I screw up my lips as I consider this. “Gangs? Like the Jets and the Sharks? ’Cuz that’s already been done.”
Darius shakes his head.
“Ah, so you want to go the jocks-versus-nerds route. Also been done.”
His expression deflates and I feel kind of bad for being a jerk, even though he made fun of my idea first.
“It doesn’t have to be jocks and nerds.” He leans toward me. “It could be anything. Take your pick. How about … ” He snaps his fingers. “The prom queen and the class troublemaker?”
It takes a moment for his words to register, but when they do, I can feel the heat rising on my cheeks. Darius must have heard that Ty and I were up for prom king and queen last year. Does that mean he also knows Ty dumped me right before prom, and what a fool I made of myself?
Darius leans back, picks up a pen, and twirls it in and out among the fingers of his right hand. “Imagine that Boyfriend Whisperer program of yours. What if the prom queen got matched up with somebody she’d never in a million years dream of dating? What then?”
Get out. Did he seriously go there? I turn away so he can’t see the panic that must surely be registering in my eyes. Pull it together, Alicea. Pretend you have no idea what he’s talking about. If you don’t admit to the match, it’s as though it never happened. I take a deep breath and turn back to him. “You know what? Fine. We can do the prom queen and the troublemaker, but we’re doing it with texts. Deal?”
He smiles and holds out his hand to shake. “Deal.”
One … two … three. One, two, three. One, two, three. I sit cross-legged on the floor of the dance studio, eyes closed, reviewing the dance over and over in my mind. The sequence hasn’t made its way into my muscle memory yet, and I can’t afford to have another practice like last week.
“Hey, Alicea. Can you help me?” Maggs interrupts my mental rehearsal. She sits across from me, legs splayed, trying to stretch out her limbs. Scattered throughout the room are girls stretching and doing barre exercises and warm-up routines.
I get up and walk behind her to press her lower back with my palm, easing her forward.
“Perfect,” she says, her voice slightly strained. “Now, can you stay there forever so I can hold this position?”
“Sure. How about a massage while I’m at it?”
“Oooh, that sounds amazing. Do you have any hot stones on you?”
I laugh and glance at the clock. Five minutes until rehearsal starts. “So, um. I’ve been meaning to ask you. Jack Baldwin is having something at his house Saturday. For Halloween.”
“Mmhm.” I feel Maggs tense ever so slightly under my fingertips. She knows Jack and Ty are friends. She probably already sees where this is going. Or, at least, partly where it’s going.
“Anyway, we’re invited, and it’s been a while since I’ve been to a good party, and—”
“Alicea.” Maggs stops me. “I get it. You’re invited, Ty’s going to be there, and you want to go. End of story. Amiright?”
“I guess.” Except for the end-of-story part. Maggs would almost certainly rebel against a computerized Libby set-up, so that plot twist will have to remain a secret. “So, will you go? It’ll be fun.”
“Of course I will. What kind of friend would I be if I said no?”
“Cool.” I breathe a small sigh of relief.
Maggs nods toward Brie, who is over by the mirror practicing her arabesque position. “Did you ask her?”
I nod. “Yes, but she and Blake have a horror movie marathon planned.” I try to sound as though I’m disappointed, but in reality, I’m relieved. The last thing I need is Brie judging me all night. “So, anyway. What do you think you’ll dress up as?”
Maggs shrugs. “I have to think about it. What about you?”
“I’m thinking Princess Leia.” I try to assume a casual tone, but it doesn’t fool Maggs.
She twists her head around to give me an eye roll. “Shocker.”
My cheeks grow warm. I hate that I’m so obvious, so predictable.
Her tone softens. “Actually, I think that’s a great idea. You’ll be the most adorable Leia ever.”
“Thanks. Also, I may need your help with the sticky-bun thingies.”
“No problem.” Maggs slides her hands out along the floor, and I press down, extending her stretch another couple of inches. “Maybe I’ll go as a hippie,” she says.
