d already endured my yearly quota of Fielding, and I wasn’t going to voluntarily get in his car again. Plus, his “sweet dreams” text was burning a hole through my iPhone.

  “I think I’ll walk,” I said. “It’s nice out.”

  “Oh, really?” Toby tilted his head toward the kitchen’s picture window and the raindrops starting to polka dot the flagstone patio outside.

  “Hello?” Rory ducked her head in the front door. “Merri? Toby? Anyone?”

  “In here,” he called.

  She toed off her shoes and stepped inside. “Oh, phew. I was starting to worry that everyone had forgotten me.”

  Whoops. It’s possible that I’d climbed out my balcony while she was still in the shower.

  “No worries! We’ve got you. Juice?” Toby held up his glass and pointed with a crutch to the cabinet where she could find one of her own. Not that Rory drank juice. But from the radiant smile she aimed his way, you’d have thought he’d offered her a kidney. Hmm. Perhaps there was some present tense to her kiddo-crush on him after all.

  “Um, I would, but—I think Fielding’s here?” She nodded out the door toward the car idling in his driveway.

  “Great.” Toby leaned back against the counter as he tried to figure out how to handle his cup and his crutches. I jumped up to intervene before the kitchen turned into a splash spectacle. “Can you tell him we’ll be right out?”

  “I’m—” My cheeks grew hot. Sweet dreams. Two words and Fielding had me itchy and bashful. Probably on purpose. “I’m still going to walk.”

  “No you’re not,” he answered. “Because you’re going to carry my backpack, and I don’t want it wet.”

  “Fine, but—but I get to pick our next movie night movie.”

  Toby laughed as he crutched out the door. “So, something new and different? Did I miss the part where I ever get to pick?”

  I followed with both our bags and some serious misgivings.

  Toby grimaced as he booty-scooted into the backseat, trying to hold his knee as still as possible. I stood uselessly, holding his crutches with one hand, while I held the other extended in some awkward pose of I’d help if I knew how. Rory walked around the car and took the seat beside him. That left me and shotgun. And the complete mystery of which version of Fielding I’d be facing this morning. The one who snarked about recycling and politics and felt I wasn’t worthy of his school? Or the one who wished me sweet dreams?

  I mean, what if that text had been sarcastic? And eleven letters didn’t make up for a week of rude. It probably was sarcastic, seeing as how I wasn’t tempting to him and all that.

  The passenger door cracked; Fielding was leaning across the seat to push it open from the inside. “Get in. Unless you’re planning to get in t
he backseat so you can smell him too?”

  “Smell me?” Toby tugged the crutches from my hand and tossed them on the floor, then shut the door.

  I sighed and settled into shotgun. So, based on the fact that he’d decided to go with making fun of me before “hello”—it was probably a safe assumption that the text had been mocking as well.

  I clipped my seat belt and spat out, “I already know what Toby smells like.” I swear if there were a book of bad comebacks, I’d be the author. It’d be multiple volumes, but people would die of secondhand embarrassment before they finished the first chapter.

  “I feel like there’s a story here.” Toby laughed. “So what do I smell like?”

  “Licorice.”

  Rory said “Mint” at the same time, and he laughed louder.

  “The toothpaste will last about ten minutes. Then Rowboat’s got to be right.”

  “Of course I am.” The implication that I might not be was insulting. “Too bad it tastes disgusting, because I kinda like the way you smell. Or maybe I’m just used to it.” It was the smell of Saturdays in PJs, pillow forts, movie nights, bike rides, campouts, and rooftop talks.

  I glanced at Fielding. He was scowling at the steering wheel, the windshield, the road beyond. I glanced in the backseat: Rory was scowling at me too—so status quo—and Toby was fiddling with his knee brace, a smile on his face. I wondered if he abstained from licoricing while dating. If not, had his past girlfriends found the taste of secondhand licorice tolerable? I grimaced at the thought, turning forward again. Fielding was in my peripheral vision, but I refused to look at him. What did he taste like?

  Gah! Had I really just thought that? My brain was such a traitor. I turned my red cheeks toward the window.

  Rory broke the silence by clearing her throat. “Thanks for driving us. My parents are already at their store. I think they’re trying to figure out some sort of Hail Mary play to be able to afford next year’s tuition . . . and, you know, food.”

  Rory was such a Lydia. Maybe that’s what I’d write my next Pride and Prejudice response journal about. How Lizzy Bennet and I both knew the frustration of having little sisters and all the ways they humiliate you. For example, please, Rory, by all means, discuss our family’s money problems in front of the Snob King. He’d probably love reporting that to his dad: Good news, we might be rid of the Campbells after all! And even though he probably knew we were scholarship kids, him hearing that we were scrambling to pull together tuition money made my cheeks burn.

  I shot her a look. “It’s not that bad.”

  “Clearly you didn’t hear about the latest wedding plans. Some fancy orchestra. And a live dove release. To symbolize peace or whatever.”

  “You can’t be serious,” I said. That was so cheesy and dramatic—so not Lilly.

  “Why stop at doves?” suggested Toby. “When there are so many other cool animals you could unleash on your wedding guests. Turtles for patience. Skunks—tolerance. Spiders for courage, because they’re freaking terrifying.”

  “Your family runs a pet shop,” said Fielding as he turned off our street. “Are people truly worried about their feelings on peace?”

  I straightened my shoulders at the disdain in his voice. “It’s not a ‘pet shop,’” I snapped. I was proud of Haute Dog and what my parents had built. But that didn’t mean I hadn’t endured plenty of elementary school playground teasing throughout the years. They should’ve called it “Ugly Dog”—then they could sell you. I sat up a little taller; I wasn’t seven years old anymore. If Fielding wanted to dish it out, I could serve it up too. “It’s a specialty dog boutique.”

