DEDICATION
FOR MY BEATRICES:
TARA CAMPOMENOSI MURPHY,
RACHANEE SRISAVASDI,
AND JEN WOLDMAN
EPIGRAPH
“Sadness is easier because it’s surrender.
I say, make time to dance alone
with one hand waving free.”
—Claire from Elizabethtown
CONTENTS
Dedication
Epigraph
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Forty
Forty-One
Forty-Two
Forty-Three
Forty-Four
Forty-Five
Forty-Six
Forty-Seven
Acknowledgments
Back Ad
About the Author
Books by Gretchen McNeil
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
ONE
“YOU’RE NOT LATE, Beatrice,” my mom said as she rolled the Prius to a stop in front of Spencer’s house at exactly two minutes to eight.
I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. “Only because you hit three out of seven green lights, blew through a questionable yellow, and cut off that old lady trying to make a left into her driveway.”
It had been a miracle of modern commuting that we were on time, and I wanted to make sure she understood that our punctuality was a fluke. My mom was late for pretty much everything except Mass and the hair salon, a trait that had driven my dad crazy since before he’d married her, when she was his legal secretary. She’d even shown up a half hour late to their final divorce mediation, though I was relatively sure she’d done that on purpose.
My mom let out an audible sigh. “You don’t even have class until nine.”
She was right. The first day was a delayed start, and I was only meeting my friends for bagels and coffee, so it wasn’t like I was going to be marked tardy (which would have counted on my permanent record). But that wasn’t the point.
“If I’m not five minutes early,” I said, matter-of-factly, “I’m late.”
“Beatrice . . .” Her lilting Tagalog accent always made my name sound regal. “You need to loosen up. You’re a senior now. Have some fun.”
I grabbed my wheelie bag, mentally ticking off the seconds. This conversation was eating up precious time. “I have plenty of fun, Mom.”
She sighed dramatically. “Don’t call me that, Anak.”
Whenever my mom renewed her hunt for Husband Number Two, I was no longer allowed to call her “mom.” Why? Because she thought she could pass as my older sister.
“Sorry, Flordeliza,” I said, opening the car door. “Who’s the new prospect?”
My mom sighed again, deeper this time. “Benjamin Feldberger, Esquire.”
So that explained her outfit. I eyed it with a mix of horror (65 percent) and awe (35 percent). She had chosen a red dress, sleeveless with a draped neckline and a thigh slit that effectively negated the knee-length hem. Don’t get me wrong; she looked fabulous. My mom had this sexy pinay charm about her that had been completely lost in the genetic translation when it came to me. Probably because, as my mom loved to remind me, I was only half-Filipino.
“Is that work appropriate?” I asked.
She clucked her tongue. “Maybe if you dressed with a little more pizzazz, you might make a few friends at school.” She paused. “Girlfriends.”
I smoothed down my navy blazer piped in white. “I have friends.”
“Mmhm.”
Spencer and Gabe might have been nerds and outcasts, but they were my nerds and outcasts, and contrary to my mom’s belief, dressing like an extra in a Katy Perry video wasn’t going to increase my popularity at school or win me any female friends. I’d tried that freshman year after my parents’ divorce had pulled me from the safety of St. Anne’s Academy and tossed me into the shark-filled waters of Fullerton Hills High School, and it hadn’t worked.
“Quality over quantity,” I said, quoting one of my dad’s favorite sayings (which had a 95 percent chance of making my mom cringe), then I slammed the door and dragged my wheelie bag up to Spencer’s garage.
“I’m here!” I announced as I pushed open the side door. “Forty-five seconds early.” Okay, it was more like fifteen, but since Spencer was standing at his easel, brush flying across the canvas, I doubted he was paying close attention.
Spencer Preuss-Katt and I had met in Honors English freshman year. He was the epitome of a brooding, absentminded artist, which, unfortunately, went unappreciated by the jocktocracy of Fullerton Hills, where he was picked on ruthlessly for being short and skinny and quiet. Thankfully, his moms not only appreciated his artistic abilities but encouraged them. Two years ago, they’d remodeled their garage into a weatherproofed, sound-insulated, air-conditioned art studio for their son, which had become our de facto hang-out space.
I left my bag by the sofa and tiptoed over to the easel. “Do I get to see this one?”
“Do you ever?” he replied without looking at me.
I frowned. Three years of friendship and, other than some doodles and sketches, he’d never let me see any of his work. I knew he was protective of it, but if he couldn’t show his art to Gabe and me, how was he ever going to share it with the world?
“No,” I said simply. “You don’t. But maybe you should start? First day of senior year. Perfect time for—”
He held up his free hand, demanding silence while he added a few finishing strokes to the canvas. I clenched my jaw. Nothing pissed me off more than being interrupted, which Spencer knew damn well. Finally, he whisked a tarp off the floor and flung it over the easel. “Now you can talk.”
“That’s a horrible way to greet a friend you haven’t seen in two months.”
