Chapter Two
Eli
Nora seems annoyed, but I don’t let that stop me.
I move to her other ear and catch a whiff of the shampoo that she’s been using since we were kids. Strawberry passion fruit something or other. “So? Any luck? I didn’t sense any seismic activity.”
“Shh, I’m counting…”
There’s a wad of cash in her hands. Cash she made kissing douchebags like Keaton Drake. She moves her head and her dark copper hair sorta bounces. She’s been wearing it down these last few weeks. It looks good.
When I step around her, the scent of strawberries fades and I smell my lacrosse bag. So gnarly. I drop it on the floor. “Just saying. I didn’t hear a sonic boom or anything.”
She glares at me, like she always does, with those giant brown eyes.
“If you must know”—her steely gaze melts into a disappointed frown—“only the tortoises got lucky this year.”
When she stands, my eyes accidentally move over her body. She’s wearing tight black jeans and a gray T-shirt that hugs her in the right places. I can’t tell her that. We can never be more than friends, she claims. Also, she’d accuse me of objectifying the female body. Which I guess I am.
“You know you’re delusional, right?” I ask.
She slides the cash into a yellow envelope. “People thought Thomas Edison was delusional. Electric light? Not possible! Isaac Newton, Marie Curie, Galileo, everyone thought they were nuts.” She picks up her book bag. “They were right, though, and so am I. One day I’ll prove it and in the meantime, I’m not wasting time with the wrong person.”
All the muscles in my body tense up. She means me.
This whole bullshit theory comes from Gigi’s story about how the first kiss with her future husband supposedly shook the planet off its freaking axis. I know Gigi, though. She didn’t mean for Nora to twist it all up into some impossible quest. Nora’s just like that dude, Don Quixote, tilting at imaginary windmills. We read that book sophomore year. He was off his rocker, too.
“Okay, Einstein,” I say. “You know, theories get proven wrong all the time.”
“Yeah, well. Not this one.” She slings her bag onto her shoulder. “You ready?”
I grab her box of turtle brochures, accidentally twist funny on the way out the door, and flinch. My bad knee’s been bugging me all week, and I should probably do the stretches the physical therapist gave me—
Wait.
Just under the cardboard flap of the box, something catches my attention. It’s a printed website page that says Emory University Scholarships across the top.
What?
The sun is blazing hot outside the gym. A couple of my teammates shout from across the parking lot. I wave, but I’m not thinking about them. Nora gets into the truck and I carry the box to the back, then lift the cardboard flap to get a better look at the paper. Emory University, in Atlanta, Georgia. Scholarships. On top of the paper someone’s written Nora, deadlines coming up. Come see me for help! in red pen.
I stare through the window at the back of her head, at that wild hair.
What the hell is this?
Next year, Nora is going to Citrus State, five miles east of here, with me. Her parents don’t have much money, and my grades suck, so we both planned to spend the first two years at State. I’ll play lacrosse, we’ll take our basic courses, then we’ll transfer to UF. I’ll still play lacrosse, because it’s all I’m good at, and eventually figure out something to major in. She’ll become a mad scientist and save the world. It’s been our plan since freshman year. She has never, ever mentioned Emory University.
Why hasn’t my best friend told me she applied to a college out of state?
“What’s wrong?” she asks when I climb in and yank on my seat belt.
I glare at her. “Nothing.”
She flips down the visor mirror and checks her hair. “Something’s wrong. You look like someone kicked your dog.”
More like someone just kicked our friendship to the curb. “I’m fine.” I channel all my confusion and anger into making my truck’s damn engine turn over, which does not happen.
“Fine,” she says. “Just tell me it’s a PFE day.”
I take a deep breath. PFE is code for “Pie Fixes Everything.” Yeah, it’s lame as shit, but in our defense, we came up with it when we were nine.
My brain is trying to work out this Emory news and it’s coming up with nothing. “I don’t know.”
“So no pie?” she says, pleading.
It’s a look I’ve never been very good at resisting.
I try the ignition again, and the third time’s a charm. I back out fast, just in case it thinks about dying. “I’m pretty busy, you know. Homework.” This is weak. I usually do my homework the period before it’s due, if I do it at all. From her silence, I know she’s thinking the same thing and wisely decides not to make a smart-ass comment about it.
“Okay, fine. No pie. Homework.”
I grumble, unable to ever say no to this girl. “Fine. We can get pie. As long as it’s to go.”
“You sure you have time? All that homework…”
I glance her way. She’s definitely mocking me. I think of that letter in the box. Pie isn’t gonna fix this.
“I said we could go, didn’t I?”
“Okay. Yes, you did. PFE, to go.”
My pulse pumps harder as my truck winds through historic downtown Edinburgh, which is about as exciting as it sounds. Not far from the beach, our town used to be a big tourist destination back in the old days. Now it’s rundown as hell. A few antique stores, the funeral home, an old courthouse, a hotel, and the Mermaid diner, which is where we go for pie.
The Mermaid, first of all, sucks. It didn’t used to, back when Nora’s grandma was their baker. Now Gigi’s in an assisted living place and can’t remember my name. We still go to the Mermaid, though, because pie is our thing—me and Nora’s—and has been since the day we met, the summer before fourth grade.
