My mother always told me I was a day late and a dollar short. So true. For one, I had this amazing intuition where I could sense things before they happened…except I never realized what it was trying to tell me until after it was over. Like last Monday, when I was at my friend Kylie’s house helping her color her hair to be dark like mine, and I made this joke about her mom’s lawn gnomes getting attacked by a cougar. I don’t know why I said it, but she said that no self-respecting cougar would touch those ugly things. That night it was on the news an escaped cougar was seen in a Detroit suburban neighborhood carrying a small elf. Now I walked around saying, “Hot soccer players are wandering around upstairs,” but so far, nothing.

I’ve tried to blow stuff off in front of my friends because I didn’t want them to think I was weird, but it was hard to deny I didn’t have some sort of psychic insight when last week I sensed my grandma was sick. Later that day we got a call she had a stroke.

That’s why I never ignored my instincts and why, on the first day of summer school, I had this feeling my life was going to change. I wish I’d also had the instinct to wear a cuter outfit, but like I said, it only takes me so far. Besides, I figured nothing exciting was going to happen in summer school. After all, I was only taking a four-week class because my internship at the local newspaper had been cancelled after they said you had to be sixteen with a driver’s license to intern there. You’d have thought they would have put it in the requirements or something, but the editor told me it was a new policy they forgot to post on the website. But I had felt something was going to go wrong with the internship from the get-go. That’s why I didn’t waste my money buying new clothes for work.

So now I was stuck in a classroom while some other jerk got my internship, all because my mother thought I needed something “productive” to do this summer. Like watching While My Children Wept wasn’t productive. By the way, I didn’t know if it was my intuition or the writers’ crappy writing skills, but I always knew what was going to happen on the show—even without reading the Internet show spoilers.

The class I was taking was supposed to be a gender and media class. I heard we were going to be watching videos and talking about current events, so I figured it wouldn’t be too bad—maybe even fun. When I got to class, our teacher, Mrs. Rae, handed out the syllabus. I couldn’t help but notice we were only watching two videos. Plus, we had a ton of written assignments. Would the fun ever stop? Mrs. Rae said we’d be doing a lot of group work over the next few weeks. Group work—two words that struck fear into my heart. I glanced over at Kylie.

“Emme, don’t get mad, but I promised I’d work with Zach if we had any group projects,” she said.

I nodded. After all, he was her boyfriend, but I didn’t know anyone else in the room.

“Okay, does everybody have a partner?” Mrs. Rae asked. “Because this is who you’ll be working with for the rest of the semester.”

I felt stupid raising my hand—especially as Mrs. Rae scanned the room for another friendless loser. I thought she’d let me work with Zach and Kylie since everybody else was paired up.

“Well, there’s another student who’s not here yet,” she said. “So just get started on the assignment until they arrive.”

Everyone started working while I watched the door for the new student to arrive. I hoped it wasn’t the weird girl from gym class who always gave me funny looks like I just ran over her dog or something. As the door opened, I held my breath, and in walked Brendon Agretti, the senator’s son and possibly the hottest guy in Michigan, okay, the entire western hemisphere. Last fall, Kylie’s mom accidentally hit the curb in front of the school while watching him jog. He reminded me of this underwear model, Michael Kahlo, who was on a poster that was stuck to the door of my friend Margaux’s locker. The picture had been glued in the locker a zillion years ago, but to be honest, nobody had tried to remove it. I had spent many nights staring at Brendon’s social media pages and reading all the gushing comments girls left him.

“Brendon, you’ll be working with Emme,” Mrs. Rae said, pointing to me.

Part of me wanted him to be my partner, and the other half of me wanted to run in the other direction. He walked over and tossed his notebook and keys onto the desk. He had on a navy blue V-neck shirt with the sleeves pushed up and seemed like he should be in one of those preppy clothing ads. Meanwhile, I had chosen today to put my dark brown hair in a ponytail and wear my jean overalls. Zach called it my “Engineer Fred” outfit, and I appeared closer to five years old than fifteen.

Brendon sat down next to me.

