The Start of Me and You (19 page)

“Interesting.” I saw my window of opportunity. “Okay. Take it or leave it: I watch your movie
if
you try at least two teas, of my choosing.”

He groaned again, tipping his head back. “Deal. Your turn.”

“I …” I hesitated, already feeling a burst of embarrassment. “I’m applying to a summer program in New York. To study screen writing for TV. Which I think I might want to study in college, but I don’t know.”

“Whoa,” Max said. “That is … awesome.”

I smiled a little. “Not that awesome. I haven’t even told my mom, and there’s no way she’d let me go even if I did get in.”

“Why not?”

“It’s expensive, for starters. And she’s really overprotective.”

“Well,” he said. “Maybe you should write yourself a script of what you plan to say to her. Work on that rhetoric.”

I wasn’t sure if he meant it as a joke, but I seriously considered it. “That’s actually a really good idea. Okay, your turn.”

“I also applied to a summer program. In Italy. To study Latin. And history. And pasta.”

I laughed. “So, do you want to study history in college? Or, like, Italian or something?”

He leaned his head against the steering wheel. “God. I don’t
know
.”

“You don’t have to answer! Sorry, I didn’t realize it was—”

“An endless source of angst for me?” His laugh sounded self-deprecating and even a little bitter. “Nah, it’s okay. I just … I have the grades, and I have the test scores. But I have no idea what I want to do, which means I have no idea what schools I’m interested in. I thought if I got some distance, with this study-abroad trip, maybe I’d have a better idea.”

“And Italy’s a secret? Does your mom know?”

“She’s the only one who does. And now you. I’m pretty sure I’ll get in, but I’m waiting to hear before I tell Ryan. I sort of feel like I’m bailing on him.” He sighed. “Okay, enough cousin guilt. Your turn.”

I don’t know what compelled me to say what I said next.
Maybe I was thinking of him and Ryan, of me and Tessa. “Sometimes it sucks to be Tessa’s best friend.”

“Why?” Max asked. I thought he would look surprised at such a radical statement about one of our mutual friends, but he didn’t.

I brushed my bangs to the side. “Because that’s my identity to people: Tessa’s best friend. And, like, every guy is in love with her. She’s beautiful and interesting and … you know.”

“I’m not in love with her,” Max volunteered.

“Oh no?” I asked. Max and Tessa seemed to enjoy each other’s company so much that I couldn’t help but wonder if there was more to it for him.

“I mean, I do think she’s beautiful and interesting,” he said. My stomach seared with that old, familiar jealousy. “But, that’s just, you know … pulchritude and conversation.”

“Pulchritude,” I repeated.

“Yeah. It means—”

“I know what it means.” I stared at him for a moment. “And those two things seem like plenty.”

“For some people maybe. I don’t know. I just don’t think of her like that.”

“Then you’re the only one who doesn’t.” I shouldn’t have expected him to get it anyway. “Never mind. It’s not something a guy would understand.”

“Really.”

“Really.”

He turned to me, his eyes steady on my face. “I don’t understand what it’s like to feel eclipsed by a charismatic best friend even though she—or he—doesn’t mean to?”

My mouth fell open a little, and I snapped it shut. I’d never thought of his relationship with Ryan that way. After a moment, I said, “Maybe you do.”

He smiled, smoothing his hands against the steering wheel. “Maybe.”

As we sat there for a moment, I wondered what had compelled me to tell Max such a private, embarrassing thing. I almost wished I could snatch the words back from the air. Or that I could wiggle my nose like Samantha in
Bewitched
and turn time back a few minutes.

“Have you ever noticed,” he asked, “that you sing the backup parts in songs?”

I jerked my head over to him. “I do
not
.”

“Yeah. You do. Last week, when we were driving to the away match at Beech Grove, there was an Aretha Franklin song on the radio. You hummed along with the backup singers.”

“First of all,” I said, “I deny this accusation. Secondly, what does that have to do with anything?”

He shrugged. “You’re not Tessa’s backup singer. And I’m not Ryan’s sidekick, either. So I don’t think either of us should act like it.”

We’d only really met a few months ago, but Max knew more about my life than almost anyone. It was easy for me to be honest with him because there was nothing to lose. With Ryan, I was always afraid of embarrassing myself, wary to state any opinion or try to be funny. Max was just Max, and he was a solid friend to have in my corner.

