I walked on as carefully as I could in what I hoped was the right direction. One foot in front of the other …
A sudden explosion of sound and light caught me by surprise. It was as if the entire roof of the planetarium had just blown off in some huge explosion. I gasped and leaped forward in a panic. My foot caught an uneven spot on the floor and I tripped, flying forward.
“Oof!”
I felt myself hit something. Or rather some one. A pair of strong arms caught me just in time to stop me from hurtling us both right into the wall.
“Sorry!” I gasped, looking up just as another burst of light went off overhead.
My eyes widened. Standing there, his face only inches from mine, was The Guy!
Three
The lights dimmed again. I was sure my face was bright red, and for a second I was afraid I might faint or hurl or something equally embarrassing, just like one of my sick little worst-case-scenario fantasies.
Instead I blurted out the first thing that popped into my head: “We should really stop meeting like this.”
The guy laughed. “I don’t know about that,” he said. “Have we met before? Because somehow I feel really, um, close to you right now.”
I giggled self-consciously, doing my best to disentangle myself from him. He helped me as best as he could in the near dark, steadying me by holding on to my arms as I struggled to find my balance.
Up on the planetarium’s huge, rounded ceiling screen, the Big Bang seemed to be over. The only light came from a sprinkling of stars up there and those little running lights along the floor, making it hard to see much of anything in between. Pretty much all I could make out of the guy was his outline. But he wasn’t letting up on his grip on my arms, and I could tell he was peering at me, trying to get a better look at my face.
Feeling strangely bold in the dark, I tried to channel Britt by tossing my hair around a little. I figured that should look pretty sexy even in silhouette. Everyone always said my hair was my best feature, right?
It wasn’t until I felt nothing but the soft thump-thump of my bun on the back of my head that I remembered. I still had my hair pulled back from the earlier cockpit thing. Oh well.
But hair or no hair, I could tell that this was definitely what Britt would call a Moment. The guy’s grip tightened on my arms, and he leaned a little closer. I could smell coffee and soap and some faint, spicy scent that I guessed was his aftershave.
We were way beyond pinging by now; I could feel the sparks flying between me and this guy I’d never met before, so strong that for one crazy moment I thought I might grab him by the face and kiss him. It was such an intense urge that I suddenly felt weirded out and was afraid I might start laughing or hyperventilating or something.
“The Beast,” I said abruptly, pushing back a little until he let me go. “Um, I mean, your T-shirt. I noticed it before. You like the Beast?”
“The Beast is the best!” His voice was enthusiastic. “So you’re into them too? That’s cool! I don’t know many girls who like that kind of music.”
“Oh, totally,” I replied. “Have you downloaded their new song yet? It rocks.”
“I know, right? Probably their best since ‘Squid for Breakfast.’”
“‘Squid for Breakfast’? That’s only my favorite song of theirs ever!” I exclaimed.
“Mine too.” I still couldn’t see his face. But I was pretty sure from his voice that he was smiling.
I was smiling too. Maybe all it took for me to pick up a guy was a little pitch darkness. Or maybe all I was waiting for was this particular guy. Either way, I had the feeling that for once, maybe I was getting this right.
The guy leaned a little closer again. “So are you going to tell me your name, or—”
A small but intense beam of light suddenly blinked on out of nowhere, shining directly into his face. He squinted, raising one hand to block it. By squinting a little myself, I could make out the stern face of a middle-aged scientist lady in a lab coat and a name tag. The beam was coming from the tiny flashlight she was pointing at us.
“Do you mind?” she snapped, her voice librarian-quiet but just as stern as her face. “This is a planetarium, not Makeout Point. Please take your seats before I have to report you to your chaperones.”
“S-sorry,” I stammered.
“Wait,” the guy said.
“Now!” Stern Scientist Lady barked. She grabbed me by the arm, dragging me off in the direction of the seats.
“So you never got his name?” Britt asked.
“Or where he goes to school, or anything?”