“Hey, I’m Brendon,” he said. It was cute he thought I wouldn’t know who he was. So humble, so…oh crap, I was supposed to say something.

“I’m Emme.”

“Cool, so what’s the assignment?” he asked.

I handed him the worksheet about comparing the way men and women are written about in magazines. “It’s due tomorrow, so Mrs. Rae said she would let us spend class time researching in the library,” I said, wondering if my voice always sounded so squeaky.

“Should we head to the library then?” he asked. I nodded, and as soon as we got to the library, Brendon headed over to the magazine section and grabbed a bunch of them. All the couches were taken, so he asked if I wanted to go somewhere else. We tried the cafeteria, but the cheerleaders were using it to make posters for a car wash.

“There’s this place outside we could sit,” I said and led him to this garden area behind the track. It was a memorial garden for a girl who had died in an accident years ago. I always wondered who the girl was because it seemed so sad all that was left of her was a plaque with her name on it.

“I never even knew this was here,” he said, sitting down.

“I come here a lot to write.” I wished I could have said I shot my swimsuit calendar here.

“Oh yeah? What do you write?” he asked.

“I mostly write short stories.”

“Cool. Have you been published in the school’s lit magazine?” he asked.

I shook my head, but I didn’t admit I hadn’t submitted anything because I was scared of the editor, Lauren Hartnet, who was also his ex-girlfriend. Lauren was also in the media class with us, and she was one of those perfect, overachieving types who managed to be involved in everything, get good grades, and still have bouncy hair. She was basically the anti-me. Not like I was a slug or anything, but my idea of a good time was shopping and watching TV, and my hair was more windblown than bouncy.

“I used to be on the board for it, so I’d be happy to read some of your work sometime if you were thinking about submitting anything,” he said.

I nodded, but like I’d let him of all people on the planet look at my writing. After all, I never let anyone read my stuff. In fact, I was panicking over the fact I had signed up for creative writing in the fall, and I would have to read my work out loud. I decided to change the subject and pulled out one of the magazines.

“This magazine listed the makeup they used on the model, but I mean, look at this male model. He’s definitely wearing makeup, and nothing is listed for him,” I said.

Brendon nodded as he flipped through the pages. “Yeah, a lot of these guys have eyeliner on. How did I never notice that before? And no guy has skin this perfect.”

I almost said, “You do,” but managed to keep my swooning to myself.

As we worked, I noticed he didn’t take any notes, and I didn’t have to use my intuition to figure out I would end up doing the whole project myself. Why did cute guys always think they were too good to do their own work? Brendon leaned forward to look at my notes, and part of his dark hair flopped in his face. He smoothed it back, leaving a trail of cologne. I was tempted to ask him what brand it was so I could buy some to spray around my room.

“Oh crap, I completely forgot I have to pick my friend up from tennis practice,” he said, looking at his watch. “Sorry about this. I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”

Great, I bored him, and he had to make an excuse to run off. I knew I’d get stuck doing the whole assignment. I made a mental note to wear something nicer tomorrow. The other girls in our class had worn cute summer clothes, but I knew the school cranked up the air conditioning in the summer, and I didn’t want to freeze. I was starting to wonder if the school rented out part of the cafeteria to a morgue in the summer or something. It was weird how cold the place was when it was eighty-five degrees outside.

* * *

The next day I wore the jeans that made my butt look good and strappy red sandals instead of my usual sneakers. I walked in feeling pretty confident.

“Hey, Emme, you’re pretty dressed up for class,” Zach said as Kylie punched his arm.

“It’s just jeans and sandals,” I said, as my face got red. Brendon came in and waved me over, so I got up to move.

“Too good for us now, huh?” Zach said, and I rolled my eyes at him.

I sat down next to Brendon as Mrs. Rae passed out our next assignment.

“Each group will pick a sitcom and examine the gender roles of the main characters,” she said.

“What show do you want to use?” Brendon asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe a comedy like The Templetons,” I said. “It’s pretty funny, and the mom and dad characters would give us a lot to work with.”

“I love that show, and I’ve got some DVDs of it. Do you want to watch it together?”

