By the Book

by Amanda Sellet

  Arden waved this off. “Back to the students.”

  “Dude. They’re all going to be over eighteen.” Lydia looked to me for confirmation.

  I felt bad about dashing Arden’s hopes, which must have been why I added, “Except for Neill.”

  “Neill,” Arden repeated, eyes gleaming. “Tell me more.”

  “Technically he’s a junior, but he skipped two grades in elementary school, so he’s only seventeen.” As he would happily inform anyone within hearing range. Unlike Neill himself, I refused to use the word prodigy.

  “And?” Arden prompted. “What does he look like?”

  “Dark hair, kind of stocky—”

  “So he’s built,” she translated.

  I shrugged, never having paid much attention to his physique. “Supposedly he does martial arts. He volunteered to choreograph the fights for Othello.” I didn’t add that Jasper and I suspected he’d made up his own style of fighting in order to be the undisputed expert.

  “Think how impressive it would be to go to Winter Formal with a college student,” Arden mused. “Everyone would be talking about it.”

  Anjuli’s face danced across my thoughts.

  “We could shop for dresses together! Definitely a different store this time. You might even inspire these two”—Arden swept a finger between Lydia and Terry—“to step outside their comfort zones and live a little. And then we’d all be there together, and it would be the Best Night Ever.”

  For a moment, I could see it: the flowing gowns and sparkling jewels, couples spinning gracefully around the dance floor. If I squinted at it sideways, the picture didn’t even include Neill. “I guess I could try. He’ll definitely be at Trivia Night.”

  Arden picked up her phone, swiping until she reached the calendar. “When and where does this trivia business go down?”

  “Third Wednesday of the month, at Mung the Merciless,” I said. “It’s a vegetarian restaurant. Kind of a sci-fi theme.”

  “Drat.” Arden clucked her tongue. “I have my Malaysian cooking class.” She looked hopefully at Terry.

  “I do Jazzercise with Mami on Wednesdays.”

  “And my mom is addressing her Rotary Club that night,” Lydia informed us, setting down her phone. “She wants the whole family there.”

  Arden’s lips pursed. “Lady Mary will just have to get the ball rolling on her own.”

  “Right.” I took a deep breath. “How would I do that exactly?”

  “First, you strike up a conversation,” Arden began, counting off the points on her fingers. “Then you find out if he’s single. If he is, ask if he wants to hang out sometime. Simple, right?” She smiled at me.

  I nodded uncertainly.

  “Think about it this way. Even if we can’t get him to the dance, it’s still a great chance to practice your social skills—which is totally on my list for your season.” Arden waved her phone at me.

  A chime sounded, and the screen lit up. “It’s Miles,” she announced, jumping to her feet. She clutched the phone to her chest. “Everything’s coming together!”

  I forced a smile, wishing I shared her confidence.

  Dear Diary,

  My cousin Meg said something once about how at school you have to downplay how much you know, so no one gets annoyed. That’s when I realized there are still people in the world who would think less of a young woman for being a so-called bluestocking, whose nose is always in a book.

  You never have to worry about being called a know-it-all among the Porter-Malcolms—especially at Trivia Night.

  M.P.M.

  Chapter 21

  When the appointed evening arrived, I ran back upstairs at the last minute, rethinking my ponytail. It had never occurred to me to take pains with my appearance for Trivia Night, but maybe a less girlish coiffure would help Neill see me as a peer, as opposed to his usual habit of treating me like a semiliterate child.

  I yanked open the bathroom door. The rest of the family was ostensibly downstairs and ready to go, which made it that much more startling to find Addie standing in front of the mirror.

  She yelped. I seconded the exclamation, hopping into the air for good measure.

  “Shhh!” She lowered the hand that had waved me to silence, exposing a thin, curving mustache drawn above her upper lip.

  “Um,” I said, staring at that point on her face.

  “I know it’s a little on-the-nose.”

  “That is not what I was going to say.”

  “It helps me get into the mindset.” Addie circled both hands in the air, as though drying her nail polish. A series of words had been inked in ballpoint on her palm.

