The Start of Me and You (11 page)

“Great. Did you just get started?” she asked.

Max spun some spaghetti around his fork. “We had barely started, really. Paige was just telling me how much she likes my shirt.”

I almost choked on my bite of cookie.

“Well, that’s nice.” His mom smiled over at me so earnestly that I felt guilty right away. I tried to give Max a
What is wrong with you?
look, but he was looking down at his plate. And grinning.

“Well, I’m going to eat this in the office.” She balanced
the plate on one hand, still holding her briefcase in the other. “The paperwork is never done. Have fun!”

When she was out of earshot, I leaned my hand against my cheek and stared at Max. He chewed purposefully, avoiding my gaze.

“Um,” I began, my voice incredulous. “Did you just
tattle
on me?”

“No!” he said, laughing. “I really wanted my mom to know that someone other than me likes this T-shirt.”

“God,” I grumbled. “Now I feel guilty for teasing you.”

“That was the idea.” He set his plate aside. “Okay. So. QuizBowl format. You ready?”

My mental image of a QuizBowl tournament flashed in my mind—me, seated at a table on a stage, trying to buzz in answers as hot auditorium lights beat down. But I squared my shoulders, nodding. “I’m ready.”

Max explained the four rounds, toss-up questions and point values. We could jump in and answer questions if the other team got them wrong—except in
the third round, when each team would pick from a few categories and answer ten related questions.

“Okay.” I knew all this already from my Internet searches. Max kept going: when to answer questions the other team missed, when it’s allowable to answer without being acknowledged by the moderator, and other various rules.

“Consultation between players is only allowed during the third round, so it’s best to know your fellow players’ strengths as well as you can,” he continued. “I buzz in and guess sometimes because there’s no penalty for a wrong answer. But I only guess in my ‘home’ categories. That’s why Malcolm and Lauren are coming over, to discuss how we’ll split up our expertise areas. Any questions so far?”

I shook my head. “I think I understand the format. I’m more curious about the kinds of questions to expect.”

“Gotcha.” He set his plate aside and opened his laptop. “Just give me one second to find the website.”

As he typed, I let my eyes stray around the kitchen. There were three pictures on the nearest patch of wall: one of Max’s mom and another woman who looked like her, one of what seemed to be grandparents, and one of Max and Ryan at the beach. They were six or so, facing the camera head-on with their arms slung around each other’s shoulders and each missing a few teeth. Ryan’s hair was blonder then, and Max was wearing a swim shirt and snorkel goggles.

“I like all the pictures around,” I said, gesturing at the one of him and Ryan. “That one’s cute.”

I hoped the word choice came off as the “Aw, little kids are cute” way instead of the “Your cousin is still cute and I want him to love me” way.

“Thanks. It’s one of my mom’s favorites.”

“You and Ryan seem so different.” I eyed him closely to
make sure that my comment registered as normal. I didn’t want to pry or bring up Ryan where he had no place. The last thing I needed was Max suspecting my crush.

“Yeah, I get that a lot. I think that’s why we get along so well.”

“That’s nice,” I said decidedly. “Being friends with someone since you were little, I mean.”

“Like you and Tessa,” he said. Tessa must have said something at the lunch table. I wondered what else they talked about during that hour.

“Yeah,” I said. “Like me and Tessa.”

“I like her a lot,” he said, glancing over at me. “She’s so laid-back and cool—plus she has the best taste in music. I would never have guessed that her parents own a hotel chain.”

I bit down a frown, thinking of the night before. “Yeah, well. It’s hard sometimes. Her parents aren’t around very much. She spent a lot of time at my house when we were kids.”

“Yeah, she mentioned that.” His eyes returned to the screen. “Same for me. Single mom in medical school and all. I half lived at my aunt and uncle’s house.”

“Oh.” I felt awkward, unsure of what to say about that. “I’m sorry.”

He looked up. “About what?”

“Um. About your dad?” I nearly cringed, regretting my words.

“Oh.” He snorted. “Don’t be. I’m not.”

I nodded, feeling stupid and intrusive.

“He’s still alive or whatever,” Max said. “But I never see him. He and my mom were together in college. When she got pregnant, he bailed.”

