10 Things I Hate About Pinky - Sandhya Menon Page 0,75
circle the word “Ellingsworth” at the top. “See?”
Samir scoffed. “If you say so.”
It had only been a day since she’d turned him down on the deck (Pinky hated to think of it as “rejected”—that felt way too harsh), and she had to admit, Samir was doing a pretty good job of pretending like it had never happened. Pinky had known boys in her life who went from saccharine sweet when they were pursuing her to flat-out mean and bullying when she said no, but that wasn’t Samir. She found it both a relief and secretly irritating. Had his feelings for her been worth so little that he could just brush them off and act like they had never even existed? She knew it made no sense for her to feel that way; she had turned him down. She should be glad he was taking it so well.
“So this is where they’re currently planning to put in those awful condos,” Pinky said, marking the area with the butterfly habitat with a big red star. “But we’d like them to move it… somewhere else.” She peered at the map, frowning. They’d been staring at it for so long and were still nowhere close to an answer. “There’s nowhere in the town that fits. Nowhere at all. How can that be? How can the only location be the butterfly habitat?”
“You’re just going to say no again, but I think over here would be a fine proposition,” Samir said, pointing with his green marker to an area just outside of town proper.
Pinky sighed. “It’s not as pretty or as convenient as the habitat. I just know he’s going to use that against us. And that fire-breathing demon of a developer is going to say that too. The people in the condos need the best views and the shortest commute to downtown so they can ask for the most money. But I guess if that’s all we have, that’s all we have. I’ll run it by Dolly later, whenever she gets back from Cash’s.” She raised her arms above her head and stretched, not missing how Samir’s eye was automatically drawn to her exposed tummy—or how he quickly looked away and busied himself with putting the markers back into the box. Pinky annoyed herself by feeling a thud of disappointment.
“Yeah, I think so.” Pinky stood too. “Get some sleep. We’re going to be out of here early tomorrow. The appointment’s at nine.”
Samir raised an eyebrow. “That won’t be a problem for me, but I’m a morning person. What are you going to do?”
“Don’t worry about me,” Pinky said, stepping closer to him. “I can be as much of a hellion during the day as I am at night.” Samir’s eyes widened just a fraction, and Pinky realized the double entendre of her words. “I mean—not just, like, in bed at night. I’m a hellion everywhere.” Oh God. She was making this so much worse. She felt her cheeks heat and looked away.
There was an awkward pause, and then Samir cleared his throat. “Right. Well, I’m going to bed, then. Um, good night.”
Wincing as he walked away, Pinky waited until he’d closed the door behind him to jump on her bed and stick her face into the pillows, hoping for a swift, sweet suffocation.
* * *
“Remind me again why we didn’t just take the BMW?” Dolly asked, shifting uncomfortably on her bus seat. The upholstery was ripped and, according to her, kept jabbing her in the thigh. Try being wedged between your aggravated cousin and the boy you just turned down, Pinky thought grumpily.
“This bus drops us off right at city hall,” Pinky explained for the twelfth time, making sure to keep her tone patient. They were here to support her cause, after all.
“Yes, but the bus stop was, like, two miles away from your house,” Samir said from her other side, waving his hand at his sweaty, pink face in an attempt to cool himself down.
They were all scrunched uncomfortably in an optimistically named three-seater that was really just made for two people. All around them sat people who worked for the “summer people” like Pinky—maids, cooks, groundskeepers. They kept glancing curiously at the teenagers among them.
Samir turned to the window and tried to jiggle it open, but it held fast. The inside of the bus was quickly becoming a stinky steamer, everyone’s sweaty BO mixing together in the airless space.