stupid growth spurt – drops it back into my bag. And then she’s gone.
I throw the bag at her vacated space and crawl into bed. I wrap both of my arms around one of Kurt’s. “You have to go with me,” I say. “To the café. Tonight.”
His eyebrows furrow into their familiar V shape. “You think Josh is a regular?”
“Maybe.” I have no reason to think this. I just want him to be a regular. “Please, I have to explain myself.”
His shoulders shrug against me. “Then I’ll find the Right Way.”
Kurt likes routine, and he always likes to know where he’s going ahead of time. He’s obsessed with mapping out the best route to get anywhere…even a café that’s only a few minutes away. He calls these routes the Right Way. The Right Way never involves mass transit, crowded intersections, or streets containing Abercrombie & Fitch-type stores that blast noxious music and/or cologne.
Cartography has fascinated him since he was six, when he discovered The Times Atlas of the World weighing down one of my older sister’s gluey craft projects. The book became an obsession, and Kurt pored over its pages for years, memorizing names and shapes and distances. When we were young, we’d lie on my floor and draw our own maps. Kurt would make these tidy, detailed, to-scale maps of our neighbourhood while I’d create England-shaped islands with Old English-sounding names. They’d have dense woods and spidery rivers and snowcapped peaks, and I’d surround them with shark triangles and sea-monster arches. It drove Kurt crazy that I wouldn’t draw anything real.
I’ve known him for ever. Our mothers are also best friends – and they’re both Frenchwomen living in New York – so he’s just…always been around. We went to the same schools in Manhattan, and now we attend the same high school in Paris. He’s thirteen months younger than me, so there was only one year when we were apart – when he was in eighth grade, and I was a freshman. Neither of us likes to think about that year.
I blow a lock of his scruffy blond hair from my face. “You don’t think…”
“You’re gonna have to finish that sentence.”
“It’s just…Josh and I talked. I remember feeling happy. You don’t think it’s possible that last night was…not some embarrassing mishap, but…my way in?”
He frowns again. “Your way into what?”
Kurt isn’t good at filling in blanks. And even though he’s always known how I feel about Josh, I still hesitate before saying it aloud. This tiny, flickering hope. “A relationship. Kismet, you know?”
“Fate doesn’t exist.” He gives me a dismissive huff. “Catalogue last night as another embarrassing mishap. It’s been a while since you’ve had one,” he adds.
“Almost a year.” I sigh. “Right on schedule.”
Josh and I have had exactly one meaningful interaction per year, none of which have left me looking desirable. When we were freshmen, Josh saw me reading Joann Sfar in the cafeteria. He was excited to find someone else interested in European comics, so he began asking me this rapid string of questions, but I was too overwhelmed to reply. I could only gape at him in silence. He gave me a weird look and then left.
When we were sophomores, our English teacher partnered us up for a fake newspaper article. I was so nervous that I couldn’t stop tapping my pen. And then it slipped from my grasp. And then it flew into his forehead.
When we were juniors, I caught him and his girlfriend making out in an elevator. It wasn’t even at school. It was inside BHV, this massive department store. I bumbled an unintelligible hello, let the doors close, and took the stairs.
“But,” I persist, “I have a reason to talk to him now. You don’t think there’s any chance that it might lead to something?”
“Since when is human behaviour reasonable?”
“Come on.” I widen my eyes like an innocent doe. “Can’t you pretend with me? Even for a second?”
“I don’t see
I throw the bag at her vacated space and crawl into bed. I wrap both of my arms around one of Kurt’s. “You have to go with me,” I say. “To the café. Tonight.”
His eyebrows furrow into their familiar V shape. “You think Josh is a regular?”
“Maybe.” I have no reason to think this. I just want him to be a regular. “Please, I have to explain myself.”
His shoulders shrug against me. “Then I’ll find the Right Way.”
Kurt likes routine, and he always likes to know where he’s going ahead of time. He’s obsessed with mapping out the best route to get anywhere…even a café that’s only a few minutes away. He calls these routes the Right Way. The Right Way never involves mass transit, crowded intersections, or streets containing Abercrombie & Fitch-type stores that blast noxious music and/or cologne.
Cartography has fascinated him since he was six, when he discovered The Times Atlas of the World weighing down one of my older sister’s gluey craft projects. The book became an obsession, and Kurt pored over its pages for years, memorizing names and shapes and distances. When we were young, we’d lie on my floor and draw our own maps. Kurt would make these tidy, detailed, to-scale maps of our neighbourhood while I’d create England-shaped islands with Old English-sounding names. They’d have dense woods and spidery rivers and snowcapped peaks, and I’d surround them with shark triangles and sea-monster arches. It drove Kurt crazy that I wouldn’t draw anything real.
I’ve known him for ever. Our mothers are also best friends – and they’re both Frenchwomen living in New York – so he’s just…always been around. We went to the same schools in Manhattan, and now we attend the same high school in Paris. He’s thirteen months younger than me, so there was only one year when we were apart – when he was in eighth grade, and I was a freshman. Neither of us likes to think about that year.
I blow a lock of his scruffy blond hair from my face. “You don’t think…”
“You’re gonna have to finish that sentence.”
“It’s just…Josh and I talked. I remember feeling happy. You don’t think it’s possible that last night was…not some embarrassing mishap, but…my way in?”
He frowns again. “Your way into what?”
Kurt isn’t good at filling in blanks. And even though he’s always known how I feel about Josh, I still hesitate before saying it aloud. This tiny, flickering hope. “A relationship. Kismet, you know?”
“Fate doesn’t exist.” He gives me a dismissive huff. “Catalogue last night as another embarrassing mishap. It’s been a while since you’ve had one,” he adds.
“Almost a year.” I sigh. “Right on schedule.”
Josh and I have had exactly one meaningful interaction per year, none of which have left me looking desirable. When we were freshmen, Josh saw me reading Joann Sfar in the cafeteria. He was excited to find someone else interested in European comics, so he began asking me this rapid string of questions, but I was too overwhelmed to reply. I could only gape at him in silence. He gave me a weird look and then left.
When we were sophomores, our English teacher partnered us up for a fake newspaper article. I was so nervous that I couldn’t stop tapping my pen. And then it slipped from my grasp. And then it flew into his forehead.
When we were juniors, I caught him and his girlfriend making out in an elevator. It wasn’t even at school. It was inside BHV, this massive department store. I bumbled an unintelligible hello, let the doors close, and took the stairs.
“But,” I persist, “I have a reason to talk to him now. You don’t think there’s any chance that it might lead to something?”
“Since when is human behaviour reasonable?”
“Come on.” I widen my eyes like an innocent doe. “Can’t you pretend with me? Even for a second?”
“I don’t see
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