Dear Diary,
My cousin Meg said something once about how at school you have to downplay how much you know, so no one gets annoyed. That’s when I realized there are still people in the world who would think less of a young woman for being a so-called bluestocking, whose nose is always in a book.
You never have to worry about being called a know-it-all among the Porter-Malcolms—especially at Trivia Night.
M.P.M.
I ran back upstairs at the last minute, rethinking my ponytail. It had never occurred to me to take pains with my appearance for Trivia Night, but maybe a less girlish coiffure would help Neill see me as a peer, as opposed to his usual habit of treating me like a semiliterate child.
I yanked open the bathroom door. The rest of the family was ostensibly downstairs and ready to go, which made it that much more startling to find Addie standing in front of the mirror.
She yelped. I seconded the exclamation, hopping into the air for good measure.
“Shhh!” She lowered the hand that had waved me to silence, exposing a thin, curving mustache drawn above her upper lip.
“Um,” I said, staring at that point on her face.
“I know it’s a little on-the-nose.”
“That is not what I was going to say.”
“It helps me get into the mindset.” Addie circled both hands in the air, as though drying her nail polish. A series of words had been inked in ballpoint on her palm.
“For Trivia Night?” I guessed, even though part of me knew that wasn’t the answer. Addie quivered with a strange new energy. I could practically hear the hum rising from her skin, like the time Jasper snuck a two-liter of Mountain Dew at a faculty picnic.
She leaned past me, confirming the emptiness of the hallway before whispering, “Iago.”
It took me a few seconds to put the clues together. “You’re doing Iago?”
She nodded, glancing guiltily at her hand before fixing her gaze on the frayed pink rug underneath the sink. I was missing something. Addie often acted various parts when she and Van were blocking a scene or hashing out their interpretation of a speech. There was no reason to be self-conscious, or shut herself in the bathroom, unless . . . A radical possibility struck me between the eyes.
“You mean for real? In the show?” The twins had turned so snappish of late no one in the family had mustered the courage to ask how Othello was coming along.
“We needed an understudy. Just in case.” Addie considered her reflection. “I doubt anything will come of it.”
Her tone had gone flat, leaving me in the dark about her true feelings. Did she want to strut and fret upon the stage, or was she dreading the possibility? Was this why she’d been so out of sorts lately, especially with Van? Licking the tip of her finger, she rubbed at one end of the mustache. A smear of black spread over her cheek.
A honk sounded from outside.
“You better go,” Addie said.
I hesitated. “What about you?”
She pointed to her face. “I have to wash this off.”
When I slid into the back seat of my parents’ car, Bo made a show of inching toward the middle without actually moving anything but his shoulders. The weather was chilly enough that I didn’t mind the tight squeeze, though had it been Jasper sitting next to me I would have elbowed him out of my territory on principle.
Mom threw the car into reverse. She had donned what Jasper called her game face, ready for the competition. There was just enough room for me to remove the rubber band from my ponytail and shake out my hair. It was too dark to check my reflection in the rearview mirror. I would have to hope the effect wasn’t too slatternly.
“It looks nice,” Bo said, leaning into me as we turned a corner. “You should wear your hair down more often.” I smiled my thanks, ignoring Jasper’s snort.
The parking lot behind Mung’s was packed, a phenomenon unique to Trivia Night. The familiar aroma of bean water, sweating onions, and cumin greeted us as we entered.
“Professor Porter-Malcolm,” Neill said breathlessly, stepping in front of my mother. “And Professor Porter-Malcolm,” he added, acknowledging my father with the exact same degree of deference. Van had once described Neill as an equal opportunity suck-up. “Right this way.”
We followed as he shouldered into the crowd, thrusting and twisting as though hacking a trail through the rainforest. It occurred to me that I could see the top of Neill’s head. Somehow, I hadn’t remembered him being quite so vertically challenged.
Plain wooden tables lined the walls, bordered by matching benches. It wasn’t a candlelight-and-flowers kind of place; the only adornments were gummy bottles of hot sauce and the signs indicating team placement.