“Here’s a secret.” I turned my head toward him. “You don’t completely suck at giving advice.”

“That,” he said, “is not a secret.”

Max Watson had a few secrets of his own. Most of them were silly, admitted through laughter: he cried more than once reading
The Hunger Games
, he dressed up as Harry Potter for every single elementary school Halloween, and even the smallest amount of coconut would make him break out in hives.

I told him about my irrational fear of bees—I’d never been stung, so I had no idea if I was as allergic as Tessa. That I thought the phrase was “a blessing in the skies” until I was thirteen and that I insisted on being called “Jessie” in kindergarten because I was so obsessed with
Toy Story 2
. But I couldn’t quite bring myself to tell him about Aaron, and I couldn’t tell him about my drowning nightmare either. Maybe those secrets would tumble out eventually, but for now, like any good secret, I was safe with Max.

Chapter Fourteen

By Christmastime, my parents were all but fused at the hip. “Defined boundaries” and my comfort level fell by the wayside in favor of perpetual togetherness. I was forced to spend the holidays doing every clichéd, family-oriented event that the season had to offer. We picked out a tree, decorated it, made cookies, decorated them, and watched what felt like a hundred Christmas movies—all while enduring my parents’ shameless flirtation. I visited my grandmother three times in four days just to get a break from them. She was doing well, if a little confused and very tired, and her recovery was better than all of my Christmas presents combined.

By the day after Christmas, I’d already been coerced
into one game night, which was ameliorated only by Tessa’s presence. But since Tessa was in Santorini with her parents until the New Year, I was not about to agree to a reprise of game night. I needed an excuse or at least an ally for the evening. Morgan, I knew, was at church choir practice, so I only had one shot left.

“I’m going to a party with Eric,” Kayleigh said through the phone line. “Sorry.”

My desperation won out, and I was reduced to begging. “Can’t you cancel? He’ll understand, right?”

“I would, but things have been a little rocky between us. I really need to spend some time with him.”

“Fine,” I grumbled. It wasn’t an exaggeration on her part. Tension between her and Eric seemed to flare up and settle in a less-than-twenty-four-hour cycle. Normal, fun-loving Kayleigh was gone, and she’d been replaced by Girlfriend Kayleigh, whom I didn’t like nearly as much. Even when she was with us, she had one eye on her phone and one foot out the door.

When the doorbell rang less than an hour later, I hoped she’d changed her mind. My parents were setting up the Fact-O-Mazing board, prepping for a night of family trivia. I was calculating how many of my possessions I would have to sell in order to buy a ticket to Santorini.

“I’ll get it,” my mother called.
Please be Kayleigh
, I pleaded with the universe. A few moments passed before
I heard the sound of “Deck the Halls” echoing through the house. It wasn’t a choir; it sounded like only a couple of voices, all male. We exchanged confused glances, and my dad stood up to see what was going on. But the singing cut off abruptly to the sound of laughter. Another moment passed, and my mother came back into view, ushering in two guys: Max and Ryan, decked out in holiday sweaters.

“You know these people?” my dad asked.

“Um, yeah,” I stammered. “I do.”

“My mom channels her holiday stress into cookie baking,” Ryan said, holding up the tin in his hands. “She sent us out to spread the Christmas cheer.”

“She’s like a very bossy Keebler Elf,” Max added.

“Well,” my dad said, brows furrowed. “That’s nice.”

“Oh my goodness,” Ryan said, surveying the room.
Oh my goodness?
He was clearly putting on a nicey-nice-boy-next-door routine for my parents. “Are we barging in on family time? I do apologize.”

“No trouble! You should stay awhile! We’re having a game night,” my mom said, beaming at them. She was always complaining that I spent all my time at friends’ houses, never bringing them over to our house anymore. My philosophy was, if you want your daughter to have guests over, don’t divorce her dad and then flirt with him in your home.

“Oh, we wouldn’t want to intrude,” Max said.

“No!” my mom said. “It would be perfect. We were
about to play a trivia game to prep Paige for QuizBowl matches.”

Max cocked an eyebrow at me. My Christmas wish became this: let me disappear from this place. “Oh, really.”

