Also Known As (18 page)

Roux. The ray of toxic sunlight that I had been missing.

“Do you mind explaining to me why you’re trying to make yourself look like the Phantom of the Opera?”

I didn’t even know where to begin. How was I supposed to do this job when I couldn’t even be honest with the people who could possibly help me? So I settled on the most honest answer.

“I burned my tongue,” I told her.

“Huh.” Roux sipped her latte. “That’s the sign of a bad day to come. We should err on the safe side and ditch.”

I stopped banging my head (which, despite what they show in movies, really hurts) and turned to face her. “I can’t ditch, I have a French quiz.”

“‘Can’t’ should never be a word in anyone’s vocabulary. It implies negativity.”

“You don’t get it!” I told her. “I have responsibilities, okay? I cannot miss French class today. Can’t, cannot, will not, whatever word works for you. It isn’t happening.”

Roux just grinned. “Finally, a little feistiness! I’ve taught you well! And you don’t have to pretend with me, I know you just want to see Jesse.”

I did want to see Jesse, that was true, but at the same time, I kind of didn’t. I knew I had screwed up by kissing him, and if Angelo or my parents ever found out, they’d probably banish me to the Arctic Circle to make snow cones for the rest of my life. Every time I saw him, I was reminded of how unprofessional I had been.

And yet at the same time, I couldn’t
wait
to see him again.

I wondered if James Bond ever had this problem with any of his lady friends.

“You can see Jesse anytime,” Roux said. “Hell, he’s probably ditching, too!”

I sighed and tried again to get into my locker.

“Tell you what,” she continued, “let’s split the difference and go to Sant Ambroeus for coffee. It’s French, right?”

“I think it’s Italian.”

“Whatever, it’s all under the European umbrella. So let’s go.”

“Shouldn’t you be worried about ditching too much?” I asked her, gritting my teeth and wondering if I could stab my locker with something sharp. “Don’t you have to get into college?”

Roux twirled a bit of her hair around her finger. “Oh, that,” she said, like we were talking about a forgotten errand or something. “College is so self-important. Everyone runs around and gives themselves an aneurysm about getting into wherever and then they get there and drop out after a semester. I’m not playing that game.”

I stopped and looked at her. “Your parents are just going to donate money, aren’t they.”

“Duh. Plus, not to brag, but I am
amazing
at standardized tests. Filling in bubbles with a number 2 pencil is sort of a specialty of mine. So, do you want to go to Sant Ambroeus now or—?”

“Roux!” I finally screamed. I couldn’t take it anymore, the nonstop chattering, the worry-free life, the fact that her biggest problem was that some loser pothead didn’t like her anymore. “Do you
ever
back down? Because you are relentless. You’re like a semi with no brakes on a patch of black ice! Just stop!”

Roux was silent for a few seconds before she said, “Well, that’s, like, three similes all in one.”

Her voice was the quietest I had ever heard, and I realized that I had hurt her feelings. Great, friendship was another thing that I sucked at. Add it to the list.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just … I had a fight with my parents this morning because I said I would do this thing and I thought I did it, but they don’t think I did and they’re not listening to me and it’s just a mess and … ugh, I hate this stupid locker!”

Roux reached over and slammed it with her fist. It popped open.

She just shrugged when I gaped at her. “I saw it in a movie once,” she said. “I didn’t think it would actually work. Do you still hate me now?”

“No, I don’t hate you,” I said. “I didn’t hate you and I don’t now. I’m just having a terrible day, as you can probably tell.”

“I can tell. So what, your parents want you to do stuff? Like chores?”

I was pretty sure that chores were a foreign concept to Roux. “Sort of,” I said. “It’s complicated.”

“Yeah, what isn’t?” she said. “Y’know, you can always come stay with me if your parents are being lame. You can have your own room and your own butler.”

“Really?”

“No. At least not the butler part.” She smiled at me. “But you can borrow Harold.”

I rolled my eyes but grinned back at her anyway. “No way. Harold hates me.”

“Harold
loves
you. Don’t let that skinny, bony old-man exterior fool you. He’s a softie. A softie with an attitude problem, but a softie nonetheless. Hey! You should come over tonight! We can watch movies.”