I laugh. “You can probably pull that off.” Maggs owns more boho shirts than anyone I know, and her basement is filled with bins of her mom’s old bleach-ripped jeans, beads, and crystals. “So by ‘maybe,’ do you mean ‘maybe,’ or do you mean you’ll definitely go as a hippie?”
Maggs twists her head around again. “Why do you care?”
I shrug and look away. “No reason. Just curious.”
But Maggs doesn’t have a chance to answer, because at that moment, Ms. DuBois bursts into the room, clapping her hands and shouting. “Let’s go, ladies. We’re going to start with a walkthrough today. I don’t want any more mishaps or missed turns.”
She doesn’t look directly at me, but we all know who she’s referring to.
I take a deep breath and assume my position, front and center of the corps. Come on, Alicea. You’ve worked too hard for the past five years to screw up now, especially when Ty might come to the recital.
I close my eyes and lift to en pointe. Let’s do this.
When I was twelve, my parents decided I needed to cut down on my screen time. They insisted I take up two new activities—one artistic and one physical. I can barely draw a stick figure and am horrible at any sport involving balls, so my options were limited. I briefly tried the oboe and track, but I spent so much time at lessons and practices that I got my first-ever “B” on a report card.
Then, one day, they dragged Andrew and me to an exhibit at the National Gallery of Art. I lingered in the Impressionist section, where the paintings at least resemble the things they’re supposed to depict. I happened upon Renoir’s “The Dancer,” and it hit me. The dance studio below the gallery: two birds, one stone.
To my surprise, I was good at it. Not a natural, certainly, but someone who, with a lot of hard work and practice, could eventually master a foette.
I still don’t particularly understand art, but I do now have a soft spot for Renoir, which is why I’m standing in the Loudoun Art Gallery gift shop Thursday evening admiring a nine-by-twelve print of “Luncheon of the Boating Party” when I hear the door open and a familiar voice.
“Alicea?”
I freeze. Darius Groves. What the—is he stalking me?
I turn to find him in the doorway of the shop, his hair wet from rain, his long-sleeved gray t-shirt clinging to his chest. I try to ignore Maggs’s voice in my head pointing out how ripped he is.
“Fancy meeting you here.” I grit my teeth, partly because that makes it sound as though I would want to meet him somewhere, and partly because it is perhaps one of the geekiest things to ever come out of my mouth.
Darius nods toward the print in my hand and walks over. “That’s one of my favorites. Those people were Renoir’s friends. See this guy here?” Darius stands so close I swear I can feel the steam coming off him. “That’s Gustave Caillebotte. The painter.”
I nod. “Interesting.” I start to shove the print back into its bin, but Darius catches my wrist. “And this woman. The one with the little dog? Renoir eventually married her.”
Inexplicably, the fact that Darius Groves is semi-holding my hand while talking about marriage sends my heart racing. I pull my hand from his and angle my body away, steadying myself against the counter.
“There you are, sweetheart. Did you bring my phone?” My mother bursts into the room, stopping as she notices Darius. “Do you two know each other?”
Darius turns to me, his eyes wide. “Ms. Crofton is your mom?”
I get that a lot since my mom kept her maiden name. “Yeah, I … ” I what? I assumed you knew that this was my parents’ gallery
, and that’s why you came here in the pouring rain in the hopes of finding me? Kind of makes me sound like an egomaniac.
“Yep. She is. This is her phone. She forgot it.” I hold it out as though it’s some sort of genetic ID. “Wait. How do you know her?”
“Darius is one of my most promising new students,” Mom answers for him. She walks over and drapes an arm around his shoulder. “A real talent, this one.”
I glance back and forth between them. “Talented? At art?”
Darius tilts his head, a half-smile playing on his lips. “Why is that so hard to believe?”
“Because … I don’t know. It’s not. It’s … whatever.” What can I say? Because I hate art and you’re supposed to be my match?
“You’re getting a private lesson today,” Mom says to Darius. “Some sort of flu going around. The other three students in the class called in sick.”