I wasn’t sure if I wanted them to stay. On the one hand, I was actually friendly enough with Ryan Chase that he would drop cookies off at my house and stay for family game night. But he’d be there for a family game night with my drama queen sister and divorced-but-dating parents. It could turn out to be mortifying, a total step back in seeming datable.

“Well,” Ryan said, clasping his hands together. “That would be lovely.”

I shook my head, but grinned anyway. My dad stood up taller, a fatherly instinct meant to intimidate. He eyed each of them.

“Ryan Chase,” Ryan said, sticking out his hand. My dad shook it.

“Honey,” my mom said, addressing my dad. “You probably recognize Ryan from the newspaper. There’s always a picture of him in the spring, for track. And this is Max, Julie Watson’s son.”

“Big fan of your column,” Max said, shaking my dad’s hand. He turned to my sister, who was looking particularly sulky. “Cameron, right?”

A look of surprise registered on Cameron’s face, and
she glanced at me like she couldn’t believe I would tell my friends about her.

“Right,” she said, narrowing her eyes, probably suspicious that I complained about her to Max. “Hey.”

“All right.” Ryan stretched his arms as if preparing for a race. “What are we playing?”

It took an hour and four cookies apiece for our game of Fact-O-Mazing to really hit full stride. I took a deep breath in and closed my eyes. It was little better than a guess, and it was very possible that I was about to be dead wrong about who was arrested for voting in the 1872 election.

“Susan B. Anthony,” I said in one quick breath, before I could change my mind.

My dad hung his head and muttered, “Crap. Yes.”

“Boom!”
Ryan said from beside me. He sat up in his chair and pointed at Max. “What now?”

It had been an even game so far, a competition between evenly matched teams. We’d pulled partners from a hat at my mom’s suggestion. I wound up with Ryan as my teammate, while Max and Cameron paired up. That left my parents as a duo, solidifying their campaign to become the world’s only divorced Siamese twins.

My parents, beyond being generally academic, had the advantage by years. They were old enough to remember events that were taught as history to the rest of us, but young enough to answer many of the pop-culture questions with
ease. Many, but not all. They missed a question about a sitcom that I of course stole, bumping them out of the game. My mom patted my dad’s leg, smiling. My gag reflex trilled in my throat.

Four questions went back and forth between our remaining two teams, and we answered all of them correctly. It was an impasse, which, by the game’s rules, called for a lightning round. My mom fished out a bright yellow card for the sudden-death face-off.

“It’s all yours,” Cameron told Max.

I glanced at Ryan. He nodded confidently at me. “You can do it.”

“You’ll go back and forth listing answers,” my mom explained. “The first to repeat an answer or not come up with one is the losing team. Roll for who answers first—highest number.”

Max and I both nodded solemnly, facing each other across the table. He smiled at me, but I kept my competitive face on, lips pressed into a flat line. I rolled a five. He rolled a two.

“For the win,” my dad said, reading over my mom’s shoulder. “Name the novels of Charles Dickens.”

“Oh, it is on,” Ryan said, pumping his arm in a whooping motion like he was in the bleachers of a football game. “Clash of the titans.”

“
Great Expectations
,” I said.

“
A Tale of Two Cities
.”

“
A Christmas Carol
.”

“
Nicholas Nickleby
.”

No one spoke as I inhaled and exhaled audibly, searching the outer reaches of my brain. I could see the intense look on my face, reflected back at me in Max’s glasses. He arched an eyebrow at me, daring me to be wrong.

“
Hard Times
!”

“
Oliver Twist
,” Max replied easily. How had I forgotten that one?

“
Little
…,” I began. Oh, what was it? I closed my eyes, looking for a mental image of “D” section of Alcott’s fiction shelves. “
Little … Dora?
”

My mom winced. “It’s Dorrit, actually. Max?”

“
David Copperfield
,” he said, no trace of gloating in his voice.

“That means Max and Cameron are our champions.”

“Boo! Bad call, ref,” Ryan joked while Max and Cameron performed the team handshake they had come up with at the beginning of the game.

My dad patted me on the shoulder. “Wow, Paiger. Guess you met your match.”

I shook my head, which felt clearer now that I wasn’t under pressure.