by Randi Rigby
MacArthur managed to pull out another close win, but we didn’t stick around to celebrate with the team. Ginny generously whisked us back to my place so we could start getting ready for the dance. “What do you think?” Becca asked as she stared at her reflection in my bathroom mirror, her fingers absently deforming some leftover hairpins, but other than that she was holding unnaturally still. She was wearing my robe, which—because I’m a foot taller than her—she was absolutely drowning in, and seated on a stool behind the vanity so I could do her make-up for her. “Nose ring. In or out?”
“I guess that all depends,” I responded, checking the positioning of her fake eyelashes and then applying a bit of finishing powder to her face with a light hand and a fluffy brush.
“On what?”
“On whether or not you’re the kind of girl who kisses on a first date.” I stood back to get a good look at my handiwork.
“You think a nose ring makes me less kissable?”
“I think it’s one more thing for a guy to have to think about if it’s not something he’s used to,” I amended.
“For the record,” she said, quickly removing her ring. “This is my first date ever, so it’s not like I have an established kissing policy or anything. But since I might not get another chance at this, if the opportunity presents itself I’m totally going to take it.”
That boy was straight up in big trouble.
I quickly changed into a simple pale pink sheath I’d paired with three inch nude heels and because it was fast and easy, given how many years I’d spent confining my hair to a bun for ballet, I pulled my hair back into a low chignon—nothing too fancy, I was saving that dress for MacArthur’s homecoming next week, but it would definitely do.
Dad answered the front door so we could make a bit of an entrance. “Ladies,” he said, knocking first before poking his head in. “There are a couple of sharp looking gentlemen kicking around in the entryway. Either that or they’re some really lost waiters.”
“Wow,” Drew said with that devastating half-smile of his, impossibly handsome in his tux. “You clean up good, Chicago.”
“Thanks, you’re both looking very James Bond tonight. Drew, Travon, this is my friend, Bec—” I started to say but Becca blew by me and marched right up to Travon, surprising us all but definitely Travon the most, grabbed him by the lapels, hauled him down, and kissed him—smack on the lips.
“Sorry,” she said, red-faced and a bit breathless as she readjusted her corset. “I just had to get that out of the way so I wouldn’t be thinking about it all night. Who’s ready to have some fun?”
Travon’s laughter was explosive. “My, oh my. Well, you heard the little lady. Let’s get this party started.”
“Looks like someone already did,” Drew whispered in my ear with a grin as we followed them out to Travon’s Tahoe, Becca’s arm firmly hooked through Travon’s as she negotiated walking in her heels. She was a little wobbly but she’d insisted on wearing them: Totally going to kill my feet but look, I’m almost normal sized!
“You’d think so,” I whispered back. “But that’s Becca stone-cold sober.”
“Ain’t no one at this school ever seen a brother before?” Travon muttered, self-consciously adjusting his bow tie as we entered the country club ballroom Barton rented for the event. “Or am I just that fine that everyone can’t stop staring?”
I laughed, feeling more carefree and light than I had in some time. “Come on, let’s dance.”
We did. Drew wasn’t kidding—he was an amazing dancer with surprisingly intuitive partnering skills. Slow dancing with him was magical and intimate and I never wanted it to end. “I love it when you wear heels. It makes it easier to do this.” He kissed me softly on the lips and drew me in close. I could feel his heart beating against my chest.
Suddenly we got bumped from behind, even though the dance floor wasn’t all that crowded. “Sorry,” Blake said, not looking sorry at all.
He wore a gray tux and an unreadable expression. “Didn’t see you there.” He was dancing with Kendall Olson. I believed she was on the golf team.
Drew nodded and the moment would’ve passed unnoticed but Blake wasn’t done. “So, this must be the boyfriend. Aren’t you going to introduce us, Grace Kelly?”
I stiffened, which caused Drew’s gaze to narrow but I couldn’t overcome my upbringing. “This is my boyfriend, Drew Jarrod. Drew, Blake Michaels.” He thinks he’s God’s gift to women. He makes my life miserable. I basically despise him. “We’re in a couple of classes together.”
