How (Not) to Find a Boyfriend

by Allyson Valentine

  I am so sure. Copernicus sits at the foot of the bed and whimpers. Somewhere in my brain there is a Pandora’s box of chess knowledge and I would just as soon leave it locked. “No! Out!” I hop off the bed, fling open my bedroom door and usher Joshie and Copernicus into the hallway.

  Joshie bursts into tears and runs to find Mom. I shut the door a little harder than I’d intended. The board sits on my bedside table; Joshie has placed the pieces in all the wrong positions. I set them up correctly, unable to stop myself, pausing to examine the Benjamin Franklin bishop with the chipped base from where I hurled it against the wall the day Dad told me he was leaving.

  The last thing I would have asked for is a chess set. Especially not this one.

  Three

  I KEPT MYSELF UP WAY TOO late imagining I was on one of those bachelorette television shows with a panel of guys that included Adam, Jake and Phil’s friend Zeebo. The girls in the audience shook pom-poms, screaming, “Jake!” and “Jake, I love you!” and “Jake, I want to have your baby.”

  I sat in a tall director’s chair wearing my special homecoming cheer uniform and a pair of Jimmy Choos, with an offstage fan providing a perpetual windswept look. Adam gazed at me with pleading eyes. Zeebo played a chess app on his phone.

  “Who is the lucky bachelor going to be?” the announcer guy asked.

  I bit my lower lip. “I choose—”

  “Jake!” two hundred audience members screamed in unison.

  “Adam,” I declared.

  Jake’s head hung in despair. Zeebo picked at something on his chin. Adam, meanwhile, leapt off his chair and ran to me, sweeping me into his arms, twirling. My Jimmy Choos flew off into the audience . . .

  It’s amazing I got any sleep at all.

  In the shower, I lather, rinse, repeat and consider my options. If Krista is right, I could almost certainly go out with Jake. Me, Nora Fulbright, dating the hottest guy at school. But when I think about Jake, I don’t get the feeling I get when I think about Adam. And it’s only intensified with an entire night of obsessing about him.

  The hot water raining down on my head helps me think. Adam is the new guy at school. He just might top every girl’s hottie list. He may even be a hotter commodity than Jake. I replay for the millionth time our parting words:

  “See you around?”

  “If I’m lucky.”

  I’ll bet he’s an excellent kisser.

  Post-shower, I finally settle on a sundress, dangly earrings and strappy sandals. It’s an outfit that says, “I’m fun, not too into myself, and I was never a larval nerd in my previous life.” I grab a protein bar and a banana, and glance at the clock. I’ll be plenty early, which is good, because Krista will be waiting for me in the commons for a first-day latte. And I want to scope for Adam. Being new to the school, he’d probably be glad for someone to show him around.

  Adam. He was so easy to talk to. My goal for today? To reveal to Adam that I am perky and self-assured, and I have a totally normal relationship with books and calculators.

  I toss my gear into the backseat of the Honda and rub a couple of soccer ball–shaped dust marks off the passenger door. I brush some pollen from the windshield and shine the driver’s side mirror. I pick at a little remaining glue on the back window from where I scraped off the incriminating MIT and Harvard stickers. For my first day driving to school I want my car to look perfect.

  Halfway to school I spot a guy up ahead in khaki shorts and a pink button-down shirt, long-sleeved, untucked. Instead of a backpack he’s carrying one of those over-the-shoulder courier bags. He’s wearing a familiar pair of sports sandals.

  Adam.

  My heart chases itself in circles inside my chest. I glance in the rearview mirror and wipe a mascara freckle off my eyelid, tuck my hair behind my ear. Untuck it. I can’t believe there are still five months and eleven days until I’m sixteen and a half and can offer him a ride! But I can at least pull over and say hi. As I get close, I press down on the clutch to disengage it as I ease on the brakes. But instead of the brake I accidentally push the gas pedal to the floor, gunning the engine. Adam jumps, then jerks around. He looks terrified.

  I consider racing away, but pull forward and roll down the passenger-side window instead.

  Adam peers in and his look of concern breaks into a smile, dimple and all. “It’s you! I should have recognized the car.”

