It’s a couple hours later, and I’m in the passenger seat of Sam’s car on the way to Chrysalis.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I say quickly, even though I know that’s not believable at all. Our drives have come to be filled with long stories about the exploits of his over-the-top bubbe in New York and giggles over something funny that Miles said the night before, plus lots of delicious treats. It’s easy with him. But today I’m silently staring out the window, trying to slow down the thoughts that are spiraling in my mind.
“If it’s nothing, then why have you been looking like . . . I don’t know, Eeyore? . . . all morning?” he presses.
“I have not.”
“Yeah, you have. You might as well have a rain cloud hanging over your head. Did something happen?”
“No. I just have a lot on my mind.”
Caroline’s crazy plan to fix everything made sense earlier, but now, as I’m heading to school, it’s starting to seem more and more ridiculous. Getting stuck in an elevator with Nico isn’t going to do anything about the fact that that Johnson is next on Ms. McKinney’s alphabetical list. Unless, of course, we’re trapped there for all of Art of the Novel.
“You’ll go on Friday,” she reminded me last class. “I can’t wait for you to share what you’ve been working on.”
There was a kind smile on her face, as if she was delivering good news. I tried to match it, but my face probably looked plastic.
There’s no way that I can share my silly Tallulah and Thomas chapters, the ones I’ve been passing off to Ms. McKinney as new work, with the class. So far, people have shared scenes with characters having long and important conversations about life and fantasy stories with magical systems that I can hardly wrap my mind around. I can just see them rolling their eyes and hiding their laughs if I were to read about Tallulah pining over Thomas. Especially with Nico right there, Thomas in the flesh.
What am I going to do?
“Okay, nothing’s wrong. Sure. But if something was wrong . . . would another donut help?”
“No.” They are lavender flavored and have a lemon glaze, with candied peel on the top, and I had to fight the urge to lick my fingers after finishing my first. I crack a smile. “But I’ll take one anyway.”
“Well, I hope your day goes up from here,” Sam says as we pull into the Chrysalis parking lot.
“I doubt it,” I sigh, and okay, I guess I get the Eeyore comparison. “But thank you anyway.”
Cutting the ignition, Sam puffs out his chest and does this weird little waddle thing in his seat. “Oh bother, I think this is something that a nice pot of honey could take care of.” He makes a dopey face and then moves side to side again.
I blink. And then blink again before erupting into giggles. “What was that?”
“Winnie the Pooh, of course,” he laughs, his cheeks flushing. “You know, because, like, Eeyore . . . they’re friends?”
I fall forward, my sides aching from laughing. “Oh my god. Please don’t ever do that again. