Tess batted it away. “Relax. We need to get you cleaned up—and I’ll give you a blowout.”
That sounded painful. But, after enduring the process, which required hot air and big round brushes, Addie decided a blowout was simply annoying and a huge waste of energy. Her scalp was super-sensitive and she cringed with each tug. When the ordeal was over and Tess had finished applying teal eyeliner, mascara, light foundation, a few quick swipes of blush, and lip gloss, Addie decided she resembled her aunt Jo’s spoiled Pekingese.
Woof.
“You. Are. Gorgeous.” Tess stood back and appraised her work.
Addie examined her bare feet. “I don’t have shoes to go with this.”
“You’re right. You can’t wear sneakers or those hideous sandals. . . .”
“My sandals aren’t hideous. They’re very practical—in or out of water.”
“Exactly. Let me try one of the girls since my feet are twice the size of yours.”
A half hour later, Addie had on a borrowed pair of silver strappy spikes that were, in her private opinion, ergonomic disasters. Unable to stand, she sat on the bed reading the latest issue of Neuroscience Today while Tess vacillated between peach- and orange-colored dresses for herself.
Addie checked her watch. “We’ll be late. The dance starts at eight.”
“So what?” Tess was at her desk, carefully applying yet another coat of mascara. “No one arrives on time.”
“I do. And so does Dexter. Promptness is a courtesy we extend to others, he says.”
“Why are we even talking about him?” Tess recapped the mascara. “After the way he treated you, he should be invisible.”
Addie stood to go, only to sit back down again when Tess started rifling through her lip gloss. Finally, at nine p.m., the ritual of their hair and makeup was complete, and Addie was close to apoplectic that they had so deviated from the schedule. She tripped behind Tess, who broke the laws of physics by striding on her own tiny spikes with ease.
“How pretty!” Tess stopped so suddenly at the entrance to the dance that Addie, who’d been concentrating on kilograms per square centimeter, bumped into her and nearly fell.
From the rafters inside the white tent hung dozens of multicolored paper lights, thereby creating the effect of red, blue, green, purple, and yellow bubbles.
“Chinese lanterns,” Addie said, hesitating. The tent was packed with strangers swaying to the pounding music. It was so loud she had to clap her hands over her ears.
“Now, now,” Tess said, gently lowering Addie’s hands. “We’ll have none of that.”
“Maybe I should go back to my room. I feel slightly sick.”
“No, you don’t. You’re excited, not scared.” Tess took her by the elbow.
“I just don’t do well in crowds. You know that. I’m not good with strangers.”
“I also know that you have an experiment to run, right? I thought you were here to watch how Lauren interacted with Alex and Kris.”
Just the mention of his name sent her stomach tumbling, though Tess’s reminder about the experiment was helpful. Yes. If she simply focused on the assignment, the residual fears of inadequacy and having to engage in small talk—much less actually dance in public—would vanish.
Tess escorted her safely to where Dex was standing by a potted fern, clipboard in hand.
“You’re late.” He checked his watch. “By seventy-two minutes.”
“Whatever,” Addie said, slipping behind the plant, where she could observe without being seen. “What’s with the clipboard?”
“Documentation,” he replied, tapping his pen. “When Lauren and Kris get together, I want to note the time when I was proven right about your thesis being flawed.”
How sweet of him to sacrifice his Saturday night to prove me wrong, Addie thought sourly.
“Adorable bow tie.” Tess flicked a finger at Dexter’s pink plaid one. “Did mother pick that out for you, too? Or was it nanny?”
He touched it defensively. “Mother, of course. She has impeccable taste. But aren’t you supposed to be with Ed? Though, this is a high school dance, so it might be a little young for him.”
Tess brushed a thread off her arm, playing the part of the ever-confident girlfriend. “Ed can do what he wants. I’m not his keeper. Doesn’t Addie look nice?”
Dex turned to Addie and scrutinized her from head to toe. “What did you do to your hair?”
“Tess applied friction and heat,” Addie said.
