The Beginning of Everything(49)

I wondered what Cassidy’s bedroom looked like, if it encapsulated her in a way that mine didn’t. I wondered if it was anything like Charlotte’s bedroom had been, with ladybug figurines lining the windowsill and an entire desk just for her makeup collection, which apparently was called a vanity.

“How come we never go over to your house?” I asked Cassidy when I picked her up for school on Monday.

“Because we have a housekeeper,” she said, sighing. “And she’d tell my parents I have boys over when they’re not around.”

“Technically, I’m singular,” I said, nodding at the security guard as we drove past.

“All the more disastrous,” Cassidy assured me. “Trust me, it’s easier if you don’t come over. You’re not missing anything.”

“I guess,” I said, sensing that Cassidy wanted to drop the subject.

Cassidy took a sip of the coffee I’d brought.

“Have you ever tried a French press?” she asked. “I think you’d like it better.”



CASSIDY AND I went out to the movies on Friday night—a real date, at the Prism Center. She wore a nice dress, and I wore my new clothes, and we saw this awful comedy starring the same actors who always star in awful comedies.

Going to the movies always makes me strangely exhilarated when I exit the theater, surrounded by the smell of popcorn and everyone talking about the film. It’s as though everything is more vivid, and the line between the probable and the cinematic becomes blurred. You think big thoughts, like maybe it’s possible to move someplace exciting, or risk everything for a chance at your dreams or whatever, but then you never do. It’s more the feeling that you could turn your life into a movie if you wanted to.

I’ve never been able to explain to anyone what’s so holy about the moments after you exit a movie theater, so it surprised me when Cassidy smiled and said nothing until we reached the bottom of the escalator, leaving me to the perfect silence of my moment.

“It’s creepy,” she observed, slipping her hand into mine, “overhearing a hundred identical conversations.”

“Then we’ll be the one conversation that’s different,” I promised. “Tell me something that happened when you were a kid.”

Cassidy smiled, pleased.

“When I was seven, my best friend blew out the candles on my birthday cake. I cried because I thought my birthday wish wouldn’t come true. Now you tell me something.”

“Um,” I said, thinking. “In the second grade, Toby and I borrowed a bunch of plastic jewelry from his little sister and buried it in his mother’s flower bed. We wanted to dig up buried treasure, I guess, but we got in so much trouble. I had to sleep over in a different room, like the world’s longest time out.”

“I didn’t realize you’d been friends for such a long time.”

“Since kindergarten,” I said. “Alphabetical order. We had to share a cubby and everything.”

A couple of guys from school interrupted us then, to say hi. We stopped to chat about which movie we’d seen—it turned out to be the same one—and how it had sucked.

By the time we got away, we passed half of the girls’ water polo team, hanging out by one of the fountains. They waved, and I nodded back.

I didn’t really have a big romantic evening planned, but neither of us wanted to head home, so I offered to show her the castle park. It’s this great old playground with a huge concrete fortress built way back in the eighties, where I used to play when I was little.

On the drive over, Cassidy discovered that I’d never tried a Toblerone bar, which she deemed totally unacceptable, so we stopped off at the grocery store to buy some. While we were waiting to pay, what might possibly have been the entire varsity football team crowded into the checkout line behind us. They were buying two dozen cans of nonstick cooking spray.

It was so entirely magnificent that I was too stunned to laugh. Cassidy nudged me, grinning.

“Hey,” I said, turning around.

Connor, the quarterback, seemed surprised to see me—although not as surprised as I was to see the entire starting lineup dropping what had to be a cool fifty on cooking spray.

“Faulkner,” he acknowledged, and then nodded at Cassidy. “Lady friend.”

Connor was plastered, the stench of liquor radiating off him in waves. I hoped someone else was the designated driver.

“They make different flavors,” Cassidy said politely, nodding toward the cooking spray. “I don’t know if you’re aware.”

I stifled a laugh. It was all too bizarre. And the worst of it was that the cashier was some kid from school, possibly a junior. He looked terrified at the prospect of ringing up the football team’s purchase, and I didn’t blame him.

“Got it, thanks,” Connor said sheepishly, as though we’d caught him buying a bulk pack of tiny condoms. Honestly? That would have been less surprising.

I paid quickly and ushered Cassidy into the parking lot, where we laughed our faces off.

“What was that?” Cassidy asked, gasping.

“I’m not certain,” I said, “but I believe it may have been the starting lineup of our school’s football team purchasing twenty-four cans of PAM.”

“Oh my God,” Cassidy spluttered. “I’m dying.”