I looked from his shocked face to over my shoulder, where my hand still rested on a fire alarm—a few strands of my hair stuck to the handle.
His curse was drowned out by the sirens. But I saw him mouth, “We need to go,” and I ran for the closest door.
Which wasn’t the right one.
Instead of leading into the club, it opened onto the golf course. I shrieked like a pug falling into a bathtub—because, sprinklers. Cold sprinklers. My heels sunk into the wet green as I scrambled backward, bouncing off the boy behind me and getting drenched. The sprinkler didn’t sprinkle, it must have been high-efficiency or something, because it deluged. It dissolved all the hair gunk Eliza had used, and bobby pins began to slip free as my braids tumbled down in sticky clumps. I blinked, which resulted in mascara in my eyes.
Maybe he hadn’t noticed? Or maybe I somehow still looked good—like the rain-soaked girls in music videos? Or maybe he was distracted because I’d slipped and practically tumbled into his arms. I guess it was sort of romantic, the way he caught me and all. I mean, from a third-party vantage point I’m sure it looked it—but mostly it was wet and clumsy. Not that I didn’t appreciate him preventing me from high-fiving the ground with my face. But that wasn’t how this moment was supposed to go—with him yelling at me for getting his name wrong—which meant he was not Toby’s preapproved friend. Which meant I’d just kissed a total stranger. Who had, it bore repeating, yelled at me, before I’d gone and Merrilee’d a weird situation into something worse and wet.
“You okay?” he asked, herding me back into the strobe-lit pro shop.
“Yes,” I yelled over the alarm, “but we have to go! Now.”
“I’ll find you,” he vowed, then his voice went as icy as the water. “But I’m not Fielding.”
And that was important right now, because . . . ? Mistaken identity was one of my favorite tropes, but he—whoever he was—was ruining it. “Noted,” I said. “And . . . bye?”
He ran toward the locker rooms, while I ran down the hallway to the ballroom, which was empty of people. The last stragglers were pushing their way out the front door.
The drive was crowded with well-dressed and irritated adults fretting about when they could retrieve their coats and purses, how long it would take the valet to sort keys and cars, and whether or not the fire trucks were blocking them in.
There was a subgroup within the crowd—those looking for me. My parents, Rory, Toby, and Lilly rushed to meet me on the steps.
“What—what happened?” Lilly asked.
I flipped a strand of sticky hair out of my face. “Um, hey, guys.”
“Where were you?” asked Dad after he and Mom had each crushed me in a hug. “Why are you all wet?”
“I got confused and went out the wrong door.” True. “And got caught in a sprinkler on the golf course.” Also true. “I had to double back, and that’s why I’m late.” True again . . . just not the whole truth.
“And you went back into the building with fire alarms blaring?” Mom gave me a second hug. “Oh, Merrilee. Sometimes I think God gave you a double dose of intelligence but forgot to include any common sense. I’m so glad you’re okay.”
Toby frowned at this comment and pulled me into a hug of his own. “There are fences she would’ve had to climb if she’d gone around.” He was way sensitive to anything he interpreted as an insult aimed at me. I wasn’t. Yes, I did stupid, accidental, impulsive things, and yes, I scored ninety-ninth percentile on achievement tests—this combination of facts was sometimes frustrating, but it didn’t mean my parents loved me any less.
Though how would Mom and Dad feel if they knew I’d just had my first kiss with a boy whose name I didn’t know? My stomach dropped. What the double-stuffed cookie was I thinking? What happened now? I shivered in the cool September air.
“Fielding!” My head swiveled toward the voice. The same one that had broadcast through the microphone at Convocation. Headmaster Williams looked different in a gray suit than he had in a navy blazer and red tie—though the same round face that clashed with his in-shape-for-an-old-guy body and the same buzz-it-all-to-hide-a-bald-spot head perched above it. I hadn’t exactly loved him during my enrollment interview. “Just a formality,” Senator Rhodes had assured me, but my interview had sounded a lot tougher than Rory’s or Eliza’s. He’d seemed like he was sitting on a whole pile of resentment or hemorrhoids as he and the school board’s enrollment committee worked through their list of questions.
