TRYING NOT TO FEEL TOO stung that Tri had asked Ashley to dance instead of her, A. A. crept along the side of the wall, avoiding the bodies crashing into one another on the dance floor. Boys were slamming into girls, girls were bouncing off one another. It was total bedlam, and not at all like the genteel mixer that the school had in mind. It was more like a flurry. Everyone blended. She was set to meet laxjock at Huntington Park in a few minutes.
It was weird to think that after months of texting, they would finally be able to meet. What if he wasn’t as cute as she imagined? Or worse, what if he didn’t think she was cute? Or what if he was perfectly nice, but not at all hot like his e-mails and text messages implied? She quickly wrapped a red Hermès scarf around her head while she dodged the flailing bodies of her classmates. She’d come up with the scarf as a way for him to recognize her. She told him she’d be wearing a printed red scarf, and laxjock had said he’d be wearing a black baseball cap.
She finally made it outside the auditorium and slipped out the school’s back door and through the back alley that took her to upper Broadway. The park wasn’t too far away, but she wanted to get there early to scope out the scene. She told herself that whoever laxjock turned out to be, she would stick it out and meet him. She wouldn’t pull a disappearing act, even if he turned out to be a fat, homeschooled loser. Please, don’t turn out to be a fat, homeschooled loser, she prayed.
Huntington Park was one of San Francisco’s beautiful public squares, modeled after similar ones in Paris. When laxjock had suggested meeting there, A. A. had readily agreed. She’d always been fond of the Fountain of the Tortoises, a copy of the famous Roman fountain, which depicted water nymphs and cherubs prancing in the water, and had told him so. He said it was one of his favorite spots in San Francisco as well.
The park hummed with afternoon activities. There were dog walkers holding leashes to packs of dogs, a group of little kids from a nearby day care center at the children’s playground, and several elderly couples sitting on the opposite benches taking in the fresh air.
She fiddled with her scarf and pulled it tightly around her head. She had decided against her customary pigtails, fearing they would make her look too young. As the minutes ticked by, she thought of texting him again but forced herself not to. He would show up, she told herself. A. A. watched the water trickle down from a nymph’s hands into the calm blue pool. She walked over and threw a quarter into the water, an investment in a wish. She was ready to meet the guy who’d made her heart beat ever since sending her that first romantic e-mail.
DO I KNOW U? she’d texted just a few days ago.
MAY-B, he’d replied. I’M CLOSER THAN U THINK.
The setting sun blinded her eyes, and she blinked. When the sunspots faded away, she could see clearly. There was a boy walking toward her.
Her heart thudded so hard in her chest she was sure the punk-rock couple making out in the bushes across the way could hear it.
The boy walking toward her was Dex Bond.
And he was wearing a black baseball cap.