  “For Trivia Night?” I guessed, even though part of me knew that wasn’t the answer. Addie quivered with a strange new energy. I could practically hear the hum rising from her skin, like the time Jasper snuck a two-liter of Mountain Dew at a faculty picnic.

  She leaned past me, confirming the emptiness of the hallway before whispering, “Iago.”

  It took me a few seconds to put the clues together. “You’re doing Iago?”

  She nodded, glancing guiltily at her hand before fixing her gaze on the frayed pink rug underneath the sink. I was missing something. Addie often acted various parts when she and Van were blocking a scene or hashing out their interpretation of a speech. There was no reason to be self-conscious, or shut herself in the bathroom, unless . . . A radical possibility struck me between the eyes.

  “You mean for real? In the show?” The twins had turned so snappish of late no one in the family had mustered the courage to ask how Othello was coming along.

  “We needed an understudy. Just in case.” Addie considered her reflection. “I doubt anything will come of it.”

  Her tone had gone flat, leaving me in the dark about her true feelings. Did she want to strut and fret upon the stage, or was she dreading the possibility? Was this why she’d been so out of sorts lately, especially with Van? Licking the tip of her finger, she rubbed at one end of the mustache. A smear of black spread over her cheek.

  A honk sounded from outside.

  “You better go,” Addie said.

  I hesitated. “What about you?”

  She pointed to her face. “I have to wash this off.”

  * * *

  When I slid into the back seat of my parents’ car, Bo made a show of inching toward the middle without actually moving anything but his shoulders. The weather was chilly enough that I didn’t mind the tight squeeze, though had it been Jasper sitting next to me I would have elbowed him out of my territory on principle.

  Mom threw the car into reverse. She had donned what Jasper called her game face, ready for the competition. There was just enough room for me to remove the rubber band from my ponytail and shake out my hair. It was too dark to check my reflection in the rearview mirror. I would have to hope the effect wasn’t too slatternly.

  “It looks nice,” Bo said, leaning into me as we turned a corner. “You should wear your hair down more often.” I smiled my thanks, ignoring Jasper’s snort.

  The parking lot behind Mung’s was packed, a phenomenon unique to Trivia Night. The familiar aroma of bean water, sweating onions, and cumin greeted us as we entered.

  “Professor Porter-Malcolm,” Neill said breathlessly, stepping in front of my mother. “And Professor Porter-Malcolm,” he added, acknowledging my father with the exact same degree of deference. Van had once described Neill as an equal opportunity suck-up. “Right this way.”

  We followed as he shouldered into the crowd, thrusting and twisting as though hacking a trail through the rain­forest. It occurred to me that I could see the top of Neill’s head. Somehow, I hadn’t remembered him being quite so vertically challenged.

  Plain wooden tables lined the walls, bordered by matching benches. It wasn’t a candlelight-and-flowers kind of place; the only adornments were gummy bottles of hot sauce and the signs indicating team placement.

  “Here we are,” Neill announced, in case we’d lost th
e ability to read.

  Our official team name was Let’s Get Lit. Other sobriquets included Oh, the Humanities!, Psy Fry, and Bougie Nights, the last of which uneasily accomodated both Noreen and Shaggy Doug as well as several other local business owners, including Steve, the ropy-limbed proprietor of Mung’s. Each team was permitted to field five players at a time, with up to four alternates. In later rounds, the bench was occasionally allowed to weigh in on a group question, but for the most part subs (like myself and Neill) were charged with keeping the first-string supplied with green tea and raw pumpkin seeds, and cheering when one of our own scored a point.

  My plan, such as it was, consisted of asking Neill a few leading questions between rounds. I’d taken the precaution of writing them down on a sheet of lined paper, which rustled in my front pocket as I sat.

  “Smell that?” Jasper asked, as he and Bo claimed the folding chairs on either side of me.

  “Lentils?” I guessed.

  “Fear. We should set up a Mylanta stand at one of these. Probably make serious bank.”