“You could come over to my house if you want,” I said. I could not believe those words had just come out of my mouth.

“Is that cool? I could bring over a pizza or something,” he said. I tried to steady my shaking hand as I wrote down my address on the inside cover of his notebook. We decided to meet at six, which gave me approximately three hours to clean the house. He asked what I liked on my pizza, and I told him I didn’t eat meat, but I could pick off pepperoni if he wanted it. I tried to give him money for the pizza, but he wouldn’t take it. Well, the least he could do was buy me dinner since I did all of our assignment last night.

Mrs. Rae told us to hand in our homework before we left, and I pulled my sheet out.

“Oh, I did it, too,” Brendon said. “I guess we can hand in both of them.”

I had assumed the assignment had been dumped in my lap since he had run off yesterday. He took our papers up, and Kylie asked if I wanted to go with her and Zach to meet our friend, Margaux, after class and get smoothies. Zach drove us over to The Big Chilly. Margaux was sitting in a booth, playing on her phone. She had cute red shorts and matching high-heeled sandals on with a white tank top. As usual, she appeared like a cover model with her light-brown hair blown out to perfection. Kylie, Zach, and I ordered our smoothies and went to sit with her.

“So Brendon is coming over to work on a project,” I said.

“That should be interesting,” Kylie said.

Margaux moved to the edge of her seat. “Wait, Brendon Agretti? Mr. Hotness is coming over to your house? Whose idea was that?”

I said I invited him over.

Zach rolled his eyes. “Why do girls go nuts over that guy? Seriously? What does he have that I don’t?”

“Well, I don’t actually know him, but I’m guessing class and hotness,” Margaux said.

Zach’s mouth dropped open, and Kylie nudged her.

“Just kidding,” Margaux said unconvincingly. “But he probably has a croquet set with his name engraved on each ball and mallet.”

“So he has a few bucks and looks like an actor?” Zach said, poking at the floor with the toe of his sneaker. “He’s probably all stuck on himself.”

“He’s smart, and he seems like he’d read, do you know what I mean?” I asked.

“Oh yeah, he’s a reader,” Kylie said, nodding. “Is he nice?”

I nodded, but didn’t mention I thought he blew me off yesterday. He probably went to pick up some supermodel/honor student potential girlfriend who was also a gourmet cook and protested against toxic waste in her spare time.

“Has he taken you for a ride in the royal car?” Zach asked.

“I don’t know what he drives,” I said.

“I’m sure it breaks down less than the thing you drive,” Margaux said, rolling her eyes.

“Big Blue-y is a classic,” Zach said. “You don’t appreciate its timeless quality. Besides, unlike the three of you, at least I’m old enough to drive.”

“I’m just happy to see you getting interested in someone again, Emme,” Kylie said. “I know you haven’t wanted to date anyone since you and John broke up.”

“Well, who could blame her? Dude had been talking to his ex-girlfriend behind her back the whole time they were dating,” Margaux said, her brown eyes widening. “You’re so much better off without him.”

I bit my lip. Kylie was right—I hadn’t even wanted to date another guy since John because I was afraid of getting hurt again.

After we finished our smoothies, Zach dropped me off at home, and I began picking up the magazines littering the family room. I was in the middle of vacuuming when my dad called to say he and my mom were taking my grandfather out for dinner.

“What’s that noise?” he asked. “The disposal on the fritz again?”

“No, I’m vacuuming. A guy from school is coming over to work on a project,” I said. “Is it okay? I mean, I thought you guys would be here.”

“It’s fine. I’m just surprised you knew where the vacuum was,” he said. “Is it some famous celebrity? Just curious who would cause you to tidy up.”

“Ha ha. I just wanted the house to look nice. He seems…clean.”

“Well, I like him already if he’s got you cleaning. See ya later, kid.”

I tried to make the bathroom look decent, but spilled cleaner on my jeans when I tried to refill the spray bottle. With ten minutes until he arrived, I ran upstairs to change. I put on another pair of jeans, but they were too tight to sit in. The doorbell rang just as I had taken my jeans off. Great, he was here, and I wasn’t wearing pants. Fabulous. I grabbed the closest pants to me, which unfortunately happened to be my baggy time-of-the-month jeans. There was no time to change, so I raced downstairs to let Brendon in.