“Oh, well, if you want to cancel until next week—”
“No, no.” Mom smiles. “You’re here. Class is on. That is, if you don’t mind being the only one.”
“No, of course not.” Darius turns to me. “Unless … do you want to sit in with us?”
I blink and force a smile. Darius Groves. Art class. Am I being punked? I refuse to look at my mom, because I know all too well the hopeful glint that must be shining in her eyes at the thought of her daughter taking one of her classes. “I don’t think so. I—”
“Come on,” he says. “It’s mixed media. It’ll be fun.”
I hesitate. I am curious to see how much artistic talent someone who is supposed to be my match could possibly have. Besides, it would give me a chance to run some of my ideas for our balcony scene by him.
“It’s settled, then.” Mom snatches her phone from my hand. “I knew there had to be a reason I forgot this. It’s fate.”
Fate? Lovely. Now both Libby and the Universe are conspiring against me.
“It doesn’t have to be perfect.” Darius grins as he watches me slice away at a magazine headline, forming the shape of a flower petal.
“That’s right,” Mom chimes in. “Art is not about perfection. Often it is about appreciating the imperfect.”
I force a smile. I was strictly a color-inside-the-lines type of kid, while Andrew would scribble and scrawl and splatter all over the place. My parents always hung both of our projects on the fridge, but I could tell they gravitated toward his brand of “art.” It never made sense. How can you break all the rules and still be good?
I hold up my petal in defiance. It is in fact perfect, and I managed to clip it so that the word “bloom” appears directly in the center where I wanted it. It is my seventh perfect petal, and I place it in the last remaining spot on my flower.
As I apply an acrylic matte to seal everything into place, Darius strolls over to my easel and inspects my work. He reads the petals clockwise from the top. “Sun. Air. Rain. Soil. Sprout. Reach. Bloom.” He nods. “I like it.”
I frown and point to the “Reach” petal. “I couldn’t find ‘Grow’ in a font I liked,” I say. “Can you believe that? I must have gone through four magazines, including one all about gardening. Maybe I should have kept searching.”
“No, no.” Darius shakes his head. “Don’t you see? ’Reach’ is better. It’s the twist that makes me want to root for your flower. No pun intended.”
I groan, but I can’t help but smile.
“Hold still,” he says, his voice suddenly soft. “You have some glitter, right … here.” He brushes my cheek, and his touch sends my pulse racing. I close my eyes as he tries to wipe the flakes away. The stuff is ubiquitous. The gallery has kids’ classes on Saturday mornings, and my mom claims no amount of cleaning can eradicate it.
“Got it,” he says finally.
I open my eyes, and his face is so close to mine, I catch my breath. “Thank you.” I pull away and wipe my cheek, partly as a distraction and partly to try to erase the feeling of his hand on it. It doesn’t quite work. “Now,” I say, “let me see your masterpiece.”
He returns to his own easel and flips his board around. “It’s not finished yet.”
“Come on. Show me.”
“Not today. Someday.”
“When?”
“When it’s finished.”
“Now who’s worried about perfection?”
“Not me.” He nods toward my board. “I’m like your flower. Reaching. It’s all about the reaching.”
“Right. For perfection.”
He shakes his head. “That’s where you’re wrong. And anyway, who decides what’s perfect and what’s not? Certainly not me.”
I am tempted to agree that someone like him wouldn’t understand perfection, but I can’t think of a way to do so without sounding mean, so instead I change the subject. “Want to hear the idea I have for our English project?”
Darius rubs his chin. “Let me guess. Instead of saying, ‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,’ we’ll have a nose emoji and a rose emoji?”
I stick out my tongue. “The emojis are going to be a huge hit, you’ll see. But that’s not my idea. Actually, I was thinking we might want to start off with a brief live vignette to set the scene.”
“Oh?” He sits up straighter on his stool. “With actual dialogue and acting?”
“Yes, but ‘brief’ is the key word.”
“Okay. What are you thinking?”
