Wrong About the Guy(21)

There was a slight pause and then Riley said, “Um . . . because of Ellie?”

“Do you know him personally?” Arianna asked me eagerly.

“He’s her stepfather,” Riley said, and Skyler added, “They live together.”

“Oh, God.” Arianna’s hand flew to her mouth and she gave a mortified laugh. “I am so sorry, Ellie. I didn’t know. You have a different last name. No one told me,” she added with a glare at Ben.

“No problem,” I said.

“Will he come again this year?”

“I don’t know. I’ll invite him, but his schedule can be kind of crazy.”

As we were leaving the student center after the meeting, Arianna pulled me aside. “I just want to apologize again,” she said. “I must have sounded like such an idiot.”

“It’s fine,” I said.

“I’m really excited to be working on this. Everyone says you’re like the nicest senior girl at the school.”

I smiled and thanked her, but I felt a little tired.

She threw her arms around my neck and hugged me good-bye.





eleven


Heather said, “I hate reading comprehension! You never have enough time to read the whole thing, and the questions try to trick you every way they can.” It was Sunday and I had invited her to join me for tutoring again. “And I don’t see how you’re supposed to study for it,” she went on. “They’re going to give you completely different passages, so it’s not like you can actually prepare.”

George said, “It’s about having some strategies.”

“You always say that,” I told him.

“Oh, what’s the point.” Heather slumped down in her chair. She was wearing a short full skirt and a tight knit top with puffy sleeves. She looked like a little schoolgirl, and the braids she was wearing only added to the impression. “I’m useless.”

“That’s the spirit!” I said. “Give up before you’ve tried.”

“Shut up,” she said. “I’m not smart like you and we both know it.”

“I’ve just studied more than you have.” That was a total lie. I hadn’t studied at all. I was good at reading comprehension because I read so much as a kid—there wasn’t much else to do in our apartment when I was little. I didn’t have a laptop and we didn’t have cable or satellite TV. But Mom took me to the library every week, so I always had books. We’d curl up together and read for hours. Mom once said that even though she hadn’t gone to college, she could keep up in a conversation with almost anyone who had, because of all the reading she did. “You can do this,” I told Heather. “Just a few more weeks of hard work and we’ll be together for the next four years.”

“Or you’ll go to different good schools,” George said.

I shook my head. “We’re going to Elton together.”

“What other schools are you thinking about?” George asked Heather.

“I don’t know. . . . My dad went to Steventon College. He wants me to apply there.”

“Oh, please,” I said. “You can do better than that.”

“It’s a good school,” George said, an edge to his voice.

“Whatever. Heather and I are going to get into Elton early decision. I’ve already decided that.”

“It’s not exactly up to you,” he said.

I shrugged. The truth was, I had a secret plan: I was going to ask Luke to call the school once we’d submitted our applications. He was Luke Weston; the school would be thrilled to get a call from him and they’d instantly push our applications through—especially if he offered to perform there at some point.

I knew this would work. He had gone with me on the tour of Coral Tree Prep when I was applying there for ninth grade, and everyone in the admissions and head offices came out to meet him and shake his hand after the tour had ended—and then, of course, I got in. It would be like that all over again.

But I wanted Heather to believe she could get in all on her own—she needed the self-confidence boost. So I just said, “You can do this. I know you can. But we both need to study hard. Give us another reading passage, George.” Heather and I bent our heads together over the laptop. “Done?” I asked her after a few moments.

“Not yet,” she said. Then, after a few more minutes: “It just doesn’t make sense.”

I sat back in my seat, avoiding George’s eyes.


A while later, Mom and Luke and Jacob came home from a trip to the park. Luke was wearing a baseball cap, dark sunglasses, and nondescript clothing, and it occurred to me that celebrities and thieves dress a lot alike.

Mom put Jacob on a chair and dropped into another one, flinging out her legs and arms. “Thank God we’re home. All he wanted to do was swing. We tried to get him to play with the other kids in the sand, but he kept screaming and kicking until we put him back on the swing.”

“At least no one recognized us,” Luke said.

“You are so oblivious,” she said. “There were two women who wouldn’t stop staring at you and whispering.”

“They weren’t taking photos of Jake, were they?”