I felt my eyes widen. I assumed that Max’s dad lived here, some tall guy with dark hair and a crisp suit. I was also surprised that Max would divulge all this to someone he barely knew. Maybe he could sense that my family situation was weird, too.

“So your mom graduated from college and raised you by herself while going to medical school?” I hadn’t exactly meant to say this. And now it seemed like I was prying. Again. With Ryan Chase around, sentences crumbled into disjointed words before they could leave my mouth. If only that was happening now.

“She did indeed.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “Wow.”

“Yep. She’s pretty cool.”

“Wait,” I said. “So she’s … Dr. Watson?”

He laughed. “Yep. Just hasn’t found her Sherlock yet. And look at you, with the literature references! QuizBowl suits you already.”

I tilted my head to one side, giving him a disbelieving look. “Everyone knows Holmes and Watson.”

“Maybe,” he said. “But I assure you, we need the pop culture expertise.”

“So, when you say ‘pop culture,’ are we talking current pop culture?”

“I’d say last fifty years or so with TV shows and movies. But sometimes they ask about current-day celebrities and stuff. Some leagues do all pop-culture questions. Those are called trash tournaments.”

“So, let me get this straight,” I said, lacing my fingers together. “So, what I’m bringing to the team is
trash
?”

“No!” Max held his hands up in a halt motion. “Well, okay, kind of. But ‘trash’ isn’t meant to be derogatory. That’s just QuizBowl jargon.”

“Great,” I muttered. The Trash Collector could be a new nickname. Get in line, boys. My dance card is filling up fast.

An hour passed quickly once the others arrived. I’d had a couple of classes with Malcolm Park in the past. He was the kind of friendly that you noticed—a student-council extrovert, involved in everything. He always had a travel mug of coffee with him, like an adult going to his office instead of a kid going to school. I’d always assumed that the caffeine was the source of his power. He and Maggie Brennan would have made a winning ticket in any election.

Malcolm greeted me so enthusiastically that I felt like I’d been his dream choice for a fourth player. Lauren Mathers leveled that feeling out. She shook my hand firmly and said, “I’m glad to have a fourth seat filler. I want QuizBowl on my résumé for every year of high school.”

Lauren was petite, with sandy-blond hair that fell to her shoulders. Based on a picture of her, she could have been typecast as a cheerleader in a TV show. Except that she moved in purposeful jerks of motion, as if she were an alien learning to navigate with a human body. It didn’t help that she spoke in flat tones and, as far as I could tell, did not smile.

“Coventry must be so mad that we stole you,” Malcolm said, settling in.

“They’re fine without me,” Max replied. “More than fine. They’ll be tough to beat.”

They divvied up subjects: physics, chemistry, and history to Max, biology and math to Lauren, political science and economics to Malcolm, literature and pop culture to me. Then the categories got way more nuanced. Max: computers/technology, Latin. Malcolm: military stratagem, plant life, business practices. Lauren: medical terms and pharmaceuticals, instrumentation.

“Not all music,” Lauren said, eyes flashing at me. “I know key signatures, famous classical musicians, and some Broadway musicals. Popular music will be on you.”

She pronounced it pop-u-lar, as if she herself were enunciating from a Broadway stage.

“Paige,” Malcolm said. “What subtopics do you feel comfortable with?”

Um, none? God. I wasn’t an expert in
anything
. But I
did have topics I’d been obsessed with as a kid. And I did read a lot about embarrassingly uncool things. Here those things might be, if not cool, then at least helpful. I took a deep breath. “Astronomy—constellations, number of moons and their names, that kind of thing. Um, state trivia. Like, mottoes and birds. Flags. Horses. Astrology. Greek gods. I know a bit of French and French culture. Some basic theology and philosophy.”

The last two became subjects of my expertise as I desperately grappled for some kind of comfort in Aaron’s death. Not that I’d tell them that.

We divided up the world piece by piece, splitting by continents to study locations, populations, and basic facts. I got North America, which proved they were going easy on me. Max led us through a mock match, reading questions from the website, and I sat stunned by the specificity of the questions. Why the hell would I know the Malaysian port city of Malacca? Or that there was a pope named Formosus? I didn’t even know those were
words
.

Suddenly, this all felt like a massive mistake—the excruciating uptick of a roller-coaster hill as you start to doubt your safety and sanity. I wanted to bail out.

