CHAPTER THREE

When I was seven, in science class we did a very basic lesson on the concept of dominant and recessive genes. We learned that the dominant ones express themselves and the recessive ones hide until they meet each other and show themselves. We had to go around to our family members and see who had what genes and then determine which ones we had. It turns out, I am all the recessive genes of my family. I have hazel eyes, have hitchhiker’s thumb, and can roll my Rs. My earlobes are detached and my left cheek has a dimple.

Sometime after I did this worksheet, Sam and I had a fight. Either I stole her bracelet or she ate my last Klondike bar. It was something stupid that we blew out of proportion. She was seventeen and I was seven at the time, so she was responsible for babysitting me after school, something both of us thought was stupid. Whenever we fought, I would find my way to the top of the stairs and I would scream down at her, since on the same level she was nearly two feet taller than me. Eventually we would drift away from what we were fighting about and simply start calling each other names or shouting random insults at each other.

At one point in this particular fight, she asked me if I knew what it meant that I had all the recessive genes. She told me that the dominant genes were stronger and that’s why they showed up more often. She said the recessive genes were weak, that since I had all the weak genes in our family, that meant I was weak. Now I realize that we were just trying to hurt each other and that she didn’t mean it. But back then I didn’t know any better. For a long time I didn’t know any better. She won that fight. I ran up to my room, closed the door, and just stared at myself in the mirror. I stared at all of my recessive traits and wondered if she was right.

I still sometimes think about it—when I’m sitting on the bleachers at school dances while my friends are on the floor either with dates or moving rhythmically with each other in a way that I just can’t; when I mouth the words to songs in the car while my friends manage to always sing on key; and when my friend Abigail runs up to her boyfriend at the end of a swim meet and the first thing she does is kiss him.

As I struggle to run argan oil through my tight damp curls, I stare at my eyes and how they look odd against my dark chestnut-colored skin. I think about how gracefully Sam’s hair falls, how she never gets pimples, how she never scratches her face in her sleep. I think about how Sam is getting ready to be married to the man of her dreams, and the biggest accomplishment of my life is being one of the best swimmers on a high school team.

My cousin Lucas would just tell me that the recessive genes are the ones that wait until they’ve found a worthy host before they show themselves. He’d say that I am the only one in my family worthy of their expression, and for that I am unique. I am special. I try to hold on to that as I get flustered in the middle of my history homework. I try to refocus, and realize that in my annotations on the passage about the War of 1812, I wrote Joey Delmar and Peyton Banks. When I start writing a list of boys’ names in the middle of my English essay, I push my laptop aside and pull out a blank piece of paper. James Palmer. Kyle Richards. Skylar Willoughby. I think of boys I’ve worked on projects with in class, boys from the clubs I’ve been in, and even a few of the single guys on swim team. I write the realistic ones in one column, the potential yeses in a middle column, and the far reaches in a third column. Then I go through the list and try to think of who I would actually want to spend an entire evening with, versus who would annoy me as much as Jasper would, and I highlight in different colors.

It isn’t until my afternoon alarm goes off that I realize I’ve wasted my Sunday trying to find a potential date and haven’t finished half the homework that’s due tomorrow. I haven’t even touched the math team practice problems to review before Thursday’s competition. In my notepad I write a list of what I still have to do, and decide I’ll just have to stay up after movie night to finish.

Every Sunday my friends and I have movie night. The third weekend of the month is always at my house, which means I get to choose what we watch. The new Ted Bundy documentary has been on my mind all week, so I set to work baking sugar cookies and icing them with the various murder weapons he used on his victims. The task helps distract me from Sam’s quest.

“Should I be worried?” Mom asks when she looks over my shoulder. Before I answer, she snags a bloody knife and takes a bite.

“It’s for movie night.”

“And what movie has knives, nooses, saws, and fists?… Seems very dark,” she says, scrunching up her eyebrows at my icing rendition of Ted Bundy’s VW beetle.

“It’s the Ted Bundy documentary,” I tell her, reaching for the gray icing to finish the tires.

She moves around me and sets her gardening bag down on the other side of the island.

She asks “Don’t you want to watch something fun?” above the sound of the water rushing over her soapy hands.

“This is fun. Getting inside the mind of a serial killer.” I quickly make another knife cookie before setting the tray aside and cleaning up.

