First & Then(45)

“Why would I do that? I always go with you.”

“I know, but—” I had told Lindsay I would sound him out. So I forged ahead. “I was supposed to—she wants to go with you. She told me. And anyway, I sort of…”

“Sort of what?” His smile widened. “Don’t tell me you already have a date.”

It was the way he said that word. Date. The hint of incredulity. Like the idea of me having a date was absurd.

“Yeah, actually. I do.”

“Who?”

“Ezra.”

The smile vanished. “Ezra?”

I had reached the cashier. I handed her a five and avoided Cas’s eyes.

“Uh-huh. He asked me.”

Cas recovered that easy smile, but I could tell he was troubled by the prospect as he paid. “So, what, are you guys, like, dating now or something?”

I shrugged. I didn’t really know if a Homecoming date meant the possibility of another date. But something about that look on Cas’s face, uncertainty tempered by that cocky smugness, made me want to tell all kinds of lies about me and Ezra.

I headed off to a table, and Cas was right on my heels. “When did you even start liking him? You said he was an *.”

“I got to know him better.”

“When?”

“I don’t know.” I dug into my lunch. “Maybe when you were spending all that time with Lindsay.”

“What does Lindsay even have to do with this?”

“You like her, right?”

Cas looked uncomfortable. “Yeah, I like her.”

“Then what are you doing asking me to Homecoming? If you really like somebody, you don’t go and take somebody else to a dance.”

“We always go together, Dev.”

“Yeah, well, that’s before we had … prospects.”

“Prospects? What does that even mean?”

“I don’t know.” I tore open a package of salad dressing and applied it vigorously to my salad. If this were Jane’s time, Cas would be Mr. Kincaid, and he would understand what I meant. “People we like. We’ve both got people we like.”

“So you do like Ezra.”

“Maybe.” I didn’t even know if this was true. But I wasn’t about to tell Cas that.

“Great.” There was a pause. “Well … maybe I will ask Lindsay.”

“Maybe you should.”

“Okay.” He looked at me for a second, as if daring me to change my mind, and then he picked up his tray and left.





24


The new assignment in freshman English was to compare a work of literature to its movie adaptation. It was the awesome kind of freshman comp assignment that I dearly missed. Freshman-year essays were the best. Senior year and all you’re left with is critical analysis and footnotes and works-cited pages. Heaven forbid you actually have fun with it.

A PT of the highest degree—I recognized her from gym class—came in for my “office hours” that next week. She was the one who had so eagerly claimed Ezra as her partner before Foster got the chance.

“Mrs. Chambers said you would read these,” she said, holding a sheaf of pages in front of my face.

“Sure. What, uh, what’d you compare?”

“Emma and Clueless.”

I blinked and looked up at her. “For real?”

“It said movie adaptation,” she said shortly. “It didn’t say which movie adaptation.”

I looked at the title page, which told me (1) that this girl’s name was Amanda Jeffers and (2) that Amanda Jeffers wasn’t messing around. The title could’ve been written by Rachel Woodson herself—Emma vs. Cher: Austen’s Heroine Transformed in Twentieth-Century America.

If I had a seat belt, I would’ve needed to buckle it. Amanda Jeffers took me on one wild literary ride. Her paper was well thought out, structured, clear, insightful. It was also seven and a half pages long, whereas the assignment called for only four.

I looked up at her after I finished. “Wow. You must really like to write.”

Amanda shrugged.

“This is really good.”

“What can I change?”

“I mean…” I had no idea. I couldn’t even criticize her formatting. I wouldn’t admit it out loud, but this paper was beyond me.

“I want an A,” she said, as if I hadn’t heard her. “So what can I change?”

“I would give you an A,” I said. “I wouldn’t change anything.”

“You can always change something. You can always do better.”

I looked down at the pages. “I guess … maybe you could condense the part about Emma’s reflections a little.”

She nodded curtly. “And?”

“And … you could integrate your transitions a little better?” This was something English teachers had always told me.

“Great.” She took her paper back, her lips pursed as she scratched some notes across the top. “Thanks.”

Then she picked up her backpack and left.




We went, Lindsay, Lauren, Maria, and I, to a mall in Gainesville the next weekend. The charming Miss Renshaw wasn’t exactly at the top of my hangout list, but at the same time, I knew I didn’t have any right to ill will against her. Cas had asked me instead of her, and I had turned him down. Part of me felt justified in doing so, but part of me felt exceedingly guilty, and still another part felt that irrational longing that accompanies any third-degree crush, that chronic “what if?” What if we did go together and this was the one singular night that would suddenly make him realize that he was in love with me, and I threw all that away just because Ezra Lynley asked me first?