“What does that have to do with anything?” I ask.
“Love triangles are a Lucy Keating staple! She’s never written a book without one,” Ava says authoritatively, holding the door to the shop open wide. “Now let’s go home before another perfect guy shows up and asks you to marry him this time.”
6
Nope
WHEN AVA drops me off in front of my house that night, I hear the unmistakable sound of boys being stupid coming from the kitchen. I walk in to find Sam headbanging along with air guitar fingers as a pot of water boils over on the stove, and Elliot drumming on a few pots with wooden spoons. He stops when he sees me and slowly lays the spoons down, watching me, his expression unreadable.
“Your water is boiling,” I say as I head to the fridge to grab a glass of water. Out of the corner of my eye I see Elliot reach over with one hand and turn down the burner. Then he speaks, but not to me.
“Your sister accepted a ride from a stranger this afternoon,” he says to Sam, his eyes still on me.
“Yeah?” Sam has stopped headbanging, and is opening a box of pasta to pour it in the pot. “Who?”
“Yeah,” Elliot says, hoisting himself up on the counter behind him with one swift movement and continuing to drum on his thighs. “Who?”
I take a cool sip of water from the glass. “Not that it’s either of your business, but his name is Will Hale, and he just moved here from Hawaii,” I say.
“Hawaii?” Sam says as though he’s interested. But then he just says, “Sounds lame.” He and Elliot burst into laughter and high-five.
“For your information,” I tell them, “he’s not lame at all. He’s great. And he surfs, too. Without getting sand all over his car.” The instant this last statement comes out of my mouth, I regret it. First of all, it’s a stupid statement, and second of all, I’m digging into Elliot harder than usual, but I’m sick of his crap. My cheeks burn as I take another sip of water. Elliot is stirring a pot of tomatoes, but I can see the slightest twist of a smile on his face as he studies the pan.
“Okay,” Sam says in his way that means Who cares?, “maybe we can take him out some time, show him the way it works in Venice. I gotta wiz.” He walks down the hall, and I can’t place it, but I am suddenly feeling awkward in this kitchen with Elliot. Elliot, who saw me projectile vomit at Disneyland when we were ten. Elliot, who knew when I got my period for the first time. I study his back, his loosely muscled shoulders, the place where his T-shirt stops and the smooth skin of his neck begins.
“Hey,” Elliot says then, turning around quickly, deliberately, and I feel caught, like I have to explain myself.
“What?” I say defensively.
In response, Elliot’s eyes widen. “What nothing,” he says. “I was just gonna mention, if you will calm down for three seconds, that Paper Girl is playing at The Wiltern tomorrow night. I’m not going—we have band practice—but I thought I’d let you know.”
I roll my eyes. “Thank you for the enthusiastic invitation,” I say, “but I’m already going anyway.”
Elliot blinks at me, and he turns back around to the stove. “Anytime,” he says.
I take a few minutes to walk to the sink, place my glass in it, and head upstairs. I realize I’m waiting for him to ask who I’m going with, but he doesn’t, and for some reason this only infuriates me more.
I’m sitting at my desk in Fiction class, considering the two major problems complicating my academic performance. Problems that, for once, I have no idea how to solve.
The first is that, despite all attempts, I am still useless at creative writing, and I am about to turn in yet another assignment that I hate. Epstein asked us to take a group of objects in our house and use them to tell a story. We could pick anything. I chose the contents of the produce drawer in our refrigerator, which seemed unexpected. But as I stared at the single tomato, bag of kale, and six clementines set in front of me on the kitchen island, all I could come up with was a story about shopping for groceries, where absolutely nothing interesting happened.
The second unfortunate issue is that directly to my right, gazing at me unapologetically out of the corner of his left eye, is Will. This doesn’t sound like a problem, true, but it is when class participation may be all one has to get a decent grade, and one can’t participate if one can’t pay attention, and one can’t pay attention with someone as cute as Will staring at them all the time.
“You’re a published author, too, aren’t you, Miss Epstein?” Maya asks. “Can’t you tell us about your process?” I turn my attention back to the front of the class, where everyone is scrambling to ask more questions about what it’s like to write a book, having been so inspired by Lucy Keating’s talk yesterday.
Epstein flushes, a hand coming up to her cheek. She wears stacks of bracelets up each arm, and I’ve never seen her without them. They click and clack with her every movement.
“I do write my own series, but they aren’t exactly appropriate for this age group.” She hesitates.
“Why not?” someone asks, but I’m too busy catching Will’s eye again to focus on who.
“I honestly shouldn’t say.” Epstein sighs. “I publish under a pseudonym. Let’s just leave it at that. But I suppose I can talk to you a bit about how I work, if you’d like that?”
What Epstein doesn’t realize is we all already know. We’ve always known. The whole school does. She writes bodice-ripper romance novels under a fake name, but nobody has ever been able to figure out which one. A group of freshman boys devoted their entire spring semester to it last year. But to our great surprise, Epstein covers her tracks well.
Will passes me a pen, which is confusing at first, since I didn’t ask for one, until I see a thin piece of paper rolled around it like a scroll. It reads:
THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT. IF YOU COULD REFRAIN FROM LOOKING SO GOOD IN ALL CLASSES SHARED WITH WILL HALE, IT WOULD BE APPRECIATED. HE IS TRYING TO GRADUATE.—SIGNED, THE OFFICE OF THE WELL-BEING OF WILL HALE
I set the note down, a tingling feeling bubbling up through my chest and spreading out through my shoulders and neck. It’s awesome and horrible at the same time.
Without hesitating I turn the note over, and write a message back, sucking in my cheeks to keep from grinning.
Annabelle Burns will attempt to comply with the advisement as long as Will Hale ceases to stare at her with his irresistible grin.
Do you agree?
—The Office of the Sanity of Annabelle Burns
I wrap the note and, using all my willpower, hand it back to him without meeting his eyes.
Less than a minute later the pen lands on my desk again, and when I open it, I have to fight my limbs from doing a happy dance. All it says is this: