Well, That Was Awkward Read online

  SIENNA: YES, it’s working and NO, I’m walking home! still nothing back from AJ yet. should I say something else?

  BETH: Don’t double text!

  SIENNA: okay, good advice. maybe I have to stop at Starbucks and get a Frappuccino bc I might pass out. this is so much.

  RILEY: OTOH, maybe say something about what you’re doing (don’t mention the Frappuccino :-/ oink, oink!), so he doesn’t think you’re just sitting around waiting for him to text back. You wanna seem busy. Like you have a life.

  SIENNA: I do have a life!

  me: what are you doing?

  SIENNA: staring at my phone, waiting for him to text me back. I hate myself now.

  me: nope nope nope

  SIENNA: oops.

  me: maybe text him something like I am *not* sitting around watching videos on YouTube FYI. I so much have a life. wanted you to know

  RILEY: Gracie, just stop.

  me: or something like that. yk, keep it funny and normal

  MICHAELA: Ha! I like hey I’m not watching YouTube just wanted you to know

  RILEY: Yeah, that’s good, actually. Not too funny. Just flirty. And busy. Boys like it when you are busy. With fun things. But not jokey jokey, ykwim? Maybe tell him you are about to go for a run or something. Boys like sporty girls. No offense, Gracie.

  me: what? me? how did I get dragged into this?

  RILEY: I wasn’t being critical. I know you get sensitive.

  me: um none taken?

  SIENNA: AJ just texted back. I don’t know whether to be ecstatic or upset.

  me: why? what did he say?

  SIENNA: here it is. I screenshotted it:

  Hope your well, this has put a smile on my face.

  me: hmmm

  SIENNA: what do you think?

  me: maybe neither ecstatic nor upset?

  RILEY: No, that seems awesome! Now wait him out. Make HIM double text. Pretend you’re busy.

  SIENNA: I AM busy. analyzing.

  here’s my analysis:

  bad: two grammatical errors.

  good: HE SAID I MADE HIM SMILE.

  bad: omg, who am I?

  bad: almost stepped off the curb into traffic, texting this.

  BETH: Maybe just text him back a smiley face, but after seven minutes. Set a timer.

  me: maybe don’t text and walk, dude? also maybe text him his text back with edits? I read on the internet that boys totally love being corrected

  RILEY: Um, no.

  me: I was kidding!

  me: Sienna?

  me: Sienna? I was so just kidding, you know that right? except about the texting-while-walking

  me: quad-texting. I am soooo cooool

  EMMETT: I’m knocking at your door. Are you in there? I don’t want to ring the bell and wake up your tort if she’s still sleeping. . . .

  EMMETT: Gracie? You didn’t press the secret don’t- automatically-lock-thing on your door so I can’t get in. . . .

  me: the what?

  EMMETT: I’m at your door.

  me: sorry coming I accidentally threw my phone at the wall because omg people are so weird and then I had to get it out from behind my bed 1 sec hi

  EMMETT: Hi.

  22

  BEWARE OF WOLF

  “What automatic thing so it doesn’t lock?” I asked, opening the door.

  Emmett touched one of the many random brass things I’d never paid any attention to before on the narrowest side plane of the door and clicked it up. “Go out,” he said.

  “Really?” I stepped into the hall, and Emmett closed my own apartment door behind me, leaving me alone out there. I stood there in my socks, feeling weirdly lonely and abandoned.

  “Now open it,” he said, from inside my apartment.

  I turned the knob and, for the first time ever, my door opened without a key.

  “What?”

  He smiled, his eyes crinkling up all glittery.

  “If your opera and comp sci and journalism careers don’t work out,” I said, “you could totally have a life of crime ahead of you.”

  “Gotta keep my options open,” he said, and flicked the secret switch back to lock.

  “I totally had no idea that existed,” I said, clicking it up and down a few times myself.

  “Daphne had some trouble keeping track of her keys last year,” Emmett said. “So if my mom was gonna be out . . .”

  “And nobody would know, so, safe, still.”

  “Exactly.”

  “The more you know . . .”

  “Hey, so I have an idea,” he said.

  “Speaking of brilliant?”

  “Yes,” he said. “We could walk down Broadway to Lincoln Center together, and then you could take the subway back up while I go to opera.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “We could eat the whole way down. I have to eat dinner early anyway. There’s that 16 Handles at Ninety-Eighth Street, and you know you’re gonna owe me one when Fluff beats Lightning in a race, so you could get an early jump on—”

  “Never. Gonna. Happen.”

  “Ha!” Never Gonna Happen is kind of an inside joke with my family and his. “Thing is,” he said, “most things people say are Never Gonna Happen eventually do happen.”

  “Sure. I’m still not buying you a 16 Handles in advance.”

  “Fine, fine. We’ll split it.”

  “Your mom lets you get 16 Handles for dinner?”

  “No,” he said. “But why doesn’t she? Frozen yogurt is probably healthy. Isn’t it just very cold yogurt?”

  “Good point,” I said. “Plus, they have fruit toppings you can put on, not just smashed-up cookies and hot fudge and Fruity Pebbles like a normal person.”

  “Exactly. Or Gray’s Papaya has hot dogs, which probably are some percentage made of food. In addition to whatever other disgusting—don’t think about it—deliciousness is in them. Plus, all the fruit stands and bodegas. A feast, I’m telling you.”

  “Sounds awesome,” I said. “Okay, I’m in.”

  “If you’re not hungry, we don’t have to eat. We could just walk. My mom always packs me a big sandwich to eat during the second intermission. I get really hungry in this opera.”

  “Big part?”

  “Kind of,” he admitted, blushing a bit. “Also, really sweaty.”

  “Ha!” I said. “I am the gold medalist of sweaty.”

  “I smelled so polluted after opening night, my own mother almost passed out when she hugged me,” he said.

  “Story of my life,” I said. “That’s just me, normal day.”

  “Not like this,” he boasted. “I smelled like a condemned barn.”

  “You probably just smelled like milk,” I said. “You always smell like milk.”

  “I do?” he asked.

  So, that happened.

  I told him he smells like milk. Ugh.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Thanks, I guess?”

  “Should we check on Lightning again?” I asked, because could we please call the podiatrist to yank this huge foot of mine off my tonsils? You always smell like milk—really? I mean, he does. But really?

  “Okay,” Emmett said. “Maybe if we get there early enough, we can convince my wrangler to show you around backstage.”

  “Your what?”

  “Wrangler,” he said. “The adult in charge of me at the opera.”

  “She wrangles you?”

  “Yup,” he said, and winked. I laughed. He is such a nut. “Alicia. She’s really cool. You’d like it backstage, I think, all the costumes and wigs and dressing rooms and horses and secret passageways.”

  “Horses and secret passageways?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s pretty amazing there. I’m gon
na miss it a little. This is probably my last opera.” He smiled, but it wasn’t his normal full-face happy smile. His eyes were sad.

  “Why?”

  “Growing, a little. Finally. Starting to. Anyway, it’s time. It’s all little kids there, which is, whatever, what it is. Plus my voice is changing.”

  “It is?”

  “Thanks, yes. It is. You can only hear it when I sing, which I don’t in this opera—just stand around. You know, acting. I’m a super.”

  “Are ya now?” I kidded him, trying to get his eyes back to happy. “Super, huh?”

  “That’s what they call it if you don’t sing.”

  “To make you feel better?”

  “Maybe. Anyway, so this could be my last chance to show you the cool stuff. Like, as an early birthday present.”

  “Oh.” I don’t know why that made a lump form in my throat. It took until he was pitching the idea to my mom before I could speak.

  Obviously Mom said no. I knew she would.

  My parents are so overprotective. And then I can’t even be a normal kid and throw a fit, because their eyes are always scanning my face, making sure I am happy, happy, happy. I am the wind beneath her wings, Mom used to sing to me at bedtime. So if I storm out like, I hate you, they’d crash to the ground and then what?