He set his lips together disapprovingly. “Well, it looks different and not at all efficient.”
“You really know how to flatter a girl,” Tess said, twirling away. “Now don’t go all crazy on the dance floor, Dexter. I know how you get with a couple of Cokes in you.”
They watched her saunter off, laughing as she threaded through the crowd.
Addie didn’t wait a beat. “Did you go to Foy?”
“I sent him an email. He has not responded.”
Good. Maybe he wouldn’t check it until the morning.
“For the record, I did give your crush an out. I told him that if he admitted to taking the crabs, that I wouldn’t tell a soul.”
Addie’s heart leaped. “And?”
“And he denied it three times. So I sent the email.”
Dammit. Why didn’t Kris confess? Then again, knowing Dexter and his evil leanings, it was highly unlikely that an admission of guilt would have gotten Kris off the hook. Probably, Dex would have used it as blackmail or forced him to do his bidding all next year.
“Uh-oh. Too bad for you.” Dex pointed with his pencil to the snack table, where Lauren appeared to be in deep discussion with Alex, who was wearing a bright-green button-down shirt with dark-green shorts.
“Clash,” Addie observed.
“I agree. She is a beautiful blond goddess and he’s a cretin.”
“I was referring to his choice of attire. The greens conflict.”
Still, Dexter’s point was not lost on her. Alex and Lauren were together socially. Bummer.
“Don’t fret. You gave it your best shot.” Dex patted her back awkwardly. “As with all failed experiments, it is incumbent on scientists to analyze the underlying fault in their theories and procedures.”
“Stop it with the failure talk. It’s annoying.” She shifted to the left so his hand fell.
“Hmm. Looks as though he hasn’t been expelled yet,” Dex said, gesturing to Kris, who was standing on a ladder in the corner fixing one of the lanterns. He was in jeans and a dark green Academy 355 T-shirt that allowed for an unobstructed view of his biceps. She couldn’t help but smile.
Kris climbed down, tossed a spent light bulb to another member of the grounds crew (Addie deduced this because he, too, was in a dark green Academy 355 T-shirt), folded up the ladder, and carried it to the door. Along the way, he passed Alex and Lauren, who abruptly left the conversation to turn her full attention on Kris.
Lauren threw an arm around Kris’s neck and whispered in his ear. Addie experienced a surge of PEA, aka jealousy, and categorized it as such, refocusing her attention on the importance of this interaction.
She tapped Dex on the shoulder. “Don’t start documenting just yet. Look at Lauren now.”
Dex blinked. “Inconsequential. They’re just talking.”
“Then why is she throwing her head back and laughing? And why is he enjoying physical contact with another girl?” Addie nodded to Alex, who was dirty dancing with the girls’ field hockey captain. “Look. Their hips are touching. He didn’t do that with Lauren.”
Dex was speechless, especially when Kris had to literally push Lauren away and head for the exit. Lauren tottered after him, flipping her hair and employing the many methods to gain attraction that Addie had noted in her research.
“Fascinating,” she said, taking Dexter’s clipboard to record the series of interactions, complete with the coup de grâce of a lip-lock between Alex and the girls’ field hockey captain.
De
x murmured, “Inconclusive.”
She returned his clipboard. “There’s your documentation of my success. You’re welcome.”
The music stopped along with the dancing. The lights went up and Mr. Foy went to the microphone, where he made a brief speech about how enriching it was to have the exchange students on campus. Before he invited them on stage to discuss their experiences, he wanted to remind everyone to sign up for a student exchange program so they might have a chance to visit other countries, too.
“Addie!” a voice hissed. “Add . . . ieeeeee!”
Tess was on the other side of the plant with Fiona. “What?”
“Have you seen Mindy?”
Odd question. Why would she have seen Mindy? “No. Why?”
“Because she’s missing and Fiona thinks she went to Harvard to see David.”
Addie slapped her forehead. “She can’t see him in order to return her neurohormone levels to normal.”
