Rules for Being a Girl - Candace Bushnell Page 0,8
chest underneath my sweater, glancing over at the baristas behind the counter and wondering idly if they think Bex and I are on a date. And like, obviously I don’t think we’re on a date—he’s my teacher, and he’s like thirty years old—but as we sit here I can imagine dating someone like him. Someone who cares about what new plays are workshopping in Boston. Someone who knows the name of the Speaker of the House.
I drink my coffee slowly on purpose, both in an attempt to keep Bex talking and because my hands are starting to shake from all the caffeine. Out the window it’s beginning to get dark. I know I should probably get back to the tournament, but part of me feels like I could hang out in this Starbucks all night. That’s when Bex’s phone dings in his pocket.
“Holy sh . . . ,” he says when he looks at it, glancing at me and trailing off before completing the swear. “Is it really after four o’clock? How did that happen?”
I shake my head. “I’m sorry,” I say, though I’m not really. “I distracted you. You didn’t get any writing done.”
Bex shrugs. “Let’s be real,” he admits, “I probably wasn’t going to get any writing done anyway.” Then he grins. “Besides, the conversation was worth it.”
He stands up and slings his messenger bag over his shoulder, lifts his empty cup in a salute. “Enjoy the rest of the weekend,” he says with an easy smile. “And send that admission essay off before you come into my class on Monday. Noodling time is officially over.”
“I will,” I promise. I watch his back until Bex disappears into the crowd outside.
Four
My dad makes a double batch of chicken noodle soup for dinner on Sunday night, so on Monday after school I head over to Sunrise Senior Living to drop a container of it off for Gram. I know most people think nursing homes are totally creepy, and I guess they’re not wrong, but I’ve been coming here for so long at this point that the bleachy smell and occasional confused, wandering person don’t really bother me that much.
“I mean,” I pointed out to my mom the last time the two of us came to visit together, “depending on your perspective, it’s not actually that different from high school.”
I check in at reception before climbing the stairs in the atrium and waving hello to Camille, the nurse supervisor on Gram’s floor. She’s wearing scrubs printed with wildflowers and a pair of bright green Crocs. Camille has scrubs in a riot of different patterns and Crocs in every color of the rainbow; she’s wearing a different combination every time I see her, mixing and matching like she’s a walking, talking paper doll.
“Hey, Marin,” she says, tilting the plastic tub of cat-shaped Trader Joe’s cookies on the counter in my direction. “All those college apps submitted?”
“Yup,” I reply, reaching for a cookie. I took Bex’s advice and hit send over the weekend, dorkily emboldened by his pep talk. “They’re all in.”
“And you’re going to bring me a T-shirt when you get into Brown, right?”
“A T-shirt, a pennant,” I promise her. “One of those big blankets you’re supposed to use at football games, maybe.”
“See now, you’re making fun, but I’m gonna hold you to it.” Camille grins. “Go on in, honey.”
Gram’s door is propped halfway with a doorstop shaped like a Boston terrier, but I knock lightly to give her some warning before easing it all the way open.
“Hey, Gram.”
When she first moved into Sunrise back when I was in middle school, Gram still had way more good days than bad days, starting a little rose garden at the back of the building and organizing pinochle tournaments in the rec room. It’s about fifty-fifty now; she always remembers me, but according to my mom and Camille it’s better not to startle her.
“There she is!” Gram says with a smile, setting her book—a thick, slightly grisly looking mystery—down on the side table. Gram has been a member of the Book of the Month Club since the seventies, and everybody says I get my book-nerd genes from her. “Come here, you.”
I bend down to wrap my arms around her narrow shoulders, careful. Gram’s always been thin, but in the last couple of years she’s gotten downright fragile. She says it’s because she doesn’t like the food at Sunrise, so a lot of times Mom and Gracie and I will cook her old recipes—chicken parm, baked