  Jasper was right. Nervous tics were out in full force, from finger twitches to compulsive throat-clearing. Even our parents looked tense, though they visibly relaxed when Cam slid into her spot.

  Mom peered past Cam, clearly expecting to see the twins. “Where are your sisters?”

  Cam shrugged. “No idea.”

  Deep vertical furrows appeared between Mom’s brows. “Then how did you—”

  “I caught a ride with a friend.” Cam stared fixedly at the table. I looked where my sister hadn’t, spotting Jeff leaning against the wall with his muscular arms crossed. Fortunately for my sister, Mom had bigger concerns than Cam’s method of transportation. Her fingers fumbled to unfasten her watch, setting it on the table in front of her as though it might read differently from that angle.

  Dad squeezed her shoulder. “They must be running late.” While he scanned the crowd, Mom closed her eyes, slowing her breathing to yoga mode. They always took it in turns to panic.

  “If you had cell phones, you could call them,” Jasper said helpfully.

  “Phones are against the rules,” Neill informed him. “That said, it is rather late.” I couldn’t bring myself to seize the conversational opening. Isn’t it? And by the way, are you seeing anyone?

  “Teams, to your tables,” said the announcer. “It’s match time.” There was an immediate flurry of movement. Dr. Pressler had taught in the theater department before her promotion to dean and knew how to command a room.

  Mom finished her exhale before opening her eyes. “Mary,” she said calmly, gesturing at the empty spaces where the twins should have been. “Neill.”

  Neill was up like a rocket, all but leaping into his seat while I hesitated, casting a last look at the entrance. When the twins did not magically appear, I dropped onto the bench between Cam and Neill, barely registering Bo’s thumbs-up.

  “Don’t worry,” Dad said, twinkling at me. “It’s all in good fun.” Cam snorted under her breath.

  There was no time to explain that the pressure of the competition was only one of the reasons I’d begun to perspire. Was Addie still talking to herself in the bathroom, perhaps in need of sisterly support? And where was Van? Maybe she was having her own breakdown, in the parallel fashion of twins. Not to mention the absolute impossibility of making chitchat with Neill under these conditions. It would be like holding a tea party on a tightrope.

  I rolled my head from one shoulder to the other, trying to stretch some of the tension from my neck. My eyes opened in time to watch Anjuli, seated with her mother and several other members of the psychology department at the Psy Fry table, turn away without acknowledging my existence. Good to know I was still a nonentity. There was nothing like a snubbing from your ex–best friend to warm the cockles of the heart.

  “I see you,” Neill whispered, apparently for my ears alone.

  I assumed he was referring to my silent standoff with Anjuli. Then he winked.

  “I get it.” His tone was even more patronizing than I recalled. “Everything about me screams ‘eligible bachelor.’ I knew one of you would be unable to resist.”

  “One of who?”

  “You Porter-Malcolm girls. Judging by the way you’ve been staring all night, it’s obvious you’re nursing a tendre for me. Hoping to be the Zelda to my F. Scott, the Vera to my Nabokov. To be honest, I’d hoped it would be one of the blondes. No offense. It’s an aesthetic preference.”

  I stared at him, speechless. So much for changing my hairstyle.

  “Just try not to get too flustered. I’ll handle the questions.” He nodded at the judges’ table.

  “First round,” intoned Dr. Pressler, who also hosted a weekday classical music program on the campus radio station. “Our topic is ‘sailing the seas.’”

  Excited whispers crested and then hushed. Trivia Night themes were a closely guarded secret, though heated speculation abounded in the days leading up to the match. Mom and Dad had already started tossing names like Melville and Defoe back and forth, the way athletes jogged in place on the sidelines.

  “Question number one.” Dr. Pressler paused to survey the room. “Name three of the four shipwrecked sons from the novel originally published in 1812 as Der Schweizerische Robinson.”

  Doug’s hand shot up. “Fritz, Franz, Ernest, and Jack,” he said in a rush.

  “Technically I asked for three, not four, but we’ll let it stand,” Dr. Pressler replied. “And of course, the novel in question is better known as The Swiss Family Robinson. The Swiss Family Robinson,” she said a second time, an affectation my parents said she’d picked up from watching too much “Jeopardy.”