“I could be talking to a friend—another prom queen candidate—and you walk up and try to get my attention, but we shut you down. Then we could switch to the video with the all the texts. It would give them some context.”
He nods. “That works.”
“Cool.” I pick up a nearby paint sponge and squeeze it as though it’s one of those stress balls. “So how do you want to do this? Should I write up my lines first and send them to you?” Squeeze. Squeeze. “Or maybe I can just write up the whole thing.”
“The whole thing? Don’t you trust me?” His voice teases, but something in his eyes tells me he suspects—fears—that he could be right.
“It’s not that.” I avoid his gaze. “I just thought it might be easier if—”
He reaches over and stills my hand. “I’m not worried about it being easy. I think we should work together on it.”
I try to ignore the fact that for the second time in less than an hour, I am semi-holding-hands with Darius Groves.
“Hey.” My mom calls to us from the front of the room, where she’s cleaning a set of paintbrushes. “Less flirting, more art-ing back there.”
I pull my hand away, my face burning. “We’re not flirting, Mom. We’re talking about schoolwork.” I turn to him. “Come on. Let me write it. This is like a get-out-of-jail-free card for you.”
Darius grins and leans toward me, his voice low. “Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books, but love from love, toward school with heavy looks.”
I feel my jaw drop. “Um. What?”
He laughs. “It’s from the scene. Haven’t you read it?”
“Of course. I mean, I skimmed it. I basically know what happens.”
“I see. You skimmed it, though not well enough so that you even recognize a line from it. Yet you think I should let you write the retelling by yourself?”
My cheeks burn. “I’m planning to read it. Obviously.”
“Please do. And then we’ll write the retelling. Together. As a team.”
I paste on a smile. “Fine. Together it is.”
Maggs disentangles her right hand from my near-perfect Princess Leia bun and points at the print of “Luncheon of the Boating Party” propped up on my shelf. “Where’d you get that?”
“Oh, it’s just something from the gallery gift shop.” I avoid her eyes.
“It doesn’t quite match the rest of your décor.”
She’s right. Renoir has a different aesthetic than my Welcome to Night Vale and Stranger Things posters. I’m not sure what made me decide to buy it after the class the other day. Or rather,
I’m not sure I want to think about why I decided to buy it. I shrug. “It’s a cool scene, that’s all.”
Maggs doesn’t press it. I haven’t told her about running into Darius or about the class. I don’t want her opinion on the matter, regardless of whether it is pro- or anti-Darius. I need some time to figure out my own opinion first.
“There. Perfect.” Maggs steps back and admires her handiwork.
I pick up my blaster rifle from my bed and strike a pose.
Maggs laughs and grabs her keys, heading toward my bedroom door. “I’ll meet you at Jack’s. I need to get ready.”
“I can’t wait to see your costume. Are you going for Earth Child or will it be more Psychedelia?”
Maggs pauses in the doorway. “Didn’t I tell you? I decided against the hippie idea.”
“What?”
“Too obvious.” She grins. “I’m going as Katy Perry during her Cleopatra phase.”
“Katy—Cleo—what the … ?” I stare in disbelief at her retreating back.
“You’ll love it!” she calls over her shoulder.
“I’m sure I will.” I force a laugh as I pull out my phone and text Aiden.
Alicea: Forget hippie plan. Do you happen to have a Mark Antony costume lying around?
Ty is dressed as a prisoner and Becca as a sexy cop. She looks amazing, but her handcuff jokes make me want to use her plastic billy club on her. Or better yet, my blaster.
Maggs is running late, so I lurk in a corner of Jack’s living room for a solid ten minutes trying to work up the nerve to walk up to them. Ty’s laughter carries over the crowd and across the room. How I miss that sound. How I miss being the one to make him make that sound. Stupid handcuff jokes.
“The force be with you.” A guy wearing a fireman’s hat and carrying a garden hose steps into my line of vision. I recognize him as Grand View’s goalie.
“And also with you,” I say.
The Boyfriend Whisperer 2.0 Page 4