This Is My Brain on Boys (10 page)

Then she dumped her tray and left without another word.

The girls were sitting on the grass in a circle when Addie arrived way late because she'd had to stop off at the dorm to pick up a notebook.

“Yay, it's Spike!” Emma said. The other girls broke out in applause since, thanks to her, they'd beaten the boys at volleyball the day before.

Being hailed as a hero, especially for athletic prowess, was an entirely foreign experience—and strangely gratifying. Academic achievement was a solitary endeavor. Getting all As on your report card didn't earn you high fives from your fellow students. Even when she and Dex won praise for their lab reports, it still felt lonely, since
he inevitably took all the credit.

But yesterday she'd been part of a team, and now the team rallied around her. It was warm and welcoming.

She took a seat next to Mindy, who asked, “Is it allowed to hit a ball into someone's head? At home, that would be illegal.”

“That's only if you reach across the net,” Fiona said. “And she didn't do that.”

The truth was, Addie couldn't remember if she'd reached across the net when she jumped up to hit the ball. All she could recall was being overcome with rage when she heard the words in Kris's mouth.

“We were talking about the dance on Saturday,” Tess said from the opposite side of the circle, where she was sitting between a glum Tay and Bree. “The theme is A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Shreya asked if it was a costume party. It's not. You can dress up, dress down. It's all good.”

Mindy raised her hand. “But isn't the dance on the day we're going to Harvard?”

Tess shifted uncomfortably. “We'll be back from our field trip by then. You'll have plenty of time to get ready.”

“I was thinking of staying over.” Mindy pointed to Fiona. “I mean, both of us. We're leaving for Chicago the next morning. We'll be closer to the airport.”

Tess shot Addie a knowing look. “Maybe we should
talk about that later. The administration hasn't said anything to me about this.”

“Really?” Zuri asked with a giggle. “That's a surprise.”

Tess craned her neck. “Do you know something I don't?”

“It's okay,” Mindy piped up. “Skip it.”

Fiona said, “You should just tell them. Everyone knows, anyway.”

“This is about the guy, isn't it,” Tess said. “David or whatever.”

Mindy ducked her head and plucked a few blades of grass. “We were going out last year. Then my parents said I couldn't see him because a relationship would hurt my studies. His parents agreed.”

“That's a valid argument,” Addie said. “I follow the same philosophy myself.”

“You probably don't have a boyfriend,” Tay said snarkily. “It would be different if you did.”

Addie thought about this. “Noooo,” she said slowly. “I don't have a boyfriend because I've sworn off boys until after I finish my doctoral thesis. See how that works? Chicken. Egg.”

“But if you
did
have a boyfriend . . . ,” Bree said with a half shrug. “I'm just saying.”

“You do realize what you're ‘just saying' is totally
illogical, right?” Addie said. “I have made a conscious decision to . . .”

A piercing whistle shut them up. Tess took two fingers out of her mouth and said, “Excuse me, ladies. We were talking about Mindy. She's the one with the problem. Let's turn our attention to her. Go on.”

Mindy let out a sigh. “We knew our parents would get suspicious if we went on the same exchange program. So he went to Harvard's summer school and I did this. Our week here is the only chance we'll have to see each other until we graduate.”

“Oh, no,” Tess moaned, massaging her forehead. “This is so not what I wanted to happen.”

But no one else seemed to notice her distress.

“What about at school?” Rachel asked.

“We go to different schools. His is all boys; mine is all girls.”

“That blows,” said Emma. “You two should rendezvous after class.”

Fiona and Mindy stared at each other, puzzled.

“Arrange to meet,” Emma explained. “That's what rendezvous means in French.”

“We know what rendezvous means,” Fiona said. “We don't have time after class. Or before. We start school at eight and finish at five. That's how long our day is. We take one hour for dinner and then study until eleven.
Everyone does at least two hours of work before school.”

“Are you serious?” Tay asked incredulously. “I would tell my parents no way. I have a life, thank you very much.”

“You're lucky,” Mindy said. “You can go to any college you want. We can't go unless we get high marks on the
gaokao
senior year. Three days of testing. Armed guards outside. Even drones overhead to make sure there are no radio signals helping students cheat.”

The group hummed in uniform outrage.

“From what I've read,” Addie offered, “the SATs are nothing in comparison. Girls go on the pill so they don't get their periods. They have ambulances in case students faint.”

Zuri dropped her jaw. “That's a lot of pressure. How do you handle it?”

