“Seven,” he said, still smiling. “Seven’s great. I love seven. Okay. That’s a plan.”
“It’s a plan,” I echoed, smiling back at him, stopping myself before it became a full-on foolish grin, even though that was what I was feeling. I had a date tonight. Like, an actual date with a guy coming to the door and picking me up. And I’d technically had to ask him out, but who cared about that? Without meaning to, I found my eyes drifting down to his mouth. By the end of tonight, we might have kissed. I pushed the pad of paper back across to him. “It’s in Stanwich Woods,” I said, and he nodded but without any indication that he knew what that was. “So just tell the guard at the gatehouse that you’re coming to see me and they’ll let you in.”
“Great,” he said, ripping off the top piece of paper and folding it carefully in half before sticking it in the pocket of his light-blue T-shirt. We looked at each other for a long beat, both of us still smiling, and I realized I needed to get out of there before this nice moment turned awkward.
“Well, then, I’ll see you,” I said, as I started to back out of the kitchen, nearly tripping over Bertie, who was running back in, clearly wondering why neither one of us was chasing him around with a leash, “at seven.” I patted Bertie’s head, then glanced at the clock and realized that was in an hour and a half. I’d have to get moving.
“See you,” Clark echoed, and I gave him a quick nod before I turned and headed out, fighting the urge to do a little hop as I went.
I walked to my car, feeling like finally something was working out this summer. I may not have had a prestigious program to put on my résumé, but I had a date with a really cute boy, and if all went according to plan, we’d be kissing in a few hours. I pulled open the door to my car, already texting my friends.
ME
Date with Clark tonight!!!
Need prep help & reinforcements!!!
Then, not quite able to keep the smile off my face, I started the car and headed for home.
? ? ?
“You look great,” Palmer said from where she was sprawled across my bed. I was standing in front of my mirror, fussing with my hair, even though Palmer had already straightened it and told me not to touch it.
“I liked the other dress better,” Toby said from my computer screen. I was video chatting with her—and Bri, in theory, though Bri was in the middle of a fight with both her younger sister, Sonia, and her older sister, Sneha, so every few minutes she would storm off-screen, then return a while later looking vexed.
I hesitated, looking at my closet. “No!” Palmer said, seeing where I was looking. “Andie, no. This dress is great. Look, let’s ask a boy.” She snapped a picture of me before I could stop her and started typing on her phone—sending it to Tom, I assumed, though I wasn’t sure if he even counted, since whenever he weighed in, he was always careful to tell us that while we might look fine, Palmer definitely looked better.
I turned back to the mirror and smoothed down my hair. Palmer had walked over from her house only a few minutes after I’d gotten home and had been supervising the process ever since. We had gone through most of my clothes together, and we’d decided on a denim dress with flat black sandals and dangly earrings. I felt dressed up, but still like myself, and I had liked the outfit before Toby had weighed in. “What do you mean?” I asked, walking over to the computer.
“Eh,” Toby said from my screen with a one-armed shrug. “I just don’t know if it’s, you know, dynamic enough.”
“It’s great,” Palmer said, glaring at Toby. “Bri?” she called, but Bri didn’t appear in her window, and we were just looking at her Alien poster staring back at us.
“You think?” I asked, pulling down on the hem and tucking my hair behind my ears.
“Yes,” Palmer said firmly. Her phone beeped, and she glanced at it, then held it out to me. “And Tom agrees. He said you look, and I quote, ‘not bad.’?”
“That’s not really a great endorsement,” I said, glancing over at my screen, where Toby gave me an I told you so look. “Maybe I should try the other dress again?”
“No,” Palmer said, turning my computer screen around to face the wall while Toby yelped, “Hey!” “You seriously look great. And we don’t have time for you to change again.”
I glanced down at my phone and realized she was right. I looked back in the mirror and decided that I looked fine. After all, Clark been seeing me in my dog-walking clothes for a week. “Okay,” I said, letting out a long breath and then turning to Palmer. “Let’s do this.”
She nodded and rolled off my bed, pocketing her phone in her cutoffs. “Bye, Toby,” she called, and I leaned over to the screen and waved, seeing that Bri still hadn’t reappeared.