Pushing Perfect(24)

“Thanks for the warning,” I said, and tried to sound like I meant it.

“Happy to be of service.” His phone beeped. “Sorry, got to go. My boyfriend’s picking me up. I’ll see you around.”

It wasn’t long after Justin left that Alex texted back.

Mission accomplished. Where are you?

Bench outside, in the garden, I wrote back.

After a minute I saw her running around the side of the house, heels in her hands. She flew over to the bench and sat down.

“Where’s Bryan?” I asked.

“I sent him off to dance,” she said. Her red lip stain was mostly gone, I noticed, a little bit of it smeared on her cheek.

“Your lipstick has abandoned your lips.” I pointed to my cheek to show her where she had a smudge, and she rubbed it off with her thumb.

“Perils of Prospect hunting,” she said.

“I take it you had a good time?”

“Super fun. Bryan’s adorable. He might actually be kind of into me, though, so we’ll need to get out of here pretty soon. Don’t want to give him the wrong idea.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant—wasn’t it good for someone you’d just made out with to be into you?—but Alex seemed to know what she was doing.

“How about you? Everything all taken care of?”

“All set.” I didn’t tell her I hadn’t realized Raj was the Novalert guy and had mistaken his casual flirting for something else. Something tempting. It was just too embarrassing.

“Did you have fun with Raj? He likes to come off all slick, but he’s really kind of goofy and fun. And totally hot, right?”

“He’s cute,” I said. “Not my type, though.”

“Really? He’s not just cute; he’s a really good guy, too. What is your type?”

I didn’t really know what my type was, but I knew one thing. “My type is definitely not drug dealers, so that’s one thing we can cross off the list.”

“Oh, I don’t think of Raj as a dealer,” she said. “He just helps out his friends sometimes. No big thing.”

“Not to you, maybe. But you know how easy it is for people to get reputations. And rumors can travel. I can’t have anything interfering with college stuff. I have to get ready for the SATs and work on college applications. I haven’t even started yet. Have you?”

“Early action MIT app is in. I’ll hear in January, and I’m hoping that will be the end of it.”

“Lucky,” I said. “I wanted to go early at Harvard but I needed my scores before then.”

“Harvard!” she squealed. “That would be so great! We’d both be in Cambridge and we could hang out all the time. Let’s go get some food and strategize. I’m done with this party, and I’m starving.”

“Sounds like you worked up your appetite,” I teased.

“You have no idea,” she said.





10.


I felt a whole lot better about the SAT knowing I had my two little green pills waiting for me. In the weeks before the test there was hardly any anxiety at all; I was too busy trying to keep up with school and hanging out with Alex. It turned out hanging out with her did mean hanging out with her friends sometimes; we didn’t go to any more crazy parties, but I started sitting with Alex, Justin, and Raj at lunch, ignoring the dirty looks I got from the Brain Trust. Justin didn’t make any more cryptic comments about Alex’s crowd being dangerous, but I found myself wary of him anyway. He and Raj were really funny together, though, especially when they tried to outcharm each other. It was hard to believe they’d only known one another for a year; they acted like they’d been friends forever. Once in a while Bryan sat with us too, though he was still clearly a little moony over Alex, who treated him just like the other two.

Raj was pretty flirty, but I was starting to understand that he was like that all the time. It was almost like he wasn’t sure how to interact any other way. “It’s totally insecurity,” Alex told me once. “He has no idea how hot he is, so he feels like he has to try really hard.”

I wondered whether it was more that he hadn’t had a lot of friends who were girls. In a way, I was glad that he didn’t seem to be into me, or at least no more into me than he was anyone else. But a little part of me kind of wished he was, even though I knew he wasn’t someone I should like. Still, he was fun to hang out with. They all were. They were more entertaining than the Brain Trust, anyway.

As strange as it seemed, though, I had the most fun studying at Alex’s house, which I did at least once a week. It was nice having a real friend again, even if it would never be the same as it was with Isabel and Becca.

“Aren’t your parents getting sick of cooking for me?” I asked once. “We could always go to my house. It’s takeout central over there these days, though.” Now that Mom worked at Dad’s company, it was like they didn’t see much reason to ever come home.

“Are you kidding? They love you. They’re thrilled to see me hanging out with ‘such a smart girl.’” She deepened her voice to sound like her dad. “You made quite an impression.”

I wasn’t sure how; it wasn’t like I could get a word in edgewise when Alex and her dad were putting on their kitchen show. But I was happy to be there. It was easier than being at home—my dad’s new company had gotten its financing, but now they were full steam ahead toward the initial public offering, which meant my parents were either at work or talking about work. I wasn’t sure which was worse.