Mindy shrugged. “No boyfriend.”

The circle erupted in laughter. Addie took advantage of the momentary distraction to send a text. When the reply was a thumbs-up, she said, “We better get to Choose Your Own Adventure before it's too late.”

“Oh, you're right,” Tess said, checking her own watch. “Okay, so who wants to go kayaking?”

Mindy and Fiona raised their hands.

“Ropes course?” Tess asked.

No takers.

“Rock wall?”

“Meh,” said Rachel. “It's too hard.”

“I choose the adventure of going to Thwing, getting an iced coffee, and watching bad TV in lovely air conditioning,” Tay said, turning to Bree. “How about you?”

“Extreme slacking? I'm there.”

They got up and brushed off their shorts. Emma, Shreya, Rachel, and Zuri followed.

Tess threw up her hands. “So much for team building.”

“Look at it this way. They chose their own adventure. It just happened to be on reality TV.” Addie stood and brushed off loose bits of grass. “At least some of them are kayaking. By the way, what are you going to do about the Mindy situation?”

“I have no idea. Hope she comes to her senses? Hope she's too busy to go to Harvard. . . . This?” Tess crossed her fingers.

Addie made a face. “Ah, yes, when all else fails, rely on the power of superstition. While you do that, I'll head back to the lab. That paper on spindle neurons isn't going to read itself.”

H
ow Kris happened to be down at the boat launch that evening was tough to explain.

Later, he would claim that he went to check out the sunset across the bay to the mainland, an obvious lie to anyone who knew that in the beginning of July, the sun set around eight thirty, not seven, which was when he was strolling the beach, skipping stones into the water, watching birds and generally hoping that at any minute Addie Emerson would arrive to go kayaking.

At the sound of footsteps thrumming on the wooden stairs, he spun around a bit too eagerly, only to be disappointed by the appearance of two summer students.

“The kayaks are over here,” said the shorter girl, whose
name, he vaguely recalled from the volleyball game, was Shreya.

“Do we have to sign them out or anything?” asked Emma, the taller of the two, a heck of an athlete.

Shreya emerged from the boathouse holding two life jackets, tossing one to Emma. “There's a sheet inside. I wrote down our names.”

“Okay.” Emma snapped into her jacket and went over to the rack of kayaks, debating the virtues of each.

“Need a hand?” Kris asked, loping across the beach to help.

“I'm trying to figure out if there's a difference. They look the same except for the color.”

“I think they are. Which one do you want?” Kris gravitated toward a yellow boat. “The brighter it is, the better for speedboats to see you.”

“Makes sense. Okay. Thanks.” Emma went inside the boathouse to get paddles while Kris fetched a red one for Shreya.

“They're fairly light,” Kris said, setting hers half on the beach and half in the water. “Just awkward to carry.”

Emma snapped her paddle together and then did the same for Shreya. “We were in the student lounge watching TV and it got really boring. Bree insisted on a reality show about buying a wedding dress with a bunch of screaming brides, so we left. We ran into Tess's boyfriend,
who said it was a perfect time to kayak with the sun setting on the water.”

“You know, I don't think those women say yes to anything,” Shreya said.

“Except a diamond ring,” Emma added, stepping into the boat. “I pity the guys who have to marry them.”

“They're probably just as bad.” Shreya got into hers. “Anyway, there was nothing wrong with the first dress. The one she picked out made her look like an exploded marshmallow.”

Kris offered to give them each a push. Which they accepted. It wasn't until they started paddling off that he had a disturbing thought.

“Hey, you guys do know what you're doing, right?” He was particularly worried about Shreya, who didn't seem to have a clue and was spinning in circles, splashing the water frantically.

“I do,” Emma said. “My parents have a house on Lake Michigan. We go kayaking all the time. I'll show Shreya how.”

“Good!” Shreya said with a laugh. “Because I've never even seen one of these things before.”

He stood on the beach and watched them round the point to the causeway. Then he lay down and closed his eyes in the warm evening light, inhaling the timeless scent of the sea and listening to the purr of motorboats chugging through the channel, the gentle lapping of the bay
water on the shoreline, and the call of seagulls. It was so peaceful here that he didn't realize he'd fallen asleep until someone kicked sand in his face.

“What the . . . ?” He bolted up and shook his head.

Addie loomed over him, hands on hips. “Did you see two girls come by to go kayaking?” she asked, panicked.

“Yeah,” he said, getting up and feeling a twinge of remorse. Dammit. He knew he shouldn't have let them go by themselves.

“How long ago did they leave?”

“Not sure. I think I might have fallen asleep.”

Addie smacked her forehead. “Tess is going to kill me!” She hurried to the boathouse and grabbed two pieces of a paddle and a life jacket. “I didn't think anyone was going to be here. That's why I was at the lab. Then Ed texted me and asked why I wasn't at the beach because he'd . . .”

“Suggested they go kayaking.” Kris already had his own life jacket on and was grabbing a paddle for himself and a kayak for Addie. “It's okay. I'm sure they didn't go far. Here.” He slid hers into the water.

Addie stepped into it. “It doesn't matter how far they went. Shreya's used to swimming pools, not oceans.”

“A fairly significant ocean borders India.” He dumped a green boat on the beach. “They call it the, um,
Indian
Ocean.”

“Ha. Ha.”

Was that a real laugh? Or was she mocking him?

He pushed his boat out, stepped in, and fell right over. He hadn't done that since he was a kid. Total humiliation.

“Not much of a Boy Scout, were you?” Addie asked, swinging around.

“Must be last year's model. I'm used to the newer ones,” he joked.

“You should read
How to Kayak like a Pro
by Walter P. Jinger. He's a former Olympian, you know. That's what I did, and now look!” She speared the water with her paddle. “Knuckles up!”

He was tempted to let it be known he'd spent four summers, including two as a CIT, in an all-boys canoe camp in Canada and probably could paddle circles around Walter P. freaking Jinger or whatever, but they had bigger troubles. Like making sure Shreya hadn't capsized. He got back in his own boat and caught up to Addie with ease.

“We have to get around the point to see the beach on the mainland by the bridge,” he said, taking the lead. “That's where they went.”

They negotiated a rocky outcropping that scraped the bottom of their boats. He had to swing around and extract Addie from a hidden boulder barely underneath the water's surface.

“So, about this experiment I got roped into,” he asked, trying to strike up a conversation, “what's it really about?”

“I told you. It's about how males and females react in certain situations,” Addie answered, coming up next to him.

“Then why did you start off with a staring contest? That doesn't make much sense.”

“I can't explain further.” Her ponytail bounced with each stroke. She was splashing water everywhere, even on him. So much for Walter P. Jinger's expert advice. “A researcher must always be mindful not to cloud the results with her subconscious feelings.”

“Like violent urges to pummel your guinea pig into the ground?”

She dipped the end of her paddle and flung so much water at him, for a second he was blinded.

“Thanks for that,” he said, wiping his face. “More abuse.”

“I told you I was sorry. Stop bringing it up.”

“When did you tell me you were sorry?”

She thought about this. “In my head.”

“Yeah, that's not how you apologize. You actually have to make the words come out of your mouth. Otherwise it doesn't count.”

“Watch out!” Addie shouted as a sleek cigarette boat passed by, heading toward the underpass in the causeway. “I despise those things. They're noise pollutants and regular pollutants.” She pinched her nose at the pungent gasoline scent that permeated the fresh ocean air.

Kris sensed his kayak going backward. Fast. “Whoa. That's one hell of a current. I hope the girls didn't get caught in this.”

“We would have seen them if they had, going out to sea,” Addie said. “Though I guess they could have slipped away while you were asleep.”

He thrust his oar in the water, to counter the force. “Hey, at least I was here. You were across campus in the lab, Ms. PC.”

“Assistant PC, and . . . Kris . . . you better stop that.”

“I can't,” he said, employing deep, efficient strokes to be clear of the current. “I'm almost free.”

Addie, he noticed, was relaxing in her kayak, oars across her knees like they were out for fun instead of desperately searching for two novice boaters who were in way over their heads.

“I'm telling you,” she said in a strange, eerily calm voice. “Get your hands away from the water. It's not safe.”

“What?” He lifted his oar. “Why?”

She pointed to a large gray triangle cutting through the water between them. “It's circling.”

Kris swallowed hard as its sleek body passed like an underwater ghost. The shark was easily as long as his kayak, maybe even longer. A man-eater.

Addie bent over for a closer look. “It's huge. I think it might be a great white. How absolutely fascinating!” Against her own advice, she bent over as if to reach out and
touch the fin, her kayak leaning precipitously to one side.

“Are you crazy? That thing will take your arm off!”

“When else will I get a chance to be this close to a great white?”

“Hopefully never. What's it doing here, anyway? I thought they were way out in the ocean.”