“Hey, I got half pepperoni and half mushrooms and olives,” he said when I opened the door.

We walked into the kitchen. “Do you want juice or bottled water?” I asked as he stared at the bottle of guava juice I was holding. He seemed a little grossed out at the fruit floating on the bottom.

“Um, it’s all natural juice, which is why it looks a little…”

“Chunky?” he said. “Water would be great.”

I poured two glasses of bottled water and grabbed some plates and silverware from the cupboard. We went into the family room, and Brendon showed me the DVDs he had brought over.

“I figured we could watch a couple episodes and then decide which one we want to use,” he said.

We started to eat, and suddenly it was like I had never worked a knife and fork before. Why was I so awkward? He picked up his slice and took a bite without having mozzarella strings hanging from his mouth or getting grease on his chin. He even ate cutely and was considerate about the pizza toppings. Oh wow, he even put a coaster under his glass. Where did he find a coaster in my house? I leaned forward and realized that the green box that had sat on the coffee table for years was a coaster holder.

Normally I ate at least three slices of pizza, but today I only had two, which I ate with a knife and fork. He had four pieces and some of the breadsticks that came with the pizza. I gave him the magnetic notepad off the fridge to take notes on the show and about died when I realized that it said, “Shop Your Buns Off.” As I started writing down what the dad character had said to the kid, the screen went black for a second. I saw Brendon staring at me in the reflection. Was he staring at me in a good way, or did I have pizza sauce on my face?

We watched the episode twice and then answered the homework questions.

“So how’d you end up taking this class?” he asked.

“My summer internship at the newspaper fell through, and my parents wanted me to do something productive.”

“I did an internship at the state capital last summer. It was the most boring thing ever, and I lost respect for almost all the people I had to work with. Some of those people are seriously phony, and I don’t even think they realize how much of themselves is fake—it’s like they start to morph into this human sound bite—does that make sense?” he asked.

“Totally.”

He seemed more, I don’t know, human or something. I used to watch him at his locker with his rich friends and wonder what it would be like to be in his world. What did he and his friends do for fun? Where did they hang out on weekends? They certainly didn’t go anywhere my friends and I spent time.

When he left, he gave me his cell number and e-mail and told me to call him if I had problems with my half of the paper. Normally, I always gave anybody I worked with my phone number right away, but I had been afraid to give him my number in case he thought, “How pathetic. Why don’t you just throw yourself at me?”

I knew I wouldn’t call him, but it was nice that he gave me his number, and I wondered what I could get for it if I auctioned it off online. When I went to put the number in my phone, I accidentally knocked my affirmation journal out of the bookshelf. It opened right to the page where it said, “Visualize something twenty times, and you can make it happen.” Now, I had read that line a trillion times, but I never did it. Sure, I had pictured myself with a new purse or those cool boots that Sierra on As My Children Wept always wore, but I had never done that with a guy. Still, what could it hurt? It wasn’t like I was altering the universe. I was just picturing Brendon and me walking through the halls at school…while holding hands. He didn’t have a girlfriend or anything so it was completely harmless, right?

* * *

The next day, I woke with this weird feeling my laptop was going to act up. In fact, when I checked my e-mail in the morning, I was kind of surprised it switched on at all. I figured I was just being paranoid about not getting my rough draft done, or maybe it was because the planet Mercury was in retrograde, but I tried to ignore my feelings. We had the day off from class, so I didn’t start working on my paper until later in the evening. I had just started typing when my screen froze. Feeling panicked, I hit Control-Alt-Delete and restarted the laptop, but the screen went blue and started flickering. What was it doing, and why was there a little gray box on my computer telling me I had sixty seconds until it shut down? Fifty-nine…fifty-eight…fifty-seven… This was just like the episode of As My Children Wept where Samson had to stop the bomb hidden in Sierra and Aristotle’s wedding cake. Did it mean the laptop was going to blow? On the show, the cake blew up, and everybody thought Aristotle was dead…well, until he showed up at Sierra’s next wedding, and was Sierra’s new husband mad…probably just as mad as Mrs. Rae would be when I didn’t turn in my assignment.