“I already told you a million times. No.” I slumped in my seat on the bus, playing with the fraying duct tape someone had used to repair the back of the seat ahead of mine. We were on our way back to Potomac Point. In the back of the bus Johnny Munson and his slacker buddies were singing their own creative version of “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” I guess Mr. Feldman and the other teachers were pretty tired after the long day in D.C., because they weren’t objecting or even paying attention.
The planetarium show had seemed to go on forever. I’d spent it hunched in the front-row seat where Stern Scientist Lady had stuck me. True to form, Britt had leaped immediately to the best-case scenario when I hadn’t returned, and had happily distracted herself throughout the birth and toddler years of the universe or whatever by imagining that Mr. Hottie McHot and I were tucked away somewhere making out or swearing our eternal love or at least getting to know each other better. So when I’d caught up with her during the mass exit looking bored and grumpy, she hadn’t been willing to believe it at first. Hence her asking me umpty-bajillion times what had happened.
“Now I wish the trip had lasted longer,” she said, idly scrolling through her messages on BBB. “Maybe we could’ve tracked him down again. Or maybe he would’ve tracked you down. It sounds like he was kind of digging you until Doctor Killjoy came along.”
“Yeah. Except he doesn’t know my name either. Or even what I look like. Anyway, I tried to look for him afterward, but I’m lucky I even found you in that crowd.” I sighed, thinking back to my brief but incredible encounter with Mr. Amazing. “You know, I think I finally figured out what you meant by sparks, too. I still don’t really get it, especially since he couldn’t even go by looks since he couldn’t really, you know, see me—”
“Love at first sight isn’t that literal. It’s not just about looks. It’s, like, pheromones and stuff, too.” She beamed at me. “Anyway, don’t worry, babe. We may not know who he is, but we know he goes to school somewhere in the county. We can track him down if we put our minds to it.”
I couldn’t help feeling dubious. “There were nine schools on this trip,” I reminded her. “How are we going to find one random guy out of eight other schools? Keep transferring until we run into him?”
“Not necessary.” She waved BBB at me. “I know guys at almost all those other schools. I can ask around.”
“And say what? That your spastic loser friend can’t even pick up a guy without screwing it up?”
Okay. So I wasn’t in the best mood. A day of staring at spaceships topped off by getting accused of groping a guy by the Hall Monitor from Hell can do that to a girl. Or at least to me.
Britt threw her arm around me and gave me a sympathetic squeeze. “I know how you feel, babe.”
“Doubtful,” I muttered. “When’s the last time you actually cared what some guy thought of you?”
That’s one of the great things about Britt. She knows when I’m venting and never takes it personally.
“Just leave it to me, okay?” she said. “I’ll track this guy down if it’s the last thing I do.”
That was sweet. But maybe a little ominous, knowing Britt. I shot her a suspicious look.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” I said. “We don’t really have much to go on. What if you end up ‘finding’ the wrong guy? That could be even more embarrassing than my little falling-into-his-arm
s trick.” I shuddered anew at the memory, though I had to admit it hadn’t turned out too badly.
“Do you think I’m an amateur?” Britt grinned. “Besides, how many guys would admit to liking that beastly band?”
“Hey! The Beast rules,” I retorted automatically. But my mind was turning all this over. Maybe all hope wasn’t lost after all. “Do you really think you can figure out who he is?”
“I know I can.” Britt is nothing if not confident in all things. “Just give me time and I’ll deliver Mr. Sparks.”
Sparks. Was that really what that had been? Sparks, pheromones, love at first sight? Was all this angst worth it, or was I deluding myself?
I glanced out the window at the scenery rushing by. We were almost out of the city by now, and the buildings were thinning, the landscape getting greener and more suburban. With Britt sounding so confident, it was hard to argue with her. Still, my worst-case-scenario tendencies were running full strength, inventing all the ways her plans could backfire.
