The routine went something like this:
I’d lob the blue ball at the beige wall at the back of the school. “Time for our daily practice,” I’d say.
“And what are the benefits of this daily practice?” Amanda would ask.
“Keeps the mind and senses sharp.”
“Keeps us ready for the rebellion,” Amanda would add. “In case we decide to overthrow the school someday.”
“So we don’t become complacent!” I’d shout happily then we’d begin our call-and-response.
“Number one. No boys.”
“Number two. The uniforms.”
“Number three. No prom.”
“Number four. The way people all think we’re naughty girls.”
“Number five. To being naughty girls!”
Mica laughed out loud at the last one, probably especially because it didn’t quite fit on the list.
“Do you wish you went to a coed school?” she asked.
“Sure, but it is what it is. I’m used to this,” I said.
“So are you seeing anyone outside of school?”
No, but I kind of have a crush on your boyfriend.
“Nope,” I said, and stole a glance at Noah, who sat on the couch across from my mom as she held court, entertaining the hearty and loyal guests with a story—mostly apocryphal—about the time she watched the sun rise while on a rooftop in Istanbul as the locals began their morning prayers. He’d probably heard it before, he probably knew all her stories by heart, but he listened, laughed, and smiled.
He had his five-o’-clock shadow like a 1950s ad exec, and he looked like the kind of man who worked in the shade, who spent his working hours on the phone, talking, negotiating, wooing. He wore pressed black pants and a shirt the shade of raspberry. I wanted to walk over to him, sit down next to him, and touch the cuff of his shirt with my thumb and forefinger.
I returned my focus to Mica. “I’m just too busy with school and stuff.”
She scoffed, and ran her manicured fingers through her hair. “Kennedy, you’re never too busy to date. Let me tell you, when you meet the right guy, you’ll find a way to fit him in.”
“Like Hayes for you?” I asked, and I tried to mask the higher pitch in my voice. I felt like a detective, ferreting out information. I wanted to know how serious Mica and Noah were.
“Well, what’s not to like? He’s hot, sweet, and he’s making a ton of money already. He has to be the one,” Mica said, and I wanted to tackle her. I wanted to shout at Mica to stay away because Noah wasn’t about money. Who cared if he had money? I didn’t need or want a man for money, not then, and not ever. I might be in high school, but I damn well planned on making my own money when I was out of school. I wasn’t going to be dependent on anyone else’s wallet. Besides, love shouldn’t be about what someone made. It should be about how someone made you feel.
“And you love him, right?”
“Of course. Of course I love him,” she added, as if she were reminding herself. I tried not to glare at her.
Noah walked into the kitchen to pour himself another iced tea and to grab a chocolate-chip cookie from a batch I’d made earlier for the party. He bit into a cookie, then rolled his eyes in pleasure. “I might have to take the whole batch when no one’s looking,” he said.
Take them all, I wanted to say, but instead I flashed a small smile.
“I better try one too,” Mica said, and there was a competitive tone, even a territorial one, in the declaration.
Something flamed up in me; a thick plume of jealousy as she draped her arm around him as she ate the cookie. But then, I felt deeply ashamed. I had to stop entertaining a crush on a taken man. I didn’t want to be a thing like my mom, not one bit, not an iota. I told myself the crush was over and no one would ever need to know my schoolgirl daydreams had existed.
I retreated to my upstairs bedroom, turned on my computer, and watched a YouTube video of my favorite Internet comedian speed walking across the Brooklyn Bridge in nothing but a banana-yellow Speedo and black Converse sneakers. It took my mind off the advantage all the Micas in the world would always have on me when it came to the Noahs—age.
A few weeks later, she was absent from the party. Then the next one. Then the next one.
I didn’t say anything about her sudden ejection from his life. I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want to breathe her name. I didn’t want to intervene, to plant a seed, to do any of the things I’d seen my mother do. I needed to be the opposite of my mom. I needed to be quiet, to be good, to keep my hands to myself.
My mom didn’t have the same rules of self-regulation. “I’ll raise a glass to you getting that clingy girl out of your life,” she said to him one night while lifting her nearly drained wineglass. I sat at the kitchen table, studying for one of my final math tests of my junior year. She’d ordered Chinese takeout for the three of us, and we were waiting for it. She and Noah had been reviewing the next season’s plans for her show.
“You never liked her, did you,” Noah said. It was a statement, not a question.
“Well, she practically had “marry me” written all over her face.”
“What’s wrong with marriage, Jewel?” he asked, baiting her.
“I suppose it’s fine for some people, but I don’t think of you as the marrying kind, my dear.”
He laughed deeply. “I didn’t end it with Mica because of that. If she were the right girl, I’d have married her.”