Spencer dropped his brush into a jug of murky water, then wiped his hands on a rag of questionable cleanliness. “I missed you too.”
I rolled my eyes as he stood smiling down at me. He was taller than he’d been last time I saw him, and his body was broader, less boyish, a mix of angles and sharp lines. Spencer and his moms had spent most of the summer on an art tour of Western Europe, and it was as if an entirely different person had returned in his place.
“You look weird,” I blurted.
Not offended in the least, Spencer laughed. “Now who’s being horrible?”
“I mean different, not weird.” I could feel the heat mounting in my cheeks. Why was I embarrassed? I didn’t want him to see me blush, so I threw my arms around his waist instead. “I did miss you.”
Spencer stiffened. “Yeah?” he said softly.
Well, duh. I’d missed both my friends. While Spencer had been in Europe, Gabe had spent most of his free time at the comic
book store. I was the only one stuck at home with nothing to do.
Except hang out with Jesse.
A nervous fluttering spread upward from my stomach. I’d told Jesse to meet me at Spencer’s, which meant he’d be here any minute. How was I going to explain him to my friends?
I felt Spencer’s arms tighten around me and caught the unmistakable scent of cologne, something rich and spicy and, in my limited imagination on the subject, utterly European. I took a deep breath, attempting to place the fruit and floral notes, and the fluttering in my stomach stopped, replaced by a sharp pain as if my intestines were being twisted in a vise. Nerves. But why should I be nervous with Spencer? It was utterly illogical. Perhaps I was having an allergic reaction to the cologne? A synaptic response to an action potential?
Before I could further examine my current physical and emotional state, the side door flew open and Gabe barged in.
“The bus broke down!” he cried. “I got stuck exiting behind a hipster with a penny-farthing bicycle that barely fit down the stairs and then there was a nun in line ahead of me at the bagel shop who I swear to God”—he made the sign of the cross—“was buying bagels for the entire convent, which seemed strange to me, but whatever. And then I had to walk ten blocks in this heat.” He paused, panting heavily. “So it’s not my fault. I would’ve been on time, I swear.”
Gabe always knew how to make an entrance.
Spencer broke away from me. “That’s okay. Bea was late too.”
I shoved him. “Was not.”
“I don’t believe it,” Gabe said with an arched brow as he dropped a brown paper bag on the coffee table. He certainly hadn’t dressed up for the first day of school: baggy cargo shorts and a T-shirt sporting a geektastic “
“I was exactly forty-five seconds early,” I said, and shot Spencer a withering look.
He met my gaze coolly. “Fifteen.”
“Which is exactly four minutes and forty-five seconds late, according to Beatrice Standard Time,” Gabe added.
“I know. But I’m at the mercy of Flordeliza, who spent an hour in the bathroom getting tarted up for work.” I opened the bag and began removing a spread of precut bagels and cream cheese, laying them out on napkins in a neat, orderly row. Plain bagels in the middle with the fruity ones on the left and the savory varieties on the right so they wouldn’t contaminate each other.
Gabe grabbed half a blueberry bagel and slathered it with whipped cream cheese. “You didn’t tell me your mom was on the prowl again.”
I shrugged. “You weren’t around.”
“I was here all summer!”
“Yeah,” I said. “But you spent almost all of it gaming down at Hidey Hole.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Actually, I was researching a new article for the school paper on the cultural impact of miniature tabletop warfare games on a generation of future politicians and military strategists.”
“That sounds significantly less incendiary than your last article,” Spencer said.
Gabe winced. “Tell me about it.” His exposé on the dangerous workouts Coach Summers was forcing on the football team last year had gotten the coach fired, and hadn’t exactly endeared Gabe to the jocktocracy in the process. Not that they’d loved him before: his penchant for smart-ass one-liners and class clownery had earned him plenty of ass kickings even before he’d turned his caustic journalist’s pen on Fullerton Hills’ protected class.
But as much as Gabe would love to claim that all his hours at Hidey Hole were spent pursuing a new lead, I knew better. “I’d hardly call playing Warhammer all day ‘research.’”
Gabe held up two fingers. “A of all, yes, it is. And B of all, I wasn’t playing the whole time. Kurt got me a job there.”
“Who’s Kurt?” Spencer asked.
I grabbed an onion bagel. “That doughy junior with the big head and the tiny face.”
“I like his tiny face,” Gabe muttered. “Oh, Spence. Have you seen the new video on YouTube with the kitten riding around on the back of a llama?”
“Of course,” Spencer said. He had a weird affection for home videos of pets. “Totally staged, but I appreciated the tweeness nonetheless.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Balancing my bagel in one hand, I fished it out.
What’s Spencer’s address? I think I’m lost.
“Is that your mom?” Gabe asked.
“No.” I typed a quick response to Jesse so I didn’t have to look them in the eyes.
“Maybe it’s Cassilyn Cairns,” Gabe said. “And Bea’s her new bestie.”
