Brilliant

by Rachel Vail

  “He keeps asking me about you, what we talk about, what you said.” Allison shrugged. “I think he’s intrigued by you.”

  Which gave me a coughing fit. Phoebe pounded me on the back while I tried to convince my spasmodic larynx not to kill me in front of my sisters.

  “Seriously,” Allison was going on, without regard to my hypoxia. “Roxie the other day said anybody as strait-laced as you is probably sick kinky.”

  “Ew!” Phoebe and I said at the same time.

  Allison laughed and went to adjust the baby monitor on the night table. “That’s what I said, but Roxie was like, ‘Yeah, trust me on this,’ and Tyler, I think, agreed, because since then he keeps asking me stuff about you—if I saw you, if we hung out. Seriously.”

  “Your friend Roxie is a sick pup,” I managed, signaling Phoebe to stop pounding my back by jumping up onto the bed, away from her surprisingly strong hands. “And Tyler,” I said, narrowly avoiding toppling myself off the bed by grabbing a pillow at the sound of his name, God help me. “I mean, he’s cute but, Allison, I don’t think you can really trust—”

  “Okay,” Allison said. “I’m not asking your advice on him. But still I’m glad you’ll be otherwise involved, and not just lusting distantly over Oliver Andreas anymore.”

  “Oliver is so cute, though,” Phoebe said. “In a slightly nerdy way, but don’t you think he’d be the perfect guy for Quinn?”

  “Ew,” Allison said. “He babysat us. And he’s in college, hello?”

  “He’s not that old,” Phoebe argued.

  “Nineteen,” I said. “And I’m almost seventeen.”

  “Whatever,” Allison said. “Go for it then, if you think he’s so perfect.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Like that’s even a possibility.”

  “Why not?” Phoebe asked.

  “Why do you even like him so much?” Allison asked.

  “Um,” I said. “Because he’s…brilliant?”

  “So are you,” Phoebe said. “So, there you go!”

  Allison rolled her eyes. “Eye of the beholder, I guess. Good to know we can totally not overlap on guys. To me Oliver Andreas seems a little impressed with himself, like he needs to be brought down a rung or two, honestly.”

  “That is completely untrue,” I started to argue, but then, luckily (I thought), Mom’s voice came through the static, so we all crowded close, straining to hear.

  “…feels like retreat…” she was saying.

  My sisters looked at me quizzically.

  “…don’t see…alternatives…Montana…” Dad responded.

  Phoebe’s face paled. “We wouldn’t move to Montana, would we?”

  “No,” Allison said.

  “I think we’re going to move to Grandma’s,” I whispered.

  They both swallowed hard.

  “At least it’s here,” I said. “We’ll be able to stay in school.”

  Allison got up. “Dandy,” she said. “And we’ll just bunk in with Grandma and Grandpa? What, the three of us will share Uncle David’s room?”

  I shrugged. “I guess. Nothing we can do, so we’d better just deal. They have to sell this house. We may as well get used to it.”

  Tears were running down Phoebe’s cheeks. “I don’t want to move,” she whispered. “It’s not fair.”

  “It has nothing to do with fair,” I said. “Is it fair the kids at my camp eat ketchup for dinner? Life’s not fair.”

  “Wisdom from Disney,” Allison sneered. “Excellent.”

  “That’s terrible, too,” Phoebe whispered. “I don’t mean to sound spoiled, but I mean, this is our home.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s just a house.”

  “Well,” Allison hissed, “aren’t you just the best-adjusted person ever? Screw you, Quinn.”

  She slammed the door on her way out. I turned to Phoebe, but she wouldn’t look at me, either; she got up to follow Allison out.

  “I’m just saying…” I started.

  “I know,” Phoebe said, and shrugged, and left, her fingers lingering on the door like she didn’t want to let go even of that.

  13

  THE FIRST SHOCK WAS JELLY. I got into the car and did a triple take. It wasn’t just her new glasses, with their thick rectangular frames, or the washed-out blue of her T-shirt dress. She looked different. She looked kind of cool. In a nerdy, funky way—really cool.