He was wearing the same sour expression now when I followed his eyes toward his son. Black suit filled out to that perfect place between bulky and thin, where a girl could lean upon his shoulders but wouldn’t worry that a hug would squash her. Not that I had to worry about hugs or friendly shoulders from this particular masculine masterpiece.
Because of course this was Fielding. And no wonder my mystery kisser had been offended when I’d mixed them up. Fielding Williams, guardian of the recycling can, mocker of the freshman crowds. Untemptable and contemptible—and perhaps psychic, because he turned and met my gaze across the crowded parking lot.
His eyebrows lifted so haughtily that I would gladly have traded the contents of my bookshelves to have the power to shave them off. This time I didn’t buckle under his judgment or run away from it. I ignored the damp cling of my skirt and the water-gel combo that was dripping from my hair to slide stickily down my cheeks. There were dozens of people flapping and squawking and milling between us, but I met his gaze steadily and lifted my chin. He might not be tempted, but someone else was.
Headmaster Williams put a hand on Fielding’s arm, breaking our staring contest. Which meant I totally won. They headed toward the parking lot, and I turned back to my family.
“Well, at least we all know I was right.” Rory sounded so smug that I wanted to push her into the country club pool. “Wearing white was a bad idea. Hello, see-through dress. Hello, purple underwear.”
I didn’t even have a chance to look down before Toby shrugged off his coat and draped it around my shoulders.
I wondered if my mystery was lingering around here somewhere. If his face was being splashed with the red-and-white lights from the fire truck. Why had I decided to be a secret? It seemed so intoxicating: this idea that I could be mysterious too. That I could be the heroine instead of the quirky sidekick. The temptress. But what if he decided it wasn’t worth the effort to find me? Or shrugged it off as impossible? I should’ve given him a clue. Even Cinderella left a slipper.
“Question for everyone but Rory: On a scale of one to a million, how ridiculous do I look?”
“I should go find Trent and Senator Rhodes,” said Lilly. “I think they’re talking to the firefighters.”
“You look safe,” said Mom, leaning around Toby to kiss my forehead.
“A little soggy, but that’s my Merri—I’m not sure if you find trouble or it finds you.” Dad tweaked a strand of my hair. It dripped.
Rory, who pretended to be too cool for all things pop culture, hummed a song that sounded suspiciously like Taylor Swift and rolled her eyes.
It was Toby who gave me the answer I wanted. I didn’t care if it was a lie. “You look adorable. Only you, Merrilee. This could only happen to you.”
They probably all nodded and chimed in with their only Merrilee stories of hijinks and mishaps. I didn’t listen. I was too busy scanning the crowd for the one other person who’d be sprinkler-damp and kiss-drunk. My missing mystery.
10
Wake up! Calling in 15.
I pressed send and leaned my wet hair against the car window. It was tangled and goopy and left marks on the glass when I sat up and turned my phone over to check for a response.
Eliza knew that I knew what that request meant—her having to document a sleep disturbance in the daily log her parents made her keep and fill out pages of explanatory paperwork. She knew I wouldn’t wake her unless it was A Big Deal.
Or, maybe this time I could convince her to fudge her log. Re
ally, did they need to know exactly how many hours of sleep she got? Or every calorie she ate? Her weight? Her workout—duration/type/intensity? Never mind their random glucose/drug/cholesterol/who-knows-what screenings. If they wanted to know what their daughter did every day, they should be here, not in Australia, or the South Pole, or wherever they’d end up next. At least after the disaster in Brazil, they’d decided to stop dragging her along. The only good parenting decision they’d ever made was to leave her behind with a rotation of graduate student guardians when they went off to make their “important biological breakthroughs.”
My phone beeped. Are you okay?
I limited myself to only three exclamation points on my response of Yes!!! Then I stared out the smeared window, pressing my fingers to my lips and replaying the kiss in my head.
Once home, Mom and Dad offered sleepy hugs and forehead kisses in the upstairs hall, accompanied by their familiar “Sleep sweet, little dreamer.” Then they stumbled to their room muttering about “too old to wear heels like this” and “ties are just civilized nooses—so glad I don’t have to wear one at the store.”