“They've been spotted in Cape Cod Bay, so it is technically possible that one would be in the inlet.” She pulled her hand back reluctantly as the fin disappeared. “They're very intelligent, you know. The assumption is that because their brains are small compared with their body mass that they're stupid. It's merely that their brains have different structures than ours, especially the great white.”

What had he read about sharks? That you had to hit them on the head, hard, to stun their nervous system. He may have loved animals, but there were exceptions, including poisonous snakes, big, ugly spiders, and these guys. On impulse, he smashed his oar into the water, making a terrific splash.

“Don't!” she protested. “You'll hurt her.”

“Exactly. While I distract it, you paddle as fast as you can to shore.” He slapped the water again and this time the shark swerved from Addie's kayak and undulated toward his.

“Be careful!” Addie cried. “She's just lost. She probably came into the bay looking for chum that the fishermen throw off the docks. As an animal rights activist, I'd have
thought you'd be all over this.”

But he had stopped listening because the shark had changed its swimming pattern, darting into his kayak and then out. It reminded Kris of how bats bounce radar off objects to find their way . . . and to find food.

Poor choice of words, that.

Perhaps if he hadn't been so intent on the shark's movements, he would have paid more attention to the roar of a boat engine as it left the channel, zooming across the inlet at full throttle, the girls in the back screaming for him to go faster.

It wasn't until he heard Addie's shouts that he looked up and saw Ed at the wheel of an official Academy Campion, which he realized was the same cigarette boat that had passed them earlier. And in the back, crisscrossing their arms excitedly, were none other than Emma and Shreya, having the time of their lives, their colorful kayaks dragging off the stern.

“They're safe!” Addie yelled.

“Wish I could say the same for us.”

“Go away!” she shouted, waving Ed off. “Shoo!”

Wait. Not go away. Come here! “We need to get on his boat,” Kris hollered over the roar of Ed's engine.

Addie cupped her ear. “Can't hear you.”

Ed obviously took her cue to leave, because he banked hard right, circling back, and setting in motion a chain reaction that, had Addie been sitting, might
have resulted in less of a catastrophe.

Waves.

Kayak wobbling.

Addie's shriek.

Capsize.

Splash.

It happened so fast, Kris didn't hesitate. With four fast strokes, he was by her side as she clung desperately to the hull of her own overturned boat.

“Get in,” he said.

“What about you? It's a one-person kayak.”

“Exactly.” And with that he slid out of his boat, into the water. It was shockingly cold.

“What are you doing?”

“Don't argue. The longer I'm in the water, the faster I'll be dead meat. Get in.”

After a moment's hesitation, she maneuvered from her boat to his as Kris kept both steady by madly treading water. He did not want to think what his dangling legs must look like to a hungry shark.
He hoped not like chum.

Safely in his seat, she said, “I'll help you flip the boat.” But as soon as she reached for it, the kayak slipped out of his hands and floated away.

“Crap!” he swore, swimming freestyle to catch it.

And there, in the corner of his eye, was the fin—headed in his direction.

“Hurry!” Addie screamed.

No, really? he thought, reaching the kayak at last and snagging it with one massive stroke. In order to right it, he would have to duck underneath and push up with all his strength. And he would have to do it fast with the shark on his tail.

He dove into the cold, dark water, reached up, and flipped the thing. Water sloshed in the hull as he hoisted himself up and in, just as the shark slipped by.

Panting, blood pumping, he lay on top of the kayak, never feeling more lucky or grateful in his life. With shaky hands, he released the plug to drain it before the entire thing sank.

“Oh, man,” he mumbled, resting his head on his arms. “That was close.” He envisioned the creature's blind eyes zeroing in on his warm body, sinking its massive teeth into his leg, ripping muscles and veins.

He took a few deep, much-needed breaths and rolled over. Addie was gripping her oars and wearing, to his total confusion, an ear-to-ear smile.

“That,” she announced, barely able to contain herself, “was
very
invigorating!”

“Invigorating?” He coughed out a lungful of seawater and got back in the seat. “That was scary as hell! I nearly got my leg bitten off.”

“But you didn't.”

“I was seconds away.”

“That's what made it so stimulating,” she gushed. “I
could literally feel my zona fasciculata pumping out tons of cortisol.” She giggled hysterically, a truly spontaneous laugh. “I'm still on a high.”

Who was this girl? They'd been seconds away from becoming shark Cheetos and she was having a blast.