  My cousin Hadley told me last Thanksgiving that on their way to Grandma’s, her mom was saying that after Bret died, she really thought my parents might both kill themselves or just die of broken hearts, but then I was born and I basically saved their lives. Especially because I was such a bundle of joy. Such a fat, giggly baby. She was wondering if I was still so sweet, now that I’m in eighth grade.

  “Am I?” I asked Hadley.

  “Eh,” she said. “You were really cute when you were little, and then you got funny-looking, and now you’re kind of starting to even out.”

  “Oh, um, thanks?” I said.

  “No offense,” she said.

  “None taken,” I lied. That’s when I started saying, “None taken,” even when people didn’t say, “No offense,” to me. I think that’s hilarious, but it hasn’t become a thing, so maybe I should stop saying it.

  “Bret was beautiful,” Hadley had said, shrugging. “That’s what everyone used to say about her: ‘What a beautiful little angel.’ Then they’d say, ‘Thank goodness for Gracie, such a bundle of joy.’”

  So I was like, “Wait, so my job is to be a bundle of joy all the time, my entire life?”

  Hadley said, “Basically, yeah. Well, that, and to not die.”

  So when my mom said no this afternoon, that I couldn’t walk down to Lincoln Center with Emmett tonight to drop him off at the opera, I only argued for half a minute and then I shrugged and said, “Sorry, Emmett.”

  He said, “No worries,” and we went back to my room.

  “It’s fine,” he said. “Just an idea. Some other time. You okay?”

  “I’m always okay.”

  “Uh,” he said. “Yeah? Show your work.”

  “What?”

  “Always? Who’s always okay?”

  “I am,” I said. “Haven’t you noticed?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “None taken,” I said. So much for stopping that.

  “You sure?” He tilted his head a bit. “Maybe a little taken?”

  “Totally,” I said. “None taken ever! Show me that video before you have to go.”

  “Okay,” he said, giving me some serious side eye. “If you—”

  “I wanna see it!” I said, maybe more enthusiastically than he’d anticipated, because he leaned back like I was a hurricane blowing in.

  “Wow. Okay.” He pulled his computer out of his bag and showed me the video of AJ falling asleep while eating leftover pad Thai. It was hilarious and, horribly, adorable. My phone buzzed, like, a billion times, and so did Emmett’s, but we were like, No.

  “I’m putting mine on airplane mode,” Emmett said. “Enough.”

  “Seriously.” I switched mine off too, without reading the infinity texts clogging up the screen.

  “You guys hungry?” Mom called.

  Emmett and I shrugged at each other and trudged down the hall with his computer. Mom placed Bret’s handprint plate on the counter in front of us, loaded up with Milanos and sliced strawberries. “Do you want popcorn?” Mom asked. “I make excellent popcorn.”

  “The best,” Emmett said, mid-Milano. “But I should probably go down and eat a quick dinner and take a shower before opera, because, hashtag sweaty guys.”

  “Hashtag sweaty guys!” I said back.

  We fist-bumped.

  “Let’s never call ourselves that again,” I said.

  “Yeah, no, never,” Emmett agreed.

  “It’s like you two have your own language,” Mom said.

  “I should . . .” Emmett tilted his head left.

  “Yeah.” I followed him up our hall toward the front door.

  “Bye, Emmett!” Mom called after us. “Have a good show tonight!”

  “Thanks,” he said, stomping into his sneakers without bothering with the laces.

  “Yeah, good luck,” I said at the door. “Or do they say, ‘Break a leg,’ in opera?”

  “They actually say either toi toi toi or in bocca al lupo.”

  “Sorry, huh?”

  “I don’t know what toi toi toi means, but the other one means: ‘into the mouth of the wolf.’”

  “Gross.”

  “Yeah, but cool also. Like, ‘Go on into the mouth of the wolf, you!’ So you say that, and then I say back, Crepi il lupo, which means, ‘Die, wolf!’”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s a weird world, there.”

  “You sure that’s opera world and not fairy-tale world?”

  “Definitely want the wolf to die there, too.”

  “And don’t take the shortcut,” I added.

  “The shortcut?”

  “In a fairy tale,” I said. “You never wanna take the shortcut through the forest.”

