By the Book

by Amanda Sellet

  What I did like was being asked my opinion, and not just as a precursor to telling me why I was wrong. They seemed genuinely curious about what I had to say, something I’d never experienced with Anjuli. The words flowed among us without a single strained silence or sullen eye roll until the lights came on at the park and we realized it was time to go home.

  * * *

  The next morning, I stayed in bed reading until a grumbling stomach drove me downstairs. In the dining room, I found my father surrounded by uneven stacks of books and papers, as well as no fewer than three oversize mugs. There was a bare patch just large enough for my cereal bowl at the far end of the table. After pulling in my chair, I peered at the scribble-covered legal pad next to his hand.

  “What are you working on?”

  “That remains to be seen.” He pushed his glasses farther up his nose. “I’m noodling for now.”

  Dad’s thought processes were famously nonlinear. Almost Woolfian in their circumlocutions, our mother liked to say of his stream-of-consciousness style. It sounded like a compliment, but I got the feeling Mom was trying to convince herself, when in fact she wished he would empty the clean plates from the dishwasher before upending a half-full cup of tea over them.

  “Where is everybody?” I asked around a mouthful of whole-grain nuggets. The house was unusually quiet.

  “Your mother’s at yoga.” Dad’s mind always turned to Mom first. “I believe Adeline and Vanessa are still slumbering.” His forehead crinkled as he looked at me. I would have thrown him an oar but wasn’t sure which mystery had him confounded: the name of his missing daughter, or her whereabouts.

  “Cam’s at practice?” I guessed.

  Dad tapped the table, his version of aha! “She did say something about that, though it may have been yesterday.” He shook himself, tufts of salt-and-pepper hair jutting in all directions. Most people never guessed he was younger than our mother by several years, since Dad tended to be bear-like and shambling while Mom was a health-food-powered dynamo of petite proportions.

  “What are your plans for the day?” he asked, surprising me. My father was not a Keeper of the Social Calendar type.

  “Homework, mostly.” And maybe a phone call to Arden, who’d asked me to update her with any casting news.

  Dad sat back, threading his fingers and resting them on his belly. “No parties on the horizon?”

  I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “Parties?” It seemed like even more of a non sequitur than usual.

  “Your sister told me,” he said gruffly. “About seeing you out on the town.”

  “Oh.” I set down my spoon. “That kind of party.”

  His brows drew into a worried line. “Is there a reason you didn’t inform us of your plans, Mary?”

  “I did tell you. You were sitting in the living room with Mom and I said, ‘By the way, I’m going to a party’ and she nodded, and you said, ‘Indeed.’”

  “Well.” He cleared his throat. “It’s possible I mistook your meaning.”

  I decided to let that one slide, especially as Jasper walked into the room at that moment, followed closely by his best friend Bo, son of the anthropology professors two doors down. (His full name was Boas, after the pioneering social scientist Franz Boas.) Judging from the state of their hair, they’d just woken up, grabbing a cereal box and pair of mixing bowls en route to the dining room.

  “Mary would never sneak out without telling you,” Jasper said sleepily. Although ostensibly speaking in my defense, his tone was a tad insulting.

  “Who’s sneaking?” Bo looked from Jasper to me. “You’re not talking about Mary?”

  “Yep. Believe it or not, Mary was out after dark. At a party.” Jasper shook a little more cereal into his bowl. If no one intervened he would go on this way—a little more cereal, a little more milk—until the last dusty grains had been consumed.

  “A high-school party?” Bo whispered, in a tone usually reserved for words like chlamydia or cyanide.

  “Just a regular party,” I said, poking at my cereal.

  “With those new girls you’re hanging with?” Jasper asked between crunches.

  I stared at him, spoon frozen above my bowl. “How did you hear about that?”

  He shrugged. “Social media, baby. You’re all over Instagram.”

  “How would you know?”

  He smiled, a trail of milk dribbling from the corner of his mouth. “We have our sources.”

