taking AP Latin with the Pelham Public seniors (which was due to my sadistic Catholic teachers and their love of Latin declensions), I didn’t have lunch with any other juniors. I had lunch fourth period, when most of the sophomores and some freshmen ate.
My first day in the cafeteria, I saw a girl sitting by herself at a table, reading a book. This made me incredibly suspicious. Why? Because I thought it was a Finbar-trap. Mousetraps have cheese in them, and Finbar-traps would have shiny-haired high school brunettes in them, reading New York Times Notable Books.
Despite my suspicious instincts, I drew closer to this girl. And I felt the way my mother must have felt when she fell in love with my father through all those hockey pads and that face mask. I loved this girl even from the back, when all I could tell about her was that she had a hell of a great shampoo and had passed every scoliosis test she’d ever taken. I had to go up to her. I had to approach her. This need was bigger than my self-consciousness and my lack of experience with girls and my fear that I would spill my cafeteria spaghetti on her, which was basically the worst thing you could spill on someone.
When the girl turned, she was beautiful. She had glasses on, and behind them she had eyelashes you could count one by one like spider’s legs, and brown eyes taking in great big gulps of everything around her. Then she turned back to her book, which, as I walked up to her, I could see was Life of Pi, by Yann Martel.
“The guy lives,” I told her. “But Richard Parker dies.”
Life of Pi is about a shipwreck survivor who ends up floating on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean. He’s stuck there with a giant tiger from the zoo, the tiger being named Richard Parker. The big suspenseful hook of the story is if the guy will survive in the boat, be saved, or be eaten by the tiger. Then he gets to be friends with the tiger, so you wonder if the tiger’s gonna survive. I’d just spoiled the story for this girl.
One side of her mouth curled up. I’m impressed by people who can do one-sided things, like raise one eyebrow. This, on this girl, was even better. She had great lips.
“I know,” she said.
“Oh… I’m, uh, sorry.”
I fumbled for an apology, ironic because she’d just told me I hadn’t ruined her ending. But I’d anticipated that she would be surprised by my comment, not me by hers.
The girl smiled, but turned back to Life of Pi. I felt the full awkward weight of my own body hovering over her. Say something or leave, Finbar. Fight or flight.
“Read it before?” I asked. I was suddenly obnoxiously loud because I was excited by the possibility that she could have read it before. The only thing better than a girl who read books was a girl who read the same book twice. A rereader. This girl could be a rereader!
“What?” When the girl looked up, her short dark hair fell into her eyes.
“Is that why you knew? The end?” I explained.
“I read the last page first,” she whispered, leaning a little toward me. Then she ducked behind her own falling bangs, like she was ashamed of having ruined the ending for herself.
“Unacceptable.” I shook my head. “I’m ashamed of you, Miss…”
Turning her head to get her bangs out of her eyes, the girl flipped the book so it was facedown next to her lunch tray. That was a big move. I’d officially captured her attention more than a shipwreck and a tiger.
“Gallatin,” she said. “Kate Gallatin.”
Then she placed her hand on the place beside her at the table. And I sat down, as simple as that. Well, first I put my backpack down in an awkward place on the ground, and it blocked the back legs of the chair, so I tried to pull the chair out but failed, so then I moved my backpack, but my legs were in the way of the chair, so I stepped to the side, pulled out the chair, and then sat down. But basically, I sat down.
“I’m Finbar,” I said. “I’m, uh, new.”
Glamouring is very difficult with a gorgeous girl. I narrowed my eyebrows as I locked eyes with Kate for the first time, but then Ashley Milano’s comment about me looking down her shirt popped into