  She had Adriana’s address plugged into her GPS already, so we let Annoying Lady direct us there. When we turned in past the gates at the bottom of her driveway, we were both wide-eyed. The tires crunched delicately over the stones on her long driveway as we made our way toward the huge house looming in front of us, with the sun painting the sky perfectly in stripes of pink and orange behind it.

  Adriana’s housekeeper escorted us through the house that looked like a hotel in Miami, all modern art and white draped fabric and cool-shaped stuff that might have been tables or stools or possibly sculptures, to the backyard, where Adriana was hanging with a small crowd of people who were themselves draped languorously over big, square, bed-looking things arranged beside her beautiful stone pool, which was lit by floating multicolored lily pads.

  “Wow,” Jelly said.

  “Yeah,” I agreed.

  “Quinn!” Adriana yelled, unfolding herself from a group of people on the blue cushion thing. “Jelly!”

  She came over and gave us each a hug like we were her long-lost aunties. We awkwardly hugged her back.

  “Hey, Mason!” she hollered. “Come take some drink orders.”

  “I thought we’re not drinking tonight,” answered a six-foot-tall, gelled-hair Adonis, smiling a professionally handsome smile as he approached us.

  “You know the rules,” Adriana said flirtatiously to him.

  “Rules are there for the fun of breaking them,” he answered.

  “Quinn, Jelly, this is Mason, who is definitely not drinking tonight.”

  “Hi, Mason,” Jelly said, grinning her thousand-watt, inimitable Jelly grin at him.

  “Hi,” he said to Jelly, as he slipped his arm around Adriana’s narrow waist. She whispered something to him and then he turned to me, looking amused, but didn’t say anything, and then I couldn’t, either. And then, even worse, I jumped and might have made a small squeaking noise, because another guy, right behind me, said in a deep baritone, “You must be Adriana’s new friends.”

  This one had blond wavy hair down to his shoulders and bright, smiling pale eyes.

  “Oh, my goodness, it’s a swarm,” Jelly said, and I had to laugh. Adriana made more introductions (the blond was JD, and he couldn’t take his eyes off Jelly) and slipped away casually herself to get us sodas at the bar on the other side of the pool.

  “How have I not met you before?” Mason whispered to me, his mouth close to my ear, strangely and suddenly in my space.

  “Um,” I brilliantly answered. “Well, where do you go to school?”

  “Nowhere,” he whispered, and I could smell cinnamon on his breath as it touched my hair.

  I backed up two steps. “Nowhere?”

  “It’s July.”

  “Before this. After this,” I said. “I mean, maybe we go to different—”

  “I just graduated,” he said. “And you haven’t even given me a graduation present yet, Quinn.”

  Adriana showed up with sodas just then. I plopped down next to Jelly, who was cracking up over some story JD was telling her, on the nearest seating thing. There was a couple making out on the other side of Mason. I focused on the can in my hand.

  “You seem tense,” Mason whispered near my head. “Am I making you feel uncomfortable?”

  “No,” I said. “Yes. A little.”

  “Mmmm,” he said. “That’s good.”

  As I popped open my can, I inched away from him. He was too close, too good-looking, too insistent. I tried to tell myself this was just what I needed, the perfect antidote to unavailable, off-limits, not-my-type Tyler and unavailable, off-limits,
love-of-my-pathetic-life Oliver. Mason. The perfect summer fling, and he seemed more than willing. He seemed interested in me for sure—in fact, he hadn’t taken his bluest-blue eyes off me. If I leaned forward two inches we’d be kissing already. I should totally go for it, I told myself, as Jelly’s laughter trilled beside me and the can sweated in my hand.

  I realized I was slanting away from him, in search of my own bit of oxygen. “Um,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry, I’m not…”

  But before I could explain that I was not actually interested in having this admittedly beautiful guy in my airspace, I was distracted by a clattering across the pool and gratefully turned to see what it was.

  It was Oliver.

  Laughing.

  Walking, with his arm draped gently around a curvier version of Adriana, right toward me.