  “Excellent advice. The shortcut is always the wrong move.”

  “If you find yourself in a fairy tale, at least.”

  “And a forest.” Emmett leaned against the door next door and accidentally rang the bell. “Oops!”

  “Oh no,” I said. “Better run for it!”

  “Never. Gonna. Happen,” Emmett said.

  We smiled. Nobody lives in that apartment. An old guy whose mother used to live there before she died keeps his stuff in there as if it’s his storage closet, because it’s rent-controlled so why not? Emmett and I always used to imagine, what if we could break in and make it our secret clubhouse? My mom once saw the guy whose mother’s apartment it was, as he was leaving. She asked if he’d sublet part of it to her, let her use maybe one room as a writing space. “Never. Gonna. Happen,” he growled at her, and bobbled away. Since then my family and Emmett’s all call him the Never Gonna Happen Man.

  We almost never see him. So we weren’t actually worried, just kidding. But then the door to the apartment opened, and the red-faced, walrus-mustache man growled at us. “What’s the big idea?” He pushed out into the hall, past Emmett, to loom over me.

  “Sorry,” I said. “No big ideas here, promise.”

  Emmett leaned against his open door. “How’s it going, sir?” he asked politely.

  “Don’t ring my doorbell!” the man barked. He lurched back into the apartment, past Emmett, and grabbed a lumpy gray sack. Then he came back out, yanked the door closed behind him, bopping Emmett out of the way, and harrumphed his way past us to the elevator, where he stood, grunting and shifting his weight with annoyance, without looking back.

  “Never,” I whispered to Emmett, who immediately started laughing.

  “Gonna,” he whispered.

&n
bsp; The elevator dinged. Never Gonna Happen Man muttered, “Troublemakers,” and then stomped into the elevator. As the door slid closed behind him, Emmett and I both whispered, “Happen.” And doubled over laughing.

  “Okay, so,” I said to Emmett after we were able to deal again. “Well, then, um, toys, toys, toys, and, you know, go kick the wolf in the teeth, you.”

  “Thanks. Kill the wolf, you.”

  “Frickin’ wolf,” I said.

  “Hey, speaking of never gonna happen . . .” Emmett started.

  I was already saying, “See you tomorrow.” So I asked, “Wait, what?”

  “Nothing, tell you later. You’re good?”

  “Totally fine, yeah,” I said. “Tell me what later?”

  He grinned, shrugged, and then dashed away, down the stairs.

  22

  PROBABLY WON’T SNOW, SO

  Turns out, while I was busy learning multiple ways to say good luck in opera-talk, AJ had asked Sienna what she was doing tomorrow before my party.

  After lots of analysis and unanswered texts just to me (GRACIE, where are you? you have to help me, help, help, help, for example) Sienna had decided to text back to AJ that she had tennis in the morning and then was just hanging out with me until my party.

  He texted back: cool cool.

  What do you say to cool cool? Was that flirting or dismissive? Had she said too much or left it too open or what? Was tennis in the morning and then just hanging out the stupidest, most buzz-killiest response in the history of responses?

  there have probably been stupider responses in history somewhere, I texted her. I mean odds are . . .

  Sienna texted, GRACIE! where have you been? help, help, no disappearing!!!

  Riley texted us both right then in a group chat, asking what the latest was, and apologizing because she’d been busy learning to wing-tip her eyeliner from her sister. So Sienna had to retell the whole saga. But just when Sienna got to the cool cool part, Riley texted us: Sorry, GTG—heading over to a little thing at Beth’s . . . <3<3

  wow, okay, Sienna texted just me.

  We didn’t care that she was going to a Loud Crowd thing we weren’t invited to, even though all the girls in that group were invited to my party the next day. Whatever. Not too awkward. Ugh. I should’ve just made plans with Sienna and my parents like last year. We went away to Washington, DC, for the weekend and saw all the sights. It was great. But Mom suggested maybe this year I’d like to do something with a bunch of friends, and I guess I didn’t want her to think I was a loser who had none. I don’t even like a lot of the people I invited.