“I can’t,” I told her. “I’m sorry, it’s just everything with my parents right now … I should probably lie low for a while.”

“Or maybe I could come over to your place?”

There was something in her voice that I couldn’t quite identify. Jealousy? Envy? Maybe even hope? From everything I had seen and everything Jesse had said, I knew that her parents were rarely home, and knowing that Roux could never meet my family only made me feel worse.

“Not today. Between school and tests and college stuff”—I didn’t know what “college stuff” even meant, but I could make something up if I had to—“my parents just want me to focus.” (That was putting it mildly.) “I’m sorry.”

The hurt look on her face lasted for only a second before it smoothed back into Roux’s casually arranged coolness. “That’s fine,” she said. “Harold loves watching
Manhattan
with me.” The bell went off over our heads. “Damn, I have to go to history. I failed the quiz last week and my parents weren’t home to sign off on it. Hello, detention, my old friend.”

“You need a signature?”

“If you fail, yeah. I mean, it’s good they’re not home because now they don’t know that I failed, but yeah.”

“Why don’t you just forge it?”

“I’ve done it so many times that they’ve figured it out.”

I set my books on top of the lockers and gestured to her. “Here, let me try. Do you have a copy of your parents’ signatures?”

Roux flipped through her textbook and produced a half-folded piece of paper. “Here, I failed this one two weeks ago.”

“Why do you keep failing?”

“Because I don’t study.”

I just sighed and took the old quiz. It was her mom’s signature, loopy and wide, almost like Disney handwriting, not too difficult. “You didn’t see me do this,” I told her, then proceeded to do a near-perfect signature on Roux’s test. The
Y
could have had a bit more of a curlicue, but a high school history teacher wasn’t going to notice.

Roux looked at my work, then up at me. “Is there anything you
can’t
do?” she cried.

“Not really, no.”

“Can I buy you a delicious off-campus snack to say thank you?”

“Roux.”

“So sue me for trying. I’m persistent, you know. I’m a runaway black truck semi covered in ice, or whatever you said.”

“You’re crazy.” I laughed. “Have fun.”

“You know it. Tell Jesse Oliver I said
bonjour
.” She wiggled her eyebrows at me and I shoved her shoulder, both of us giggling as we went our separate ways.

Chapter 19

The French quiz turned out to be a bigger nightmare than I could have ever imagined. For starters, Jesse ended up sitting directly across from me, and although I have been trained to do many things in my life, clearly flirting was not one of them. I managed to spend the entire class blushing and averting my gaze and wanting to look at him but
not
wanting him to catch me looking, but then wanting
him
to look at
me
. The whole thing was so exhausting that I needed a nap afterward.

Oh, and also? The quiz was an oral exam. So not only was I a stammering mess every time the teacher picked me to answer a question, but I get sort of self-conscious about speaking French in public because I’m always afraid that I’ll sound insane, like the chef in
The Little Mermaid
movie. You’d think that the gene pool would have done me a solid and let me inherit at least some of my dad’s linguistic genius, but no. All I got was tongue-tied and embarrassed.

Jesse, of course, did great and spoke French like he had
been speaking it since birth.
Maybe
he
should be the spy
, I thought as I waited for the bell to ring and release me from my misery.
He could be all dashing and suave and I could sit home with my old textbook and conjugate verbs
.

(Okay, my self-pity was starting to go off the rails, I admit it.) He waited for me after the bell, packing up his bag twice before I realized that he wasn’t going to leave without me acknowledging him. “So are you ignoring me, or are you playing hard to get?” he asked when it was just the two of us left in the classroom. “I always get the two confused.”

Why did he have to be funny? And smart? This would have been so much easier if he were some himbo with the personality of a dirt clod.

“I’m not ignoring you,” I said.

“Denial is the first step to acceptance.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Ah, so you’re playing hard to get. Did Roux tell you to do that? Because that’s the dumbest thing
I’ve
ever heard.”

I slung my bag onto my shoulder and looked at him. vHis eyes were (God help me, I swore I would never use this word)
twinkling
, but there was fear behind them. He had told me a lot about himself, his family, his sadness, probably more than he had ever told anyone else before.

