by Molly Booth
I looked at her in disbelief. My baby sister had never condescended to me, ever. I was going to say that, when Ben grabbed both of my hands and placed them around his neck. I heard a whistle from the back. Raph.
I’d fantasized about bringing Ben to every school dance. About everyone watching us. About his laughing eyes meeting mine as we swayed to some cheesy love song. And now that was exactly what we were doing.
We danced far enough apart, on purpose, so we could stare at each other. Disgusting but true, and it felt so good.
After a minute, Ben pulled me closer and leaned to whisper in my ear, “Bee, I’m in love with you.”
My vision got blurry. My heart tripped up its beat.
“But aren’t we just friends?” I whispered back.
After the dance was over, we flew out of Dam—flew—down to the trail, to the water. He pulled me so close, while the waves lapped. And just like that, I forgot everything else, the last few weeks, the last year. We kissed, again and again and again, and it all made perfect sense.
SUMMER IN NEW York City smelled like hot dogs and pigeon poop, but man, oh man, had I missed it. My mom had a million questions, and I’d felt bad she’d looked so worried when I’d shown up. I told her not to answer her phone if King called—I’d handle it. And I did, by ignoring him. Maybe he’d cut me off. Maybe Yale wouldn’t take me back. I didn’t care anymore. I watered the plants and got back my old job at the café down the street. I smoked and wandered blocks at night with friends who knew me.
A few weeks after I’d ditched Dogberry, Bobby came to visit for a night. I had to hand it to him—I didn’t think that kid could hang in the city with my friends here. But they liked him, and I didn’t mind having him around.
After a couple beers at a friend’s house party, I finally got the balls to ask, “So, what happened with Claudia?”
Bobby smiled, and popped the collar on his terrible acid-washed jean jacket. “I knew you’d ask, eventually.”
“And?”
“It’s all good. She and Hana got back together.”
That night, under the lights, on the road behind camp, their hands in each other’s hair, flashed in my mind.
“Okay, good.”
“Good?”
“Yeah.” I finished my beer. “I’m glad.”
Bobby cackled and shook his head. “Seriously? You pull all this crap, and then you’re just, like, ‘Good’?”
I shook my head. “You don’t get it.”
Bobby shrugged. “Nah, I don’t. But the whole thing got me fired.”
I got him another beer.
THE SKY IN Maine has the best stars, and everyone knows that, but Boston’s streetlamps were beginning to look more beautiful every day. And while snow in Maine fell in sparkling, trustworthy heaps, these city-scattered flakes had their own look about them. I could barely remember what it felt like to hate living here. Especially when a figure hustled toward me from the subway stop, and when she got close enough, her smile beamed as bright as any summer star. She wore her Dogberry-green beanie all slouchy and perfect.
“Can you believe this?” She laughed, holding up a mittened hand. “It’s not even Thanksgiving! Isn’t Massachusetts supposed to be warmer?”
“It’s still New England.” I grinned, reaching for her other hand to pull her closer. Our lips touched. “That’s the second time we’ve kissed in the snow,” I whispered, when we pulled back.
She only rolled her eyes a little, which was how I knew she loved me.
We grabbed coffees and started our usual routine—loops and loops around Boston Common, catching up. We were both so busy with classes, and Bee’s part in West Side Story, that sometimes we only saw each other once a week.
“So, what’s the news on Hana and Claudia?” I asked.
“Back together.” Bee sighed. “That’s three times since this summer.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I sputtered. “Can you imagine if we broke up and got back together that many times?”
She laughed, lighting up the snowflakes. “Yeah, because we kind of did.”
“Oh, right.”
Bee
Ben’s hand in mine felt like the sun—constant, even in the cold. I couldn’t imagine a time when we wouldn’t be together. Although I never told him that. Some secrets you keep to yourself. They make you glow inside.
Ben was talking about class, the snow was falling, his eyes were twinkling in the fading, hazy city lights. When I was with Ben, I felt…myself. Relaxed. At home. My dorm, my classes, and rehearsals—my new life was exhilarating, and sometimes confusing and overwhelming. A kind of free fall.
But with Ben, I felt like I was standing on solid ground. Our hands, together, made sense.
“Hey, did you know it’s our three-month-and-three-day anniversary?”
I looked up from our hands—his eyes smiling at me from behind his hair smooshed on his forehead from his dorky elf winter hat.
“I did know that!” I said. “I have it marked on my calendar, next to remind Ben to get a hobby.”
“So since it’s our anniversary,” he continued, “I was wondering if you’d tell me: When did you first fall in love with me?”
I tried to tell my EBU friends that my boyfriend was a sap, but they just didn’t get to what extent. I pulled him down to sit on a bench, just in case I was going to pass out from his cheesiness.
“Well, it had to be when you puked at the lobster fest,” I reasoned. “When we were nine.”
“Yeah, that must’ve been pretty attractive.” Ben nodded. “I remember feeling very bold, throwing up right there in the middle of the sing-along.”
“Exactly.” I nodded back. “When did you first fall in love with me?”
“Same.” He shrugged. “When I was puking.”