  At the Psy Fry table, Anjuli rolled her eyes. Ignoring her, I smiled my congratulations at Doug. Unfortunately, he was too busy staring wistfully at Noreen to notice.

  “Our second question is about the artist Paul Gauguin.” Smug looks passed among the members of the Humanities team. “Before his more famous sojourn in Tahiti, Gauguin spent time on which island?”

  “Martinique!” yelled a young visual arts professor.

  “He was on his way home from Panama,” one of his teammates added, not to be outdone.

  Mom leaned closer to me. “They’re both up for tenure this year.”

  The next question, about the HMS Beagle, went to an emeritus member of the biology faculty, who name-dropped Darwin as though they were personally acquainted. A history professor claimed a question about Sir Francis Drake. Then a brief scuffle broke out between two archaeologists over land versus sea routes and the peopling of the Americas.

  “Last question for this round,” Dr. Pressler said loudly, allowing another few seconds for the contretemps to subside. “How many e’s are there in Queequeg?”

  “Three,” Mom and Dad shouted in unison, before looking sheepishly at Cam, who was technically the family Melville expert.

  “No problem,” she said mildly, sipping her tea. In truth it had been more of a speed question than one of knowledge; I could have answered too, had I not been distracted by the sound of the door opening and the shuffling of feet as several new arrivals squeezed inside.

  “It’s Van,” I said eagerly. Neill cursed under his breath. As Van made her way to our table, I waited for Addie to appear behind her. Then I caught a glimpse of cascading ringlets. She’d brought Phoebe to Trivia Night?

  “Round one is officially over,” Dr. Pressler announced. “Please complete any substitutions or other team business during the five-minute break.” The timekeeper checked his watch.

  “Hey,” said Van. “Sorry we’re late.” I felt my eyebrows lift at the collective pronoun. Maybe it was some kind of cast bonding exercise. “How’s it going so far?” She glanced at the score sheet, nodding at the even spread of points—typical at this stage of the evening. The action always heated up as the evening progressed. Her gaze shifted to Neill. “Thanks for keeping my seat warm.”

  What she couldn’t see was that he had his
legs wrapped around the base of the table and was holding on for dear life. Removing him would have required the application of both brute force and an industrial-strength lubricant.

  “Here.” I extricated myself from the bench, one leg at a time. “Take my spot.” Part of me hoped Van might protest, but she merely patted me on the head before seating herself in my place. Her concern was reserved for Phoebe, whom she pointed to the chair between Bo and Jasper I’d been planning to claim.

  “I guess I’ll circulate a little,” I said to no one in particular. Anjuli sniffed pointedly as I passed her table.

  The line for refreshments was six or seven deep, but since I wasn’t really thirsty I didn’t mind.

  “That was something,” the person behind me said in a confidential tone.

  I spun, confirming the impossible: Alex Ritter, at Trivia Night. “Why are you—” I began, before answering my own question. “Phoebe.”

  He hmmed an affirmative, gazing across the room at her. “Did you know she was an actual cheerleader, before she discovered her inner artiste?”

  It might have sounded like a boast—I’m dating a cheerleader!—if not for the spark of amusement in his eyes. “I . . . did not know that.”

  “She keeps it on the down low. One of the many phases of Phoebe. Although that was middle school, so I don’t know if it counts. Before the dance conservatory.”

  The offhanded manner in which he relayed these facts seemed to presume that I was either a) already acquainted with the broad strokes of her biography or b) desperate to know more because Phoebe was so incredibly fascinating.

  Unless it signified that c) Alex regarded me as a confidante. I hadn’t considered that as a potential consequence of asking him for advice. The prospect should have been alarming, yet I was mostly conscious of a flush of warmth. He could have been talking to anyone but had chosen me.

  He nudged me with his elbow. “Let’s hope she doesn’t get fired up and start turning handsprings.”

  I looked down, swallowing a laugh. “It’s definitely not that kind of crowd.”