  I was still grappling with this revelation when two sets of footsteps presaged the arrival of the twins. Van swept through the door first, staggering dramatically toward a chair. “Bring some for me, will you?” she called after her twin, who had headed straight for the kitchen.

  “Some what?” Addie asked without turning.

  “Whatever you’re having. Toast is fine. With marmalade. And tea.”

  Addie returned a moment later, setting down the butter dish with slightly more force than necessary.

  “Late night?” I asked. Addie opened her mouth to answer, pausing when her twin yawned loudly.

  “Exhausting,” Van groaned. “But productive. Some exciting new faces in the mix.”

  I glanced at Addie, who had shifted as if about to speak. Then the kettle whistled, and she walked back into the kitchen instead.

  “Did you make the final cast list?” It felt strange to have to ask. Usually I stayed until the bitter end, listening to the twins debate which actor fit this or that part, but yesterday I’d begged off so I could leave with my friends.

  “We’re still pondering a few possibilities,” Van said, with what I suspected to be a deliberate air of mystery.

  Addie walked back in from the kitchen carrying two mugs. “She likes the one with the hair and the”—she flapped a hand at her own torso—“bodysuit for Iago.” It was clear from Addie’s expression that this wasn’t a conviction she shared. The twins took a liberal view of cross-gender casting, so that couldn’t be the issue. A petty part of me enjoyed the thought that sheer physical attractiveness wasn’t enough to make up for what must have been an otherwise lackluster performance.

  “Phoebe,” Van supplied, not even pretending to search for the name. I’d noticed Alex Ritter’s lady friend chatting with my sister during the break, listening with rapt attention to whatever Van was saying. It smacked of sucking up to me. I wondered if Alex had given her the idea. “But not for Iago. I’m thinking Desdemona.”

  I could tell from the way she spoke that Van was uncertain of her twin’s approval.

  “What? No.” Addie set one of the cups in front of Van before dropping into her own chair.

  “Why not?” Van countered. “She looks the part.”

  “It’s too much—the confidence. It feels showoffy. ‘Look at me, look at my body.’ When Iago starts casting aspersions, instead of thinking, ‘Oh no, poor maligned Desdemona,’ everyone’s going to say, ‘She is a bit of a wanton, isn’t she?’”

  “I think it would be an interesting dynamic.” Van very carefully added two sugar cubes to her tea. “And why shouldn’t she express her sensuality? Phoebe trained as a dancer. Of course she’s comfortable with her body.”

  That explained the way she held herself, shoulders wide and back as though she’d never heard the word slouch, even when she was pressed to Alex Ritter’s side. Part of me had wondered what it would feel like to be her: an arm around my shoulders, rib cages touching, flirtatious banter. Not with someone infamous like him, of course, but a serious, responsible boyfriend, appropriate for a person like me.

  “That’s great for Phoebe,” Addie said, eyeing the mug in her hands, “but should it be the first thing anyone notices about Desdemona?”

  “What, you want her to walk around holding an astrolabe, so people know she’s smart? Or no, we’ll put her in glasses. That’ll be original.” Van was always at her most acidic when she felt threatened. “Anyway, Anton liked her too.”

  “Anton wants to dress her,” Addie corrected. “It’s not the same thin
g.”

  Van grabbed the box of cereal, frowning as she shook it. “This is empty.”

  Jasper slurped the last of his milk straight from the bowl before grinning sloppily at her. “Now you can be a real starving artist.”

  Van threw her head back, hands over her eyes as if she couldn’t bear to look at any of us. “Can we just stop for bagels on the way?”

  “You asked for toast,” Addie reminded her. “Which I put in the toaster for you.”

  Van jerked a hand at Jasper. “He can eat it.”

  “Fine.” Addie stood, taking her mug with her as she departed. A few seconds later we heard it thud against the kitchen counter.

  “Well,” said our father. Picking up his own mug, he attempted to drink. Finding it empty, he frowned before hoisting himself from the chair and heading for the kitchen, leaving all three empty cups behind.