  His hair is still damp and his eyes have that just-woken-up look—sleepy, but fresh, and bright. He rests his hand in the open window frame. His nails are clean and trimmed. A leather cord with a single bright-blue bead is tied around his left wrist.

  “Sorry about the noisy approach,” I say through a pained smile.

  I look at him standing there looking at me, the pink of his shirt accentuating his summer-kissed skin, and I think, how bad would it be if I got caught giving him a ride? I mean, the worst-case scenario for first-time offenders is that you’re stuck with all the ridiculous passenger-and-nighttime-driving restrictions until you’re eighteen instead of them ending when you’re sixteen and a half.

  Wait. Who am I kidding? That would totally suck. My dream of daily excursions to Molly Moon’s would be put on hold for way too long. I might not even like ice cream anymore by the time I’m eighteen. No. There is no way I can give him a ride.

  But I think about how he twirled me in his arms on the bachelorette TV show, my Jimmy Choos soaring into the crowd—

  “Want a ride?”

  “Sure!” He climbs in and drops his bag on the floor at his feet. “Thanks for stopping. I’m glad I didn’t ride my bike today.”

  “No problem.” So he rides a bike. That would explain the awesome calves. I need a bicycle—pronto.

  Adam settles in and turns to face me. “Wow! Pickup soccer games, insect lectures, rides to school—pretty friendly neighborhood.”

  I remind myself to breathe. I glance in the rearview mirror to make sure there isn’t a cop behind me. They can probably sense from three blocks away when a teenager has picked up a passenger illegally. “Friendly,” I finally say, grinning like a crazy person. Oh my god, really, Nora? Is that the best you can do? Lack of sleep, a night of obsessing and a sudden fear of men in blue uniforms have shorted my brain.

  Adam laughs. “Friendlier than my old neighborhood, that’s for sure.”

  Breathe, Nora. Breathe! I can’t believe how uptight I am. I shouldn’t have picked him up. I really shouldn’t have. I try to relax, grateful for the time alone with him and for the obvious entrée. “So where did you move here from?”

  “Denver,” he says.

  “Hmmm,” I say. “Never heard of it.” I mean it as a joke, of course. Like who has not heard of Denver?

  Adam cocks his head. His left eye twitches ever so slightly. He twiddles with the bead on his bracelet. “You’re kidding, right?”

  I force a laugh. “Of course!” If my goal is to keep from being pegged as a super-intellect, I’m doing a fantastic job. And I’m rapidly losing confidence. We need some noise in the car that is not me making a fool of myself, so I turn on the radio, which is, as always, tuned to KUOW, Seattle’s NPR station. “Nerd news,” Krista calls it. She is forever giving me crap about it. She calls my cell and leaves me voice mails pretending she’s the assorted public radio personalities I’ve forced her to listen to. Just yesterday she was Sylvia Poggioli, NPR’s senior European correspondent. “This is Sylvia Poggioli calling to say that Nora needs to get a life and listen to a normal radio station.”

  I quickly reach over and press a random preset, choosing one that must have been keyed in by the guy who changed my oil. Mind-numbing techno-bop wails from the speakers. I smile at Adam and bob my head in time with the music. “My mom must have borrowed my car,” I say, explaining away the NPR.

  “No problem. I actually really like public radio.” Adam raises his voice to be heard over the music. “I’m kind of a news junkie.”

  Seriously? “Oh! Okay.” I reach for the button to switch it back
, but Adam blocks my hand with his. Our fingers touch. My breath stutters. We both freeze.

  “You were nice enough to offer me a ride,” he finally says, slowly pulling his hand away. “I insist we listen to your station.”

  The music etches itself into my cranium. And it’s almost impossible to watch the road with my eyes constantly darting to Adam. He taps his feet on the freshly vacuumed floor mats. He runs his fingers along the seam of the seat cover that hides the hole Phil’s AP chemistry project ate into the upholstery. He’s totally at ease, and his easiness calms me down a bit. I can do this. I can have a normal conversation with him.

  “Nice car,” he says. “Is it yours?”

  “It is now. It’s kind of a hand-me-down from my brother. He bought it off Craigslist when he turned sixteen.”

  He considers. “Not your brother Joshie, I take it?”