“It sounds creepy. Didn’t you guys watch—what was it—Serendipity last weekend? Why don’t you pick a movie like that?”

Mom peeks into the fridge and pulls out a bowl of green grapes and a bottle of water. She sits down across from me and starts picking the grapes off one by one and tossing them into her mouth.

Her hair is pulled back in a very messy tangled bun. A few tendrils have fallen and stick to the sweaty sides of her face. There’s even a little dirt still on her nose from the community garden, but as she takes a swig of water, I can tell she’s not aware of it.

“Serendipity is a stupid fictional movie about two people who want the same ugly pair of gloves. A documentary, however, is grounded in reality, and a murder documentary is helpful by teaching us how to not end up like the victims,” I explain. “If you know how to identify a predator, you can also know how to avoid them.”

Mom shakes her head. “Mia, fictional movies aren’t stupid. They help you take your mind off the serial killers and predators. They bring light into your life. You already have to be careful out in the real world, so why not escape sometimes?”

“I don’t want to take my mind off reality,” I challenge. “Serendipity is founded on something as ludicrous as people bumping hands in a department store. Give me a movie about real love, realistic romance, and maybe I’ll think about it.”

Mom opens her mouth to say something else, but thankfully the doorbell rings.

“That would be Grace,” I say, wiping my hands on a towel before gladly leaving the kitchen.

Since she lives down the street, Grace usually comes over before Sloane and Abby. We usually “taste test” whatever I bake for movie night, and then she helps me put out blankets and cushions in the den.

Grace knows me better than anyone else, maybe even better than Sam and my parents. When I was younger, I used to go to Mom and ask her questions like why some of the boys pulled my plaits or why some girls would hog the swings. She would always have something to say about when Sam was my age, and it got old really fast. Even though Grace, Abby, Sloane, and I all met in second grade, Grace and I were in the same homeroom. Instead of talking to my mom about things, I started telling Grace because she was there more than my other friends. Plus, since she also got her flat twists tugged and sometimes had to choose the slide over the swing, our bond stuck and grew a little stronger. We’re closer than I am with my other friends, literally and figuratively. Since she lives around the block, I can walk to her house whenever Sam is driving me crazy. Grace will come to my house any random night of the week to do homework and have an impromptu sleepover.

“So, what’s the movie?” she asks as we each pick up an end of the coffee table.

We shuffle to the side to move it out of the center of the room. Then I reach for the comforter that we spread out on the floor to protect the carpet, and Grace starts grabbing the cushions off the couch.

“It’s a surprise,” I tell her for the third time.

“Okay, but the cookies make it really hard to guess. I feel like I’m shooting in the dark.”

“Well, that’s good, because if you guessed, then it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

We fall silent. I try to focus on spreading out the comforter, but my mind drifts back to the list I was working on. More names come to mind. A couple of guys from gym class, athletic types. Maybe I could ask someone from math team, but if he says no, then it might be awkward when we have long after-school prep sessions and competitions together. There’s also Benjamin Vasquez, captain of the math team. Gosh, if I could go to my sister’s wedding with Ben, that would be awesome. We would look amazing in pictures together. Maybe if I ask him sooner rather than later, he’d want to hang out before the wedding. We could actually have a relationship outside of classroom 132, go to some of the fall festivals downtown, and maybe he’d come to some of my swim meets.

“Are you okay?” Grace asks.

“What?”

“You’ve been messing with the same corner for, like, five minutes,” she tells me. She’s sitting on the couch, all of the cushions already arranged on the floor.

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t seem fine.” She stares at me for a moment, shaking her head.

Grace leans forward and undoes the buckles on her boots. I watch her, looking down, and notice a new scar on her chin. She was probably climbing a wall at school or found a new tree at the park. I’ve never understood her obsession with getting to higher ground.

“I wasn’t ignoring you,” I say, standing up. “I just have a lot on my mind.”

“Like what?” she asks, tossing her boots behind the couch.

Being my best friend means she sees right through me when I try to lie.

I still say “Nothing” anyways.

Grace is the kind of person who doesn’t stick up for herself, but if one of her friends is in trouble, she makes it her personal mission to save them. If I told her that I needed a date to Sam’s wedding, she would probably immediately sacrifice her date. All three of my friends have dates for Sam’s wedding. I saw that they confirmed plus-ones on all their RSVPs. Abby is obviously bringing Victor, her boyfriend of two years, and Sloane has been going on and on about the guy she met at music camp. Grace decided to bring one of her cousins since she’s still not ready to move on from Shelby.