  Van glanced at the cuckoo clock on the wall as she gulped a few swallows of tea. I could tell her mind had already left the room, followed in short order by the rest of her.

  “That was intense,” Bo said.

  I nodded. It wasn’t that the twins never disagreed. Like the rest of us, they had occasional differences of opinion, but this had felt more like the kind of argument that led to hair-pulling and slaps.

  “Speaking of relationship drama,” Jasper observed oh so casually, “you didn’t finish telling us about your new friends.”

  I knew I should ignore him, but one of my brother’s superpowers is that he’s almost impossible to brush off. “Why do you say it like that?”

  “How did I say it?”

  “I heard the italics.”

  “I wasn’t italicizing. Invisible air quotes, maybe.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “I’m glad you asked, Mary.” Bo leaned his elbows on the table. “We do have some concerns. First you drop your old friends and now you’re chasing the popular crowd. It’s not like you.”

  I shook my head, not wanting to know how they’d acquired their information, however erroneous. “That’s not how it happened.”

  “And what’s in it for them?” Jasper put in, as though I hadn’t spoken.

  “We get along.” Did that sound defensive? “It’s fun to hang out with them. They’re nice, and interesting, and they . . . seem to like me too. We have things in common.”

  Bo nodded slowly, as if he were a shrink with a notepad and I was lying on his couch describing my delusions. “Such as?”

  “Well, we all like order and planning. Analyzing things. None of us want to live an unexamined life.”

  Jasper lifted his silky eyebrows, as seal-dark as his hair. “Have they asked you for anything? Copying your homework, a little help with an essay, just this once?”

  “We’re not even in the same classes—”

  “Of course not,” Bo said soothingly, shooting Jasper a warning look. “Listen, Mary, if I were a teenage girl, you’d be at the top of my list. But we don’t know these people.”

  “Aside from following them on Snapchat,” Jasper put in.

  “We’ve seen these situations before,” Bo continued, “and they don’t always end happily. You need to watch your back. Don’t be their Carrie.”

  “As in Sister Carrie? You think I’m going to move to the big city and become someone’s kept woman?”

  “As in pig’s blood in the shower and a prom night massacre when your telekinetic rage finally breaks free,” Jasper replied. “Have you considered the possibility they’re stringing you along as part of an elaborate prank?”

  I stared at him for the space of several thundering heartbeats. “Your faith in me is touching.”

  “It’s not you, Mary,” Bo crooned. “It’s the world. The city streets are dark and dangerous. And let’s face it, you’re an innocent.”

  I wanted to tell him that some people found me sophisticated and worldly, but I knew Jasper would laugh. Taking my silence as encouragement, Bo reached across the table to gently stroke the back of my hand. “We worry about you all alone at that blackboard jungle, where we can’t watch over you.”

  “I’m two years older than you,” I reminded him. “And you guys have been at public school exactly as long as I have.”

  “Some things you’re born with. Savvy is my middle name.”

  Jasper snorted. “Your middle name is Jaap. And I’m pretty sure the Dutch are known for tulips and wooden shoes, not street smarts.”

  Bo’s family tree included Japanese, Filipino, and African offshoots, in addition to the aforementioned Dutch. What most people noticed about him, however, was his adorableness. Even now that he was growing from baby-faced to gawky, strangers smiled indulgently at Bo, sighing over his long lashes as though his good looks were a favor he’d done the world.

  “You need to be sure these people appreciate you for the right reasons.” Bo put a hand to his heart. “The way I appreciate you.”

  There was no point trying to explain the difference between being used and being useful. Just because Jasper and Bo saw me as plain old Mary, the least interesting of the Porter-Malcolm sisters, didn’t mean other people looked at me the same way. To the larger world, I could be someone new and exciting.

