Isn't She Lovely (2 page)

And yet we both came in late, practically together, and now he’s being all winky and
you-dropped-this
, making it seem like we actually
know
each other.

Horror.

I catch the eye of Carrie Sinders, one of my closest friends at school, and she widens her eyes dramatically, as if to ask,
What’s going on?

Good question, Carrie. Good freaking question
.

The only good thing about the whole situation is that Martin Holbrook isn’t the prima donna I was fearing and doesn’t seem at all annoyed by the interruption. Probably because he played lacrosse with Pretty Boy Prada’s dad or something.

I pull out my notebook and a pen and try to focus on what Holbrook is saying when I feel a poke between my shoulder blades.

“Hey, Morticia, can I borrow a pen?”

I start to tell Ethan that I don’t have one, but of course he knows firsthand that I have about ten in my bag. I dig out a blue ballpoint and drop it onto his desk without looking at him. I don’t like people I can’t figure out, and his very presence in a place where he doesn’t seem to belong is unsettling.

That, and he smells good. Really good. Normally I hate dudes with cologne. But this is clean and sexy and smells kind of like summer in the Hamptons, and it’s more than a little distracting.

I shake it off and remind myself that I’m avoiding the male population in general since David. David, whose idea of cologne is deodorant.

“So everyone’s good?” Holbrook says. I panic a little because I haven’t been paying attention at all, and instead of there being notes to copy down, Holbrook has just written on the board a link to a website. I hurriedly scribble it in my notebook.

Luckily, there’s a total stoner in the back row who’s apparently as clueless as me, because he raises his hand in confusion. “Wait, so like … we just go online, pick out one of these common film narratives, and then write a screenplay based on one?”

Holbrook nods. “Pretty much. I’ll be here Tuesdays and Thursdays during the scheduled course time if you have questions or want to run something by me.”

I frown.
Wait—we don’t actually have to come to class?

Normally this kind of freedom would be right up my alley, but I’ve kind of been counting on this course to keep me busy this summer. In previous summers I was able to stay on campus as long as I took a certain number of credits, but this year they’re repainting all the dorms, so on-campus housing isn’t available. Instead I’ll be subletting my cousin’s shoe-box-sized apartment in Queens, and I’m not sure she has Internet, much less air-conditioning. What am I going to
do
all summer?

Still … anything beats going home.

“Okay, unless there are more questions, I’ll connect you guys with your partners and you can be on your way.”

It takes my brain a second to absorb that.

Partners?

I am
not
a group project kind of girl.

“I had my four-year-old daughter draw names out of a cereal bowl last night, so this is as random as it gets,” Martin was saying, pulling a small notebook out of his bag. “Aaron Billings? You’re with Kaitlin Shirr. Michael Pelinski, you’re with Taylor McCaid …”

The list goes on, and Carrie looks at me, holding up crossed fingers.

Oh, please, God, let me be with Carrie
. I can tolerate that. Mostly.

“Stephanie Kendrick …”

Oh, please, oh, please …

“… you’re with Ethan Price.”

My mind goes temporarily blank. Film students are a pretty tight-knit group, and I thought I knew everyone in the class.

Everyone except …

Oh, God
.

Pretty Boy must have put the pieces together too, because I feel another sharp poke between my shoulder blades.

“You hear that, Goth? Partners!”

I close my eyes. This can’t be happening.

Instead of the carefree, find-myself summer I envisioned, I’ll be spending the next three months with my own life-sized Ken doll.

And that isn’t even the worst of it.

Chapter Two

Ethan

My new film class partner is hot in a scary kind of way.

Or maybe she’s just scary, but in a slightly hot way?

Either way, I’m not sure why I can’t stop looking at her. She’s not even close to my type. I prefer blondes, and the leggier the better.

This girl has dark hair—almost black, but not quite, and she can’t be more than five-two. And instead of wearing the flouncy sundresses and strappy sandals I’m used to girls wearing in the summer, she’s decked out in black cargo pants tucked into boots that belong on a Civil War battlefield.