I excused myself to the bathroom, where I stared at my own face and tried to calm down. Anxiety wasn’t a new part of my life—it had come and gone in crippling bursts for some time. But I couldn’t weigh which would make me
more panicky: going through with QuizBowl or quitting.
Focus on the plan
, I told myself.
And how good it will feel to cross something off
.

As I exited the bathroom, I couldn’t help but glance in the nearest room. There was a bed with a blue comforter tangled on top of striped sheets. Above it, a large “M” hung on the wall. So this was Max’s room. I peered in without stepping any closer. I didn’t mean to be nosy, but I had never really seen the inside of a boy’s room before.

There were at least fifty paper airplanes that I could see, made from all different patterns of paper. They were attached to a string, suspended around the room, as if flying in neat lines. I thought of the note Max had passed me earlier in the week, folded into a tiny plane.

A built-in bookshelf covered the whole left wall, with textbooks stacked at every level. There was a poster from a sci-fi-looking movie I’d never seen and a tabletop globe and a record player with vinyl stacked beside it. Yep. This was Max’s room all right. For some reason, it made me smile. The space was so lived in, so clearly someone’s happy place.

When I returned downstairs, my new teammates were packing up.

“I look forward to working with you.” Lauren shook my hand again. “I hope you’ll be able to contribute meaningfully.”

She nodded at Max and Malcolm, the brisk acknowledgment of a drill sergeant, and walked out the door. My mouth hung open a bit.

“Don’t mind her. You’ll get used to it,” Malcolm whispered before ducking out behind her. “Glad to have you, Paige.”

“Sorry about Lauren,” Max said. “She doesn’t really have a filter.”

“No big deal,” I lied. In one sentence, Lauren had homed in on my exact fear: that I wouldn’t be able to contribute meaningfully.

“Mom!” Max yelled into the hallway. “I’m taking Paige home.”

“Oh!” I heard from the other room. By the time I pulled my bag onto my shoulder, Julie—Ms. Watson? Dr. Watson?—had appeared from the hallway, smiling.

“How did it go?” The eye contact suggested that the question was directed at me, but I had no idea how it’d gone. Or if the rest of the team was regretting their decision like I was.

“Good,” I said, glancing at Max for confirmation. “I think.”

“Great! You’ll have so much fun. Max
loves
QuizBowl.”

“We should go,” he said.

She stepped closer to me. “It was so nice to meet you, Paige. You’re welcome over any time.”

And then, she was hugging me. It didn’t last long enough
for me to react, but the perma-smile remained when she stepped back. Maybe hugs and excessive smiling were her version of That Look. I smiled back anyway, and glanced at Max, whose face was tinged with pink again.

“Okay,” he said, tugging at my arm. “Seriously. Leaving now.”

“Sorry about my mom,” Max said once we were in his SUV. “She’s been worried about me readjusting to public school. She probably thinks you’re a harbinger of social normalcy for me.”

I gave a bitter laugh, because social normalcy eluded me at every turn. “And, hey, I socialized with you despite your
Firefly
shirt.”

This made him smile. “Yeah, that couldn’t have hurt.”

We were quiet for a few moments. It didn’t feel awkward, exactly, but I wasn’t sure what to say. We pulled onto the main drag, beneath the shade of the wide oak trees. The very tips of the leaves were the color of a just-lit match. Soon, the whole line of trees would explode in fiery yellows and reds, engulfing the town in autumn.

“I know she doesn’t mean to compare us,” Max said, pausing to bite at the thumbnail on his left hand. “But Ryan and I are the same age. It’s hard not to compare or, I guess, contrast.”

I nodded, my ears perking up at the possibility of talking about Ryan Chase.

Max sighed. “Ryan always had this big group of friends
all around him, and a serious girlfriend. Not that it worked out or whatever.”

I looked over at him. He was still steering with one hand. “Yeah, that must have been hard on him.”

“Yeah. Leanne isn’t my favorite person, but he really cares about her.”

Present tense. My whole body prickled with jealousy, but I felt validated in Max’s dislike of her. This proved that being friendly with Max would give me the upper hand.

“Anyway.” Max shook his head, glancing over at me. “Do you have your driver’s license?”

“Of course I do.” I felt myself blush, even though I was speaking to a guy in a sci-fi fandom shirt. “I just don’t have a car.”