Spencer snorted. “Zero percent chance of that.”
“More like five percent.” The idea that the most popular girl in school would befriend me, Queen of the Outcasts, was ludicrous but not technically out of the realm of possibility.
Spencer smiled wickedly. “Then maybe it’s a hot new boyfriend.”
“Thad Everett?” Gabe suggested, naming one of the most loathsome members of the football team.
Spencer laughed. “No way, dude. Milo Morris. The way he calls her ‘Math Girl’ is so romantic.”
I really didn’t care that most of the Fullerton Hills student body knew me only as “Math Girl.” Our school was filled with jerks and asshats, and their dismissive nickname for me just made it easier to ignore them all.
“Hold up.” Gabe dropped his bagel onto a napkin. “Other than Spence and me, you don’t talk to other people at school. Ever. So, if that’s not your mom, who’s texting you?”
“Um . . .” I was working up the courage to explain when there was a soft knock at the door and we all turned to the window where Jesse stood with a dorky little smile on his lips.
Gabe turned to me, his eyes wide. “Is that Jesse Sullivan?”
TWO
“HEY!” JESSE SLIPPED into the garage, his beat-up backpack slung over one shoulder. “Am I late?”
I jumped to my feet, hands trembling with a mix of nervousness and excitement. My boyfriend. My first boyfriend. My first anything.
He’d transferred to Fullerton Hills last winter, halfway through the school year, and though he wasn’t in any of my honors classes, we’d sat next to each other in my Comparative World Governments elective. Jesse had never volunteered to answer questions in class, until one day when we were discussing Israel and his hand shot up in reaction to the question “What can you tell me about Benjamin Netanyahu?”
“He has an architecture degree from MIT,” Jesse had said, naming my absolute dream college. After class I’d tracked him down in the halls to ask how he’d known, breaking my cardinal rule about talking to my classmates.
Turned out that Jesse’s dad used to be a professor of architecture at MIT.
And just like that, my neurochemical processes were excited by his external stimuli.
Not that I fell in love with Jesse just because he’d grown up on the campus of my dream school. But it definitely made me pay attention. As the semester wound down, I noticed the charm in Jesse’s half smiles, and the way his brown eyes were so dark you couldn’t even discern the pupils most of the time. So when we’d bumped into each other at the bookstore the first week of summer and he’d asked me if I wanted to get coffee (with him, on a date, a real date), I’d surprised myself by saying yes. It had been weird and uncomfortable and glorious all at the same time. Coffee turned into “hanging out,” which basically meant watching TV, playing video games (which I was horrible at, but willing to learn), and making out. Before I knew it, we were a couple.
I enjoyed Jesse’s quietness and patience. He had a calming effect on me, unlike, say, Spencer, who was always pushing my buttons, as if his day wasn’t complete without getting a rise out of me. Jesse would let me prattle on about my plans for MIT next year, answering all of my questions about the campus to the best of his ability. He didn’t protest when I explained how he could probably get into Boston College and be near me if he just added Advanced Econ as his elective
, and he indulged my excitement for my favorite topics: information theory and applied mathematics. He had no idea what either of those things were, but he’d smile and listen and not make me feel like a total and complete freak. We didn’t fight, didn’t rile each other up, and didn’t make each other crazy.
Basically, the opposite of every other relationship I’d witnessed in my seventeen years—aka my parents, my mom’s string of potential second husbands, my dad’s first ex-wife, and my dad’s current wife—which all seemed to be enveloped in a stifling cloud of anger, resentment, and unfulfilled expectations.
It had been a great summer with Jesse. Really great. So why hadn’t I told my friends we were dating? We’d decided not to change our relationship statuses on Facebook, which seemed kind of sweet, like our time together was our own little secret, but we hadn’t explicitly kept our relationship confidential. And now, with Spencer and Gabe staring at me like I’d just spoken in tongues, I kind of wished I’d mentioned Jesse to them earlier.
“You’re not late at all,” I lied, then dashed over and grabbed his hand, dragging him to the sofa. I was on edge, unsure how I was supposed to act in public as a girlfriend, a role I’d never played before in my life. “Right on time.”
“Right on time?” Spencer muttered.
Jesse smiled, and reached around to unzip his backpack. “I was halfway here when I remembered something. Had to go back and grab this for you.” He pulled out a copy of MIT News Magazine. “There’s an article about a scholarship for incoming freshman. Something about information math? My dad said you should look into it.”
I sucked in a quick breath. “Information theory?”
“Yeah,” Jesse said. “That.”
I quickly flipped to a dog-eared page where a small blurb had been circled in black marker. A brand-new scholarship sponsored by the applied mathematics department for research on information theory and its applications in everyday life.
This scholarship was tailor-made for me.
My mind raced, trying to think of ways to apply my geeky hobby to daily life, when behind me Gabe cleared his throat.
Oh crap, that was right. I still hadn’t explained my boyfriend.
I'm Not Your Manic Pixie Dream Girl Page 1