“I’m sure she’s mentioned me,” Blake said smoothly.
“Actually, no, she hasn’t,” Drew shrugged, his thumb rubbing lazy circles at my waist. “Kel has a life. Barton’s a pretty small part of it.”
My eyes widened appreciatively. Drew: 1, Dragon: 0. Not that a girl needed rescuing, but sometimes it was just nice to know your man was solidly on your side. “I really, really like you.” I leaned back in his arms slightly to gaze up at him through my lashes, Blake already long forgotten.
“Good. I’m counting on that.” Smolder alert. “So, now can we talk about those million things you’d like to do to me?”
“With you,” I laughed. “I said, with you.”
“Even better.” He slowly grinned, pulling me closer.
Travon was doing his best to look scandalized. “Y’all better cool it down out here. People are starting to talk.” He dipped Becca back as the song came to an end. I’d never seen her happier, even as she limped barefooted back to her chair, hanging off of Travon, her heels dangling from one finger.
“You guys ready to go get something to eat?” I said as we regrouped at our table.
“I don’t know, Kel. Are we?” Drew asked, his hand still firmly on the small of my back.
I surveyed the ballroom. Maybe not quite yet. “Give me a minute to freshen up?”
Whitney had just slipped into the bathroom with two of her best friends—Jane and Liz. Jane was fussing with her hair at the mirror when I stepped inside; Whitney and Liz were continuing a conversation about girls too fat for their dresses from their separate stalls. Extracting my lipstick from a pearlescent clutch that had been my mom’s, I very carefully and slowly reapplied my color while Jane did her best to pretend I wasn’t there.
“I don’t know,” Liz laughed. “I guess it could be worse. You could be Grace Kelly. What is it with those scrawny, long legs of hers? She’s like a freaking giraffe.”
I pressed my lips together in the mirror. She did have a point. Jane was starting to squirm.
“Seriously,” Whitney said. “But her boyfriend’s smoking hot.”
“I wonder what he sees in her?”
Whitney snorted. “Guys can put up with a lot for a girl who puts out.”
Jane coughed. “Er, Grace Kelly, that guy you’re with, didn’t I see him perform at the Dotted T at some amateur night awhile back?”
I raised an arched eyebrow at her in the mirror. Really? That’s your save? Her face reddened in response.
There was a sudden silence from the stalls.
“Yes, that was him,” I finally replied and blotted my lips with a tissue.
Toilets flushed and then Whitney stepped out looking striking in a fuchsia strapless number, her long, blonde hair in an elegant up-do held with some jeweled combs, her pasted on smile firmly in place. “Grace Kelly.”
I dropped the tissue imprinted with my pink lips in a nearby trash receptacle.
“Great dress. Jane. Liz, enjoy the rest of your night.” I smiled at them with as much sincerity as I could muster and then turned on my heel and quietly left. Maya Angelou once said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
“Are we done here?” Drew asked when I rejoined them.
I was.
6
“You are the future, and the future looks good”
OneRepublic
“How are you not dead on your feet?” Aunt Shae groaned, pres
sing a napkin to her flushed skin, her breathing still labored. Traffic into LaGuardia was a nightmare. We’d barely made our flight. “This is why you never check luggage,” another pearl of life experience dispensed courtesy of Shae McCoy as we sprinted to our gate after an already exhausting day working in the Big Apple. She dropped a gasping, “Always…book…first class (we rarely did),” as we entered the plane—the very last ones to do so. They immediately shut the doors behind us and prepared the plane for take-off.
“I don’t have time?” I shrugged, wriggling out of my jacket and putting my hair up into a messy bun. Digging my French textbook out of my backpack, I turned on my tablet and the overhead light. I had a mid-term tomorrow. And I’d made a deal with Dad: I could cut school for work only so long as my grades didn’t suffer. Kirstie was doing a great job of keeping me busy. My profile had been rapidly expanding and the work opportunities just seemed to keep on coming, but I was finding it increasingly difficult to stay on top of my classes. I felt like I was gone half the time now.