  It’s a joke, I know. And an invitation to tell him about my other brother—the one old enough to own a car. But I can’t respond. I can’t even breathe, because at that moment we pull up to a red light where a police officer, not ten feet away from my car, is holding up his hand like Superman stopping an oncoming train. Apparently the traffic light is not working and he is here to help everyone cross the street without getting killed. By someone like me. Stay cool, Nora. Stay cool.

  “Um, I was just kidding,” says Adam when I don’t respond. “About Joshie.”

  “What? Oh. Yeah, totally.” My laugh is strained.

  The police officer waves a herd of high schoolers across the street. He blows a whistle and motions for a couple of guys from the football team to hurry up. He glances at me and nods. I smile and try to look taller. Or cuter. Or something. Do I look old enough to have a passenger? Do I even look old enough to drive? A bus pulls up behind me.

  “We were talking about your car,” says Adam. “You said you got it from your brother. I made a lame joke about the car not having been a hand-me-down from Joshie. So your brother must be away at school or something?”

  I consider my reply. My mother would be quick to gush, “Premed at Harvard,” assuming all the world is as impressed by Phil’s brain as she is. The last thing I want is to seem pretentious.

  I hesitate. “Yeah. My brother Phil is away at school.”

  Adam nods. “I can’t wait to have my own car. But I don’t have any sibs, so there are no hand-me-downs coming my way.”

  I glance in my rearview mirror. A second bus has pulled behind the first one. The cop waves a couple of kids on bicycles across the street. If I got arrested here, there would be at least sixty witnesses. Sixty-one counting Adam.

  “A new car is the carrot my folks are dangling in front of my nose,” Adam continues. “If I get a four-point-oh for the year, they’ll buy me a car. It’s kind of ridiculous.”

  Ridiculous? Could it be that as smart as he seems, a 4.0 is a ridiculous prospect? I am so glad I changed my schedule around! We’re way more likely to be in classes together. God, this is a long traffic light!

  “I know what you mean,” I say, trying to sound as if I understand what it would be like for a 4.0 to be a ridiculous goal. “If I had needed a four-point-oh to get this car, I would still be riding the bus.”

  Adam, who looks confused, is even cute with his eyebrows all scrunched up. “Ah, I see what you mean,” he finally says. “No, getting a four-point-oh is easy—they know I’ll pull off the grades. What’s ridiculous is that they’re making me wait all the way until June to get a car even though I’ll turn sixteen in January.” His eyes dart from me, to the road, to me. “Um. The policeman is waving for you to keep driving.” Behind me the bus driver blares his horn.

  I lift my foot off the clutch too fast and stall out. Crap! Could this get any worse? The music is actually causing my brain to turn into a hamburger. I start the car and pull away. Thankfully the cop does not come running after me. I line up to pull into the school parking lot, turn the radio volume down a couple of notches and make a final stab at salvaging the conversation.

  “So, what brought you here from Colorado?” I ask.

  Adam has rolled down the car window. His elbow is half in and half out of the car. “My mom’s an oncologist. She got a job heading up a research division over at Fred Hutchinson. Dad’s a shrink. He’s worked out a pretty sweet deal Skype-ing with his old patients while he builds up a new clientele here.”

  Brains × Brains = Brains2. We were made for each other, but now I’ve gone and made him think I’m a total dimwit who could never get a 4.0, who doesn’t know where Denver is and who has terrible taste in music. I have completely and utterly blown this. As we enter the parking lot, I don’t say a word. He looks at me for a response and takes my silence as confusion.

  “An oncologist is a cancer doctor,” he says. “A shrink—”

  “I know what a shrink is!” I bark at him, releasing my inner pit bull. “He’s a head shrinker. A psychiatrist. I get it.”

  Adam examines his thumbnail. I death-grip the steering wheel as I cruise past a line of parked cars looking for a spot. Did I really just shout at him? I click off the radio. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s been kind of a tough morning.”

  Our eyes meet. He smiles. I wince. “It’s no big deal,” he says. “The first day of school can be a little bit—”

  His gaze shifts to the front of the car and his eyes grow wide. “Watch out!” He clutches the dashboard as a guy crossing on foot from the bus lane leaps to get out of the way of my car. It’s Stuart Shangrove—the guy who announces the home football games. I hit the brakes. Stuart scowls and gives me the finger. I roll down my window. “Sorry!”