We both had a lot riding on this relationship.

“Look,” I said. “I like you. Like,
like
like you. Like, a
lot
.”

“That’s a lot of ‘likes.’”

“Yes, it is.” Angelo was right about the West Coast ruining my grammar. “But don’t you feel like it’s happening kind of fast? Shouldn’t we just slow down a little?”
Slow down long enough so I can ruin your dad’s magazine empire and save my family’s professional and personal lives without breaking your heart at the same time
.

“Slow down? We’ve already made out. Oh my God, wait. I’m a bad kisser.” He feigned shock, putting his hand over his heart. “Is that was this is about? What, too much tongue? Not enough tongue? Did I do that thing where I get overeager and almost knock your teeth out? ‘Cause I do that sometimes. Sorry.”

I smiled despite myself. “You’re so weird.”

“I’ll take weird if it means I’m a good kisser.”

“Yes, you’re a great kisser. I don’t have a ton of experience in that area, as you know—”

“I’m flattered.”

“But, yes, you’re a great kisser. Gold star for you.”

He sat down on the edge of the desk, his hair curling into his eyes and making me want to reach out and brush it back. “So what’s the deal then?”

“I told you, I just think we should slow down. I mean, we haven’t even had a real date yet and I—”

“Ohhhh.” Jesse nodded to himself. “That’s what this is. I get it.”

“What?”

“First date. Girls like dates. I’m such an idiot, I should have thought of that.”

This was backfiring spectacularly.

“Maggie.” He got up and came over to stand next to me, taking my hand in his. “Would you like to go on a date with me?”

At that point, I would have run away to Zimbabwe and raised herds of elephants with him.

“Yes,” I admitted. “Do you want to go on a date with
me
?”

“Are you kidding? I’m going to show you how it’s done. I’m going to date you like you’ve never been dated before.”

“Oh, yeah?” I said, not able to stop a smile from escaping. “You think you got what it takes?”

“We’re talking fireworks, okay? Literal fireworks. None of this ‘let’s eat ice cream in the freezing cold while we sit on a dirty stoop’ shit. I’m pulling out all the stops. Call me LL Cool Jess.”

“You are ridiculous!” I cried, shoving his shoulder even as he grabbed my hand again. “Are you serious about the fireworks?”

“Well, first things first. You haven’t said if you want to go out with me or not.”

Bad idea
, my inner voice said.
Bad, bad, baaaaad—

“Of course,” I told him. “I would love to.”

“Then fireworks it is!” He leaned forward and kissed me before I could say anything, and I immediately sat back down on the desk, wrapping my hand around his neck to pull him closer.

“Monsieur! Mademoiselle!”

We flew apart to see Monsieur McPhulty glaring at us.
“Are you both aware of the school rules? No public displays of affection during school hours?”

“
Je suis désolé
,” Jesse said, even as he held on to my hand. His hands were cold and rough but surprisingly soft at the same time. “You know how it is, Monsieur McPhulty.”

“French
is
one of the romance languages, after all,” I pointed out.

It was worth getting detention just to hear Jesse’s laugh.

Chapter 20

Both my parents were waiting for me by the time I got home on Monday afternoon. “Where have you been?” my mom said. “You’re late. School gets out at three.”

“Wow, calm down,” I said, dropping my bag down on a chair. “I had detention. I would have called but they take your phones. It’s really draconian.”

“I don’t think ‘draconian’ means what you think it means,” my dad said just as my mom said, “Detention? What did you do?”

Clearly I wasn’t going to say that I had made out with Jesse Oliver, son of the prime target in a major espionage case, in the middle of our French classroom. (Which would kind of make it “french kissing,” but I digress.) “Um, nothing?”

My mother just shook her head. “Your lying skills are terrible.”

“You raised a moral spy, what can I say? Is there any food? I’m
starving
. I could eat my body weight in peanut butter.”

“Let’s save that experiment for another day,” my dad said, but he pulled out the bread and the peanut butter anyway.

“And I was talking during class,” I told my mom. “That’s why I got detention. They have rules about that, apparently. Is that chunky or creamy? Chunky makes me gag.”