Afterparty(49)

“And he’s not going to be aware of any guy. In the interest of me ever leaving my house again.”

“This is so medieval, Jules!”

“That’s me, bringing medieval times to the Sunset Strip.”

“What if I were your physics lab partner?” he says. “Could you get in your car and come over?”

I say, “You have a very limited understanding of the concept of medieval. You’re male and it’s not broad daylight.”

“Would it be broad enough daylight Friday after school?”

“The old going-to-the-Beverly-Hills-Library-when-I’m-really-someplace-else gambit.”

“You have this down to a fine art,” he says.

“I have to.”

“So. I’m the beneficiary of all your cloak-and-dagger with the French guy? I should thank him.”

He makes a face. He says, “Don’t look at me like that.” He hold his hands up to the screen. “Not trying to upset you. Very poor Skype strategy. But how do I get you out of your cell?”

Tell him, tell him, tell him.

I say, “I’ll think of something.”





CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR


MAYBE I’M THE ONLY PERSON on earth never to have picked up on this, but school with a boyfriend is completely different from school without one. It takes me a couple of days to realize this isn’t just the novelty effect. Dylan materializes next to me all the time. If I see him across the quad, there’s an obvious invitation to get over there.

It’s quite nice.

Even if people are shooting me odd and judgmental glances.

Siobhan says, “Don’t look now, Dorothy, but there’s a scarecrow and a tin man looking for you. It’s like you’re about to start singing with Toto.” She doesn’t say this as if it’s a desirable state of being, either.

“Excuse me, but whose idea was this, anyway?”

It’s as if I’ve developed amnesia where she’s concerned, where betrayal, being shot through the heart, and fury used to be. Now that I’m with him, all is forgiven. Almost.

“Can’t you just do it and get it over with? You’re so cutesy, it’s embarrassing.”

“It’s been two days. This is destined to be longer than a two-day relationship.”

“It’s a relationship?” Her head jerks back in a dramatic rendition of annoyance. “What about ‘quick in and out’ sounds like a relationship?”

“Unfair! I put up with you and how many guys?”

“At least nobody was lapsing into sugar shock because I was skipping around singing. Kahane, too. He was bad enough before. This is pathetic.”

I put my hand on her shoulder, but she pushes it away. I try to think of what I can say that will get her off this particular tangent and calmed down, and I say, “Sib, if I could do this stuff quickly, we wouldn’t need a list.”

Which has so little to do with why I’m with him, it’s ridiculous.

She says, “Could you at least show some restraint? You are way out of character.”

? ? ?

Next in line, we have Kimmy.

I am reading on the terrace by the publications suite when Kimmy comes up behind me, reeking ever so slightly of horse.

I say, “Hey, Kim, you here for newspaper?” Kimmy is the features editor, resulting in a column written from the perspective of Loogie, called “Horsing Around.” Kind of like Gossip Girl meets Mr. Ed, which for people whose dads don’t force them to watch classic TV with talking horses because classic TV is supposedly more wholesome than shows from, say, the twenty-first century, will make no sense. So if Mr. Ed means nothing to you, consider yourself lucky.

Kimmy, of course, knows who Mr. Ed is, and also National Velvet, My Friend Flicka, Misty of Chincoteague, and the Water Horse.

Kimmy says, “O-kay. You and Dylan?”

I say, “Uh,” which sort of gives it away.

“Oh. My. God.” Kimmy, sweaty in her jodhpurs and a dirt-streaked polo shirt, sniffs the air and frowns, I assume due to the fact that she needs a shower and not because of the me-and-Dylan thing. “Twenty-four-hour turnaround, why don’t you?”

This is the exact moment it occurs to me that this might not look good to people besides Siobhan. People who are somewhat reasonable.

And that beyond not looking good, it might not be good.

That twenty-four-hour turnaround with your best friend’s boyfriend might look, be, and feel weird because it is weird.

Kimmy looks devastated. “Okay, it’s none of my business and you know I have god?awful taste in men, but isn’t your other boyfriend in love with you? Think about the camellias. And the UN is heroic. It’s not like he’s in Afghanistan on vacation.”

Afghanistan?

“Kimmy, oh God, I just remembered something.”

Such as I might look like, or possibly be, a girl code violator of epic proportion. And that I need to go smack Siobhan.

She is on the hill, smoking in the rocks.

“Why is Jean-Luc in Afghanistan? First you stuck him in Africa as some kind of a joke. Well, ha-ha, five minutes later, he’s in Afghanistan! And what’s with the camellias?”

Siobhan says, calmly and slowly, as if talking to a child, “He’s on a UN mission in the Khyber Pass. You should be proud. And he’s been sending you camellias every Tuesday since Christmas.”