It was hard for me to remember what tired felt like. Or believe I’d ever be tired again. I tossed Toby’s coat on the back of my chair, hit the power button on my laptop, then dashed to the bathroom and pounded on the door. “Aurora, hurry up!”
I ran back to my room, pulled up iLive, and checked for new connections.
Oh, please let him find me. Please don’t let this turn into me ducking behind trees and trash cans to avoid him on campus and some horribly awkward encounter when we finally do come face-to-face and he pretends we’ve never met. And then me becoming a fifteen-year-old spinster recluse who lives in some scary old house with lots of creepy porcelain dolls, doilies, and cats.
I’m a dog person!
I had a dozen new iLive connections. All from people with Hero High in their profile, but none of them were obviously him. The ones with selfie avatars definitely weren’t. The lacrosse stick was Lance, and the only other unknown was K_KNite, and his image was a graffiti-type scrawl of “Wuzzup?”—Oh, please, don’t let my first kiss have been with someone who thought “Wuzzup?” was cool or clever.
There was a knock on my bedroom door and I opened it to catch Rory yawning. “Bathroom’s all yours. ’Night.”
I jumped and contorted to reach the back zipper on my dress and threw on my robe to go scrub my face and teeth while my phone rang against my ear.
“If you’re waking me up, you’d better have a good reason,” said Eliza.
I spat out a mouthful of toothpaste. “I do!” I answered. “Hang on, I’m getting in comfy clothes.” I stepped into sleep shorts, pulled a long-sleeved shirt over my head, and tugged my damp hair out of the collar. “Hey.” I paused, worried I’d be pressing on a bruise. “Did your parents call?”
“Yes.” There was no missing the joy in her voice, and I sighed my relief. “So it was good I wasn’t at the party—but what trouble did you get in without me?”
“Um, I may have kissed a boy.”
“May have? It would’ve been your first kiss. Don’t you know?”
“I do. I did.” I opened the door to my balcony, ready to climb up on the railing and then crawl onto the roof. It wasn’t an activity my parents exactly approved of, but I’d been monkeying my way up there and sitting braced between the roof ’s eaves since I was eight. The balcony addition for my twelfth birthday was supposed to be a bribe to stop—but instead it just made the climb easier. I no longer had to go out the window. The railing worked as a perfect ladder. By now they’d given up lecturing and just pretended not to know.
“Explain!” ordered Eliza.
I leaned back against the railing and tipped my face up toward the stars. There’s no way she’d wait for me to finish the climb, so my balcony would do. “Kissing is wonderful. It’s like flying and electricity. You know that scene in Willy Wonka where they drink the Fizzy Lifting Drinks and start to float? It’s like that—only without the threat of a chop-you-to-bits fan.”
“Oh, Merri . . .” She sighed, but not in a secondhand swooning way. “I’m going to kill Toby.”
“What does Toby have to do with any of this?” I paused with one foot on the bottom rail. “Wake up, Eliza! I’m trying to tell you about my kiss.”
“Wait!”
I waited.
And waited.
“Exactly how long is it going to take you to finish your thought?” I asked.
“Whom did you kiss?”
“Um . . .” Apparently not Fielding. And not someone who was a fan of Fielding—which only earned him bonus points in my book. I loved Eliza more than cream soda, chocolate, and oftentimes Rory, but she was not going to be cool with an answer of “I don’t know.” I squinched my mouth to the side. “It’s complicated?”
She sighed against the phone, and I knew she’d be rolling her eyes or throwing her hands up, or some other gesture of exasperation. “Take a deep breath. Start at the beginning.”
I dutifully inhaled, counted to five, then exhaled with a whoosh. “Lillian! Lilly disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” Eliza said incredulously.
“Oh, I found her. But wait, I need to back up. I forgot part. Really, it’s all Fielding’s fault.”
“You kissed the headmaster’s son?”
“No. Ew. Gross.” I wrinkled my nose. “But I thought it was him.” I scowled at the stars. “He said—”
“How’s this for soon enough?”
I shrieked, because the deep voice wasn’t from my phone. And it wasn’t Toby either. His bedroom light was off, his balcony door shut.