  I fold my arms over the steering wheel and set my forehead down. All I want is to start over. To tell Adam all about the extra-credit report I did when I was in eighth grade on the state of the mining industry in Colorado and the resulting impacts on the Denver economy. I want to tell him that my iPhone is loaded with podcasts of my NPR favorites. I want to share that I’ve had one B in my entire life, and it was when we did volleyball in phys ed.

  I lift my head, blow out a big breath and pull into a parking spot. I turn off the car and can’t even look him in the eye.

  “Hey, are you okay?” Adam asks. “You know, sometimes head injuries take a while to present symptoms. I could walk you to the school nurse.” He’s searching for a lump or a bruise on the spot above my ear where the soccer ball whacked my head yesterday.

  If only I could blame this car ride on a brain injury! “No. Thanks anyway. I’ll be—”

  BAM BAM. BAM BAM BAM. BAM BAM BAM. Adam and I share a terrified glance. What the hell? Someone is pounding on the roof of my car.

  “Nora!” Jake pokes his face, his neck—every portion of his massive upper torso that will fit through my car window. He grins and reaches in to give my horn a couple of short blasts. “Too bad you didn’t kill Shangrove back there. He always mispronounces my name when he’s announcing games. You heading in?”

  “Um.” I look at Adam. It’s like Jake doesn’t even see him sitting there. Adam grabs his bag off the floor and slips it over his chest. A flicker of a forced smile crosses his lips. “Well, thanks for the ride. I’ll see you later.” He glances at Jake and can’t get out of the car fast enough. He’s gone before I can say good-bye.

  As Jake and I make our way across the parking lot, I watch Adam, way ahead of us, as he enters the school. How did I manage to mess up what started so perfectly yesterday? The bigger question—how do I fix it?

  The morning passes by in a blur. Jake and I get stopped by so many of his admirers on the way into the school that I miss meeting Krista for a latte and barely make it to biology on time. Regular biology, it turns out, is like the coloring-book version of what I know I would be getting in the AP class. In French, the teacher might as well be speaking in tongues, because I am so wrapped up in the botched car ride that I hardly hear a word he says. Then, in PE, I take a volleyball square on the chin. Do they ever stop torturing kids with volleyball?

&
nbsp; Finally, the bell rings for first lunch, where I know I’ll catch up with Krista. I get in the food line, drop a yogurt and an apple onto a tray, plus a chocolate chip cookie to lift my spirits. Now, where to sit? I don’t see Krista yet, or any of the gymnastics girls we usually sat with last year. I scan for Adam, not sure whether I want to see him or not, but he’s nowhere to be seen.

  “Nora!” From all the way over at one of the rectangular tables by the window, Chelsey waves for me to join her. Chelsey, Queen Monarch, waves for me to join her. She’s with Becca, Jazmine and a couple of seniors from the football team. I wave back, noticing that heads at random tables turn toward Chelsey, then me. Is it my imagination or are there cameras flashing? My crushed spirits start to lift. Nora Fulbright is becoming visible.

  Chelsey introduces me to the table. “Nora is the one I was telling you about. She’s the most athletic flyer we’ve ever had!” she gushes. She pats my back. I focus on peeling the top off my yogurt to keep from grinning like an idiot. Chelsey has been telling people about me. Bragging about me. Me!

  Krista waves from across the room and makes her way to the table. There’s another round of introductions. Krista, it turns out, already knows some of the guys through Dex. “You must have given the maître d’ a huge tip to get seated at this table,” she whispers as she slips into the seat beside me.

  Gillian shows up. Instead of eating, she pulls a hairbrush out of her bag and starts doing Becca’s hair. Jazmine tosses onto the table a copy of European Vogue her mom brought back from a business trip, and pretty soon the entire table, even the guys—well, especially the guys—are ogling the hot trends that the models are, and mostly are not, wearing.

  Krista dumps the contents of a brown paper lunch sack on the table and tears open a little pouch of gummy bunny rabbits. “Where were you this morning?” she asks. “I waited as long as I could.”

  Everyone else is totally absorbed in the magazine. I scootch closer to Krista, stirring my yogurt, speaking in a low voice. “Oh, Krista. It was awful.”