  “What are you not?” Mason was asking beside me, but I couldn’t stop myself from staring at Oliver. He looked so happy, so relaxed and at ease with this girl who was clearly Adriana’s older sister. I felt my insides caving in, crushing my pitifully enduring hopes that I’d pushed down, away, for so many years, those well-tended fantasies that maybe someday I’d look at Oliver and he’d be looking just like that, but at me.

  How long had I been foolishly, subconsciously making excuses to myself? Maybe he’s shy, maybe he’s just really focused on his music, maybe he’s just different from other guys—to comfort myself into the continuing illusion that maybe, maybe it’s not that he’s just not into me, doesn’t just think of me as the sweet girl he’s known forever who’s always had a little bit of a crush on him that she will hopefully soon outgrow. Maybe he secretly likes me but doesn’t know quite how to show it yet.

  But there he was, circumnavigating the pool, proving he absolutely knew how to show it—when he felt it. His soft laughter was like being stabbed by icicles.

  “What’s wrong, Quinn?” the boy beside me, Mason, was asking.

  “Nothing,” I grunted.

  Jelly looked away from JD at me, and then followed my eyes to Oliver. Just as she groaned, “Uh-oh,” Oliver finally noticed me.

  I willed myself to look away from him and smile up at Mason, whom I totally had no interest in right then but realized a sudden need for. His eyes truly were a magnificent color. I couldn’t help noticing Oliver’s arm dropping away from Adriana’s sister’s waist.

  That helped generate my smile. “Nothing’s wrong,” I whispered up at Mason. “What could be wrong in this best of all possible worlds?”

  He tilted his head, looking down into my eyes. “You have an interesting way of talking,” Mason said. “Slow and a little…off.”

  I was concentrating on maintaining eye contact with Mason despite the sight of Oliver approaching in my peripheral vision. “Off?” I asked softly, not moving.

  “Quinn!” Oliver said, looming above me.

  I slowly lifted my eyes to him.

  He smiled his gradual crooked smile at me, the worst possible thing, because I am so damn allergic to that smile of his.

  “Can I talk to you for a sec?” Oliver asked me, and then thrust his hand out. “Hey, Mason.”

  “Oliver,” Mason said, gripping Oliver’s hand with his own meatier hand. “How goes it?”

  “Fine, thanks. I just need to ask Quinn a quick…Quinn?” He held out his hand to me, and without thinking, I took it, like I was going to shake hands with him. He pulled me up instead.

  Adriana’s sister called to him from the bar, asking what he wanted to drink. He said he’d be right there. I felt my face heating up again. When would I ever get to the point of not imagining him declaring his true and undying love for me every time he said my name?

  Now, I told myself. That point is now, this second. I am officially over you, Oliver Andreas. Done.

  It actually almost worked. I was able to look at him more objectively, like the houselights had just come on in the theater and there before me stood not some larger-than-life matinee idol but just a guy—just a guy with a spray of freckles over his slightly too-large nose, dark brown eyes, black hair in soft waves curling around his pinned-back ears, not so much taller than I am, looking with fierce intelligence into my eyes.

  Oh, crap. Oliver.

  I gave him a polite face like I’d give a subordinate of my mother’s. “What’s up?”

  “Quinn,” he breathed, but that was not about to change my adamantly steely heart, especially not with Adriana’s sister calling his name from across the pool again, and him smiling broadly back at her, promising he’d be right there, before deigning to look at me, his little buddy from back in the day. “What are you doing with Mason Foley?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Probably the same thing you’re doing with Adriana’s sister.”

  He clenched his jaw. “I doubt that.”

  “Well, good to see you. Have fun,” I said, and started to turn away. Adriana’s sister was on her way toward us with drinks in hand, and I really didn’t need to be there for their reunion. There was a very hot guy waiting for me. Yes, me, Oliver, little Quinn Avery, who has—surprise!—grown up.