“Yes, yes.” Tess rolled her hand. “The least of our problems. Foy’s about to call them to the podium and everyone will be there except for her. He’s going to go ballistic.”
“And we have to be at the airport by five a.m.,” Fiona added. “Early-bird flight.”
Tess said, “You have to go down to Harvard and find her. I’ll get Ed to drive.”
“Why me?” Addie asked. “Why not you?”
“Because I’m going to be on stage with them! And hey, you’re my Assistant Peer Counselor, remember?”
Fiona said, “You should bring Kris to translate since I can’t be there.”
Addie considered the logistics. It was close to ten. If she could persuade Kris to leave the party, a fifteen-minute endeavor in itself, it would take forty minutes to get to Harvard (a half hour if Ed could circle and not have to park), fifteen minutes to find David’s dorm room (if Fiona knew where it was), another half hour to convince Mindy that the best course of action would be to leave him behind, and then forty minutes, give or take, to return to campus.
Which meant, depending on the parking situation, they wouldn’t return to school until one a.m. That was if all went as planned. If not, then they had a four-hour window before Mindy had to be at Logan.
The scheduling alone was a nightmare.
“Okay. I’ll do it on one condition. Real shoes.” She lifted her spikes. “I’ll never survive if I have to cross Harvard’s campus on shiny silver toothpicks.”
“All right, all right,” Tess said, “but hurry. If you don’t bring her back in time, there’s no telling how this will blow up. Mindy’s the daughter of a diplomat—if she’s lost in Boston, we could find ourselves in an international crisis.”
And for once, Addie decided, Tess was not resorting to hyperbole.
TWENTY
It took twenty minutes to convince Buster to let Kris leave work early.
“We are potentially facing a diplomatic crisis,” Addie said, repeating Tess’s admonition.
Buster was not impressed. China could declare war on the United States for all he cared. In the Buildings and Grounds community, a work schedule was a work schedule. “Your shift ends at midnight, kid. You have to help me break down the tent.”
“That can wait,” Kris said. “It’s not like there’s anything happening on the quad tomorrow. It’s a Sunday.”
He was standing really close to her and she felt a surge of excitement as a little tingle ran up her arm when the backs of their hands brushed—which he might have been doing intentionally.
Finally, after Kris promised to do most of the work on Sunday, Buster relented. He probably didn’t want to stay late, either. “Okay. Just this once I’ll give you a pass. If Mr. Foy asks, I’ll tell him that you had to leave campus on an emergency to find one of the exchange students.”
“Um,” Addie said, “could you not? Diplomatic crises require utmost tact.”
“Tact, huh?” Buster winked at Kris. “Sure. Mum’s the word.”
Actually, the word was late. They were now five minutes over their schedule, with no room for bickering about semantics.
She slipped off the idiotic sandals and ran to her dorm to get her practical ones while Kris went to get a shirt that didn’t identify him as a member of the Academy 355 workforce. That added another five minutes until they rendezvoused at the prearranged meeting spot under the oak by the causeway.
“Hey,” Kris said when she arrived breathless, her ugly sandals slapping the pavement as she approached. She could barely make out his white shirt in the dark.
“I didn’t get a chance to tell you how beautiful you look tonight.”
He took a step closer, triggering a rush of epinephrine that made her swoon. He was so cute and tall and just super-nice.
“Thanks. Tess chose the dress and applied intense heat and friction to my hair.”
“I like it out of the ponytail.” He slipped his hand along her jaw. “Can I?”
She was touched that he asked before he kissed her. It indicated that he understood her quirks and didn’t mind.
“Yes. But we have to be careful. No one must be able to catch us.”
“No one will find us.” He bent down and softly brushed his lips against hers. This time, Addie didn’t take charge as she had the night before, but let him be in control.
She gave in to his embrace, and allowed him to kiss her deeper, stroking her hair and pressing his chest against hers. It occurred to her that letting go was a matter of trust. And that she should never fall for someone like Dexter because he was 100 percent untrustworthy.
Beeeep!
They sprang apart. Addie adjusted her dress. Kris grinned.