“Here we are,” Neill announced, in case we’d lost the ability to read.
Our official team name was Let’s Get Lit. Other sobriquets included Oh, the Humanities!, Psy Fry, and Bougie Nights, the last of which uneasily accomodated both Noreen and Shaggy Doug as well as several other local business owners, including Steve, the ropy-limbed proprietor of Mung’s. Each team was permitted to field five players at a time, with up to four alternates. In later rounds, the bench was occasionally allowed to weigh in on a group question, but for the most part subs (like myself and Neill) were charged with keeping the first-string supplied with green tea and raw pumpkin seeds, and cheering when one of our own scored a point.
My plan, such as it was, consisted of asking Neill a few leading questions between rounds. I’d taken the precaution of writing them down on a sheet of lined paper, which rustled in my front pocket as I sat.
“Smell that?” Jasper asked, as he and Bo claimed the folding chairs on either side of me.
“Lentils?” I guessed.
“Fear. We should set up a Mylanta stand at one of these. Probably make serious bank.”
Jasper was right. Nervous tics were out in full force, from finger twitches to compulsive throat-clearing. Even our parents looked tense, though they visibly relaxed when Cam slid into her spot.
Mom peered past Cam, clearly expecting to see the twins. “Where are your sisters?”
Cam shrugged. “No idea.”
Deep vertical furrows appeared between Mom’s brows. “Then how did you—”
“I caught a ride with a friend.” Cam stared fixedly at the table. I looked where my sister hadn’t, spotting Jeff leaning against the wall with his muscular arms crossed. Fortunately for my sister, Mom had bigger concerns than Cam’s method of transportation. Her fingers fumbled to unfasten her watch, setting it on the table in front of her as though it might read differently from that angle.
Dad squeezed her shoulder. “They must be running late.” While he scanned the crowd, Mom closed her eyes, slowing her breathing to yoga mode. They always took it in turns to panic.
“If you had cell phones, you could call them,” Jasper said helpfully.
“Phones are against the rules,” Neill informed him. “That said, it is rather late.” I couldn’t bring myself to seize the conversational opening. Isn’t it? And by the way, are you seeing anyone?
“Teams, to your tables,” said the announcer. “It’s match time.” There was an immediate flurry of movement. Dr. Pressler had taught in the theater department before her promotion to dean and knew how to command a room.
Mom finished her exhale before opening her eyes. “Mary,” she said calmly, gesturing at the empty spaces where the twins should have been. “Neill.”
Neill was up like a rocket, all but leaping into his seat while I hesitated, casting a last look at the entrance. When the twins did not magically appear, I dropped onto the bench between Cam and Neill, barely registering Bo’s thumbs-up.
“Don’t worry,” Dad said, twinkling at me. “It’s all in good fun.” Cam snorted under her breath.
There was no time to explain that the pressure of the competition was only one of the reasons I’d begun to perspire. Was Addie still talking to herself in the bathroom, perhaps in need of sisterly support? And where was Van? Maybe she was having her own breakdown, in the parallel fashion of twins. Not to mention the absolute impossibility of making chitchat with Neill under these conditions. It would be like holding a tea party on a tightrope.
I rolled my head from one shoulder to the other, trying to stretch some of the tension from my neck. My eyes opened in time to watch Anjuli, seated with her mother and several other members of the psychology department at the Psy Fry table, turn away without acknowledging my existence. Good to know I was still a nonentity. There was nothing like a snubbing from your ex–best friend to warm the cockles of the heart.
“I see you,” Neill whispered, apparently for my ears alone.
I assumed he was referring to my silent standoff with Anjuli. Then he winked.
“I get it.” His tone was even more patronizing than I recalled. “Everything about me screams ‘eligible bachelor.’ I knew one of you would be unable to resist.”
“One of who?”
“You Porter-Malcolm girls. Judging by the way you’ve been staring all night, it’s obvious you’re nursing a tendre for me. Hoping to be the Zelda to my F. Scott, the Vera to my Nabokov. To be honest, I’d hoped it would be one of the blondes. No offense. It’s an aesthetic preference.”
I stared at him, speechless. So much for changing my hairstyle.
“Just try not to get too flustered. I’ll handle the questions.” He nodded at the judges’ table.
“First round,” intoned Dr. Pressler, who also hosted a weekday classical music program on the campus radio station. “Our topic is ‘sailing the seas.’”
Excited whispers crested and then hushed. Trivia Night themes were a closely guarded secret, though heated speculation abounded in the days leading up to the match. Mom and Dad had already started tossing names like Melville and Defoe back and forth, the way athletes jogged in place on the sidelines.
“Question number one.” Dr. Pressler paused to survey the room. “Name three of the four shipwrecked sons from the novel originally published in 1812 as Der Schweizerische Robinson.”
Doug’s hand shot up. “Fritz, Franz, Ernest, and Jack,” he said in a rush.
“Technically I asked for three, not four, but we’ll let it stand,” Dr. Pressler replied. “And of course, the novel in question is better known as The Swiss Family Robinson. The Swiss Family Robinson,” she said a second time, an affectation my parents said she’d picked up from watching too much “Jeopardy.”
At the Psy Fry table, Anjuli rolled her eyes. Ignoring her, I smiled my congratulations at Doug. Unfortunately, he was too busy staring wistfully at Noreen to notice.
“Our second question is about the artist Paul Gauguin.” Smug looks passed among the members of the Humanities team. “Before his more famous sojourn in Tahiti, Gauguin spent time on which island?”
“Martinique!” yelled a young visual arts professor.
“He was on his way home from Panama,” one of his teammates added, not to be outdone.
Mom leaned closer to me. “They’re both up for tenure this year.”
The next question, about the HMS Beagle, went to an emeritus member of the biology faculty, who name-dropped Darwin as though they were personally acquainted. A history professor claimed a question about Sir Francis Drake. Then a brief scuffle broke out between two archaeologists over land versus sea routes and the peopling of the Americas.
“Last question for this round,” Dr. Pressler said loudly, allowing another few seconds for the contretemps to subside. “How many e’s are there in Queequeg?”
“Three,” Mom and Dad shouted in unison, before looking sheepishly at Cam, who was technically the family Melville expert.
“No problem,” she said mildly, sipping her tea. In truth it had been more of a speed question than one of knowledge; I could have answered too, had I not been distracted by the sound of the door opening and the shuffling of feet as several new arrivals squeezed inside.
“It’s Van,” I said eagerly. Neill cursed under his breath. As Van made her way to our table, I waited for Addie to appear behind her. Then I caught a glimpse of cascading ringlets. She’d brought Phoebe to Trivia Night?
“Round one is officially over,” Dr. Pressler announced. “Please complete any substitutions or other team business during the five-minute break.” The timekeeper checked his watch.
“Hey,” said Van. “Sorry we’re late.” I felt my eyebrows lift at the collective pronoun. Maybe it was some kind of cast bonding exercise. “How’s it going so far?” She glanced at the score sheet, nodding at the even spread of points—typical at this stage of the evening. The action always heated up as the evening progressed. Her gaze shifted to Neill. “Thanks for keeping my seat warm.”
What she couldn’t see was that he had his legs wrapped around the base of the table and was holding on for dear life. Removing him would have required the application of both brute force and an industrial-strength lubricant.
“Here.” I extricated myself from the bench, one leg at a time. “Take my spot.” Part of me hoped Van might protest, but she merely patted me on the head before seating herself in my place. Her concern was reserved for Phoebe, whom she pointed to the chair between Bo and Jasper I’d been planning to claim.
“I guess I’ll circulate a little,” I said to no one in particular. Anjuli sniffed pointedly as I passed her table.
The line for refreshments was six or seven deep, but since I wasn’t really thirsty I didn’t mind.
“That was something,” the person behind me said in a confidential tone.
I spun, confirming the impossible: Alex Ritter, at Trivia Night. “Why are you—” I began, before answering my own question. “Phoebe.”
He hmmed an affirmative, gazing across the room at her. “Did you know she was an actual cheerleader, before she discovered her inner artiste?”
It might have sounded like a boast—I’m dating a cheerleader!—if not for the spark of amusement in his eyes. “I . . . did not know that.”
“She keeps it on the down low. One of the many phases of Phoebe. Although that was middle school, so I don’t know if it counts. Before the dance conservatory.”
The offhanded manner in which he relayed these facts seemed to presume that I was either a) already acquainted with the broad strokes of her biography or b) desperate to know more because Phoebe was so incredibly fascinating.
Unless it signified that c) Alex regarded me as a confidante. I hadn’t considered that as a potential consequence of asking him for advice. The prospect should have been alarming, yet I was mostly conscious of a flush of warmth. He could have been talking to anyone but had chosen me.
He nudged me with his elbow. “Let’s hope she doesn’t get fired up and start turning handsprings.”
I looked down, swallowing a laugh. “It’s definitely not that kind of crowd.”
“No joke.” He leaned closer. “These people are scary. I was afraid someone was going to be strangled with their own bow tie.”
“Wait until the third round. It’s a free-for-all.”
“Are we talking Game of Thrones–type stuff here, Merrily? Should I not have worn white?” He batted his lashes, leaving me temporarily at a loss for words. Which was probably for the best, as I might have commented on the fact that for once he wasn’t wearing blue, and that could have given him the impression that I made a study of his wardrobe.
Dr. Pressler clapped her hands. “Please take your seats, everyone. Round two is about to begin.”
The crowd in front of us dispersed, leaving a clear path to the refreshments. I reached for one of the chunky plastic tumblers lined up on the table, then hesitated. “Would you like a drink?” I asked, turning to Alex.
“Just the one. I’m driving.”
I handed him a room-temperature cup, then grabbed another for myself before threading my way through the tables to a vacant spot near the kitchen. To my surprise, Alex followed. Before I could ask why he was trailing me instead of sitting with his inamorata, Dr. Pressler’s voice cut through the chatter.
“The theme for our next round is Sex and Censorship.”
Shaking his head, Alex passed me his drink, placing his freed hands over my ears. “You’re too young to hear this.” We stood that way for a moment, his hands warm against the sides of my face. “You do have curls, you know.” One of his hands shifted so that the thumb brushed my temple. “Right there.”
I twisted out of his grip, afraid he would feel the pounding of my pulse. “Here,” I said, handing his cup back to him.
The first question was about Lolita. I kept my eyes fixed straight ahead, but it wasn’t enough to block out the teasing glance Alex slid my way. Still grinning, he took a sip of his drink, only to gag loudly enough to interrupt a question about erotic imagery in classical sculpture.
Half the room turned to stare, more affronted than concerned for his welfare. Alex raised a hand in mute apology. As soon as everyone looked away, he spit into his cup.
“That’s disgusting,” I said.
“No, disgusting is what I just drank. Are you trying to kill me?”
“It’s water. With a little raw cider vinegar. It’s supposed to be good for you.”
“Define ‘good.’”
“Something about the immune system. I think.”
He shook his head. “How could you do this to me, Merrily? I thought we had something. Here, feel my throat.” Taking hold of my wrist, he raised it so that my fingers brushed his neck. “Is there a hole?”
The skin was, of course, perfectly intact. Also warm to the touch and very much alive; I could feel his pulse beat against my fingertips. Swallowing hard, I repossessed my hand. Was he actually flirting with me while his significant other was in the same room? That struck me as reckless, even for him.
“Cat got your tongue, Merrily? Or did you fry your vocal cords with this stuff?” He raised his cup before setting it in a gray plastic tub of dirty dishes.
“Why do you keep calling me that?”
“You said you didn’t like your name.” He edged around to the other side of me, putting distance between himself and the abandoned drink. “It suits you. Merrily, merrily, merrily, as in, ‘life is but a dream.’”
