Mismatch Read Free Page A

with one of those killer smiles?
    As they were leaving the sandwich shop, Andy stopped at the door. “There’s a new anime movie starting in the city on Friday. Want to go? I can pick you up at six o’clock. There’ll probably be a long line for the seven o’clock show.”
    Sue pulled her sweater a little tighter. She so desperately wanted to say yes . . . but how would her mom react when Andy showed up on their doorstep? “Uh . . . uh . . . thanks a lot, Andy, but this weekend is kind of busy. I’m afraid . . .” Her voice trailed off. She couldn’t look at him.
    He stared at her. “Sure, no problem,” he said finally.
    He was hurt. Sue wanted to hug him and tell him she was protecting him, not rejecting him. Her mother would say something nasty that would ruin the whole evening. Sue had to figure out how to tell her mother and grandmother about Andy. And she had to do it soon.

2
    A ndy shuffled around his living room in a daze. He had been so positive that Sue liked him. So why had she turned him down when he asked her out? He remembered Sue talking to that Ian guy at lunch, making jokes about their math class. Maybe she liked him better. Andy scowled. What was so funny about math, anyway?
    Then Andy remembered the shy smile that lifted a corner of Sue’s mouth when the two of them talked at Hero’s. He thought of the way her eyes sparkled when they talked about a piece of music they both liked. He thought of the way she had put her hand on his, protectively, when he told her about his stage fright. She cared about him. He and Sue had something going, he was sure. But as soon as he’d invited her to go out with him, she’d gotten weird.
    Andy decided that after school the next day, he would come right out and ask Sue why she couldn’t go out with him.
    All the next day, Andy rehearsed the conversation in his head. He wanted to be sensitive, but he also wanted an honest answer. At the bus stop after school, he saw Sue standing with another girl who looked a bit like her but was prettier—and seemed to know it, too. Maybe it was her sister. What did Sue say her name was? Rochelle, that was it. Andy decided to go up and get introduced.
    When Sue saw him approach, she looked nervous. Before Andy could speak to her, he heard a voice behind him. “Hey, Andy!” It was Laurie Harris, his stand partner in the orchestra. “I don’t see you much after rehearsals anymore. I was hoping to get a little help from you on the Schubert piece. I’m having real trouble with measures fifty-six and fifty-seven, you know?”
    Andy felt guilty. He and Laurie were good friends, and they had even gone out a couple of times. They had never gotten really serious, but they’d stayed on good terms. He often went over hard passages in the music with her. A bus came and went as he stood discussing the music with Laurie. By the time he was finished, he turned around and found that Sue had gone.
    At dinner that night, Andy was still wondering what Sue’s problem was. He was beginning to like her a lot. It wasn’t that she was all that incredible to look at. That girl she was talking with at the bus stop—her sister?—was prettier. Sue was a bit skinny, not rounded out like the other girl. But he liked the curtain of shiny black hair falling over Sue’s cheeks as she sat with bent head, and her sudden smile when she lifted her head and looked up. Her smile was full of mischief, and he knew that they had the same sense of humor. He liked her soft voice. There was a musical lilt to it. She was a nice change from all the loud girls with their shrieking giggles.
    “From your expression, I’m guessing that your practice went well yesterday afternoon,” said Andy’s mother, interrupting his thoughts. “So you aren’t having any trouble with your solos?”
    Andy blinked. He realized that he must have been sitting there beaming like an idiot while he thought about Sue. “Solos? Oh yeah, I’m getting through them pretty well, I