The Darlings in Love Read online

  Mark nodded and drew a long breath through his teeth. “Yeah, well, love sucks.” He got to his feet and crossed to where his backpack was sitting on the floor. “Let me grab you guys a couple of scripts, and we can do a quick read-through.”

  While Mark rummaged through his messy-looking bag, Jane started to feel impatient and excited. She wanted to read the play again, to see what it would sound like with Mark’s theory influencing her.

  There was a light pressure against her shoulder. She turned her head slightly and saw that while she’d been lost in thought, Simon had slid close enough to her that his shoulder was pressed against hers.

  “Hey,” he said quietly.

  “Hey, yourself,” she responded, equally quietly.

  “Listen, I’m sorry if I bummed you out by making you think about your grandmother before,” he apologized.

  Jane shook her head. She’d almost forgotten about talking about Nana with Simon. “It’s okay. I like thinking about her. I mean, it makes me sad, but I don’t want to forget her.”

  “I know what you mean.” Simon hesitated, then seemed to decide to tell her something. “This may sound really weird, but sometimes when I meet someone, I imagine introducing that person to her. You know, like I try to figure out if she’d like them or not.”

  Don’t ask. Don’t ask. Don’t ask.

  But as much as Jane wanted to be someone who held her tongue, she couldn’t resist. “Well?” she asked, and her voice was just the slightest bit flirtatious.

  “What?” asked Simon, clearly bewildered by her question.

  Jane mock-rolled her eyes, like she couldn’t believe how dense he was being. “Would she have liked me?”

  Simon burst out laughing. “Oh, that’s what you meant.” Still laughing, he put his arm around her and gave her a squeeze. “Sorry, I totally did not see where you were going with that.” He cocked his head and studied Jane, as if he were looking at her not through his own eyes but through someone else’s. Then he gave a brief, definitive nod. “She would absolutely have liked you.”

  “Found one!” Mark called, his head practically inside his bag.

  “What about yours?” asked Simon. “Would she have liked me?” He’d taken his arm from around Jane’s shoulders, but because of the way he was leaning back on his hands, their upper arms were pressed against each other. Jane liked how it felt.

  Looking down at their legs, which were stretched out in front of them, she tried to imagine introducing Nana to Simon. She pictured ringing the buzzer of Nana’s apartment, Nana coming to the door and seeing how handsome Simon was. Sometimes when they’d had a cute waiter at a restaurant, Nana would say to Jane, “Now that is a very nice-looking boy!” and Jane would shriek, “Nana!” And they would both laugh.

  Jane glanced up and realized Simon was studying her face, which she knew had grown downcast. “I made you sad again by asking that, didn’t I?” he asked.

  She shook her head, sorry her expression had given him the wrong idea. “It’s actually kind of nice to think about. It makes it almost like she’s still alive.”

  “See?” asked Simon, smiling at her. “I told you.”

  Jane smiled back at him.

  “Okay, guys,” said Mark, crossing over to where they were sitting, and joining them. “I finally found the other one. Here you go. Let’s open to page nineteen.”

  As Jane turned to the page, she said to Simon, without looking up at him, “The answer is yes, by the way.”

  “What answer is yes?” asked Mark absently, flicking through his script.

  Jane explained to the top of Mark’s head. “Yes, my grandmother would have liked Simon.”

  “Oh,” said Mark, looking up, clearly more confused than he’d been before she’d answered him. He shrugged. “Well, with that face, who wouldn’t like Simon?”

  “Oh, Mark,” said Simon, feigning embarrassment.

  They all laughed briefly. Then Mark, his voice more businesslike than Jane had ever heard it, asked, “Are we ready?”

  Jane felt a wave of exhilaration. Nothing, nothing could equal the excitement of the first read-through of a script. She took a deep breath and looked down at the page in front of her. “Ready.”

  “Ready,” agreed Simon.

  “Okay, then. Let’s take it from the top,” said Mark.

  And with Mark’s first words of direction, the rehearsal officially began.

  NATALYA CHECKED THE TIME. Seven o’clock. She opened her phone and scrolled back through her texts until she got to the one Colin had sent her. She reread it. He said he’d meet her where they played last time, and she had known right away that he meant the Web site where she’d first challenged him to a game back in October. She was there now, her computer screen showing the game they’d started in the fall, as if minutes, as opposed to months, had passed.

  She checked the time on her computer. One minute after seven.

  It was a tight game. The screen showed it was Colin’s turn to move, and Natalya cocked her head, trying to predict what he might do. He could use his rook to attack a pawn she’d left vulnerable, but that would mean leaving his knight unprotected. If he didn’t move his rook in the next couple of moves, he would risk slowly getting trapped behind a phalanx of his own pieces.…

  Her phone buzzing in her hand startled her; as usual, facing a chessboard had pulled her from the real world. She checked to see who’d texted her. Jane.

  has ur date started yet?

  it’s not a date. it’s a game, she texted back.

  To which Jane responded, keep telling yourself that.

  Natalya rolled her eyes and shut her phone, going back to studying the board in front of her. When the computer gave a tiny ping and a window opened in the lower right-hand corner, it took Natalya a second to snap out of her deep contemplation of the game and realize this had to be Colin signing in. She wished Jane hadn’t called it a date. The word made her think of ringing doorbells and introducing boys to her parents and all kinds of things that freaked her out.

  She said a private prayer of thanks to the god of computers that if this was a date with Colin, at least it was a virtual one. Then she read what he’d written.

  Cbprewitt@thompson: sorry im late.

  Npetrova@gainsford: that’s ok. I was looking at the board.

  Cbprewitt@thompson: scared of how good a player I m?

  Npetrova@gainsford: more scared 4 u than OF u.

  Cbprewitt@thompson: I m looking @ this game and thinking I can take u in seven moves.

  Natalya examined the pieces in front of her, mentally sliding them around in imaginary moves and countermoves. She prided herself on being able to think a few moves ahead, but only grandmasters could think that far ahead. Was Colin really able to envision the game seven moves in the future? Hmm…

  Npetrova@gainsford: u r totally bluffing.

  Cbprewitt@thompson: TOTALLY!

  She giggled and typed,

  TOTALLY BUSTED!

  Cbprewitt@thompson: I had u going there, didn’t I?

  Npetrova@gainsford: 4 a minute.

  Cbprewitt@thompson: I have to make u squirm a little after u blew me off for your bff.

  The allusion to Morgan did make Natalya squirm, and for the first time since she and Colin had started IMing, she wished she could ask the Darlings what to say. She closed her eyes briefly, imagined they were standing in front of her. Instantly, she heard Victoria telling her to apologize again, Jane telling her she’d apologized enough already. She opened her eyes.

  Maybe it was just as well that she was alone.

  Npetrova@gainsford: morgan’s not my bff.

  Cbprewitt@thompson: can I please ask WHAT you see in her? I mean, u strike me as an intelligent, self-actualized person. y would u hang out with the human equivalent of an X-Acto blade?

  Natalya bit her lip. She wasn’t sure what an X-Acto blade was, but she got Colin’s point. Still, what was she supposed to say? I’m not as self-actualized as I seem? I’m just a schola
rship girl and your sister dazzled me?

  Finally, she typed:

  we’re not really friends anymore.

  Cbprewitt@thompson: not to be pedantic, but would you say: a) we’re not REALLY friends anymore or b) we’re REALLY not friends anymore.

  Natalya had Ms. MacFadden to thank for the recent addition of pedantic (concerned with formal book learning and narrow rules) to her vocabulary. Apparently English class wasn’t a total waste of time after all.

  Npetrova@gainsford: I’m going to go with b. We r not friends.

  Seeing what she’d just typed made Natalya laugh. She had often wished the social world of Gainsford could be a little more like the academic one, and by inviting her to define her relationship with Morgan in multiple-choice terms, Colin had just made it so.

  Cbprewitt@thompson: well then I guess the best Prewitt won. Which may be a harbinger of the game we’re about to play.

  Ms. MacFadden hadn’t taught them harbinger. Natalya quickly reread his sentence, biting her lip in concentration. A harbinger of the game we’re about to play.

  Aha! He was saying he was going to beat her at chess.

  Cbprewitt@thompson: ok, your silence indicates u r clearly scared.

  No, my silence indicates I am clearly a dork who is using this conversation as an opportunity to improve my vocabulary.

  Npetrova@gainsford: I m looking @ the board. I m seeing nothing 2 scare me. I m seeing victory.

  Cbprewitt@thompson: well, aren’t we confident?

  Now that they were focused on the game, Natalya felt her anxiety about vocabulary and Morgan and apologies slipping away. All she felt was the excitement of the game she was about to dive back into. So the response she typed was completely true.

  Npetrova@gainsford: yes we r confident.

  Cbprewitt@thompson: on that note, let the games begin.

  Npetrova@gainsford: not to b pedantic, but u mean let the games CONTINUE, right?

  Cbprewitt@thompson: touché.

  THE HALLS OF Morningside were always chaotic during period changes, but the chaos that reigned after the last class of the day always felt to Victoria more like a volcanic eruption or an earthquake than dismissal. The bell rang, and within seconds, every student in the building had stampeded to his or her locker. Pouring out of History with the rest of her class, she felt like a tiny pebble being carried along by a raging river.

  “Hey, you!”

  She saw Jack at the same second as he said hello and slipped his arm around her shoulders, and she walked with him to the side of the hallway where her locker was. It was so nice when he came to find her at the end of the day, as though he hated that they’d been separated as much as she had. They kissed, and someone hollered, “Get a room!” Jack pulled away smiling and gently rubbed his forehead against Victoria’s.

  “Does he think we don’t want to get a room?” asked Jack.

  “Seriously,” agreed Victoria, remembering how amazing it had been to have his room all to themselves the other day.

  “So…” Jack linked his fingers through hers. “What are you doing right now?”

  Victoria glanced at the clock across the hallway. She had almost forty minutes before she had to be at a community center uptown, where she, Maeve, and Georgia were going to be teaching a class of fourth graders from a local public school how to make zucchini bread from scratch. She slipped her hand up Jack’s neck and toyed with his hair. “I have a few minutes,” she said. “Want to go to Rick’s and get hot chocolate?”

  Instead of answering her, Jack asked his own question. “Want to come to a recording session?”

  “A recording session?” Victoria had seen recording sessions in movies. She loved montages where some unknown band or singer recorded a best-selling single that climbed to the top of the charts. Excited, she asked, “Who’s recording something?”

  “The Frightened Pirates,” said Jack, referring to his friend Rajiv’s band. “His uncle’s this mega record producer and he got Rajiv some time at a studio where his label records a lot.”

  “Oh.” Victoria always felt a tiny bit uneasy around Jack’s friends Rajiv and Lily, who sang in Rajiv’s band. Jack, Rajiv, and Lily had gone to elementary school together, and they had tons of private jokes and references Victoria didn’t get. Sometimes when the four of them were sitting together at lunch, she felt like a foreign exchange student.

  “Wouldn’t I be in the way?”

  “Are you kidding? They’ll be totally psyched if you come.” Jack was always saying Lily and Rajiv thought Victoria was awesome, but since Victoria was pretty sure she’d never said one interesting thing in their presence, she found Jack’s claims a little hard to believe.

  Rather than express her doubts, Victoria admitted, “I’ve never been to a recording session.”

  Jack grinned, and his voice, when he spoke, was animated. “It’s great! I mean, sometimes it’s a little like watching paint dry, which is not so great. But you really get to hear music in a whole new way, and if it’s with a good producer, they make all these choices about how to lay a track down and it’s just…” He shook his head, seeming to search for words, then smiled down at her sheepishly. “Do I just sound like an enormous dork or what?”

  Victoria laughed, shook her head, and kissed him lightly on the lips. There was nothing better than listening to Jack talk about music, any kind of music. His body grew buoyant with enthusiasm, and he radiated a contagious pleasure.

  “It sounds amazing,” she said. “Maybe I could come for a little while.”

  “Awesome!” Jack lifted her off the ground in a bear hug. “I’ve gotta go grab my stuff and call my mom. Meet you out front in five?” He was already walking down the hall.

  “Oh, hey!” She suddenly remembered to ask, “Where is it?”

