A Week of Mondays

by Jessica Brody

  “You like?” I say, flipping a lock of hair over my shoulder.

  “Uh,” he stammers, but never quite finishes. Instead he chooses to comment on my music choice.

  “New playlist?”

  I put the car in gear and back out his driveway. “Yup, I made it this morning. It’s called ‘Brand-New World Order.’”

  He grabs my phone and scrolls through the songs. “It’s very … bouncy.”

  I bob my head to the beat of “I’m a Believer” by the Monkees. “What can I say? I feel bouncy.”

  Admittedly, I’m a little disappointed that Owen didn’t comment on my outfit. It would have been nice for him to confirm that my new look is working, but whatever. I didn’t dress up to impress my best friend. I dressed up to impress my boyfriend.

  “Oh, I almost forgot!” Owen reaches into his bag and removes two fortune cookies. “Choose your tasty fortune!”

  I look at the wrapped cookies in his hand and select the one on the left. Owen opens the other and reads aloud. I almost mouth the words along with him.

  “If your desires are not extravagant, they will be granted.” He crumples it up and tosses it into the backseat. “My desires are always extravagant.”

  I toss my cookie into the cup holder.

  “You’re not even going to open it?” Owen asks.

  “Nah,” I tell him. “I already know what it’s going to say.”

  He snorts. “That’s impossible.”

  I hear a rustling beside me and I glance over to see Owen reading my fortune.

  “Be the best version of yourself.”

  I nearly swerve off the road. “What?”

  “Whoa. Drive much?”

  I grab the message from his hand and read it for myself.

  Be the best version of yourself.

  But that’s different. How can it be different?

  “I thought you said you already knew what it was going to say,” Owen points out, and I don’t miss the smugness.

  “I…” I stammer. “I thought I did, but I guess it changed.”

  Then suddenly I understand.

  Of course it changed! It’s my fortune! I’ve already set a new series of events in motion today. I’ve already started changing my fate.

  “Uh, yellow light,” Owen says, interrupting my revelation.

  I blink back to reality, dropping the fortune into my lap. Instinctively, I slam on the brakes, screeching to a halt right before the light turns red. The car next to me decides to make a run for it. I watch in awe as the intersection explodes in a series of bright flashes.

  “That guy is totally getting a ticket,” Owen says.

  Goose bumps crawl up my arms.

  It’s working.

  I’m changing it. I’m fixing this day.

  I glance down at the tiny piece of paper in my lap.

  Be the best version of yourself.

  Touché, Universe.

  That’s exactly what I intend to do.

  Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head

  8:05 a.m.

  Before we get to school, I decide it might be a good idea to try out some of the advice from The Girl Commandments on Owen. You know, take it for a little test run before the real thing. I mean, Owen is a guy and Dr. Levine says all men are biologically hardwired to respond to the commandments. And let’s be honest, when it comes to being a Creature of Mystery (Commandment #5), I need all the practice I can get.

  “Have you watched the season premiere of Assumed Guilty yet?” Owen asks as we wait for the light to turn green.

  Answer his questions with a question.

  “Have you watched the season premiere of Assumed Guilty yet?”

  Owen gives me a blank stare. “Um, yeah. I texted you last night to tell you I was watching it.”

  I sigh. Okay, so that didn’t really go anywhere. “No, I haven’t watched it.”

  He bangs his fist on the dashboard. “Bollocks! You need to get on that. You missed the best episode.” He waits for me to reply, and when I don’t he adds, “Do you not even care about the show anymore?”

  The guilt returns, punching me in the gut for the third time. I want to tell Owen I’m sorry but …

  Don’t say exactly what you mean.

  “Well,” I begin, clearing my throat. “I’m … regretful that you feel slighted by … my lack of enthusiasm for … this particular episodic television entertainment, but you should know that … I have good intentions to … observe the episode in question this … nightfall.”

  Okay, now I just sound like a walking thesaurus.