“Mo-om! My laptop’s possessed. Fix it!”

“Why don’t you just ask me to get out my fairy princess wand and throw pixie dust on it,” she shot back. “I’d have better luck with that.”

Sarcasm was not cute when you were having a crisis. I tried calling Zach, but his mom said he was working late. I was desperate, so I asked his mom if she knew anything about computers.

“There’s a guy at Mary’s Little RAMs who works on mine. I could give you his number, but they closed at five tonight.”

I hung up defeated. I didn’t know anybody who knew a thing about computers. Oh crap. I did know somebody who knew about computers. Brendon. He had mentioned he took a computer class last semester, but could I call him? Usually I’d have no problem calling a guy for something, but this wasn’t a normal guy. He was what Margaux would call a “Hottie McHotHot.” Okay, what was wrong with me? He was just a regular person like everybody else. He put his pants on one leg at a time and went to the toilet like everybody else…but I bet his bathroom was super clean and everything in it matched. I pictured the whole room done in some manly, rich-person color like “hunter green” or “maroon.” And there would be lots of dark mahogany—

“Emme? Do you want to use my laptop to work on your paper?” Mom yelled up the stairs.

“It won’t help,” I replied. “I saved it on the hard drive because I’m an idiot.”

Stupid Mercury retrograde. I should have known better than to expect a computer to work right. I should have backed up my work or e-mailed it to myself, but no, I was too worried about ordering new lip gloss from lickitylips.com. Now I had no paper, no gloss, and probably after I called Brendon begging him for help, no pride. I called and left a message on Brendon’s phone. He was probably out with some amazing prelaw, premed student who donated blood to anemic puppies and did puppet shows for the elderly while knitting booties for—

My phone rang, and Brendon’s name popped up on the screen.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Emme, it’s Brendon. What’s up?”

I explained about my computer, and he started giving me suggestions, which would have been helpful if I had known what he was talking about. It was like he was speaking in Aramaic. He offered to come over, and the second I hung up the phone I went to fix my hair. Normally I didn’t do much with my hair. It was long and always seemed messy no matter what I did with it. Kylie always said it was tousled like something out of a magazine, and yeah, sometimes I agreed with her and even loved my hair…and other times I feel like strangers on the street were going to walk up and hand me a hairbrush. My hair had been in a ponytail all night, so I couldn’t wear it down because it had a ponytail holder crease. I wound it into a loose bun and put on my ruby lip stain. I was digging through my hamper for my cutest top when the doorbell rang. I threw it on and ran down the stairs.

“Hey, thanks for coming over,” I said as I answered the door. I told him my laptop was upstairs, and I felt weird, like I was trying to lure him into my bedroom or something. He followed me, and I realized I should have made sure my dirty underpants weren’t half hanging out of my hamper when I shut it. Of course it wasn’t a cute pair, but the big momma pants. Why didn’t I just wear Little Bo Peep pantaloons?

“See, it does this weird countdown thing when I turn it on,” I said. He sat at my desk and started messing with my laptop while I sat on the bed. I wondered if he washed his hands or used some hand sanitizer because I had this strict “clean hands” policy about my keyboard. I mean, I heard on the news those keyboards were playgrounds for bacteria.

“It’s probably because Mercury is in retrograde,” I said. He stared at me as if I had said, “I was sacrificing a goat in here before you came in, please excuse the stains on my ceremonial robe.” I tried to explain. “It’s the planet that rules communication—never mind. Do you think you can fix it?”

“Not sure yet,” he said. “I think I can retrieve your paper though. Do you have someplace else to finish it if I can’t get this computer to work?”

I started to answer when he said he had brought his laptop over for me to use while he worked on my computer. So I could either go downstairs and type on my mother’s boring laptop and leave Mr. Hotness alone in my bedroom, or I could stay here and work on it while we were in my room. Together. Alone. In my room. I loved the planet Mercury.