The Beginning of Everything(24)

“Yes! And the heavenly cherubs will play tiny ukuleles of joy and you will lay incense and coniferous fruits at my altar.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said dryly. “Coniferous fruits and goddess worship. Check.”

“That’s more like it!” Cassidy grinned.

“Oh, look over there,” Toby deadpanned, shooting me a sly glance. “It’s someone I suddenly feel the need to go bother.”

“I thought you were mad,” I said after Toby left.

“Like Hamlet, my madness is fleeting,” Cassidy in-formed me.

“No, I thought you were mad at me,” I clarified.

“Ezra, you’re being ridiculous. I’m over it. That’s what girls do; they get angry, and then they get over it. Haven’t you ever been friends with a girl before?”

Of course I hadn’t; I’d dated my fair share of them, but I’d never wanted to be friends with any of the girls in my old crowd. What would have been the point?

Maybe Cassidy was right—maybe it was only girlfriends who stayed mad at you. Still, there was something in her smile that I didn’t quite believe. But I accepted my good fortune, knowing better than to question it.





12


ONCE EACH SEPTEMBER, the teachers had a training day, and we got the day off. Junior year, Evan and Jimmy and I went down to Balboa, ate cheeseburgers on the boardwalk, and watched some terrible 3-D movie. But that year, I had totally forgotten about Teacher Development Day until the day before.

Unsurprisingly, Toby and the debate crew had a grand adventure planned; they’d purchased tickets to a show in LA called Spring Awakening, and Toby was trying without success to convince everyone to dress up as turn-of-the-century schoolboys.

“Really, you guys should come with us,” Phoebe said, when everyone sheepishly realized that Cassidy and I hadn’t been included in the original plan. “We bought our tickets over the summer, but you could still come even if you got seats in a different section.”

“That’s all right,” Cassidy said casually. “Ezra and I already have plans.”

This was news to me. Toby gave me a significant look, and I shrugged, having no idea what Cassidy was talking about.

“Yeah? You two going gleaning?” Sam asked, which made everyone except Cassidy crack up.

I should explain—“gleaning” is when you pick rotting and bruised crops, the stuff migrant workers leave behind in the fields because it’s not good enough to sell as produce. It’s actually a required field trip for eighth graders. They bus us over to the old ranch lands for the day, complete with a yearbook photographer, and it’s just as terrible as it sounds.

Toby quickly filled Cassidy in on what we were laughing about.

“You’re not serious,” Cassidy said. “Y’all had a field trip to pick rotting tomatoes? What about going to museums?”

“Yeah,” Toby said dryly. “Not so much. Welcome to Eastwood.”

On the way to third period, I asked Cassidy what she meant about our having plans. She was wearing a white lace dress with straps that wouldn’t stay put, and I couldn’t help but imagine running my hands over her shoulders, slipping the straps down.

“Oh that.” Cassidy shrugged. “I figure it’s the perfect time to start your training. You’re going to be my protégé, remember?”

“How could I forget?” I teased.

“Good.” Cassidy grinned. “Pick me up outside Terrace Bluffs at eight thirty tomorrow morning. And bring a backpack full of school supplies.”



SOMEHOW, EIGHT THIRTY on Wednesday morning felt horrendously early, as though my brain was convinced it should have the opportunity to sleep in on a day off. I yawned my way through a cup of coffee and joined the line of cars waiting to exit the Rosewood gates on their way to work.

When I pulled onto the shoulder outside Terrace Bluffs, Cassidy was sitting on the curb, fiddling with a pair of Ray-Bans. She wore jeans and a plaid button-down shirt, a navy blue backpack by her feet.

I’d been expecting another of Cassidy’s antique clothing concoctions, and this seemed out of character somehow. But even dressed normally, Cassidy was still someone you’d look at twice without quite knowing why. It was as though she was disguised as an ordinary girl and found the deception tremendously funny.

“I saw a coyote this morning,” she announced, climbing into the front seat. “It was in our backyard obsessing over the koi pond.”

“Maybe it just wanted a friend.”

“Or it was looking for a koi mistress,” Cassidy observed wryly.

It was a reference to a poem, I guessed, but I couldn’t place it. I shrugged.

“‘Had we but world enough and time,’” Cassidy quoted. “Andrew Marvell?”

“Right.” It sounded vaguely familiar, like something Moreno had put on an identification quiz back in Honors Brit Lit, but I wasn’t exactly a big poetry fan. “So where are we going?”

“Where we have no business being, other than the business of mischief and deception,” she said. “Just drive over to the University Town Center.”

So I did. And while I drove, Cassidy told me her theory about winning at debate tournaments. The most successful debaters (“I’d call them master debaters, but clearly you aren’t mature enough to handle that, Mister Smirkyface,” she teased) knew to reference literature and philosophy and history.