  “You’re missing my point,” Fielding said. “Why would anyone care about their feelings on peace? What could they possibly do? Let snakes out? Force cats and dogs to cohabitate?”

  “Ooh,” Toby called from the backseat. “Snakes for flexibility—Lilly would love that.”

  I ground my teeth. “We don’t have snakes or goldfish or cats. Dog boutique.”

  “Maybe you should sell those things.” He was maddeningly calm as he continued his lecture. “If you diversified, you’d expand your customer base. Make it Haute Dog and Cat-sup. Double the clients.”

  The hair on the back of my neck prickled. I wanted to yank up his emergency brake and shake him. (And while I was shaking him, lean in to see if he smelled as stupidly good when not post-workout). “How do you know the name of my parents’ store?”

  “Is it supposed to be a secret?” The edges of his mouth pressed in and he lifted an eyebrow. “That could be your problem right there. Hard to get business in a secret store. Perhaps some advertising is in order.”

  I gave a slow clap. “Please continue to mansplain everything wrong with my family’s business. Clearly we should’ve hired you as a business consultant. Because it’s all sooo easy to fix. It has nothing to do with the big-box pet store that opened. Or rising rents. Good thing you’re so smart and didn’t even have to visit the store to tell us how to run it.”

  Fielding was quiet for the length of two blocks. Finally he said, “I meant to be funny. Clearly I misjudged. I apologize.”

  “Oh.” I glanced in the backseat, where Rory and Toby were both watching us with wide eyes and shoulder nudges. It was possible I was a wee bit sensitive about all things financial, because the second half of my Pride and Prejudice response journal had been comparing the Bennet sisters’ financial situation—with all their father’s money set to be inherited by an odious male cousin, Mr. Collins—to my own feelings of guilt about how the Hero High bills were keeping my parents up at night.

  Just like Lizzy and Jane feel pressured to marry well—i.e. rich—so that they won’t be a burden on their parents, I feel like I need to justify the money my parents are spending on tuition. Like, I should get the very most I can out of the Hero High experience and everything it has to offer. But I’m not sure what that looks like yet. . ..

  I chewed my lip and looked over at Fielding. “Maybe I overreacted. I’m sorry too.”

  This led to another two blocks of front-seat silence, but at least Toby and Rory had started to chatter. I surreptitiously watched Fielding; he gave his complete attention to the road, but at stop signs he switched it—completely—to me for a half second. And even in that brief an interval, it was breath-stealingly intense.

  At the last stop sign before school, he swallowed and said, “I have a dog.”

  “What? Seriously?” I conjured up images of Hungarian vizslas, Rhodesian ridgebacks, English pointers. Something aristocratic, finely boned. Something you’d see in an antique painting of men in top hats. “What kind?”

  “He’s a basset hound.”

  My mouth dropped open. Basset hounds were the Winnie the Pooh of the dog world. Everyone liked a basset hound. They were charming and patient and goofy-looking. This was his dog? I leaned on the center console. “You have never been as interesting to me as you are in this moment.”

  He gave a curt laugh. “Thanks?”

  Toby cut off his conversation with Rory to interject, “Man, is his dog fat and lazy, though. He could give Gatsby a run for least obedient.”

  “He’s high-spirited!” Our identical protests overlapped as we defended our respective pets in eerie synchronicity.

  So eerie that we looked at each other, then immediately looked away and decided not to speak for the rest of the ride. Sure, we might have found common ground in our mischievous pups. Sure, we could’ve traded stories about the time Gatsby got his head stuck in the empty oatmeal cylinder and kept running into walls. Or how every time Dad washed the kitchen floor, Gats slid across it and slammed into the fridge. Or how he was scared of crumpled tissues. Plus whatever it was that Fielding’s dog did. But what was the point of common ground when neither of us wanted to stand there?

  I turned more firmly toward the window. I bet his dog wasn’t even that naughty.

  28

  Despite being a Monday after a completely forgettable Friday and a bo
ring run-work-homework weekend, it had been so close to a good day. It had started with Rory and me having a civilized breakfast, during which she let me help her with her math homework. We made it through five problems without fighting or her storming off. A new record. This was followed by a ride from Eliza’s grad student, Nancy, instead of Fielding, during which Eliza announced that Her! Parents! Might! Be! Coming! Home! The exclamation points faded as she clarified it was just for a visit. I squeezed her hand and forced the punctuation on my But! Still! until she was smiling again.

  Hannah had brought me the second Spectacular Starfleet book. Ms. Gregoire had praised the Pride and Prejudice response journal I’d handed in last Thursday and was excited to read the one I’d handed in today—which focused on Mr. Collins and Monroe (though I was discreet enough not to name him by name):

  Lizzy had the intelligence to reject Mr. Collins’s super-awkward marriage proposal, despite the financial security he would’ve provided for her family. I wish I were more like Lizzy, because I shouldn’t have dated the first Hero High boy I met. . . . I bet the next time Lizzy faces a proposal, she’ll say yes. Maybe it’ll be that charming soldier, Wickham, the one who hates snobby Mr. Darcy. I bet it’ll be swoonily romantic. Hopefully the same is true for me too!

  I made it through five periods with no drama, no exes popping up on my messenger window, no pop quizzes, no embarrassing wardrobe malfunctions. And Eliza and Toby had kept their quarreling to a tolerable level. Heck, after five days of Monroe’s nonstop texts requesting/begging/demanding I talk to him, even he had responded FINE to my latest unwavering No.

  But as media class ended and we packed up to head to Convocation, an office aide knocked on the door. She had a whispered conversation with Mr. Welch, which ended with him pointing to me. The thin-lipped redhead headed to my table, giving me a smugly superior smile as she handed me a folded piece of paper. One she’d clearly taken the liberty of unfolding and reading.