On my way to the kitchen to grab the cookies and Sprite, the front door opens and Sloane and Abby burst in.

“Mia, have you looked at the field hockey picture I texted you? Please tell me you did.” Sloane loses herself to a fit of laughter. “Oh my God, there’s this picture of Katherine Veena where she’s bodychecking this girl, midjump. Her mouth guard is falling out, and the look on her face—” She can’t finish the sentence without doubling over in laughter. I can’t help but smile as she pinches the bridge of her nose, breathless.

“I haven’t checked my phone since I started getting ready for movie night.”

“Sloane, you’re not supposed to send yearbook photos to your friends,” Grace says. Though she admits, “However, it was very funny.”

Abby hangs her coat in the closet by the door while Sloane tosses her shredded jean jacket over by Grace’s shoes before pulling the scrunchie out of her hair so that her braided weave can tumble down from the top of her head.

“Are the purple strands a new addition?” I ask as we all find our usual spots.

I sit in the corner between the couch and the chaise extension. Abby sits between Grace and me, and Sloane lies down on her stomach in front of all of us with her feet tucked under the cushion that we use as a table.

“They are.” Sloane flashes me a smile over her shoulder as she rolls around until her blanket hugs her like a burrito.

“So, what are we watching?” Abby asks through a mouthful of popcorn. She leans forward to look at the cookies and frowns.

I open Netflix and cue up the Ted Bundy documentary.

“I’ve been dying to watch this,” I tell them, grabbing the car cookie.

“I don’t want to watch this,” Abby says, setting down the popcorn. She zips her Sherpa jacket and holds it tighter around her.

“Yeah, this is going to give me nightmares,” Sloane agrees, rolling over to face us.

“Come on. This is interesting.” I look from Sloane to Abby and see that they’re not convinced. I look to Grace last, waiting for her to stand by me, but she just shrugs her shoulders.

“Why can’t we watch something fun? I don’t want to watch a movie about someone who killed a bunch of girls,” Abby says.

“It’s my weekend to pick, and I think this is going to be really good,” I say, even though I can tell it’s a losing battle.

“Movie night rules mandate that if no one wants to watch the chosen movie, we can vote on a new one,” Sloane says, freeing an arm to hold out her hand for the Roku remote.

I relinquish control, knowing I can’t beat all three of them, and watch the TV as she immediately browses the movie section and clicks on the romance genre. How predictable.

“The Holiday is back on Netflix. We could watch that,” Grace notices.

“I’m fine with that,” Sloane says, biting off a piece of a noose cookie.

“Me too,” Abby agrees.

I roll my eyes and pull the plate of cookies into my lap. If they don’t want to watch the documentary, then they don’t deserve the documentary-theme cookies.

Instead of going upstairs to get my laptop, I open my phone and go into my Google Docs, where I was working on my English essay. I start clicking on the links to my sources until I find exactly where I left off. At least I’ll have something to do while my friends hijack my movie night.

“Why are we watching a Christmas movie when Halloween hasn’t even happened yet?” I ask.

“It’s not a Christmas movie. It’s a romantic comedy,” Abby says through the collar of her jacket pulled up to the bridge of her nose.

“Do you know how ridiculous this is?” I ask. “They meet ‘randomly’ through some website where they can stay at each other’s houses. They don’t know each other. One of them could be a thief or a murderer, and the producer is just welcoming this woman into her home to steal her stuff and lie about her departure date.”

“Shhh,” Sloane hisses.

“What’s with you and murder this weekend?” Grace asks.

“Yeah. Anything you want to confess?” Sloane asks, winking at me.

I ignore her and stare down at the open article on biographical literary criticism on my phone.

Just when I allow myself to think the night can’t get any worse, Sam saunters into the den with the stemless wineglass that’s been glued to her hand for the past few weeks.

“Aww, you guys still do your little movie nights?” she asks, sitting on the armrest of the couch. Even though Sam has been going between living at her apartment and spending the night here sometimes, this is the first weekend she’s stayed over during our movie night.

No one answers her, even when she says, “Oh, I know this movie. It’s the one where the girls trade places and they flourish in each other’s lives.”

I laugh, thinking about the similarities between pre-house-swap Amanda Woods and Sam.