And then there’s that skimpy little purple tank top. That tiny shirt is the only part of the outfit that I like.

This girl has got a fantastic rack for someone who’s so small.

Less appealing is the raccoon makeup thing. It’s like the intense black eye makeup is a big
fuck you
to summertime and happiness. Not to mention she’s bitchy as all hell.

Definitely not my type.

And now I’m stuck with her for the summer.

I guess it serves me right for being such a dick in the hallway when she obviously wanted to be left alone. Normally I would have just helped her pick up her crap and let her stomp away, but the way she so blatantly slapped a “prep school” label on me before I even opened my mouth pissed me off.

She was right, of course. I don’t fit in here. If I were to do some stereotyping of my own, the girls on this part of campus look like they spent most of their time sipping organic kale juice while discussing feminist literature. And most of the guys look like they’d know more about said feminist literature than the women.

Which is cool with me. To each his own, and all that.

I’m just more of the beer-and-football type while I’m at school. At home, it’s more chess and Scotch, but whatever. The point is, I saw at least five dudes in that classroom wearing nail polish.
Nail polish
.

I wouldn’t be caught dead in it.

So the weird girl is right. I don’t belong here, any more than she belongs at my Wall
Street internship from last semester. But I’m not used to people actually saying these things out loud.

I resign myself to apologizing to the miniature goth monster. Maybe a peace offering will help us survive the summer working together. But she’s already out the door.

I catch up to her in a few strides, grabbing the top handle of her backpack. I’m tempted to lift her off her feet, simply because I know I can, but instead I yank just hard enough to let her know I’m there.

She glares up at me, and I’m startled for a second at the close-up view of her eyes. They’re wide and bright blue, and somehow totally incongruous with the rest of her personality. Frankly, I’m surprised she hasn’t gone for black-colored contacts just to stamp out
all
the color from her life.

“How was your first day of second grade?” I ask, falling into step beside her. “I mean, seriously, who wears a backpack anymore?”

“We can’t all afford Prada,” she says, shooting me another of those death glares.

“Oh, wow, reverse snobbery. So unexpected!”

I see her blink in surprise that I’ve called her out. Most people seem to find it socially acceptable to jeer at rich people. Maybe they confuse our dollar bills with a shield; I dunno.

She doesn’t respond, and I’m becoming all too aware that I’m going to be spending a lot of time with this irritable mess of a human being and am not at all looking forward to it.

“Look, it’s Stephanie, right?” I ask, grabbing her backpack again when she tries to zoom off, and pulling her to a stop like she’s a little kid. “Do you wanna meet and talk about our project now, or do you have other plans? Killing cats, or getting another piercing?”

Her eyes flit from side to side like she’s looking for a weapon, but then she sighs and shakes free of my grip. “Maybe we have the option to work on our own if we want to,” she said. “I’m not really the social type.”

I lay a hand over my chest. “You, not social? I’d never have believed it.”

She gives me a dramatic eye roll.

“Come on, give me a chance,” I say. “How about a little get-to-know-each-other? I’ll start us off. True or false: you keep a shiv in your boot.”

For a second I think she’s going to smile, but instead she narrows her eyes and gives me a condescending once-over. “True or false,” she shoots back. “You usually have a pastel sweater tied around your shoulders.”

I don’t answer. I do
technically
own a pastel sweater, but only because my mom bought it for me. And I’d never wear it around my shoulders.

“Whatever,” she says. “I’m going to ask Holbrook if we have the option to work independently.”

I give her a fake sympathetic smile. “Trust me on this. Martin’s a good guy, but he’s not going to grant you any exceptions because you’re socially challenged.”

She raises an eyebrow at my use of Martin’s first name, and I make a mental note to start calling him Professor Holbrook on campus. I already feel guilty enough that he let me into a class that had a mile-long waiting list.

She chews on her lip, looking completely unconvinced.

“Look, this doesn’t have to be painful,” I coax, rapidly losing patience. “How about we just go grab a coffee and figure out our game plan.”

“Fine,” she says finally.

“Starbucks good?” I ask. “Or does their paper cup supplier kill too many dolphins or something?”

