Rules for Being a Girl - Candace Bushnell Page 0,15

pick it up, then drop it again before finally getting a grip, Jacob’s name flashing across the screen. We’re supposed to meet a bunch of people at Applebee’s tonight, I remember as I hit the button to answer. I’m supposed to go hang out with all our friends.

“Um, hey,” I manage, hoping I’m just imagining how fake and squeaky my voice sounds. “How was your practice?”

“It was awesome,” Jacob tells me cheerfully, then launches into a long, convoluted story about Joey and Ahmed getting into a fight over whose gym socks were stinking up the locker room that meanders for the better part of five minutes. He’s calling from his car, the blare of the radio audible in the background.

“What about you, huh, babe?” he asks finally. “What are you up to?”

“Um,” I stall, making a million infinitesimal calculations in the space of a couple of seconds. I can picture him so clearly, his hand slung casually over the steering wheel and everything in his life exactly the same as it was two hours ago. “Not much. Just hanging out.”

“You sure?” Jacob asks. “You sound weird.”

“I do?” I don’t know what it means that I’m surprised that he noticed. “Just tired, I guess.”

I can’t decide if I’m hoping he’ll press it or not, but Jacob just hums along, as usual.

“Take a nap,” he suggests cheerfully. “I’m gonna go home and take a shower and then I’ll come pick you up for dinner, okay?”

I glance across my bedroom, catching sight of my own reflection in the full-length mirror on the back of the door—my braid and my uniform, the slightly wild expression on my face.

“Sure,” I say, looking away again. “Sounds great.”

Seven

“Okay,” I say to Chloe the following night, holding my hand out for the bag of Tostitos she’s holding. She came over to my house after our lunch shift at her parents’ restaurant, the two of us sprawled out on the floor in my room. “Can I tell you something weird that happened?”

Chloe bites the corner off one triangle-shaped chip, delicate. “Literally always.”

“No, I know,” I say, rummaging through the bag until I’ve gathered a salty handful. “This is really weird though, not like, ‘Jacob watching those pimple-popping videos’ weird.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Chloe says thoughtfully, “I think those videos are kind of relaxing.”

“Oh my god!” I drop my chips back into the bag. “Ugh, you’re so gross.”

“They are!” Chloe grins. “Okay, okay, go, tell me the weird thing.”

I nod, taking a deep breath and telling myself there’s no reason to be nervous—after all, it’s just Chloe. “Okay,” I say again. “So Bex offered to give me a ride home after school yesterday.”

Chloe’s eyes widen. “He did?”

“Yeah,” I say, “but that’s not the weird part. Or I mean, I guess that’s part of what’s weird, now that I’m saying it out loud, but—” I tilt my head back against the edge of the bed and tell her the rest of the story, ending with the kiss. “I bailed out super hard right after that, obviously. But now I don’t know, like, what to do about it.”

Chloe doesn’t say anything for a moment. When I look over at her she’s breaking a tortilla chip up into a hundred little pieces, arranging them in her lap like a mosaic. “Are you sure?” she finally asks.

I frown. “What do you mean, am I sure? Like, about what happened? Yes, I’m sure. I was there.”

“No, I know, I just mean—” She stops. “Like, are you sure he was actually trying to—like, you didn’t just walk into him, or whatever?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” I snap, although suddenly there’s a tiny part of me that isn’t. I sit up a little straighter. “Do you think I’m making it up?”

“Of course not,” Chloe says, gathering the chip crumbs up off her lap and tossing them into the wastebasket tucked under my desk.

“Really?” I ask. “Because it sounds like maybe—”

“Marin!” Chloe laughs a little then. “Come on. Hey. It’s me. That’s not what I think.”

“But?” I prompt.

“No buts!” Chloe promises. “That’s awful, if he did that. That’s totally gross. Was there like—” She breaks off.

“Was there what?”

“I mean, what exactly happened?” she asks, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. “Like, was it just a grandma kiss? Was there tongue? What?”

I think of his hand on my face, his palm sliding southward. It feels like somehow I’m not explaining this right. “No,” I admit finally. “No tongue.”

“Okay,” Chloe says, sounding relieved. “Well, that’s