  Owen gives me another weird look. “What’s gotten into you?”

  “What’s gotten into you?”

  “I mean, why are you acting strange?”

  “Why are you acting strange?” I retort.

  “I’m not acting strange!”

  “Neither am I.”

  He guffaws. “Objection. Misleading.”

  “Overruled.”

  “You can’t overrule my objection.”

  I shrug. “Sure I can.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “On what grounds yourself?”

  He throws his hands in the air. “Gah! Why are you being so infuriating?”

  “Why are you?”

  “Didn’t we play this game when we were ten?”

  I bite my lip. I think I’m doing this wrong. Owen looks really annoyed. I don’t think that’s the goal of the book. Are you supposed to exasperate your boyfriend into staying with you?

  That doesn’t sound right.

  I turn in to the school parking lot. “Never mind,” I mumble. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  I park and kill the engine. I can almost feel the confusion radiating off him. I grab my umbrella from the backseat as Owen gets out of the car and closes the door.

  I reach for the handle but pause when I remember:

  Girl Commandment #8: Thou deserve to be treated with chivalry.

  Dr. Levine says that you should never open your own doors or pay for your own food. Men like doing that stuff because it makes them feel important.

  Owen taps on the glass but I still don’t move.

  He’ll get the point eventually.

  He doesn’t.

  After a few more seconds, he finally opens his door again. “Ells, what on earth are you doing in there? Did you forget how to use a door? I’m getting soaked.”

  I let out a sigh and kick open my door. Whatever. So maybe the commandments don’t work on every guy, maybe just the guy you’re in a relationship with. Which makes perfect sense. Why would Owen care about opening doors for me?

  I pop my umbrella and step out. Ahhhh … so this is what it feels like to be dry.

  Once I’ve locked the car, I expect Owen to make a run for it again because he still doesn’t have an umbrella, but he walks beside me, keeping the same pace as me and getting completely drenched in the process. I offer to share, but he simply shrugs and says, “A little rain never hurt anyone.”

  He only says that because he didn’t see my last two school pictures.

  When we make it to the front entrance of the school, I close my umbrella and reach for the heavy metal door. But Owen stops me, gently tugging on my elbow. “Wait.”

  “What?”

  He looks at his feet, fidgeting with the strap of his backpack.

  “Owen,” I whine, “It’s freezing out here and the rain is—”

  “I like it.” He spits out the sentence, like he’s afraid he might swallow and choke on it if he doesn’t get it out fast enough.

  I tilt my head. “The rain?”

  “No. The … um … the outfit.”

  I admit I’m a bit surprised by his admission, but before I can say thank you, Owen has yanked the door open and disappeared into the building, like he’s desperate to get away from me.

  Oh Happy Day

  8:47 a.m.

  It’s official!

  I heart this day.

  Everything is going
exactly according to the Plan of Awesome. (I just coined that term, by the way.)

  Umbrella? Remembered.

  Red light ticket? Avoided.

  School picture? Rocked.

  When I slide off the stool and peer at the viewfinder, I am pleased to see that I am the embodiment of poise and togetherness. Not a hair out of place. Not a single smear of makeup. Which, if you think about it, is exactly how a school picture should be. You know, if you’re not me.

  Even the photographer’s assistant compliments my picture. She certainly hasn’t done that before.

  On the way back to chemistry, I steal a peek at my phone and see that Tristan has messaged me again.

  Tristan: Did you get my texts? Wanna meet before Spanish?

  Well, well. Do I sense a little bit of desperation in his voice? Interesting.

  I don’t text him back, because Commandment #4, and when the bell rings, I go straight to Spanish. I do not pass Go (or Tristan’s locker). I do not collect two hundred dollars. I am a Creature of Mystery, and Creatures of Mystery don’t go tracking down their boyfriends. They let their boyfriends track them down.

  I am not clingy or desperate. I am confident and deserving of chivalry.

