By the Book

by Amanda Sellet

  “Your friend should show strength and independence. That would scare anyone off.” Cam scowled as though the observation gave her no pleasure.

  “If you want my opinion, that ship has sailed.” Mom leaned back in her chair. “If he hasn’t succumbed to her wiles by now, he never will.”

  I paused with a glass halfway to my mouth. “Who’s not falling for which wiles?”

  “Anjuli and Pittaya, of course.”

  My mother could be alarmingly astute, often when you least expected her to be paying attention. I wondered how long she’d known about Anjuli’s interest in Pittaya, so recently revealed to me.

  “Speaking more generally.” I cleared my throat. “How important is the . . . physical side of things?”

  “Oh, sweet.” Jasper’s spoon clattered as he dropped it into his bowl. “Is this where you explain the birds and the bees to Mary?”

  I sent him a withering look. “I’m talking about chemistry.” It pained me to quote Alex Ritter, but I couldn’t think how else to describe it. “Whether there’s a spark or not.”

  “Well,” my father began, clearly struggling to keep his voice even, an effort belied by the beads of sweat that had broken out at his hairline, “there are certainly cases wherein the ‘spark,’ as you call it, fails to manifest.”

  “Either it’s there or it isn’t.” Van bit into a slice of apple. “Sometimes it takes you by surprise.” She looked like she was gearing up to say more, but Addie cut in first.

  “You shouldn’t base a relationship solely on physical attraction, though. There needs to be a degree of like-mindedness. You wouldn’t want to be with someone who wasn’t your intellectual equal.”

  Van looked at her sharply. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “We don’t have to be at the mercy of our passions,” Cam burst out, startling all of us.

  The screen door screeched, followed by Yarb yowling to announce his arrival. The patter of paws was accompanied by hurried human steps. “Sorry I’m late,” said Bo, strolling into the dining room with an apologetic smile.

  “Pull up a chair, Boas.” My mother extended a welcoming arm. “There’s plenty of soup.”

  Bo sniffed the air. “Is that your signature squash bisque?” he asked, as though he hadn’t been hanging around the house all afternoon, listening to the chopping and sizzling.

  “Autumn’s first harvest.” My father beamed at their shared good fortune. “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.”

  Once Bo was seated with a bowl of his own, he turned to the rest of us. “What’s the latest on Planet Porter-Malcolm?”

  “Mary’s learning about her changing body,” Jasper said, making both me and Bo choke.

  “We’re discussing the nature of love,” Mom corrected.

  “Two-second recap. Do you have to be attracted to someone or can you just have the hots for their brain, blah blah blah, stuff about books,” my brother summarized.

  “That’s not—” I stopped myself midprotest. That was pretty much it, in a nutshell. What did it mean when you had someone like Mall Guy, who looked every inch the romantic hero, from the solemn expression to the tasteful shoes, yet turned out to be the farthest thing from swoonworthy?

  “Maybe it takes some people longer to discover that kind of connection,” I ventured.

  “Absolutely,” Bo said at once. “Or one person could be powerfully in touch with their feelings and just patiently waiting for the other person to notice.”

  “I pursued your mother for more than a year before she relented,” Dad volunteered.

  “I’d planned to devote myself to the life of the mind.” Mom smiled nostalgically, as if we’d never heard this story, or the related anecdote about the love letter our father had written her, listing all the happy families in Virginia Woolf’s fiction. “It seems I wasn’t cut out for celibacy.”

  “And I’m out.” Jasper shoved his chair back from the table with both hands.

  “Then I guess you won’t be needing this.” Van’s arm snaked out to grab his plate.

  They slapped at each other’s hands a few times, until Jasper licked his palm and pressed it on top of his half-eaten slice of bread. Van wrinkled her nose in disgust.

  “Mary.”

  I looked up at the sound of my mother’s voice.

  “What do I always say?” she prompted.

  “Um, turn off the lights when you leave the room? Don’t stand in front of the refrigerator with the door open? Put away your laundry? Did anyone feed the cat?” I could have gone on but paused to see whether any of those had been the right answer.

  Her lips pursed. “I was thinking along less mundane lines. When you’re on the horns of a metaphysical dilemma, the best course of action is to—” She peered at me over the rim of her glasses.

  “Do your research.”

  “And what’s the first step in a successful campaign of study?”

  “Consult the experts.” I was on the point of complaining that I didn’t know any experts in this particular field when a light bulb went off. There was someone I could ask—an undisputed authority in the area of romance.

  Dear Diary,

  Another Scoundrel alert: a boy named Braden offered to tutor a girl in Terry’s geometry class, but it turned out he was correcting all her answers so that when he told her what he’d done, she’d feel obligated to go out with him. And then for extra creepiness he threatened to turn her in for cheating if she said no. Which is pretty much what Gus Trenor did to Lily Bart in House of Mirth, only with math homework instead of the stock market. And no gambling addiction or tragic use of sleeping pills.

  I know Alex Ritter is the reason we started the Scoundrel Guide in the first place, but on balance, he’s not the worst of the bunch.

  M.P.M.