She gives me another of those baby-owl looks. “Exactly how many clichés do you have in your back pocket?”

“You started it,” I say, slowing my stride when I notice that she’s struggling to keep up. “You think I didn’t notice that you and everyone else assumed I arrived at that classroom by yacht?”

“You didn’t? I mean, Manhattan is mostly surrounded by water.”

I study her for a second, trying to figure out if she’s for real right now. I can’t tell, so I default to my usual sarcasm. “Nah, you’ll only find me on the yacht on weekends.”

This time she’s giving me a look, trying to figure out if I’m serious. This is almost enjoyable, in a warped, I’d-rather-be-dying kind of way.

“Stephanie, huh?” I ask, when she doesn’t respond. “You go by Steph?”

“No. Not Steph,” she says as we cross the street to the familiar green-and-white Starbucks logo. “My ex-boyfriend called me that, so I’m kind of over it.”

God, someone actually
dated
this cranky little midget? Then my eyes skim the perky cleavage beneath the tiny tank top. Right. There is that.

“Bad breakup?” I ask, holding the door open for her.

“I guess. I mean, I walked in on him exploring someone else’s
vagina
, and I can’t say I was exactly understanding.”

I choke back a little laugh at her description. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a girl use that word so casually in a sentence. It’s a little … alarming. “Got it. So no on Steph, then.”

For a second I feel a little stab of envy at her method of moving on from a bad relationship. I wish Ethan had an easy nickname so that I could erase … everything.

“Let me guess: you’re going to get something with soy,” I say as we get in line.

She lifts a shoulder, apparently resigned to this particular stereotype. “Grande soy mocha, no whip. And you’re going to go for a manly drip, right? Or maybe straight-up espresso?”

Even though I know I’m the one who took us down the path of trading clichéd stereotypes, I’m starting to hate that our assumptions about each other are mostly right, so instead of my usual tall drip, I get to the counter and throw out every fluffy word that I can think of:
white chocolate, whipped cream, caramel, almond spice
. “Oh, and don’t forget the sprinkles,” I add.

The barista gives a nod, clearly trying to figure out where to find room to write that on a paper cup already covered with the trademark black Sharpie scribblings. It’s a little emasculating, but I roll with it. I’m happy to be “metro,” or whatever it is they’re calling guys who actually brush their teeth and clip their toenails.

“You ordered that just to prove me wrong,” she says as we grab our drinks and head for a table.

“Just like you let me pay for yours because I was assuming you’d insist on paying for your own.”

“That, and it was hard to miss the wad of twenties in your wallet.”

“Drug money,” I lie, taking a sip of my drink. I wince at its painful sweetness, and Stephanie smirks, showing off a really cute dimple I haven’t noticed before. Probably because the girl’s not exactly throwing grins around for free.

“Tell me you understood some of that babble from class,” I say, shoving my drink aside. “What in God’s name is a ‘common film narrative’?”

I put air quotes around that last part, and I see her grind her teeth a little bit.

“I knew it,” she said, leaning forward. “You’re not a film student.”

“Eh, no. Whatever gave me away?”

She nods in the direction of my upper arms. “The biceps. No respectable film student would be caught dead with guns like that.”

I let out a small laugh. “Goth, nobody calls them
guns
anymore.”

For a second I think she’s blushing, but then she resumes that dead-behind-the-eyes look. “So why are you in this class then? I thought it was Tisch students only, and I
know
there was a waiting list. I was on it.”

The guilt stabs again, and I just try to remember that had I not weaseled my way into this course, I’d be all gussied up in a suit right now for yet another Price Holdings internship. Which normally I would actually enjoy. But not this summer.

Since Stephanie looks pretty gung-ho about her little movie class, I’m not about to tell her I enrolled only because there were no summer business courses available on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Nor am I going to spill my guts and explain that
I’ve got school
is the only excuse my father would accept for why I can’t be his right-hand man at the office.

And I’m certainly not going to tell her
why
I don’t want to be spending a lot of time with
my dad this summer.