  As I approach our Spanish classroom, I hear hurried footsteps approaching and suddenly Tristan is in front of me, looking, might I add, a little winded.

  Did he just run to catch up to me?

  Very, very interesting.

  “Hey,” he says, breathless. “Did you get my texts?”

  Girl Commandment #3: Thou shall always appear busy and important.

  I feign confusion and take my phone out of my pocket to look at the screen. “Oops! There they are. I just saw them. Sorry. This morning has been a little crazy.” I flash him a winning smile.

  He looks deflated. I keep on smiling.

  “Oh. You’ve been busy?”

  I sigh like the weight of the world is on my shoulders but it doesn’t faze me in the slightest. “Yeah, the election speech is today and I have this history quiz next period I forgot to study for and softball tryouts are this afternoon. So much is going on, you know?”

  “Right,” he says, but I swear he sounds conflicted. “Well, do you think maybe you’ll have some time to talk today? I thought we could chat about what happened last night.”

  I pretend to check the calendar on my phone and pull my face into a grimace, sucking air between my teeth. “Eeek. Today is tough, but I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”

  I turn on my heel and head into the classroom, taking my usual seat in the back row. Once again, Tristan runs to catch up and falls into the desk next to me. I stare straight ahead but I can feel him watching me, studying me. Like he’s trying to figure out where he knows me from.

  “Are you … mad?” he asks, his voice still tinged with confusion.

  I give my hair a flip as I turn to flash him another beatific smile. “About last night? Of course not. It was a silly misunderstanding.”

  “It was?”

  “Of course. I don’t blame you at all.”

  There’s a long, stunned silence. “You don’t?”

  “Nope.”

  I face forward and pretend to be completely rapt in the conjugations Señora Mendoza is writing on the whiteboard, but silently, on the inside, I’m squealing with delight.

  It’s working. It’s actually working!

  Unfortunately, however, I’m so busy trying to look busy, I completely forget about the bird that flies into the window until the giant smack makes me jump.

  “¡Dios mío!” Señora Mendoza cries, hand to chest.

  “Is it dead?” someone asks, racing to the window along with a handful of other students.

  “It’s totally dead,” Sadie Haskins confirms.

  I’m completely overcome with guilt. I should have remembered the dang bird! I could have saved him. But my grief is short-lived when I notice that Tristan is barely paying attention to the commotion the bird has caused. His gaze is trained on me. Once again, he looks like he’s trying to decipher the unbreakable Code Ellison.

  Señora Mendoza redirects the class’s attention and continues on with her lesson plan. When she turns her back, I see Tristan scribbling something on a piece of notebook paper out of the corner of my eye. He checks to make sure Señora’s attention is still diverted and then slips it onto my desk.

  I count ten full seconds before looking at it, because, you know, Creature of Mystery! Totally busy and important. But in all honesty, it’s the most excruciatingly long ten seconds of my life.

  I casually glance down, pretending to notice it for the first time.

  Are we good?

  I can’t help but shiver. Those are the exact words I used when I was the one passing the note.

  I shift toward him long enough to smile and give a quick thumbs-up.

  For the rest of class, I only have one thought drifting through my head.

  Oh, how the tables have turned.

  Do-Wah-Diddy

  12:40 p.m.

  After acing my history test—third time’s the charm!—I head to my locker to stash my books. As expected, I find my speech notes in the interior Velcro pocket of my bag, just as I did yesterday, and stuff them into the pocket of my dress.

  When I turn around, Tristan is approaching from down the hall. I quickly turn and stare into my locker, trying to busy myself with rearranging something. Anything! But par for the course, my locker is already immaculate. Not even a single pencil out of place. So I grab a notebook, flip it open, and pretend to be engrossed in whatever I’ve written on that page.

  I feel warm lips press into my neck. I stifle a giddy squeal.

  “Hi there,” I say, keeping my gaze locked on my notebook.