“You won’t embarrass me, will you?” I asked. “If you do find him, you’re not going to, like, tell him you think we’re soul mates or whatever, are you? Or that I’m madly in love with him or something?”
She looked vaguely guilty, leading me to believe that was exactly what she’d planned to do. “If you don’t want me to contact him, I won’t,” she said. “I’ll just find him and leave the rest to you. Pinky swear.”
Britt never breaks a pinky swear. So I lifted my pinky and we made it official.
“But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you get away with wussing out on me,” she warned. “If I find him for you, you have to promise to do something about it.”
“Look, I’ll promise to do something,” I said. “But I can’t promise it’ll be what you would do. I’m not you, okay?”
She didn’t look completely satisfied with that. But she nodded. “Good enough, I guess.”
We pinky-swore again on that. Then I took a deep breath, feeling a nervous little flutter run through me like a stampede of ants skittering through my guts.
“Okay,” I said. “Go find him. And then we’ll just have to see what happens after that.”
Four
A couple of days later I sat at the kitchen table stirring my cereal and thinking about the guy in the Beast T-shirt. Britt hadn’t found him yet, which was almost a relief. It was still sort of freaking me out, the way I’d reacted to him. As if I knew him already. Or at least as if I knew I wanted to know him. Really, really wanted to.
What would make me feel that way? Sure, the guy was cute. No question. But there were lots of good-looking guys in the world, and I’d never reacted to any of them with the instant crazies. So what was it? That T-shirt? Doubtful. Otherwise I’d have been throwing myself, Britt-style, at every guy at the last MTIAB concert I’d attended. No, it just didn’t make sense. And that bugged me.
“Mroh-ah-rohwww!”
I blinked as the family cat jumped onto the table in one graceful movement. Deceptively graceful. One paw almost landed in my bowl. It actually did land on my spoon, flipping it off the table.
Meow Tse Tung is a blue-point Siamese. He looks sleek and elegant with his velvety gray-and-cream coat and vibrant sapphire-blue eyes. But in truth he’s a nut.
“Morning, Chairman,” I said, reaching over to pat him. He bumped his head up into my hand, then started sniffing at the milk in my bowl.
“Get that monster off the table,” my mother ordered as she hurried into the room. She was dressed in what she calls her Capitol Hill uniform: a navy blue suit with a conservative straight skirt and a beige blouse, finished off with panty hose, sensible short-heeled navy pumps, and discreet gold jewelry. Every time I try to liven up her look with a little color, more modern shapes and fabrics, or maybe just some more interesting jewelry, she shoots me down. Apparently, people at the Library of Congress, where she works as a research librarian, have no appreciation for fashion.
“Chairman Meow was just saying hi,” I said. But I scooped up the cat and deposited him on the floor with a yowl of protest. His yowl, not mine. While I was down there, I retrieved my spoon.
Mom paused to peer at my breakfast on her way to the coffee pot. “What’s that you’re eating? Cereal? There’s still some leftover nasi lemak in the fridge, you know.”
“I know. It’s starting to look kind of gross, especially this early in the morning. Cornflakes are just fine.”
I should probably mention that my family is a little weird about food. My parents are really into exploring ethnic cuisines. They try to test out a new one at least two weeks out of every month, with the other weeks featuring what they call “reruns”—returns to favorite cuisines we’ve tried in the past. This week it was Malaysian food, last week it was Turkish, and next week might find us sampling the unique delicacies of Finland or Sri Lanka or maybe Mars, if my parents could find a cookbook or some recipes on the Internet. Because of this, plain old American cereal was pretty much an exotic treat in our house, and I was lucky if Dad remembered to stop at the regular supermarket to buy stuff like OJ and bread on his way home from shopping at whatever specialty market he was hitting up that week. Britt always brought her own snacks when she came to sleep over.
My mom checked her watch. “Crap,” she muttered. “I’m going to miss the train if I don’t get out of here.”