  He caught my shoulder with his hand and pulled me toward him. “Don’t,” he whispered. “I know Mason Foley, okay? I just…don’t be yet another of his harem, Quinn. You’re better than that, okay? I don’t want you to get—”

  “Hurt?” I finished for him, and the surprise on his face actually made me laugh a little. “Thanks, Dad. Glad you’re looking out for me, but guess what, Dad?”

  He looked pale and defeated. Good.

  “I can take care of myself. So…”

  “Quinn,” he was saying as I walked away.

  Forcing myself not to look back, I headed straight for Mason, and within a minute was kissing my second boy ever, and saying the name Mason over and over in my mind as I kissed him, kissed Mason, thinking Mason to crowd out the other name that was trying to push its way into my thoughts instead.

  14

  I WOKE UP WITH SORE LIPS the next morning. I’d been dreaming not about having made out with Mason Foley but about being little again, little and pretty and beloved, with black shoes that clicked when I ran across wood floors in them while wearing a party dress. In the dream, my mother was telling me we were going to Grandma and Grandpa’s house, but as in real life, in history, back then she didn’t say, We’re visiting my parents. She called it going home.

  I hated that.

  I had hated it hugely, ragefully, irrationally when I was little, though of course I never said anything aloud. I’d just leave the room when she said it. We’ll only be home for a few days, I remember she said to her friend on the phone as I read on the floor beside her in our apartment in London that year we lived there, and I remember thinking, But we are already home, aren’t we? Allison played with blocks and Phoebe sucked her thumb in her bouncy seat and Mom talked on the phone and I pretended to read, only four but precocious, and already aware of it, proud of the reactions people subtly (they thought) bestowed upon my parents—She’s reading? That tiny little girl? But when my mother talked on the phone the letters hovered, slurred. I was an eavesdropper before I was a reader.

  Home.

  She meant it as a general description, of course. We were foreigners living in England for that one year; it wasn’t home. Home was the USA, where the people talked the way my parents did.

  But she didn’t only mean it that way.

  Home was her home, the home where she grew up with her parents and her older brother. The places where we lived, first in an apartment in New York City and then for those months in London, nine months really, not the year or years I sometimes let people think it was, my childhood in London that I barely remembered beyond my stories of it and those snapshot moments like reading/eavesdropping at my mother’s feet—where we lived even when we moved back to the States, back to New York but not the city, to the town where Mom grew up, just beyond walking distance to her parents’ house—none of those places were home to her.

  Th
at’s what made me mad.

  Her home wasn’t our home, where she was right then with us, with her husband and children. Her home was a memory. It didn’t belong to me.

  Hearing her say home and mean not our home but her old home made me feel profoundly not sturdy.

  I never admitted this to anybody.

  But waking up that Sunday morning I admitted it to myself, after the dream. Her home, but not my home, and I didn’t like when she called that home home. It was a betrayal, being mad at my mother for that, being mad at my mother at all, after everything she did, does for us, but there it was. I was mad at her. This is our home, you jerk, I thought in the room I woke up in, the stark white room that screamed its betrayal at me all night as I slept and wrecked my dreams. This is my home, and you are taking it away from me.

  I got up and hauled myself into the bathroom to stare at my still slightly swollen lips for a minute or two. Jelly had been so happy about hooking up with JD, who actually did seem like a sweet guy, though not nearly smart enough for Jelly. She pointed out that she wasn’t planning to be SAT study partners with him, just to have fun this summer, and why not?

  She was absolutely right. I was determined to want the same with Mason. I could still feel the imprint from his strong hands on my back and sides.

  Enough thinking about that, I told myself, and took a long, hot shower.

  I went with my father to pick up bagels and pastries to bring to the house my mother grew up in, the house it seemed pretty clear we were going to move to. We listened to music in the car and he sang along in his happy off-key way, and then focused on choosing food in the store. He offered to let me drive on the way home, so I got in on what felt like the wrong side of the car and buckled up. He told me to check my mirrors. “You always want to know where you are compared to what’s around you,” he pointed out.

  “Yeah,” I said. “That would be good.”

  I backed out of the spot. We didn’t talk; we focused on my driving. At a light, though, he said, “So it looks like we’ll be moving in with your grandparents for a while.”