Rules for Being a Girl - Candace Bushnell Page 0,39

come up with that theory while I was telling you my life story just now and you were like, reorganizing your sock drawer in your mind?”

“Rude!” I protest, elbowing him in the bicep. I tip my head back, look at the sky.

“Yeah, yeah,” Gray says, dimples flashing. Then he shakes his head.

“Marin,” he says, quiet enough that nobody else on the platform can hear him. “Try me.”

I sigh, and then I just . . . tell him. I tell him everything—about Bex and about how Chloe has been so busy it feels sometimes like she’s avoiding me and about lying to my parents and about the paper and the creeping feeling that somehow all of this is my fault.

“I don’t want to get anybody in trouble,” I finish finally, shivering a little inside my peacoat. “But I also feel like ignoring it hasn’t made it go away so far.”

Gray’s quiet for a long time when I’m finished. Then he shakes his head. “Holy shit, Marin,” he says, and I’m surprised by how angry he sounds. “That dude is a total dick.”

I bark a laugh, so loud and surprising that a woman looks at us curiously from the other side of the platform. All at once I realize it’s what I was expecting Chloe to say when I told her. What I kind of needed for Chloe to say.

“Yeah,” I reply, swallowing down that now-familiar tightness in my throat, that feeling of trying to keep it together. “I guess he kind of is.”

“Not kind of,” Gray says decisively. “A hundred percent.”

I glance down at my boots on the concrete. “Do you think I should tell somebody?”

Gray thinks about that one for a moment. “I have no idea,” he finally says, and he sounds very honest. “I think this is probably one of those times where my mom would say you have to decide what you can live with, which is seriously one of my least favorite mom-isms because it means there’s no right answer.” He shrugs. “But I can tell you I’ll have your back no matter what you decide.”

The train comes rumbling into the station then, fast and noisy. Gray reaches out and takes my hand.

Twenty

I make an appointment to see Mr. DioGuardi during my free period on the Monday before Christmas break, perching on the very edge of his fake-leather visitor’s chair and tucking my hands under my thighs to keep them from shaking. It’s a small office, cluttered: the desk is heaped with file folders. A potted plant droops on the windowsill. There’s a photo of Mr. DioGuardi’s kids on the bookshelf, two college-aged guys with red hair and freckles clowning around at a campsite. A part of me can’t help but wish he had a daughter too.

“Just, ah, give me one more second here,” he says vaguely, holding up a finger and squinting at his computer screen; judging by the beeps and honks the thing has let out in the six minutes I’ve been sitting here, he’s either attempting to hack into a government database or trying unsuccessfully to send an email attachment.

“Take your time,” I say, though the truth is the longer he keeps me waiting the more I feel like I’m about to jump clear out of my skin and take off down the hallway, shedding muscle and viscera in my wake. I breathe in and force myself not to fidget. Calm and quick, I remind myself.

Finally Mr. DioGuardi folds his hands on top of his keyboard, frowning and jerking back as he hits the space bar by mistake. The computer dings in protest, and I bite the inside of my cheek to hold back a nervous giggle.

“So,” he says. “Marin. What can I do for you?”

I take a deep breath. “Well—”

“I’ve been reading your editorials in the paper, by the way,” he tells me, raising his eyebrows in a way that I’m not sure how to interpret, exactly. “I hadn’t realized you had quite so much to say about the gender politics here at Bridgewater.”

“Yeah.” I muster a smile, cheerful and nonthreatening. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about lately, I guess.”

Mr. DioGuardi nods. “So it would seem.” He clears his throat. “Now. What’s on your mind?”

I swallow hard, digging my nails into my nylon-covered knees. “It’s about Mr. Beckett,” I admit.

“Oh?” Mr. DioGuardi’s eyebrows twitch, cautious. “What about him?”

I take a deep breath and keep things as factual as possible, starting with the first day he drove me home and ending with the afternoon