“What’s wrong?” Eliza demanded as I leaned over the railing and stared down: blue eyes, damp curly hair.
“You’re . . . here?” I said.
“Hey, beautiful,” he answered. “Next time give me a real challenge.”
“Wow . . .” I gave my leg a subtle pinch, but he was still standing on the patch of lawn Dad was always complaining about having to reseed because Toby and I had worn a path between our houses. “I just expected you’d find me on iLive.”
“Oh.” He ducked his head. “You said ‘find you.’ I just assumed . . .”
I nibbled the inside of my cheek. Was this romantic or creepy? Stalkery or swoony? I couldn’t tell if my stomach was sinking or doing flips. Hang up with Eliza and call 911, or hang up with Eliza and smash my mouth against his? Both felt hasty—which Mom often said should be my middle name. I decided the best option was not deciding until I’d given him a chance to explain. “I guess you figured out who I am . . . and where I live?”
“You won’t be impressed when you hear how easy it was. I asked the first person I saw about the gorgeous girl in white”—Ivory. Ivory, ivory, ivory!—“and that person lives next door.”
“Toby?” I whispered, like he could hear me through his door.
“His dad.”
“Merrilee Rose Campbell! Whom are you talking to?” Eliza had probably been yelling the whole time, but I only just noticed.
“I’ve got to go,” I told her. “Sorry. I’m doing research, getting answers.”
Eliza said words. They sounded like agreement, so I added, “Uh-huh. Love you. Bye,” and hung up without looking away from the boy gazing at me with poetry in his eyes.
“Should I leave?” He stepped onto the stone wall that ringed the patio below my room and grasped the bottom of my balcony. “I—I didn’t mean to come on too strong . . . I wasn’t planning on seeing you.”
“Um, you were just going to stake out my house?”
“No!” He looked so horrified that I laughed and his expression relaxed. “I planned to leave a note with my phone number in your mailbox.”
“Oh. That makes sense.” Did it?
“May I come up?” he asked.
“I’m not in the habit of inviting anonymous guys onto my balcony at midnight.” I wasn’t in the habit of having midnight rendezvous with anyone other t
han Toby. I crouched down. “Maybe we should start with introductions? Once we’re not strangers, I’ll reconsider.”
He placed a hand flat on his chest. “Monroe Stratford. Junior at Reginald R. Hero Preparatory School.”
I slipped a hand between the slats to shake his. “It’s nice to meet you, Monroe.” I liked the shape of those letters on my tongue, the way they sounded in my ear. Even better was “Merri and Monroe”—but I wasn’t quite delusional enough to say that aloud.
“I think you can come up. Be careful climbing.” I stood as he climbed and balanced on the other side of my balcony railing.
“Merrilee.” It was the first time he’d said the name he learned from Toby’s dad. Well, at least the first time he said it to me, and his voice was as intense as his gaze. Both made me totally aware of my snatched-up, mismatched pajamas and unbrushed sprinkler-hair—but then he smiled in a way that made me glow. “I think I’d always like to see you in moonlight. You look beautiful.”
That statement would look so perfect written in a book; out loud it made me squirm. But one thing was perfectly clear—no guy who spoke like that could possibly have wazzup as his iLive avatar.
“Um . . . thank you?”
We played a round of ping-pong glances, our eyes bouncing toward and away from each other as we shuffled our feet. Gah. Was silence always so uncomfortable? I needed a question, any question.
“So . . . you play tennis?”
He shrugged. “My parents insisted I have lessons in all the ‘social sports’—golf, tennis, squash. But I’m not on any teams; it interferes with play rehearsals.”
“You act? Cool.” Just like Blake in Fall with Me! And he was practically made of knee-weakening soliloquies and red carpet romance. I was so lights-camera-ready for that.
“I think so. My parents . . . not so much.”
I couldn’t stand another silence and didn’t have another question. So I did the only logical thing—kissed him.
“Did you know,” he said when we paused for stupid oxygen, our foreheads inches apart and his hands entwined with mine on the railing between us, “that your sister is marrying the son of my father’s campaign rival?”
Bookish Boyfriends Page 7