Between Us and the Moon - Rebecca Maizel Page 0,22

T,” dorms, and Commonwealth Avenue, but I keep thinking: Driver’s Ed, PSATs, and the Waterman Scholarship.

“Where do you go to school?” he asks.

Here it is. I can’t be evasive forever. I don’t want to tell Andrew the truth, that I’m just a high school student whose only friends are the Pi Naries and whose boyfriend just dumped her for the class boobs. I take a deep breath. That is not what the Scarlett Experiment is about. I don’t want him to get up and leave. Not after the way he looked at me when I mentioned the comet. Not after he said I was just what he needed last night. No one has needed me to make them laugh. Not until now. He might be just what I need too.

I have to answer. Where do I go to school? How silly. Of course I know where I go to school. The number one school I will apply to in two years.

“I start MIT in the fall. I’m eighteen.”

“So you gonna call me? Because I think you should,” Andrew says.

We walk up the boardwalk toward the parking lot. Curtis waits at the end of the walkway yelling into his cell phone. All I hear is, “Dude. No way. Beachcomber?”

“I’m here through August,” I say, holding the sweaty lounge chair under my arm. Without asking, Andrew takes it from me and holds it with the tips of his fingers.

“Me too; school starts the day before my birthday, sucks huh? Hey, we’ll be in the same city,” he adds. “My friends and I can show you around.”

Oh crap. MIT and Boston College are both in . . . Boston. They both start in August.

“So it’s crustaceans and convicts until school,” I say.

Crustaceans and convicts? Wonderful. Who even talks like that?

“Yeah, you could say that,” he says, but he’s smiling so I am taking this as a positive sign.

We stand in the parking lot, and stretching behind Andrew is the street that leads back toward Aunt Nancy’s. Cars pull out of the lot in a long line; it’s almost four thirty. I can’t help peeking around for Scarlett, even though the string bikini is now hidden under my clothes. Not only that, I would have to explain why I am talking to Curtis and his friend, Andrew.

“Dude . . . ,” Curtis says now, talking to Andrew. He motions with his arm toward the cars in the parking lot.

“Which one is your car? I’ll help you with your stuff,” Andrew offers.

He thinks I drove here.

Oh boy. Didn’t think about that.

“I walked again but without falling this time,” I say and gesture to the street running past the guard booth. “I live less than a mile away.”

“Let’s go. Waves in Truro,” Curtis says. He still has the cell phone next to his ear. He barely acknowledges I’m there other than a small, “What’s up?”

Andrew and Curtis head toward a beat-up red pickup, the same one from the side street next to the Bird’s Nest. When he is next to the car, he reaches to the driver’s-side tire and pulls out his keys. I point and say, “Your chances of vandalization and/or theft are much higher with that method of concealing your keys.” I immediately want to slap myself with the beach chair. I am just blowing this opportunity with Andrew left and right.

Andrew bends over and laughs again. He asks for and takes my cell.

“I’ve never thought about possible vandalization or theft,” he says, but he’s beaming. “But I will now.”

He punches the keys on my phone. When he hands it back, the screen says ANDREW and below it: ten numbers with a 508 area code.

“You should call me, Star Girl,” he says with a wink. And just like that, he gets in the car, revs the engine, and pulls past me with a wave out the window. Just like that—he’s gone.

EIGHT

RESULTS DAY 1: THE SCARLETT EXPERIMENT

Subject was inconsistent with the variable of behavior. Though there were a couple of positive results, they were, at best, unreliable. Nothing is conclusive yet. Subject was a silly, impulsive twit who fell over in her beach chair. In order for the Scarlett Experiment to execute accurately and for the hypothesis to be proven, subject must employ behavioral tactics of Scarlett Levin.

It’s safer up here at my desk where I can shut the door and I don’t have to listen to Nancy go on and on about how unlike Scarlett I am. If only she knew that I was