The Pretty One(29)

“Guess what else?” I call out a couple of minutes later as I turn my back to the view and peer through the screen into the living room.

“What?” Simon says, rounding the corner with the tea. He has taken off his glasses.

“Marybeth called Lucy and said she ran into George Longwell at the market. She said he wants to ask me out.”

Simon walks directly into the door, causing the tray with the tea to spill on the floor.

“Are you okay?” I ask, opening the door.

“I’m fine,” he says. “I just, well, didn’t see the screen. It’s a fine mesh.”

“Fine mess or fine mesh?”

Simon cracks up.

“Where are your glasses?” I ask, following him back into the kitchen.

“I just don’t feel like wearing them,” he says. “They’ve been bugging me.”

I take a towel from him and use it to dab at the tea stain on his shirt. Simon stops laughing. There’s something in his eyes, a look…a spark that makes me wonder once again if my bra strap is exposed. I turn away from him and head back to deal with the carpet.

“I hope this doesn’t stain,” I say, soaking up the tea with the towel.

“I don’t care about the carpet,” he says quietly, kneeling beside me. “About this George thing. Do you think you might be interested in him?”

It’s the tenderness in his voice that makes me realize that my day has just become worse. Is Simon trying to impress me or something? Is that why he keeps taking off his glasses? Because he thinks he looks better without them? I get a pit in my stomach just thinking about it.

“Of course not,” I say, annoyed. I can’t deal with this lunacy right now. My day has been awful enough as it is. I go back into the kitchen and rinse my towel out in the sink. “So where’s your mom?” I ask. I’m desperate to lighten things up a bit and get back on the we’re-just-friends track. What better way than a mention of good old mom?

“Palm Beach,” Simon says. He’s followed me back into the kitchen and is leaning up against the doorway, watching me as I rinse the towel out in the sink. “I have the place to myself for a couple weeks. I’m flying down to visit her this weekend, but maybe next weekend we can do something,” he says. “Order in dinner and watch a movie or something.”

“Only if you promise to wear your glasses,” I say.

Simon starts to laugh and I can tell he thinks I’m joking. But I’m not. And just to let him know I’m serious, I pick his glasses up off the counter and put them on his face. He starts to take them off, and I grab them and try to hold them on, and he is saying “No, really,” and I’m yelling “No, really,” and we each have both hands on his glasses, which is not an easy thing to do, and finally I say, “Simon, I’m going to pinch you!” and then he stops fighting because if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s pinching.





nine

ad-lib (verb): to improvise.

There are some days when it just seems like the stars are lined up against me. And today is turning into one of those days. First, my mom had to be at work early so she wasn’t there to make certain Lucy and I didn’t sleep through our alarm. (Which we did.) Then, I put on my brand-new blue shirt from the Gap and discovered that it had a big stain smack on my boob from paint that I had dripped on it during production class last week, and finally, Annie called from the school and said she heard it was official: Drew Reynolds was to be the director of the spring musical. Call me an eternal optimist, but as I arrive at school, I’m still not ready to lock myself in my room and call it a day. As I finish climbing the marble staircase, I see something that makes me question my optimism. George Longwell is standing in front of my locker, waiting for me.

The sight of him makes me choke on my charcoal toast. I do the only thing I can think of. I turn on my heel and head right back down the steps.

But it’s too late. He’s already seen me. “Megan,” I hear him call. “Wait up.”

I stop at the landing, turn around, and open my eyes wide in mock surprise. “Oh hi,” I practically shout.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” he says, jumping down the steps, two at a time.

“Oh…Oh you were? Oh, wow. Yeah. How about that? I was going to go to my locker but then…”

But then what? I saw you and I thought how what I really wanted to do was run screaming in the other direction as fast as my feet would take me? “But then I realized I already have my pre-cal book.”

“I’ll walk you to class,” he says.

“That’s okay,” I say, quickly. He raises his eyebrows and it looks like (at least I think it looks like) he’s a little hurt. “I wouldn’t want you to be late on my account,” I say.

“It’s worth it,” he says. “Besides, I’m a senior. What can they do?”

“Ha-ha! Right!” I reply. And then even though I totally hate it when Lucy giggles, I hear myself make the same sound. Giggle. And then again. And again.

“A group of us are going to the Cross Street Market for lunch today and I was wondering if you wanted to come with.”

“Um, I can’t. I have…plans with Simon.”

“How about blowing old Simon off?”