  Tristan gently turns my shoulder so that I’m facing him and then his mouth is on mine. His kiss is deep and urgent. Like he hasn’t kissed me in weeks. One hand snakes around my waist, pulling me into him, the other roams through my hair, his fingers tangling in the soft waves I spent so long perfecting this morning.

  The notebook I was pretending to be absorbed in slips from my quickly numbing fingers as my whole body wilts into him. Thankfully, he’s got one arm around me, or I’d probably sink to the floor right along with my notebook.

  I’m so completely wrapped up in his lips moving against mine, I almost forget about the seventh commandment.

  Commandment #7: Thou shall always end the date and the kiss first. Leave him wanting more!

  It takes every ounce of mental strength that I have, but I finally manage to pull away. I try not to act completely swooned by what just happened, but in reality I think my kneecaps have entirely melted. I brace my wobbly body against the locker behind me.

  “That was nice,” I say lamely, bending down to pick up my fallen notebook.

  Tristan lets out a laugh. “Nice? That was like the world series of kissing.”

  I teeter my head from side to side. “Perhaps.”

  Perhaps?

  Am I a Creature of Mystery or a character from Downton Abbey?

  Tristan leans in and rests his forehead against mine. “What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?”

  “What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?”

  He guffaws. “After that kiss? I’m not sure you want to know.”

  A deep blush creeps up my neck. Do Creatures of Mystery blush?

  I lower my head, averting my gaze.

  “I mean,” he says, lifting my chin to meet his eye, “are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  His face contorts in confusion. “Yeeaaah.” He draws out the word, like he’s buying time until this conversation makes sense. “Are you coming to the practice room during lunch with us?”

  “Are you coming to the practice room during lunch with us?”

  Okay, I’m not sure Commandment #5 applies to every conversation.

  “Huh?”

  I bite my lip. “Never mind.”


  “So, are you coming?”

  My heart is practically doing somersaults in my chest, screaming “Yes! Yes! Yes!” but my brain is bringing down the gavel, reminding me of Operation Boyfriend Recovery (okay, I just coined that phrase, too).

  Girl Commandment #10: Thou shall never accept a date request less than forty-eight hours in advance.

  Although, technically, he’s not asking me on a date. And technically, given my current, highly unusual predicament, he’s not really physically (cosmically?) capable of asking me out more than forty-eight hours in advance. So, technically, I could say yes right now.

  But I won’t.

  Everything is turning out so well, I don’t want to screw it up by messing with the formula.

  “I would love to but…” I have to force my lips to form the words. They are still tingling from that kiss and on the verge of waging a full-scale rebellion. “I really should go somewhere quiet to practice my speech.” I pull the index cards from my pocket and wave them in the air, offering proof. “I don’t want to totally make a fool of myself in front of the entire school.”

  Again, I add silently in my head.

  Tristan hooks his finger into my belt and pulls me toward him. “But I’ll miss you. I feel like I haven’t seen you all day.”

  Now who’s the whiny, clingy one?

  “You’ll see me tonight,” I remind him. “At the carnival. After your gig, I’ll be all yours.”

  His fingers slip from my belt. “Wait, what gig?”

  Uh-oh.

  I forgot. That part doesn’t come until later, and I’m the one who has to actually get him the gig. But going out of my way and getting myself thrown in detention just to snag my boyfriend’s band a gig probably breaks at least three commandments at once.

  I should tell him now. Tell him I got him the gig, then sneak out during lunch and secure it. But then I won’t be able to practice my speech, which I actually really need to do. I’m not bombing that thing a third time.

  “Uh,” I stammer. “Did I say gig? I meant jig. You know, after your jig?”

  His eyebrows knit together. “My jig?”

  “Yeah,” I say, my mind reeling for something to say that doesn’t make me sound as ridiculous as I do right now. “You know, your jig.” I bounce up and down and wave my index finger in the air like I’m dancing in a bad western movie.