wasn’t exercising on the Nevers list? He swung open the door,
expecting Brett to have forgotten his keys.
“Hi,” Gretchen said. She was in her soccer uniform, a grass stain
on her knee. Her face was flushed. “Your house was on the way,” she
said, looking down the street from the direction she came. The wind
whipped her hair in front of her face. “I thought after we ran into
each other at the mall you might try to do more than just say hi at
school. I thought you might . . .” She looked down at her soccer cleats
and shifted the weight of her backpack, which was black with a white
scuff mark across the bottom and a red button pinned on the right
shoulder strap. “Anyway, since you live so close, I figured I’d come by
and tell you that I want us to talk more.” She looked back up but only
met Dave’s eyes for a second before glancing away. A smile tugged at
the corners of her mouth, like it had when she had tried making a
joke at the Kapoor party. “You’re easy to talk to. And you’re nice. And
you make me laugh a lot.” A strand of hair had blown across her face
and into her mouth, and she laughed and pulled it back behind her
ear. “You seem great, Dave. And I thought that maybe you might be
thinking the same about me, but . . .”
A car rolled past the street behind Gretchen, blasting Mexican
ranchera music. Dave realized he’d been smiling for a while, and he
felt himself blush just at the realization. His T-shirt was dotted with
84 NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES
yellow stains from the Thai food he and Julia had had for lunch. It
was only yesterday that he’d given up on the prospect of anything
but friendliness with Gretchen, and now he felt a giddiness rising so
quickly it was useless to deny that it was there. Dave leaned against
the open door. “I’m glad you came. I’ve been trying to figure out what
to do with a bag full of human hair. Any ideas?”
Gretchen smiled, her big brown eyes lighting up. Her smile made
him feel like she’d just handed him a tray of freshly baked chocolate-
chip cookies.
“Dave, I have an idea!” Julia called out from inside the house. He
turned around to see her coming down the stairs, his laptop in her
hands. “We might have to hire hundreds of people to help make it
happen, but with Brett’s help we—” She stopped on the stairs when
she noticed Gretchen at the door. “Oh. Hi.”
“Hi, Julia,” Gretchen said, offering a shy wave. She looked back at
Dave. “Think about what I said. I’ll see you later?”
“Yeah.” Dave nodded. Gretchen gave him one last smile and then
turned away, taking the steps at the front of his house with a little hop.
Dave closed the door and turned to face Julia, his heart pounding. For
some reason he felt like he’d been caught at something. At mingling
with the clichés, at hiding a crush.
“Getting in with the popular kids,” she said, raising an eyebrow.
“Savvy political move.”
“Thanks,” Dave said, stuck by the door, waiting for his heart to
quiet down. His hands were shaking.
Julia lingered at the stairs, and Dave wondered if she could tell that
DAVE 85
political savvy was the furthest thing from his mind. Then she came
down and joined him by the front door, showing him the computer
screen. “Check this out. We can hire an explosives expert for only
three hundred dollars an hour, plus supplies. That’s cheaper than a
lawyer or a therapist! A bake sale for charity isn’t on the Nevers, but
maybe we can whip up some cupcakes with the PTA and raise money
for some dynamite.”
The rest of the evening, Julia rattled on about how blowing stuff up
was the sure way to win the public’s heart. She found epic music for
the video’s soundtrack, looked up junk cars on eBay, searched Google
Maps for nearby fields where they could blow up a car without
anyone getting hurt. She even started writing a script for the video,
chock-full of references to movies released in the last five years. She
took over his phone and started texting Brett about what he would
need to see get blown up in exchange for his vote for prom king. She
was funny, and charming, and energetic, and yet all Dave could think
about was Gretchen.
86 NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES
SOLVE FOR X
DAVE, JULIA, AND Brett were at one of the tables outside Fratelli’s,
the tangy smell of pepperoni thick in the air. Brett and Julia were
discussing the viral video, but Dave was lost in his thoughts.
Ever since he reached the right age for it, basically since he met
Julia,