Just then my dad zoomed in. He zooms everywhere; he has tons of energy, even at the advanced age of forty-four. I guess that’s how he survives his job as a middle school social studies teacher over in the next district. He’s even more hyper than most of his students.
“Has anyone seen those papers I was grading last night?” he asked breathlessly, doing his best to tie his tie while circling the kitchen like some kind of whirling dervish. “I was supposed to be at school five minutes ago, and I can’t find them anywhere!” He paused to cock one eye down at the tie, which looked sort of like a kite tail that had been caught in a windmill. “Dang it! Lauren, why’d I ever let you convince me to start wearing these things?”
“Because clip-on ties should be banished from polite society.” I stepped over and pushed his hands away. “Here, I’ll do it.”
Within seconds I had the tie—a super-cool Sovereign Beck I’d given him for his last birthday—properly tied and looking jaunty with the shirt I’d also picked out for him. If only he’d let me talk him into shaving off his messy sideburns, neatening his beetle brows, and touching up his gray, he’d actually be looking pretty swank.
“Did you check on top of the breakfront?” Mom asked him. “I think I remember you sticking them up there to keep them away from the cat.”
His eyes lit up. “You’re a genius, Liz!” he cried. Pausing just long enough to plant a lip-smacking kiss on her forehead, he zipped out of the room.
Mom chuckled as she wiped Dad’s drool off her face. For some reason that brought me back to my earlier train of thought.
“Hey, Mom,” I said. “I know you and Dad met in college. But how long was it before you knew he was the one?”
“The one what?” Mom had turned away to pour coffee into a commuter cup. She sounded kind of preoccupied.
“The One,” I said again. “You know. The one for you. The guy you wanted to spend the rest of your life with.”
She capped her cup and shot me a surprised look. No wonder. It wasn’t the kind of question I normally asked over breakfast. Or anytime, really.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said with a chuckle. “I guess it was when he got my car running again when it broke down right before an important internship interview.”
“Got them!” Dad raced back in waving a messy sheaf of papers over his head.
“Good.” Mom checked her watch, then grabbed her coffee cup. “I’m out of here. Lauren, maybe your father can give you a more thorough answer to your question.”
“What question?” Dad asked as Mom gave him a peck on the cheek and rushed out the back door.
“I was j
ust asking how you two knew you were meant for each other,” I said. “Romantically, I mean. How soon after you met, that kind of thing.”
“I think she fell for me the first time I fixed that beater car of hers.” Dad guffawed at his own joke as I rolled my eyes. However they’d met, the two of them were a match made in heaven, that was for sure. At least when it came to their lame sense of humor.
Soon Dad hurried off to work too, leaving me alone in the kitchen. Well, not quite alone. I turned back to my cereal to find Meow Tse Tung purring blissfully as he lapped the last of the milk out of my bowl.
When I got to school, Britt was waiting for me at my locker. “I found him!” she shrieked as soon as she saw me coming. She raced toward me, waving BBB over her head. “OMG, I totally found him! I told you I’d do it! It took me a little longer than I thought, but hey, I’m not a miracle worker or anything.”
I blinked. “Found who? Oh!” My morning fog cleared instantly as I caught on. Yeah, I’m a little slow before nine a.m. “Wait. Really?”
“I’ve been scouring Facebook all week, focusing on people from the schools that were on the trip,” Britt explained. “I figured your mystery guy would turn up on somebody’s feed sooner or later. And I’m pretty sure I finally figured out who he might be!”
“Might?” My mind was churning. I wasn’t sure what to think.
She looked proud of herself. “I told you I’d be careful and not embarrass you, right? So instead of following up, I figured I’d let you check it out for yourself. I actually found him on that guy Tommo’s wall—turns out they go to the same school. Here, see for yourself. His name’s Riley.”
“Riley,” I murmured, nodding. The name fit him. Riley.
I took BBB and looked at her tiny screen. Britt had it open to her Facebook wall.
At First Sight Page 3