“I’m familiar with the reference.”
“You don’t like it?”
“I’m trying to listen,” I replied, evading the question.
“Which of these common items was not used as a vehicle for Victorian pornography?” Dr. Pressler read in stentorian tones. “A. Trading cards. B. Snuffboxes. C. Pocket watches. D. Tussie-mussies.”
Neill bounced a foot off his chair. “D. D. D,” he chanted, waving both arms.
“Correct,” said Dr. Pressler. Neill looked so pleased with himself I was surprised he didn’t run a victory lap.
“Who’s the guy?” Alex asked, following the direction of my gaze.
My mouth made a moue of displeasure, or at least what I imagined a moue to look like. “Neill.”
“You two have a history?”
“What?”
“You keep looking at him.”
“Yeah, no. There’s no history there—and definitely no future.” Breaking the news to Arden would be hard, but still preferable to feeding the inferno of Neill’s ego.
“Sure, Merrily. Whatever you say. Two-time me all you want.”
“Believe me, he’s way too much of a Casaubon. Full of himself,” I explained, before he could ask. “And threatened by anyone else with a brain. Why Dorothea ever married such a withered old windbag I’ll never understand.”
Blue eyes studied my face. “Dorothea?”
“From Middlemarch.”
Alex nodded. “Of course.” He was silent for a moment, watching Neill drum the table with both hands. “Is a tussie-mussie one of those fluffy things French maids carry around?”
“It’s a small floral arrangement.”
He considered this in silence. “Then that was a pretty obvious answer?”
“Yes,” I agreed, pleased he’d pointed this out.
“Do you think they’ll ask about that dirty book you told me to read?”
“I never—”
“Dangerous Liaisons,” he reminded me. “Because you’d be all over that one.”
“I’m not in this round,” I reminded him.
“Lucky for me.” He leaned closer, nudging me with his shoulder. “What was the guy’s name again?”
“Neill?”
“No. The one who wrote the book.”
“Choderlos de Laclos.”
“Say it slowly.”
“Cho-der-los de—” I broke off, realizing he was toying with me. “Shouldn’t you check on Phoebe?”
“Why?” He made a show of looking around. “Did someone give her one of those drinks?”
The innocent act was cut short by the end of the second round. The noise level jumped as teams and spectators began to move around the room, heatedly discussing the recent action.
“Excuse me,” said a voice from behind me. I tried to move out of the way, but the only place to go was closer to Alex. I mumbled an apology while bumping against him. The contact was only slightly more intimate than the time I’d measured him for a costume he didn’t want. When I looked to see whether whoever it was had enough room to get by, my eyes widened.
“Anjuli.” The last thing I’d expected was for her to seek me out, especially after looking right through me before—
Her arm jutted toward Alex. “Anjuli. From Psy Fry.”
“Team name,” I explained in response to his puzzled look.
Inching forward, she angled her body to block me from view. “Do you act?” She made a square with her hands, positioning it in front of his face like a viewfinder.
Alex looked from Anjuli to me. I thought I had schooled my expression, but whatever he read on my face made him turn back to Anjuli with a thin smile. It was not one of his patented charm offensives. “We’re kind of in the middle of something here.”
“You’re funny. How do you feel about surrealism?”
“Pretty much the same way Mary feels about me talking to her friends. It’s a hard pass, I’m afraid.”
“That’s okay.” Anjuli returned his regretful smile with a relieved one of her own. “We’ve grown apart lately anyway.”
I scoffed at the euphemistic phrasing.
“If you’re thinking I look familiar, it’s probably from the article in the school newspaper. ‘Rising Stars of Experimental Cinema.’ I suggested it to the editor.” Anjuli pressed a business card into his hand. “Let me know if you want to do a screen test.”
As she walked away my stomach roiled, a bitter stew of disappointment and cider vinegar.