“Not to add one more thing to your plate,” Aunt Shae said, gratefully accepting a drink from the flight attendant. “But you should probably be thinking seriously about college applications, Kel. My boys all had theirs in by now.”
I shot her a dark look.
“Okay, fine. Sorry, you’re right. I’ll be quiet. You study.”
But the truth was I should’ve had my applications in by now. Mom and I had a plan set, a timeline for my senior year. But not only had circumstances radically changed since we’d received my SAT scores in the mail last fall, I had too—in ways I’d neither predicted nor expected. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to pick through the rubble and see if there was anything worth keeping or just walk away and start over. And it felt like I was running out of time to figure it all out.
Me: Did you get a chance to go over your flashcards?
Camila: U think after I went to all that trouble to make those stupid things I wouldn’t look at them?
Me: Sorry. Functioning on 4 hours of sleep. You feel ready?
Camila: I guess.
Me: You’re going to ace this, C. Good luck!
Camila: U2. French, right?
Me: Right. Thanks. I’m going to need it.
“You’re awfully quiet tonight, Chicago. Not one Mickey Rooney slam. That’s got to be a first for you.” Strains of Moon River swelled as a rain soaked Audrey Hepburn peppered George Peppard and a drenched Cat with feverish kisses. “The End” flashed onto the screen in case you hadn’t already figured it out. I was curled into Drew’s side on our couch on a rare evening alone together (and by alone I meant Dad wasn’t hammering and sawing in the same room as us and Charlie had already claimed most of Drew’s lap). “What’s on your mind, Kel?”
I shut the TV off and tossed the remote aside with a heavy sigh. “Just thinking about what we’ll be doing this time next year. Where we’ll be.”
He played with a lock of my hair. “Made any decisions yet on where you’re applying?”
I shifted slightly so I could look at him. “I’ve narrowed it down to five: Brown, Cornell, NYU, UNC—where my parents went and where they fell in love—and of course, WDG.”
“WDG?”
I smiled sheepishly. “Wherever Drew goes.”
Placing Charlie gently on the couch in the open spot next to us, he laid back against the throw pillows, pulling me with him as we sorted out our legs so I was now on top of him. “Any particular order to this list?”
“That depends.” I tucked my head under his chin and drew little hearts on his chest with my forefinger.
“On?”
“Where Drew actually goes.” I suddenly felt unaccountably old and sad. “Where are you applying?”
“Applied. University of Texas - Austin, baby. I’ve got to stay close to home. My mom needs me to help out.”
This wasn’t a surprise. Through two failed marriages, Drew had always been the one constant in Gabriela’s life. He was as close to his mother as I had been to mine but their bond had been forged through years of mutual sacrifice. I looked to my mom for everything. Drew had as many answers as Gabriela did.
UT wasn’t without its considerable charms. Besides Drew and Charlie, Dad wasn’t exactly in a place where I felt comfortable leaving him on his own yet. Our family would step in but they wouldn’t be here late at night, every night, when he struggled the most. And then there was my closet. Every time I walked into it and the light automatically turned on to reveal a complete wraparound of floor to ceiling shelving for my shoes, handbags, and clothes; with a little island in the middle to house all my accessories and a plush bench to sit down on when putting on shoes, I hugged myself. It never got old.
Mom painted college as being this big adventure she couldn’t wait for me to experience, my chance to get out in the world and spread my wings. But maybe work could be that for me. At the end of the day, if I got to come home to this boy I’d be lucky enough to have roots and wings.
“Hook ‘em.” I grinned, sitting up and breaking out the sign for the University of Texas Longhorns with my right hand. With my left I indicated #1. The tightness I’d been carrying around in my chest for weeks now suddenly dislodged and seemingly floated away.
“Are you serious?!” Drew threw his arms around me, disbelief clearly written all over his face. In his excitement he inadvertently sent Charlie skittering to the floor.
“I have to get in first.” I laughed while being thoroughly jounced. He was squeezing me like an epileptic anaconda.
“You won’t regret this. I promise.” Drew leaned his forehead against mine, my head cradled in his hands as he kissed me. “I love you, Grace Kelly McCoy.” It was quiet and unrushed and weighty and shimmering, this gift he’d just given me.
Wonderstruck, my breath caught in my throat as I pressed my lips against his. I didn’t even have to think about it. “I love you too.”
Another moment—perfect happiness.
“You’re applying to UT?!” Becca grimaced as we began the day’s chemistry lab. “Are you smoking something? Why would you do that? Tell me it’s not because of Drew. Tell me you’re not that girl.”
“I’m that girl.” I liked to push Becca’s buttons. Sue me. I pointed to the test tube Becca had suspended over our beaker. “I think we’re supposed to filter that first.”
“You could go ANYWHERE. What if you guys break up?”
“I’ll still have my closet. Seriously Bec, stop pouring.”
She didn’t stop. Apparently she liked to push my buttons too. “Fine,” she glared at me. “Set feminism back 100 years. But you’re still applying to other places as well, right?”
“Yes. My mom always told me to pick five so I did.”
“Smart woman. Good to keep your options open.”
“You should be a guidance counselor,” I sighed, consulting my lab notes. Our reaction wasn’t turning a different color. It was supposed to be turning a different color. “And probably stay away from anything that requires any kind of precision.”
“I hate chemistry,” Becca huffed as she stared disdainfully at our failed result. Resigned, I disposed of it and started over. She idly tapped her eyedropper on the tabletop, deep in thought, not the least bit helpful as she buried her chin in her hands. “Have you talked to Travon lately?”
“Not since MacArthur’s Homecoming.” The dance Becca didn’t get invited to because Travon already had a date.
“Three WEEKS. And not even a text. Who does that? Well, I’m not waiting around.”
“Good. You shouldn’t.”
Something in my voice made her sit up straight on her stool, her pale blue eyes narrow islands in a sea of white surrounded by black kohl. “Why?”
I was carefully weighing the compound and my answer. “Well, besides setting feminism back 100 years, I think he’s got a girlfriend now—someone from MacArthur. Drew says Travon’s liked her since they were freshmen but she’s always had a boyfriend before.”
&
nbsp; “And now she has her claws in him.” Becca sounded bitter.
I couldn’t defend him. They were both my friends. “I’m sorry, Bec.”
“Men suck.”
Setting the beaker down I popped the troll pencil topper off the end of my mechanical pencil. “Here. You need this more than I do. Just don’t stick any voodoo pins in him.”
“Shut up, McCoy.” But she took him and placed him on her middle finger. Her hands were small enough that he actually fit.
“Nice.” I rolled my eyes. “Now can we please get back to trying to save our chem grade?”
In the break between first and second periods I discovered Blake making out with Jane Gilman at my locker. And when I say at I mean they were slammed up against it: hip grinding, heavy breathing, serious groping, slammed up against it. To be fair, my locker was tucked away in a rather obscure location off of the choir room but to my knowledge neither of them sang—at least not at school.
“Excuse me,” I said, clearing my throat. My project for World History was locked behind their writhing bodies. It needed to be turned in today. They either ignored me or didn’t hear me. “Guys, I really need to get into my locker. If you could just…pause. And scoot over. That would be great.”
Jane was the first to come up for air, her eyes a little dazed and confused as she saw me looming over Blake’s shoulder. “My locker,” I repeated pointedly.
“Sorry, Grace Kelly,” Blake said, smug but not moving. His hands were still under Jane’s shirt but at least they’d moved to her waist. “Guess we got carried away.”
“Guess you did. Now, if you don’t mind?”
Color was beginning to streak across Jane’s face. She’d just realized that a small but very interested crowd had stopped to watch—perhaps for some time—their make out session. Maybe Blake could pull this off but she was done. “Jane, come on.” Blake held his hands outstretched apologetically with his best, little bad boy smile as she walked away straightening her clothing. He didn’t follow her. Instead, he leaned against the locker next to mine, very aware of himself and the picture he presented in that form-fitting, white shirt. I’d worked with male models just like him. He was too pretty for his own good.