My Most Excellent Year (7 page)

I left Anthony off the list because he was never in the running. Even for a boy, he’s reckless, over-confident, and obvious. In the middle of an already disquieting “pop quiz,” I just
know
he’s going to clear his throat, sneeze, or cough—all to get me to turn around and look at him. (As if I would ever look at him.) Then he “just happened” to join the Young Democrats Club when he found out I’d been accepted, though all he does for sixty minutes is search for opportunities to challenge me on the subject of your parasitic
brother-in-law, intentionally forgetting that it was President Kennedy who saved us from nuclear extinction in 1962. All Bobby did was whine. Am I right?

He also follows me around after school on days when he’s not playing baseball with some of the neighborhood children in Amory Park (second base, prone to make errors on infield hits, not a bad swing but not exactly all-star either, and I can’t help it if Amory Park is on my way home). So I copied a page from the Cambridge Dictionary of American English and left it on his desk.

Two hours later, he left me a page of his own.

“Usually armed.” His only weapons are a Red Sox keychain and an insidious persistence that would have made your professionally irritating brother-in-law look like a novice.

I don’t see why he can’t take a hint. Surely he’d be happier with one of the other girls in our class. Kathy Fine, for instance. Although
she hasn’t stopped talking since Labor Day, she seems to have a genuine flair for attracting boys. I’m certain she’d appreciate how Anthony blushes so vulnerably when his voice cracks and how his hair overlaps the neck of his cotton sweatshirt in a way that makes you wonder which is softer. Why does he think
I
would care?

Fondly,

Alejandra

Dear Jacqueline,

I’m not cut out for Covert Operations. Were you? I leave the house on Saturday mornings with a French book in my hand, a craving for all things Gallic written across my face—and tights, a leotard, and a towel hidden in a $750 Gucci backpack that I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing otherwise. (There’s a darling little retro bag made out of brown and tan canvas that’s on sale for $12.99 at the Downtown Crossing Gap—but when I suggested it to Papa, he acted as though I’d just asked him if I could walk to school naked.) By the time I reach the Lycée, I feel like an advertisement for a youth reformatory. There was a police car parked in front of the building this morning, and until I realized it belonged to the crossing guard, I was all ready to turn myself in. I don’t do guilt well.

But oh, my God, what difference could it possibly make when you’re standing in front of a mirror and barre with eleven other kids and Benny Goodman coming through the speakers, and you don’t even recognize yourself anymore?

“Pivot turn, Alejandra. Good!” I’m no longer an ambassador’s quarrelsome child, I’m not my brother’s obnoxious little sister, and I’m not ninth grade’s most famous prig. I’m the first girl in the second row in the third scene in the fourth number in fifth position at ten o’clock on the nose. Nothing less. I can’t imagine anything half so intoxicating, especially when Mrs. Salabes shows us a four-part combination—including an arabesque—and I’m the only one who gets it right. The first time!! Did you ever take modern dance at Miss Porter’s? Did you know that your body can say more with eight bars of music than you could possibly write in a fifteen-page essay?? I don’t need Gwen Verdon or Chita Rivera
after all. I’d settle for being a chorus gypsy the rest of my life.

(I’m not quite as optimistic about my voice. So far all they’ve done is take me up and down the scales to see how far they can push it, which I really don’t think is a good idea. Whenever we slide above high C, I get a little nervous. There was an E that technically should have broken a window on the other side of the room. I hope they know what they’re doing.)

By the time I met Augie on the sidewalk after class, I’d changed back into the Other Alejandra, but I still had to explain why I was out of breath and sweaty. So I told him we’d spent an hour learning French aerobics. One day he’ll forgive me. He and his brother are too close to keep secrets from each other. Including mine.

P
RODUCTION
M
EETING

Participants
: Alé and Augie

Location
: The Word Shop Café and Bakery

Conference Room
: Rear Booth

I’ve never met anybody like Augie Hwong in my life. By 11:30 in the morning on my first day of school, I’d been written off by an entire classroom as a nose-in-the-air name-dropper who had no place on the ninth grade A-list. Then Augie grabbed my arm in the cafeteria line and insisted that it would ruin his adolescence if I didn’t have lunch with him. At first I thought he was mocking me (that’s the way it usually starts), but he was quite serious. It turned out that he had an entire roster of celebrity names that he needed to run through in the event I knew any of them personally—and over an inedible dessert of cling peaches, we finally discovered common ground. Who else but Augie would light up to learn that Judi Dench wears pantsuits to opening night parties? Who else would
care
? Which is probably why I surprised myself by revealing a few things that I’d never told another breathing soul before. Me, of all people.

“Whenever my father went overseas, I always thought it was because I’d done something shameful again.”

“Ouch. Did you really piss off Korea?”

“Yes. I was awful.”

“No. You were Elizabeth Taylor in
Giant
.”

He’s truly extraordinary.

He’s also twice as pretty as I could ever hope to be. It isn’t just the exquisitely shaped almond eyes or the hazel sunburst that hides behind them until he smiles; it’s the way his entire face absorbs life whenever you say something that delights him. One thing is certain: The boy who gets to kiss him for the first time is never going to be the same again.

But Anthony was right (a sorry yet inevitable conclusion). Augie was only operating at 75 percent this afternoon. He gave in too quickly on the Mylar mirrors, he only had one cup of cocoa instead of his usual two-plus-half-of-mine, he said, “No, thank you,” when Phyllis offered to slip him an advance copy of the Thelma Ritter biography, and he misquoted Bette Davis in
All About Eve
. Something was
definitely
on his mind.

“Are you all right?” I asked, interrupting him in the middle of yet another defensive argument.

“I’m fine,” he insisted.

“Hey,” said a third voice. We both looked up at the same time. It was that curly-haired boy Andy Wexler—the one who needs help with his soccer kick.

“Hey,” mumbled Augie, inexplicably staring down at the tabletop.
Is he blushing?!

“How goes it?”

“’Kay. You?”

“’Kay. See ya.”

“See ya.” Augie watched intently while Andy moved over to the counter and sat down on one of the stools—glancing back over his shoulder as he did it and nearly landing on the floor.