We both cracked up, and he reached over and wrapped a glove around my neck and pulled me in for a kiss. And then another.
“You’re so weird,” I whispered.
“Mmmm,” he countered, nuzzling my nose with his.
“But the world is full of weird things,” I continued, my lips touching his to form the words.
“Yeah?”
“And you’re my favorite,” I said.
He pulled back, his eyes twinkling into mine. “I’m your favorite?”
“Yeah.” I smiled, pushing his hat back. “You’re my favorite weird thing in the world.”
Book two! Here we go! I have so many people to thank, again. I swore it’d be shorter this time, but…
Thank you, Gus, Nellie, Tory, and Jenny, for being such wonderful, witty siblings. Thank you, Mom, Vicki Horton, for believing in me and believing in yourself. And happy sixtieth birthday!! Thank you, Aunt Lynn, for all of your help and for Suzie.
Thank you to my agent, Alex Slater, for your keen eye and never-ending enthusiasm. Brainstorming with you is like the best kind of summer camp. Thank you, everyone at Trident Media Group, for believing in and supporting my career.
Thank you to my editor, Kieran Viola, for, oh gosh, everything. But a lot for infusing power and friendship in everything we do, and for sharing my vision of this Much Ado. Thank you, Cassie McGinty, and every lovely person at Hyperion I’ve had the pleasure of working with.
Thank you to Shadae Mallory for your thoughtful feedback.
Thank you, Girl Scouts, specifically Camp Runels in New Hampshire and Camp Pennacook in Massachusetts, for making me love summer camp. Thank you, Camp Blueberry Cove in Maine, for the inspiration, especially for Counselor Hunt and Sproutball.
Thank you to Deborah Cooper and Samrawit Silva for sharing with me your adoption stories.
Thank you, Tower counselors: Rachel Gianatasio, Jen Locke, Shane Mulcahy, Doug Pass, Sam Stratton, David Thibodeau, and Nellie Booth (again, it’s fine, it bears repeating). Thank you, CITs: Ilana DeAngelo, Nick Hurley, Eric Krouss, Joe McKeever, Liam Norton, Chris Shepard, Nate Shepard, Danielle Shiloh, and Matthew Wallace. Obviously also, big thank-yous to Judy Locke, Ginny Morton, and J
anine.
Thank you, Elisabeth Joffe, for being you and helping me be me. Thank you, Rosie Kahan, for listening to me cry, cry, cry, and for being Saving Hamlet’s bookstore champion. Thank you, Jen Locke (Jewelry Ken), for being there when no one else could and also for playing Buckbeak in Video Production at camp. Thank you, Megan Reed, for our friendship, which includes clarification on split infinitives and many doggo Snapchat messages. Thank you, Ellie Roark, for endless Gchats and love.
Thank you, Julia Perlowski, the Beatrice to my Beatrice. Thank you, Brian Mooney and Vaune Trachtman—you two make me feel like I can do anything. Congratulations, Geraldine Pittman de Batlle and T. Wilson, on years of extraordinary teaching at Marlboro College.
Thank you, Betsy Klimasmith and the University of Massachusetts Boston, for a new, lovely academic home.
Thank you, Bridget Hodder and Dana Langer—your friendship got this book written.
Thank you to Doug and Lise Pass for being so supportive of my books. You truly make this world a better place.
Thank you, All the World’s a Stage Players, for renewing my love of theatre and Shakespeare. Thank you especially to Jenny, for helping me create Margo.
Thank you, Lin-Manuel Miranda. Thank you, Griffin and Rachel McElroy. Thank you, Tegan and Sara.
Thank you, Paul Nelsen, for taking me to the Globe, and for showing me Shakespeare’s Globe’s Much Ado About Nothing, my most favorite production. Thank you, Eve Best and Charles Edwards, for your glorious performances that so much inspired Bee and Ben.
Thank you, Harriet and Suzie. You don’t know why I stare at a screen so much, but you accept me and love me anyway, and trust that I’ll come out of my trance and feed/walk/pet you soon.
Thank you to past me, summer 2016. I don’t know how you wrote this book. From now on, when I doubt that I’m a writer, I’ll look to you, and this book, as proof.
Thank you, William Shakespeare, for Don John, Don Pedro, Margaret, Claudio, Hero, and Benedick, whom I love so much and felt inspired to explore.
But most of all, thank you for Beatrice, forever dancing in the stars of my heart.
MOLLY BOOTH is the author of Saving Hamlet and a total Shakespeare nerd. In high school, she was a stage manager for three different community theatres, which almost killed her. She graduated from Marlboro College and went on to study more Shakespeare (twist!) at University of Massachusetts Boston. Molly is a freelance writer and editor and has been published on The Mary Sue, McSweeney’s, HelloGiggles, and various other websites. She cohosts a Bard-centric podcast, Party Bard, and directs a lovely, hilarious, and fierce group of homeschooled teen Shakespearean actors. Molly lives in Massachusetts, where she spends a lot of time with family and friends, and the rest attending to her queenly cat and loaf-of-bread-shaped dog. You can visit her online (please do!) at mollybooth.com.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Acknowledgments
About the Author