“What?” Sam asks.

“Nothing,” I say, not looking up at her.

“Hey, did Mia tell you guys about how she’s playing bachelorette?” Sam asks.

Sloane immediately hits pause, and all three of my friends turn to look up at Sam.

“Go mind your business,” I tell her before she can say more.

“My wedding is my business,” she says, leaning down to poke me between my eyebrows. “She needs a date to my wedding. As of today, her groomsman is no longer attending and she’s desperately in need of a suitor. I thought it would be simple, but this morning she practically threw a tantrum about it, and I don’t know, maybe you guys can help her out?”

“Literally, leave,” I say, staring into her unblinking eyes.

“Literally, grow up,” she says, mocking me. “Just thought I would help you along in your quest,” she lies, standing up. “Enjoy your movie.”

Once Sam is out of the room, Sloane rolls all the way over with her arms still tucked inside the burrito. “Well, that explains it.”

“Explains what?” I ask.

“Why you’re so snarky today,” Grace answers.

“I am not snarky.”

Sloane looks to Abby, who looks to Grace. They all share a glance, and I can tell they’re doing that thing where they talk with their eyes instead of their words. It’s something I’ve never been able to understand, and I hate when they do it in front of me.

“Guys!”

“So, you need a date to the wedding. It’s not a big deal,” Grace says.

“That’s easy for you to say. All of you already have dates. I don’t even know who to ask.”

“Why can’t you go alone?” Sloane asks, wiggling out of her burrito and reaching for a cup of Sprite.

“Because Sam said all of her pictures will be uneven, and Brooke convinced her that I could find a date.”

“That nasty Brooke, believing in you, thinking you’re a hot commodity,” Abby kids, though her sarcasm doesn’t help.

“Brooke’s date is an outline in all of Sam’s planners. She dates someone new nearly every week. Of course she thinks it’s easy to find someone last-minute,” I explain, feeling frustrated.

“Well, even if Brooke doesn’t count, we still believe in you—” Grace starts saying.

“Please don’t say that,” I interrupt. “I don’t want you guys to have to believe. It just goes to show that no one thinks this is going to be easy, and that shows it’s not all in my head.”

I feel a lump rise in my throat as my mind flashes back to the spring fling last year. We all went bowling after the dance, and at one point I was the only one sitting at our lane. Sloane and her date were playing the arcade game where you ride a motorcycle, and she was sitting on the back with her arms wrapped around his chest, in complete bliss. Abby and Victor had snuck off to “use the restroom.” And Grace and Shelby were still together back then. They’d taken an Uber back to Shelby’s house, because her parents had been out of town for the weekend. I was sitting alone, dateless, feeling like a sack of weak genes, reminding myself to smile and give a thumbs-up when Abby winked at me as she walked away arm in arm with Victor, and reminding myself to wave at Sloane when she looked for me over her shoulder at the motorcycle.

The feeling comes to me again as I imagine all my friends slow dancing at Sam’s wedding. Sam and Geoffrey at the center of it all, my parents dancing somewhere close to them. And me, sitting at a table next to Jasper while he plays his Nintendo and mumbles pickup lines to me.

“We don’t think it’s going to be hard for you to find a date! Why don’t we just help you figure out where to start?” Abby asks, her voice soft as she wraps her arm around my shoulder.

“We didn’t mean to make you feel insecure,” Sloane says apologetically.

“Sam meant to,” I mumble against Abby’s shoulder.

No one objects, and I sigh at the realization that it’s possible that Sam wants me to fail so that I’ll have to pose in all the pictures with Geoffrey’s little brother. Instead of her pictures being uneven, they would be comedic, something she can hold over my head for the rest of my life. Then again, comedy isn’t really her thing.

“Why don’t you ask someone from school?” Sloane asks.

“I don’t know. I started making a list, but the more I think about it, the weirder I feel about asking them,” I admit.

“Let’s see the list before you write anyone off,” Grace says, holding out her hand.

I quickly run up to my room and grab the piece of paper I wrote the names on. Back downstairs, I drop the list into Grace’s lap before sitting between Sloane and Abby where they’ve formed a tight circle. They all lean their heads together and read the list.

“No,” Abby murmurs.

“Weirdo,” Sloane says, pointing to a name.

“Douchebag,” Grace whispers.

“Smells bad,” Sloane says.