  Chapter 17

  The better part of a week passed before I could put my plan into effect. After making excuses to my friends, I hurried home on foot. There was no sign of Alex Ritter, though I knew this was the day of his piano lesson.

  Despite my trepidation at the task ahead, I relished every crunch of leaves underfoot, the bursts of red still on the trees, watery golden sunlight softening the crispness of the air as it washed over my skin. It was a perfect fall afternoon, the sky so clear it felt like being cradled inside a giant blue marble. There should have been a name for days like this, but all the ones I could think of—halcyon days, salad days—referred to summer, which struck me as unfair. Who needed the obvious charms of June when you could have the burnished richness of autumn?

  After stashing my backpack in my room, I crept back down the stairs and out the front door, careful not to let the screen door slam behind me. Since I wasn’t sure how long piano lessons typically lasted, it seemed wisest to get into position early. A row of hydrangeas bordered the yellow house. Squeezing between the shrubbery and the porch, I settled in to wait.

  Muffled strains of music drifted through the walls. It sounded like the same few bars played over and over, with brief interludes of silence. I was beginning to regret not grabbing a snack, and a sweater, when footsteps thudded toward the front of the house. The door opened.

  Peeking through the porch railing, I confirmed the identity of the student before hissing, “Pssst.”

  Alex Ritter started, fumbling the book of sheet music in his hand.

  “Over here,” I whispered.

  He took a tentative step toward the edge of the porch, squinting down at me through a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. “Mary?”

  I nodded, distracted by the eyewear. The effect was very different from his usual look: less perfect, more vulnerable.

  He glanced over his shoulder before turning back to me. “No thanks. I’ll pass.”

  My mouth fell open. He was turning me down already? “I haven’t even told you what I want—”

  “I’m getting a very strong ‘drug deal’ vibe. Contrary to what you seem to think about my personal habits, I’m actually a pretty clean-living guy.”
r />   “I’m not trying to sell you anything!” I stepped closer to the railing. “I need your help.”

  The suppressed laughter fled his expression. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” He was still studying me intently, checking for injuries, I presumed. “You wear glasses?”

  “My contacts were bothering me.” His hand moved to his hair, but he stopped short of touching the curls, sliding a self-conscious glance my way as his arm fell to his side.

  “I shouldn’t have said that about your hair. Obviously I’m not one to talk about styling products and all that.” I flapped a self-deprecating hand at my ponytail.

  A gust of wind sent leaves scudding along the sidewalk.

  “Is this like when my sisters describe someone’s outfit by saying she ‘tried really hard’? I have the feeling next you’re going to tell me I seem like a ‘very sweet person.’”

  “I wasn’t going to say that.”

  His lips twitched. “That’s a relief.”

  “I always wanted curls,” I continued, determined not to be maneuvered into insulting him again.

  He tapped the music book against his thigh. “Do you know what my sisters called me when I was little?” I shook my head, unwilling to hazard a guess. “Little Orphan Allie.”

  It wasn’t hard to imagine him as a little boy with golden ringlets and winsome blue eyes. Possibly in a blue velvet sailor suit and knee socks. “My sisters called me Uriah Heep,” I admitted, matching his confidence with one of my own.

  “Excuse me?”

  “From David Copperfield. Because I was always spying on them and touching their stuff.”

  He gave a huff of laughter, but I didn’t mind. It was still better than his nickname.

  “My hair sucks,” he said a moment later, staring into the distance. “If I don’t put anything on it I look like Albert Einstein. And I can’t shave it off because my skull is too lumpy.”

  “People used to think you could tell things about a person from the shape of their cranium. Phrenology. It was a pseudoscience.”

  “Do I even want to know how you know that?”

  “Moby Dick.”

  “And here I thought it was about whales.” He peered down at me. “I guess you used your spying skills to find me here, Uriah?”

  I nodded. “I wanted to ask you something, if you have a minute.”

  “Should I come down, or do you want to keep doing it like this?” He waved a finger between us. “Because I’m pretty sure the neighbors think I’m talking to myself right now.”

  “Or maybe—” I clamped my lips together, cutting off what I’d been about to say. This was nothing like the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, and only a blithering idiot would suggest otherwise. “Yes,” I said instead. “Good idea.”

  We met on the sidewalk. He looked expectantly at me.

  “I guess we can go to my house.” I pointed in that direction, trying to mask my uncertainty with a purposeful air. My mental to-do list consisted of one bold-print item: Ask Alex Ritter for Romantic Advice. I hadn’t thought beyond that to the practical details, including where such a dialogue should take place.

  The sidewalk wasn’t quite as wide as I could have wished, but it would have been weird to walk behind or ahead of him, so I resigned myself to the tight quarters, clasping my hands behind my back after my fingers accidentally brushed his.

  Alex cleared his throat. “Is this about the dance?”

  I stumbled, staring at the cracked pavement as if it were to blame. “How did you know?”

  He shrugged and looked away. His body language suggested he was too polite to answer.

  “Oh my gosh,” I exclaimed as the penny dropped. “You think I’m about to ask you to go with me. Why on earth would—” Halfway through, the question answered itself. No doubt there was a line of girls eager to solicit his company for Winter Formal. He probably needed one of those big red number dispensers they had at the deli counter to keep track of them all.

  “Trust me, that is not what I wanted to talk to you about,” I assured him. “First of all, it’s not about me, per se. It’s more of a group thing.”

  “You want me to go with all of you?”

  “What? No. This is something totally different. Mostly. But still serious and respectable.”

  “I would expect nothing less from you, Mary.”

  I couldn’t tell whether this was a genuine compliment, so I held my tongue as I led him around the side of my house and unlatched the gate leading to the backyard. Leathery leaves blanketed the grass, crumpling underfoot. The Porter-Malcolms were not as vigilant as some of our neighbors when it came to raking.

  Seating options were limited, now that we’d taken down the reading hammock for the season. Not that a hammock would have been in any way appropriate for the two of us. That left only the wrought-iron bench, which seemed very small, once we were standing in front of it.

  Brushing if off, I gestured for him to sit. “Would you like some tea?” The words sounded stiff and formal, like I was pretending to be an adult, and an elderly one at that. It was hard to strike a balance between thank-you-for-doing-me-this-favor and I-swear-I’m-not-trying-to-woo-you.

  “And crumpets?” he asked.

  “We don’t have crumpets.”

  “Curds and whey? Blackbird pie?”

  I frowned at him. “Black bird?”

  “Four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.” He smiled his lazy smile, patting the bench beside him. There was barely room for me to sit without pressing against him somewhere; I opted for knee-to-knee contact as the least embarrassing. “You have that storybook quality, Mary.” He took his glasses off and stuck them in the pocket of his shirt.

  “Don’t you need them?” I asked.

  “I can see you.” He was doing that thing again, his eyes traveling slowly over my face and hair, a deliberate perusal that made me feel intensely visible. It was only natural to look back at him with equal focus, noting how the autumn sunlight gilded his hair, and the slight freshness of the breeze brought a hint of pink to his cheeks. If he was handsome in the hallways at school, out here, on a day like today, he could have been a fairy prince, amusing himself by toying with mortals.

  An idea danced at the back of my mind, spurred by the gleam in his eyes, the half smile lurking at the corners of his mouth. Could it be that this light made everyone lovely, including me? That would explain his rapt attention, and the stillness that seemed to envelop the two of us. It felt like the universe was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen.

  Or maybe that was just me.

  “You wanted to talk?” he prompted.

  I gave a jerky nod to hide my confusion. “I need your help, actually.”

  “Anything for you, Mary.”

  The familiar teasing came as a relief. At least now I knew he was joking, unlike the silent . . . whatever that had been of a moment before.

  “It’s about what you said the other night,” I began. “At the game.”

  “You’re still looking for a good nickname?”

  I shook my head. “The part about chemistry. Spark. Finding someone you actually like, who’s also a sensible dating option. A nice, safe romantic object . . . person.”

  “Safe as in boring?”

  “No! Definitely not someone blah. Or annoying. But not a criminal either,” I added, thinking of Terry. “I know about the big stuff, like evaluating their moral fiber—judging whether someone is a reprehensible human being and all that.”

  “That’s good,” he replied with mock solemnity.

  “And I also know it can’t just be about physical attraction,” I continued, ignoring the aside. “Because appearances can be deceiving. A person who seems intriguing might turn out to be really condescending and full of himself, for example.”

  He brushed at the front of his sweater, a navy-blue cable knit. “I hate it when that happens.”

  “I’m asking how you can be sure you’re making a smart choice
—going for someone whose company you’ll actually enjoy? Obviously I know love at first sight is unrealistic.”

  “Obviously.” He tapped his chin. “They don’t cover this in your books?”

  “It’s not quite the same situation. There were a lot of other factors back then.”

  “Such as?”

  “Bloodlines, property, who has enough cash in her dowry to keep the ancestral estate running. That kind of thing.”

  “Romantic.”

  “Yes, well. That was the era of arranged marriages. It was basically a financial transaction. But it’s not really that different from now, when you think about it.”

  He waved at me to go on.

  “It seems to me high school is all about the social hierarchy. Everyone’s trying to figure out their rank, only nowadays it’s not just a question of having an aristocratic title. There are other status symbols.”

  “Shoes,” he suggested.

  It was probably a joke, but I nodded anyway. “The right clothes, how you look, who your friends are, any kind of public notoriety. It all gets taken into account. And then you look for an eligible partner, meaning someone on your level, or slightly above.”

  Alex shook his head.

  “What?”

  “No one is walking around calculating who to date.” He pretended to scrawl numbers on the palm of his hand.

  “Maybe not literally, but I bet you there’s an underlying logic to it.” I opted not to mention the obvious example of him and Terry, his equal in beauty.

  “It’s not that complicated.” He tapped my arm. “How did you and your girl gang hook up?”

  “Oh. It’s kind of a long story.” Which I had no intention of sharing. Especially the part involving him.

  “Okay, but at some point you realized you like hanging out with each other. The conversation flows. You make each other laugh. There’s good energy.” He looked expectantly at me.

  “Yes, but there has to be some difference, or else everyone would go around kissing their friends.”