Crazy in Love Read Free Page A

coloring, just me. I used to think I was adopted, until I found Grandma Spooner’s diary in the attic of our old house in Boston.  I discovered that before her hair had turned white, it was blazing red, just like mine. After that I was kind of proud of it, as if I were carrying on some hallowed family tradition or something. That was when I decided to let it grow long and crazy, instead of keeping it short in the hopes that it would remain unobtrusive. Now, I wear it halfway down my back.
    Still, even with my famous Spooner coloring, I was no match for the sleek, brown Rachel. By the time she spotted me, I’d decided to start jogging every morning and to investigate those body makeups that made you look as if you just stepped off a plane from Palm Springs. Until someone touches your face and your tan comes off on their fingers, or however that stuff works.
    All that was forgotten very quickly. My soul mate had returned! Rachel dropped her book and her chicken bucket, and we ran toward each other. And there, right on East Seventy-seventh Street, we hugged each other and screeched like wild banshees, oblivious of the passersby who looked at us as if we were strange or, worse yet, obnoxious teenagers.
    “I’m so glad you’re back!” ! screamed. “You don’t know how much I missed you!”
    “Of course I do! I missed you, too!” Rachel answered. Then we screeched for a while longer. After a few minutes, once the novelty of being back together had worn off, we were able to tone it down to mere hysterical giggles. It felt so great having Rachel back.
    I think it was on that day that we vowed to make our last full school year together, before we went off to college, our very best year ever. We made a pact, nothing fancy, just a promise to continue being best friends and to try hard to have as much fun as we could.
    A week later we were back in school. Nothing like a little reality to put you back in your place. It wouldn’t be easy dedicating ourselves to the idea that the whole point of senior year in high school is to have as much fun as possible before being shipped off to college and having to maintain some semblance of mature, responsible adulthood.
    Not when you had as many courses as there are school periods in a day. Rachel was up to her newly pierced ears in language courses, and I’d decided to tackle advanced music theory. Not to mention all the usual requirements: English, history, and my all-time favorite, gym. Fortunately Rachel and I had both finished up our science requirement with our yucky chemistry class.
    You know that feeling that suddenly creeps up on you when you’re back in school in September? You’re sitting in some class or walking down the hall, usually the very first week of classes, minding your own business, when all of a sudden this revelation comes to you. It’s like a vision. There you are, back in school, and you’re bored silly. Here you’d been thinking that going back to school meant seeing all your friends again, and getting new shoes, and hearing all kinds of interesting gossip. And then, whammo, it hits you. “Read The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by Friday.” “Vocabulary test next Wednesday.” “Half your grade will be determined by this term paper... .” Ugh. It always hits me like a baseball in the stomach.
    Even music theory wasn’t pulling me out of my tempo rary slump. It was going to be hard. I was experiencing those back-to-school blues on that first Friday of school when the novelty and excitement had just worn off. I was standing in front of my locker trying to decide which heavy textbooks to lug home. And it hit me. I can remember that I let out a low moan, kind of like the noise cows make.
    I had thought I was all alone, but it turned out that good old Dan Meyer was just about to turn the corner, after having stopped at the water fountain. My crush on Dan had worn off considerably since the year before, when I’d been mooning over him in chemistry. But