The door to Mung’s swung open, ushering in a blast of cold air. It also brought Addie, whose face appeared both mustache-less and reasonably composed. Some of the tension in my spine dissipated. Now that she was here, everything could go back to normal. Someone (most likely Van) would tell Neill to shove off, and that would be that.
But as Addie approached, it was Van who stood, without acknowledging her twin. Turning her back on the team table, Van squeezed in beside Phoebe. It looked like they were sharing a chair, bodies pressed together from shoulder to hip. What was it about theater people and lack of personal boundaries? Always giving each other back rubs or flopping their legs onto someone’s lap or . . . slowly drawing the pad of a thumb across the other person’s palm.
I whipped my head around. It looked like . . . but maybe I was . . . only it had been so telling. The smallest of gestures, one hand touching another, yet even from across the room the intimacy of that covert caress rocked me back on my heels. I needed to compare notes with someone, make sure I wasn’t reading too much into it. Except the person standing closest to me was Alex Ritter.
“Oh,” I said, as curiosity gave way to chagrin.
“What?” He tried to see past me. Grabbing his arm, I spun him around to face the opposite direction.
“Have you seen the mural? It’s like The Last Supper but with all these sci-fi characters.” I pointed at the crude painting that graced the restaurant’s back wall. “The owner is really into that stuff. Hence the name of this place.”
“I thought mung was a type of bean.”
I nodded much too eagerly. “Yes, but there was some bad guy named Ming the Merciless, so . . . you know. A play on words.”
Alex looked from me to the mural. I wasn’t sure he was buying my attempt to distract him.
“That’s Spock,” I continued with false cheer, “and Chewbacca and that robot guy—”
“It’s a Dalek.” His gaze shifted to my hand, still gripping his sleeve, but he made no move to break free. “You seem nervous, Merrily.”
“No! Well, maybe a little. But only because of Trivia Night. Nothing else.”
He shifted so that we faced each other. “Are you sure?”
“Take your seats, everyone,” said Dr. Pressler. “It’s time for the third round.”
I seized on the diversion. “We better, you know—”
“Find the seats we don’t have?”
“Yes,” I agreed, too wound up to invent a better excuse. I led him to another corner of the room, from which it would be much harder to see Van and Phoebe’s surreptitious flirtation. Whatever his past transgressions, Alex didn’t deserve to be publicly betrayed. Especially after the way he’d taken my part with Anjuli.
“They call this the Melee Round,” I told him. “If none of the teams know the answer, anyone can weigh in.”
He favored me with one of his lazy smiles. “Madness.”
I shrugged; he’d see for himself soon enough.
“Our theme for this evening’s final round is popular culture.” Dr. Pressler savored each syllable, as if she were licking the words off a spoon. Groans erupted from all sides.
Alex bent to whisper in my ear. “It’s like their worst nightmare.”
“Pretty much.”
While he surveyed the unhappy faces surrounding us, I snuck a glance at Phoebe and Van. The handsy business seemed to be at an end, at least for now. I wanted to walk across the room and ask my sister how she could be with someone who was already in a relationship. It was such a blatant moral failing. That must be why Addie had been withdrawn lately: the weight of knowing her twin had become the Other Woman.
I was so busy making sure Alex didn’t notice anything untoward, I barely heard the first few questions. We were standing close enough for him to nudge me with his elbow any time he found a response particularly amusing, such as Noreen guessing the Beatles when the answer was Justin Bieber.
“Even I knew that one.”
I feigned surprise. “You have hidden depths.”
He gave me another of those looks—pleased? intrigued?—that made it difficult for me to remember what we’d been talking about. Somewhere far away, a voice read the next question.
Suddenly I snapped to attention. “Wait, what?”
Alex shrugged, hands in his pockets. No one else seemed to know the answer either. Obligingly, Dr. Pressler repeated herself. “In this best-selling popular novel turned feature film, heroine Allie Calhoun suffers from which devastating disease?” She set down the index card, sliding her reading glasses to the end of her nose. “Bonus points if you can name the title of the work in question.”
I turned to Alex. “I know this.”
