Isn't She Lovely (3 page)

I force a smile. “I guess something opened up.”

Big blue eyes roll. “I’m sure. Anyway, I’ll check out that website tonight. I’ll figure out the easiest theme to work with, and I can email you the game plan.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I hold up a hand. “I get no say? Because I’m pretty sure this is a group project.”

She leans forward, looking all fierce and scary and weird. “Do you know what a ditty bag is used for?”

I choke out a laugh, my eyes inadvertently dropping to her chest. “That’s a thing?”

She doesn’t even crack a smile. “It’s for hauling around camera equipment on set. And can you name even one Hitchcock film? Do you know what a key grip is?”

Shit
. Of all the possible partners, I get a pit bull puppy.

“Okay, look, you caught me,” I say, raising my hands. “This isn’t my thing. But I do have a four-point-oh GPA, and I’d like to keep it that way. And how do I know you won’t go rogue on this project and turn in our screenplay with a dead bird smashed on the front?”

By now I’m done expecting a laugh from this girl, but she surprises me, letting out a little giggle that reminds me of a rainbow escaping from a mud puddle.

The laugh fades as quickly as it appeared, but she leans back in her chair, and she seems to have relaxed a little. “Look, I promise not to screw it up, okay? Screenplay writing’s not my focus, but I know my way around a script and I get pretty decent grades myself. And I wouldn’t hand in a dead bird on a school project.”

“Good to know,” I mutter.

“I never take my dead bird collection out from under the bed.”

This time it’s me who’s caught off guard, and I laugh, but she’s already moving on to a lecture about what the assignment will be, based on the course description in the NYU brochure. Yeah. Because
everybody
reads those.

I dutifully try to pay attention as she rambles on about how once she figures out our narrative focus, we’re supposed to come up with modern cinematic examples.

As I listen to her babble, I try not to stare at her boobs, absently wondering why all these film geeks are lurking around in New York City instead of invading Hollywood. Not that I can picture this little gremlin in Southern California, but she obviously knows her way around the world of movies.

“Your backpack’s buzzing,” I say, gently kicking her bag and interrupting her tirade about why she thinks
Casablanca
’s overrated.

“Sorry,” she mutters, grabbing the bag and digging around for her phone. Why she doesn’t utilize the front pocket of the bag is beyond me.

I’ve never understood why the girls in my life make everything needlessly difficult. With Olivia, practicality ranked somewhere between monster truck shows and fishing on her priority list. Her car keys were always in the bottom of her purse, never the side pocket. She never could tie back her hair when it was windy. An umbrella on a rainy day? Forget it. And apparently this is a trait shared by Park Avenue princesses and whatever graveyard this girl clawed her way out of, because Stephanie’s still digging for her phone.

I mean, it’s not as though I expect them to carry around flares and a Swiss Army knife on their belt or anything, but sometimes it’s like chicks go out of their way to be unprepared.

“Hello?” Stephanie finally finds her phone and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear as she listens to whoever’s on the other end. I notice that she has like five earrings, and for some reason I find it kind of hot. Olivia only ever wore the pearls that I got her for high school graduation.

I realize that Stephanie’s doing a lot more listening than talking, and I tear my eyes away from her ear long enough to see that she looks distraught.

“It’s no biggie,” she says finally to the person on the other end. “I have until the end of the week before I have to be out of campus housing. I’ll find something before then.”

“Everything okay?” I ask as she drops her phone back into the bag. The
bottom
of her bag.

She shrugs. “That was my cousin. I was supposed to be subletting her apartment for next to nothing while she went home to Arizona, but her plans there changed, so she’s staying in town.”

It takes me a second to comprehend what she’s saying because her tank top’s slipped down a little bit, and I’m not a pervy lecher, but
damn
…

“What are you going to do?” I ask.

She stares out the window for a second, and I’m expecting her to look a little annoyed or worried, but instead she looks totally resigned to the shit card she’s just been dealt. As though she doesn’t deserve any better.

“I’ll see if I can crash with David, I guess. At least he lives close to campus.”

“Who’s David?”

“My ex.”

I squint at her profile as I try to put the pieces together. “Wait, the guy you caught exploring a dodgy vagina?”

“That’s the one.”

She says it in this flat,
whatever
voice that totally bums me out, and I almost open my mouth to offer something stupid, but that haunted look on her face stops me. I have no use for new girls in my life at the moment, especially weird ones. Nobody’s ever accused me of being
the sensitive type, and I’m not going to start now. I’ve got my own shit to figure out.

“That sucks,” I say, pushing my gross drink toward her as though it’s supposed to be consolation to a girl who’s probably a vegan or some crap like that.

Stephanie gives an apathetic shrug. “Pretty much par for the course, actually.”

Huh.

Maybe somebody else’s life
does
suck worse than mine.

Chapter Three

Stephanie

I’m not what you’d call a girl’s girl. Like, at all.

I used to be.

I used to have
vitally
important debates with my friends about whether we should paint our nails blue to match our cheerleading uniforms or yellow because we read in some magazine that it was that season’s “it” color.

I used to pay attention to brands of lip gloss, whether my lingerie matched, and pedicures. When my mom told me that lime green wasn’t my color, I listened, and when I found that my best friend had a crush on the boy I secretly liked, I backed off simply because that was the girl code. I used to know who’d be at every party, and would plan my outfit accordingly … a month in advance.

In other words, I was your typical teenage nightmare.

That was before my whole world went to shit. But now?

Now I find female friends suffocating and interfering. They ask too many questions and demand too many answers.

And parties? Parties are my personal version of hell.

But I do make exceptions. Both on the friend front and the party front.

Jordan Crawford would never admit it, but NYU was never her dream the way it was mine. I mean, sure, it was on her list of schools when we used to sit around eating ice cream and talking about life after high school. But I don’t know that it would have even been on her radar if I hadn’t been so dead set on New York. Although back then it wasn’t about film school. It was about the bright lights and the high heels and the fact that people in New York were
doing
stuff.

And New York was big. When you grow up in the smallest state in the country,
big
can feel really important.

Anyway, Jordan and I have never really talked about why she came to NYU. But senior year of high school, after my mom was gone and Caleb was out of the picture … Well, all of a sudden Jordan was going to NYU with me. Just like that.

Which is not to say we’re in each other’s back pocket or anything. When I miraculously got into Tisch School of the Arts, Jordan merely said “Yikes” and showed me her pamphlet for
NYU’s Carter Journalism Institute. She wants to be a sportscaster someday. It sounds awful to me, but Jordan will totally rock it. She’s got that classic just-one-of-those-guys charm, but without
looking
like one of the guys. Basically, she’s every dude’s dream girl.

“Are you
sure
you don’t want me to see if there’s an extra room at the sorority house this summer?” she asks, linking her elbow with mine.

I give her a look. The one that says,
Do I look like I belong in a sorority house?

She acknowledges the validity of my silent point with a long sigh. “I can’t believe that between the two of us, we can’t find a single alternative housing arrangement for you for the summer.”

“
I
can believe it. My social circle’s more like a social
dot
.”

Her glossy lips press together for several seconds, which I’m able to translate perfectly since we’ve been friends since eighth grade:
You
used
to have a social circle
.

“Well, I’ll ask around at the party tonight,” she says. “We have three days before you have to be out of campus housing. We’ll find something.”

“Okay, so about this party,” I say, feeling the familiar tug of dread. “You’re
sure
it’s just a small get-together?”

She stays silent, and I groan. “Jordan. This is a Greek party, isn’t it?”

Jordan gives me a guilty smile. “
Please
, Steffie? It’s the last one of the season. Finals are over, summer’s here … Don’t you want a break?”

My stomach has more knots than a chapter of
Moby-Dick
. “You
know
why I don’t go to big parties.”

“But I’ll be right there by your side the whole time,” she says, grabbing my hand and giving my fingers a reassuring squeeze. “Just don’t drink anything unless I hand it to you. It’ll be fun. And we haven’t hung out with each other on a Friday night in forever.”

That’s not entirely true. We hang out a fair amount. It’s just always in my dorm room. Usually watching some black-and-white movie with wine. Not frat parties with keg cups and puking sorority girls.

I’m dragging Jordan down, and I know it. She’s always coming onto my turf, playing by my rules. I owe her at least this.

Plus she’s probably right. Maybe I
should
try to get out more. This whole housing crisis has made me painfully aware of how few friends I have. Hell, how few
acquaintances
I have. Maybe this stupid party will be the first step in avoiding a future of living on canned beans and having a thousand cats.

There’s some Greek symbol on the door of the thumping house, but I have no idea what it means … guys, girls, whatever.

But the smell is painfully familiar. Booze, sweat, too much cologne.

I take a deep breath through my mouth and try to block out the memories.
You can do this
.

Jordan is immediately mobbed by a pack of squealing girls who largely ignore me, despite the fact that Jordan’s still holding my hand. It’s cool. I don’t belong. I get it.

I pull my hand away gently and she gives me a questioning look, which I return with a quick smile:
I’m good
.

And I am. Because I’ve totally figured out how these parties work. Avoid the keg cups, and you’re good. Pick the
wrong
keg cup, and your life is turned upside down.

I walk past a handful of couples making out and ignore the way a group of guys in the corner ogle my boobs. The kitchen’s even worse. It’s a shit show of bottles, kegs, and pitchers of some neon liquid.

I move on. Although I don’t know what I’m looking for, really. A quiet corner to stand in, I guess. A tall redheaded girl who looks sort of familiar spots me and gives me a wide smile. “Hey, Steffie! Can I get you a drink?”

Steffie
. I hate that name. I only allow Jordan to call me that for old times’ sake, but apparently some of her friends have picked it up, and I can’t think of a way to correct this girl without sounding like a total bitch. And at least this one acknowledges me.

“I’m good,” I say, giving what I hope is a friendly smile as I move on.

I mentally scold myself as I walk away. That could have been the opening I needed to start a conversation and maybe see if she knows somebody who knows somebody who’s looking for a roommate for the summer. But my knack for small talk evaporated a long time ago, and now nobody is even looking at me, much less talking to me.

I have to turn sideways to slide along the crowded hall leading to what I hope’s a living room, or maybe a side door or even just a giant hole in the ground that will swallow me up and get me the hell out of here.

I’m almost through the hallway when one of the meatheaded dudes in front of me stops suddenly and lifts his hand to give his friend a high five. He inadvertently catches my chin with his elbow as it goes up.

“
Shit!
” he says, looking down at me. “Shit, my bad—”

His voice breaks off, and I forget all about the fact that my teeth are still rattling. It’s
him
.

“Ethan Price,” I say, gingerly rubbing at my jaw. “How is it that I’ve made it through three years as an undergrad without seeing you, and now I can’t even go a week?”

I wait expectantly for one of those glib comebacks that seem to roll off his tongue like witty diarrhea, but all I get is an awkward silence.