“Not photogenic,” Abby adds.

I cover my face with my hands.

“What about Ben Vasquez?” I ask.

“No,” all three of them say in unison.

“I veto. You’re not spending your sister’s wedding talking about equations with Ben Vasquez, who is a butthead, by the way,” Abby decides.

“He’s not a butthead,” I say, laughing. My heart starts fluttering just thinking about him. “Also, who uses that word anymore?” Abby sticks her tongue out at me. I picture Ben and me holding the math team trophy from last year’s championship, how our hands were so close, they nearly touched.

Ben Vasquez is the math team captain, a soccer star, and occasional drama club member—when the semester play is one he wants to be in. Generations of his family have attended Vanderbilt University, and he plans to be no exception.

“If Ben goes with me to my sister’s wedding, maybe he’ll have a good enough time that we’ll hang out more and get to know each other and… well…”

I imagine what it would be like to have his arms around my waist and to kiss his pillowy lips.

“Just, no,” Abby cuts in, drawing me out of my blissful Ben bubble. “Next.”

“If not him, then maybe Joey Delmar?” I ask.

“That won’t work,” Sloane says. “There are murmurings in yearbook about him and Cynthia. I think they hooked up at a party a couple of weeks ago and they low-key want to do it again.”

“I think I put Paul Springfield on the list,” I say, grasping at straws.

“The slowest swimmer on the team.” Abby laughs.

Sloane takes the paper out of Grace’s hands and tears it down the middle.

“Hey.” I reach for the papers, but Sloane tears them again and again.

“Maybe the answer isn’t you asking someone from your classes or a club. Maybe you have to meet someone new,” Sloane says.

“Preferably someone hot,” Abby adds.

“I’ve got it.” Grace stands up like she’s about to give a speech. “You should have a meet-cute.” She reaches for the remote and cues up Hitch. She starts fast-forwarding and presses play at the scene where Hitch swoops in to save Sara from some random man flirting with her at a club.

I roll my eyes.

“No, Mia, look. If you bump into someone and have a moment with them, it gives you the perfect opportunity to start a conversation and see where it goes,” Grace explains.

“Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of a meet-cute? If it’s planned and on purpose?” I ask, feeling ridiculous that we’re even entertaining this idea.

“Well, maybe you just need to give yours a little nudge. Like you see a cute guy walking down the hallway, and you accidentally drop your notebook right in front of him—”

“Or you stumble into his arms and he catches you,” Abby cuts in, wrapping her arms around herself theatrically.

“Or maybe you spot a hottie who dropped something and you stop to help him,” Sloane suggests.

“Either way,” Grace continues, “you see a guy, you make an excuse for you two to interact, and whatever happens, happens.”

“That kind of stuff doesn’t just… happen.…” As I say it, watching the meet-cute unfold on the TV, I remember Harold bumping into Gladys this morning, the way he hoisted her out of the pool, and how from that moment forward she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

“Okay, so—let’s say I decide to do this meet-cute thing. Where do I even find the guy? If none of the ones I suggested work?”

“You find someone new in someplace new,” Grace says.

“How about you can’t meet them at school. You have to meet them out in the world. It’ll be more interesting that way,” Sloane suggests, carefully dropping the torn-up pieces of my list into the now empty bowl of popcorn.

“No way. I don’t want to bump into complete strangers. Any one of them could be in a relationship. And what’s worse is that none of us would know anything about them. They could be a weirdo or a creep or something.”

I can picture it now, me dropping my purse on the sidewalk downtown in front of some gorgeous guy. We both bend down to pick it up. Next thing I know, he suggests we stop into a café to get coffee and he leads me down an alley, and I’d never be seen again. Or we’re hanging out at the Art Institute and his girlfriend shows up to throw a slushy in my face.

“We’ll pick the targets,” Abby suggests.

“We’re calling them targets now?”

“We each will pick someone that we know, that you don’t know. We’ll go through social media and figure out the best way for you to ‘bump into’ them, and then bam—you have a meet-cute with someone who isn’t a complete stranger—”

“And they aren’t a boring weirdo,” Sloane adds.

We fall silent.

“Mia, you’re running out of reasons to say no,” Grace says, already smiling at the victory.

I admit that she’s right. I can’t tell if I feel relief or if my stress has just been reallocated to their crazy plot. But even a guy I’ve never met has to be better than Jasper.