  “Chelsea!” He spun around to shout the word through the thinning crowd, then turned back in the direction he’d been walking.

  Chelsea. Damn. Victoria dropped back against her locker. She could barely get to Chelsea in the time she had, much less listen to several songs be recorded and get back uptown. She looked up at the clock longingly, like maybe it would agree to stop time for the next several hours. As if in answer to her plea, the long hand clicked forward a minute.

  “Who’s ready to teach some grubby kids about the pleasures of organic produce?” called a voice. Victoria turned and saw Georgia and Maeve walking toward her. She knew it was Georgia who’d just yelled the question—Maeve was about as likely to shout something down a crowded hallway as Victoria was.

  “Um, me?” Victoria’s tone was gloomy.

  “Um, me?” Georgia echoed, incredulous. “How about, I am! ” She yelled the last two words, tossing her long brown hair as she did, and Victoria gave her a wan smile.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Maeve quietly.

  Victoria shook her head and turned to face her locker. “Nothing.” She spun her lock around and yanked it open. She’d have to work quickly so she could have a few minutes to break the news to Jack that she couldn’t join him.

  “I’m sooo not getting a nothing’s-wrong vibe from you, girl,” said Georgia.

  Victoria jerked her biology book angrily from her locker and shoved her history textbook into the slot it had occupied. “I just never get to see my boyfriend, that’s all. He invited me to go with him to something, and I can’t go.” She checked to make sure she had all the books she needed, then slammed her locker shut, as annoyed with herself for whining as she was at the universe for separating her and Jack.

  “Oh, man, that sucks,” said Georgia.

  “Yeah, I’m really sorry,” agreed Maeve.

  “Maybe, like, is there some way you could, you know, get out of the thing you’re supposed to be doing?” Georgia suggested.

  Victoria hadn’t plotted her complaining as a means to trick Maeve and Georgia into letting her out of cooking class, but it suddenly occurred to her that that was exactly what had just happened. Slightly shocked at the unexpected twist th
e conversation had taken, she turned from her locker slowly. Both girls stood studying her, sympathetic expressions on their faces.

  It was clear they had no idea what she was about to ask, and she felt a little guilty. Would they think they’d been set up? That she’d complained with the expectation that they’d offer to let her out of going to the community center with them?

  But she honestly hadn’t. She’d just been feeling sorry for herself, and they’d asked why, and she’d told them. Still, when Victoria spoke, she was hesitant. “Well…I mean, I don’t know if I can get out of it,” she said slowly. “It’s kind of up to you guys.”

  Less than five minutes later, she was standing in front of the school, feeling like someone who’d been given a get-out-of-jail-free pass. No sooner had she told Maeve and Georgia about the recording session than both girls had urged her to go, promising that they’d be fine without her and wouldn’t even consider for one second taking her away from an afternoon with Jack.

  “You’ll make it up to us,” promised Georgia.

  “Yeah,” agreed Maeve. “When it’s write-up time.” She was referring to the project report the three girls had planned to submit as a group to get their community service credit, a report that included a lengthy essay on the “impact of their work.”

  “Oh my god!” promised Victoria, so happy she could have danced a jig right there in the hallway. “I will so totally do the entire report for us.”

  “We’ll hold you to that,” said Georgia, before hugging Victoria and heading down the hall with Maeve.

  Victoria couldn’t believe her incredible luck. Instead of taking a dozen nine-year-olds on a tour of the farmer’s market and then bringing them back to the community center loaded down with zucchini, guiding them through the process of measuring out flour and baking soda, she was going to be with Jack. Kissing Jack. Holding Jack. Talking to Jack about music, his favorite subject. She was practically levitating with excitement.

  She pushed her way onto the sidewalk, not even minding the crowd, so happy that she felt as if she were sailing above her fellow students. Her phone rang, and she saw it was her sister, Emily, a freshman at Princeton. Despite being a straight-A student, Emily had a wild streak, and Victoria knew Emily would be psyched to hear about her plans to hang out with Jack at a cool recording session. Sometimes she dodged Emily’s calls, since hearing about her sister’s fabulous life could make her feel like a total loser, but today she picked up.