  Sitting at that picnic table in the park last night, I’d felt the glow of my friends’ approbation even through the sugar buzz. The three of them had chosen me—almost as if I’d auditioned for the part and been found worthy. Maybe I was a babe in the woods when it came to Real High School, but I had things to contribute, thoughts and ideas of my own. And if my new friends deemed me cool enough to be part of their group, who was I to argue? They were the experts, after all.

  “Probably you should let us inspect these girls, before you get in over your head,” Jasper suggested.

  I gave him a look that said, In your dreams. “We’re friends. There’s nothing weird or underhanded about it.” Picking up my bowl, I started for the kitchen.

  “Running away?” Jasper asked. “Things getting too hot for you?”

  “I have a phone call to make. To a friend. Whose name is Arden,” I added, worried my exit line had sounded suspiciously vague.

  “You do you, Mary,” Bo called after me. “Don’t let them change you.”

  Dear Diary,

  I never paid much attention to the age difference between heroines and their love interests until the twins became teenagers, at which point I realized how creepy it would be if a middle-aged guy wanted to marry one of them.

  Now that I’m almost sixteen, I can’t believe anyone my age would ever want to be married at all, much less to a person old enough to be someone’s dad. With or without the madwoman in the attic.

  M.P.M.

  Chapter 10

  A few days later, I was shoving a biology textbook into my locker when I sensed a presence behind me.

  “Hey—” I started to say as I turned, expecting to see Lydia or Terry, because Arden would have been bouncier. The rest of the sentence evaporated as though I’d shoved a paper towel in my mouth.

  Alex Ritter stood behind me, head cocked at a questioning angle. My heart galloped, up and then down again. “You were saying?” he prompted.

  I shook my head.

  He eased backwards until he was propped against the wall. Today’s shirt was Wedgwood blue, which brought out the dark ring around the paler hue of his irises. Surely he planned these things for effect.

  “What?” He looked down at himself. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “I’m trying to decide if you’re a fop.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Dandy, popinjay, coxcomb. Fancy man.” I broke off, realizing my mouth had sprinted ahead of my brain. His whole attitude was so familiar, as if we were intimately acquainted, that I’d fallen into the trap of talking to him the same way. You did measure his hips, I reminded myself.

  “I’m guessing you’ll ace the vocab section of the SAT.”

  I braced myself against a rush of warmth; there was bound to be an ulte
rior motive behind the flattery. “Did you want something?”

  He nodded. “You’ve read Jane Eyre.”

  It was a statement, not a question. I blinked at him, nonplussed. He wanted to talk about the Brontës?

  “Phoebe says everyone in your family is like a walking library,” he continued, filling the space where a normal person would have joined the conversation instead of gawping at him like a rube.

  “Of course,” I finally managed to say. Honestly, did I look like a philistine?

  A girl in tasseled ankle boots grabbed his hand as she passed. “See you tonight, Alex?”

  His answering smile sent her off with a spring in her step. “What did you think about what happened at the end?” he asked me, without missing a beat.

  “You mean when the ghostly voice is calling ‘Jane, Jane’ across the moors? As in, do I think it was a paranormal event or some kind of Freudian delusion?”

  He scratched his chin with a thumbnail. “What about what happens after that?”

  “When she goes back to Thornfield and it’s a burned-out husk?”

  “Hmm. It’s not what you’d call a happy ending, is it?”

  “What? No, it’s beautiful. How she finds him again and sort of hints he’s not totally blind—”

  “Who’s blind?”

  It shouldn’t have surprised me that Alex Ritter was not a close reader. “Rochester. From the fire,” I reminded him. “When he tried to save his first wife from the burning building, but she leaped to her death instead? Which is tragic, but also handy for Jane because, goodbye, bigamy!”

  He was staring as though I’d spoken a foreign language. With painful slowness, my brain pieced together the puzzle.

  “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

  “Didn’t quite make it that far,” he admitted without the faintest trace of shame. “To recap, house burns down, he goes blind, she comes to find him, and then?”

  “They get married.” I reported this with the robotic inflection of someone who has been shocked into a catatonic state.