Ed was leaning out his driver’s side window. “Enough with the PDA. Get in.”
A musty old tarp covered the backseat, the kind Addie had seen on the school’s boat when Ed rescued them after the shark attack. Ed told them to get under it so he could pass security without an interrogation.
“I’ll tell them I’m picking up a couple of summer students from the bus stop since the shuttle stopped running an hour ago.”
It was a plausible excuse. As a college-level PC, Ed was free to come and go as he pleased and often ran similar errands. Too bad the tarp smelled like rotting fish. It was suffocating.
Ed put on a huge show for the guard, complaining about how his Saturday night had been ruined because some idiot kids had stayed in Boston too long and missed the last bus. The guard commiserated and sent him off with a pat on the hood and a grammatically incorrect “Drive careful.”
Kris and Addie threw off the tarp and gasped for air. “That thing was nasty, man,” Kris said, kicking it to the floor.
“It was all I could think of. You two are going to have to hide under it again when we come back with Mindy. What’s the story there, anyway?”
Addie briefed them with the little information Fiona had provided. David was in the Harvard summer program staying in Room 308 in Hollis Hall and Mindy went to plead with him not to end their relationship. That is, if she hadn’t left yet. Fiona was afraid that he would close the door in her face and Mindy would have to make her way back to the Academy alone, all the way from Harvard . . . which would be a real problem.
The bus from the T stop in Wonderland to Marblehead had already stopped running and wouldn’t resume until the next morning at six a.m., an hour after Mindy was supposed to be at Logan. A cab ride cost over fifty dollars and she didn’t have cash or a credit card. She would be a scared girl trapped in a strange city in a foreign country and she would miss her flight to Chicago. Oh, and her father was some bigwig in the Chinese government.
See above: diplomatic crisis.
“Don’t worry. We’ll find her.” Kris took Addie’s hand and gave it a squeeze, releasing a burst of norepinephrine that made her want to break out in song.
Boston was lit up like a fairyland, and the lights along Memorial Drive reflected off the slowly moving Charles River. Ed crossed the salt-and-pepper bridge onto the section of Massachusetts Avenu
e that was home to MIT, with its modern brick buildings and ghost campus. Not a soul in sight.
From there they crept bumper-to-bumper through honking traffic. Addie tried to temper her anxiety. This trip was taking too long. Already they were off schedule by ten minutes, and if . . .
She closed her eyes. No. She was not going to slip into old habits. They would get there when they got there.
But they were late. Really late.
Although it was after eleven, Harvard Square was still packed with college students. They emerged in clusters from the red-tiled T station and gathered around amateur guitarists strumming behind the newsstand. Addie leaned out the window to inhale the smells of garlic and fresh coffee emanating from nearby restaurants mixed with the grit and grime of the city.
“Down that alley is a place with really good pizza,” Kris said, pointing to a neon sign. “When I was at Andover, my friends and I would come here on Friday nights and hang.”
It had slipped her mind that he used to attend a different school. There was so much about him she didn’t know and yet she felt so close to him. Then again, one of the by-products of dopamine was a false sense of intimacy.
She made a mental note to mention that in her paper for the Athenian Committee.
Ed parked in front of the iron gates to Harvard Yard and activated his flashers, immediately setting off a chorus of angry beeping from fellow frustrated motorists. Addie opened the door and Kris followed.
“Addie will call you when we’re ready to be picked up,” Kris said, leaning in the window. “Thanks, man.”
“I’ll meet you on Summer Street.” Ed thumbed over his shoulder, the blare of horns so cacophonous it was embarrassing. “Chill!” he yelled into the rearview, pulling back into traffic.
Kris and Addie took in the historic entrance to one of the most famous college quads in America. “Harvard,” Addie whispered. “I am really here.”
“You can get that on a T-shirt, you know. Buy it online for twenty bucks and save four years and two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in tuition.”
“Yes, but it’s the degree that matters, not the T-shirt.”
This Is My Brain on Boys Page 19
