Meet Me at Midnight - Jessica Pennington Page 0,32
a good idea. Or maybe, that was the whole idea. Could Asher have known? Last night is such a blur; did I tell him? I’m stabbing a piece of fish ten times more aggressively than is necessary when Caleb’s voice cuts through the quiet. “What are you going to major in?”
“I don’t know, actually.”
“Really?” The surprise on his face unsettles me.
“Really. Why does that surprise you?” You hardly know me, I silently add.
“Kara just mentioned that you’re … well, she didn’t use these words exactly … but she said you’re super organized. That you like plans.” He makes a slashing motion with his hand like he’s karate chopping the air.
I push some rice around on my plate. “I do like a good list. You’ll have to stop talking to Kara or she’ll give away all my secrets.”
“I’m sure you have more exciting secrets.” His lips turn up in a smile and mine do, too. We’re back to the flirting, the witty banter, and when he drops me off at my house, he doesn’t kiss me, but I can tell he wants to. But he’s a nice guy, the kind that tries to impress you on a first date, and doesn’t steal kisses. And as I’m sitting at the kitchen table eating one of my mom’s famous chocolate chip cookies, a text chimes on my phone.
It’s true—almost. Tonight was a perfectly adequate night, but I’m not sure that when Kara grills me about it, I’ll call it fun. Caleb is nice enough, but there’s definitely something missing there. And for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel like waiting ten days to find out what exactly that thing is.
Oh god. Did I seriously just type casual?
I’m just tucking my phone into my pocket when I open the door to my bedroom and my bare feet come into contact with something wet and cold. A breath later they slip out from under me. I crash onto my back, and my hands slip and slide as I struggle to grab hold of anything in the darkness of my room. Something thick and oily coats my hands and my feet, and as my eyes adjust, I see that the floor is shining with a white slickness. While I was out with Caleb, being completely traumatized by last night’s kiss, Asher was continuing to torment me. He was rolling out what must be hundreds of feet of Saran Wrap. It’s thick under me, taut over the thin, worn carpet, running in every direction, like a second floor under my feet. I raise a hesitant finger to my nose. Mayonnaise. I hate mayonnaise.
In my brain there are a million perfectly orchestrated pranks prepared for this summer. But as the light of the little fish-cleaning house glares into my room, throwing slashes of light over my floor that now glistens with the world’s most disgusting condiment … a new idea overshadows all of them.
It’s on.
DAY 8
Asher
When I leave for a run around ten, I’m not nervous that Sidney is sitting on the deck staring daggers at me. Because Sidney doesn’t do anything on a whim. She’d never decide at 8:05 p.m. to go to the store and buy twenty rolls of Saran Wrap. To her credit, she would have worked out the square footage and known that she didn’t need twenty rolls. That it was total overkill, and she could get by with twelve.
After two hours of watching a movie with our parents, I snuck away to the bathroom, opened her bedroom window, and then told everyone I was going to bed. I felt like crap so I’m sure I looked it. Totally believable. Twenty minutes later, when everyone moved down to the fire pit with giant margarita mugs in hand, I slipped in through the window and went to work.
Sometimes the beauty of a prank is in the spontaneity of it. The thrill of being caught, the last-minute problem-solving. It took me an hour just to tape the Saran Wrap to the baseboards and stretch it in a giant haphazard weave across the room, making sure I covered every square inch. Of course, if I had planned things out like Sidney, I would have realized I should start the mayo at the far end of the room, and work my way back to the window. Sidney wouldn’t have had mayonnaise-covered shoes sitting in her room all night. But even if those sneakers smell like mayo for the rest of my life, it will