She and her mom had just moved in with her grandma, Gigi. Nora didn’t know anyone, and was sitting on the front porch looking lonely and sad. Mom made me go over. When Nora looked up at me with those big eyes, I didn’t know what to say, so I ran into her house and asked Gigi if we could have some pie.
I brought two slices of blueberry out to the porch, and that was it. PFE. By the time the pie was gone, we were laughing at our purple teeth and telling each other everything.
I thought we still did that. The important stuff, anyway. Obviously, I didn’t get the memo that we’d stopped.
Donna, the waitress, sets us up with a slice of apple for me and a slice of cherry for Nora, to go. I can tell from the sound of the pie being sliced that it’s got a soggy bottom crust. I can hear the apples crunch, which means they aren’t cooked through.
Damn, I miss Gigi’s pies.
We walk out and get back in the truck. I say nothing, but inside, I’m about to boil over. We had a plan. Is she not even gonna tell me it’s off? I tear the wrapper off my plastic fork, open the Styrofoam container, and go after that slice of pie like a hungry lion on an antelope.
She chuckles.
“What’s so funny?” I ask.
“I thought you wanted pie to go?”
I drop the fork. “This is to go. We’re gone.”
She tilts her head and purses her lips. “You are so predictable.”
I know she’s talking about how I have zero self-control when it comes to pie, but this comment hits me wrong. I’m predictable? That’s rich. She’s the predictable one with her slice of pie still in the bag on her lap. She’s the planner. Scientific. Rational.
Which means she’d never leave her mom and Gigi, I realize.
There’s no way she’ll go to Emory.
She nudges my arm. “Eli, come on, I’m just messing with you.”
I tell myself to relax, feeling the pieces of my life that only Nora holds settle back into place. She’s not going anywhere. She’d tell me if she was gonna do something as huge as leaving home.
But that doesn’t mean I’m still not pissed she’s keeping secrets.
“I know.” I turn the key and my engine coughs. Loudly.
“That doesn’t sound right.”
“Give him a second.” I try again. Cough. Cough.
She reaches forward, picks at the duct tape that holds the glove box shut. “Maybe it’s time to put Michael out of his misery?”
I huff. It’s one thing to keep secrets, it’s another to insult my truck. “You need to not talk trash about Michael Jordan right now. There’s nothing wrong with him.”
She shifts in her seat, facing me, and folds her hand in her lap. “You mean besides not being able to start?”
“He’ll start, don’t worry.” Finally, thankfully, he does. “See? And show some respect. If it weren’t for this truck, you’d be hitching a ride to school every day, or riding the bus with the freshmen.”
A sly smile flickers across her mouth. “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be making twenty bucks a week doing nothing.”
“Oh, I’m doing nothing, am I?”
“Eli.” She laughs and it sounds exactly like her nine-year-old self, on Gigi’s front porch, pie stains on her teeth. “You don’t even have to come and pick me up. I’m literally the girl next door.”
I can’t argue with that, so I don’t. We drive in silence down Main until I turn into our neighborhood.
“So…” She breaks the silence. “Any plans this weekend?”
Why even ask? She doesn’t give a damn what I do, even if I want her to. “Big party tonight at Koviak’s. You wanna come?”
“To a lacrosse party?” She raises an eyebrow as I pull into our driveway and throw MJ into park. “No, thanks.”
Surprise, surprise. My anger over the letter and her stupid theory comes to a boil. I bravely stare directly into her eyes—eyes that can make me think things if I’m not careful. “Oh. Right. No new guys to kiss there. Why waste your time?”
She gives me a death glare as she throws open her door, then jumps to the ground.
“Who’s predictable now?” I say to her back, and she slams the door closed behind her.
We meet around the back of the truck and I lift out the box, which she yanks from my arms. If she were a cartoon, there’d be smoke coming out of her ears.
I fold my arms across my chest and watch her try to carry all her stuff. “You want some help?”
She stomps off. “No, I do not!”
I can’t help watching her cross the driveway, hair wild and blown sideways by the hot breeze. For someone so smart, I can’t believe how she clings to this stupid theory.
I grab my lacrosse bag and sling it over my shoulder a little harder than I need to, sending pain searing through my knee. A disturbing thought hits me. The kids who go to State are mostly local, and not the smartest. They let anyone in. Is that what Emory is all about? Maybe she thinks she’ll find a better class of guys to kiss up there?
Is that why she didn’t tell me? Because she knows I’ll call her on that bullshit?
I want to throw something, hard. It’s one thing to set up a kissing booth once a year in the high school gym. It’s another thing to leave home and everything you know just to prove a messed-up theory.
Anyone with a brain can guess that’s not gonna end well. She’ll end up sad and alone, except for the cats. She’s definitely got cat lady potential.
I walk up our front steps and glance over to her porch, where she’s struggling to unlock the door. I have to strangle the urge to go and help her. That’s what I do—I help Nora.
But maybe that’s what she needs now—my help, before she ruins her life. The problem is, she believes in that theory like little kids believe in Santa Claus. I’ve tried to talk her out of it. She won’t listen. All I’ve ever been able to do is sit back and make sure no asshole takes advantage of her. Now she’s thinking about taking that away from me, too.
Fuming, I turn the doorknob and go inside. There’s no helping Nora Reid.