He started to raise my arm. “Shout it out.”
“I can’t.” I pulled away. “The teams have to concede first. I’m sure somebody’ll get it.”
“My money’s on you, Merrily.” He moved to stand behind me, gathering my hair back over my shoulders and holding it loosely in one hand.
“What are you doing?” I half turned, but not so much as to dislodge his grip.
“You can’t have a bunch of hair in the way when it’s time to kick ass.” He tapped his temple. “Sisters, remember?”
Of course I remembered. It was one of the disturbingly large number of Facts about Alex Ritter I had somehow collected. “I have to concentrate.”
He nodded. “Eye of the tiger.”
A professor of opera threw his hand in the air. “Tuberculosis!”
“Incorrect,” said Dr. Pressler.
“Cholera,” tried another voice.
Dr. Pressler shook her head.
“Scarlet fever.”
“I’m afraid not,” Dr. Pressler replied.
Desperation set in, shots in the dark fired at will:
“Putrid throat.”
“Syphilis.”
“Hemophilia.”
“Typhoid.”
“Diphtheria.”
Alex’s breath fanned my ear. “Interesting friends you have, Merrily.”
“A wasting sickness!” That one was from my dad.
“There is a certain irony in your inability to find the correct answer,” Dr. Pressler observed. I tensed, sure someone would get the hint.
“Electra complex,” suggested one of the psychology faculty. “Fugue episodes!”
“One answer at a time, please,” said Dr. Pressler. “Unless you’re ready to concede, in which case we will open the floor.” My hands clenched, fingernails pressing into damp palms.
When both kleptomania and scurvy had been shot down, Dr. Pressler surveyed the room. “Alternates, you may weigh in.”
Heart thundering, I raised my hand.
“Yes.” Dr. Pressler dipped her chin at me. “Do you have an answer?”
I nodded.
“For which team?”
“Let’s Get Lit.” I ignored Alex’s snort.
“Go ahead,” said the dean.
“Alzheimer’s.”
She smiled. “That is correct.”
Over the ensuing hubbub, I added, “And it’s from The Notebook.”
“Also correct. With the bonus point”—she paused to glance at the scorekeeper—“Let’s Get Lit takes the win.”
Alex squeezed my shoulders. When I spun to face him, he held up both hands for a double high-five, linking his fingers with mine when I would have let go.
“Nice job, Merrily,” he whispered, eyes never leaving mine.
Jasper whooped loudly, and someone called my name—the real one.
“I think they want to carry you around the room.” Alex slowly slipped his hands from mine before nudging me toward my family.
“Wonderful,” said Dad.
“We’re so proud,” added Mom.
As they accepted grudging congratulations from the other team captains, Neill thrust himself into the fray. “Lucky for you they asked something only a teenage girl would know.”
Jasper shoved in front of him. “Don’t get your panties in a twist. Mary just saved your bacon.”
“Nice work, Mare-Bear,” said Van. At her side, Phoebe offered a smile I couldn’t quite return. “Mary’s the baby of the family,” Van explained with a poignant sigh. “They grow up so fast.”
“Actually, I’m the second youngest,” I corrected. “And sixteen isn’t a baby.”
Van frowned at me. “You’re not sixteen.”
“Almost,” said Addie, who had come up behind me. “Her birthday’s next Saturday.”
Bo sketched a check mark in the air. “Marked that date on my calendar a long time ago.”
“You should come for dinner,” Van said to Phoebe, as though the rest of us were a convenient backdrop to their flirtation.
“Will there be cake?” Phoebe asked, eyelashes fluttering as she pretended to mull it over.
From anyone else, it would have been charming, but I refused to be swayed. “Sometimes I ask for pie.”
“You do not,” Van argued. “You’ve never once asked for pie for your birthday.”
“I could change my mind.”
“Pie is also good,” Phoebe murmured.
Neill grinned obsequiously at her. “I like it both ways, too. Maybe I’ll stop by.” He winked at me before mouthing the words you’re welcome.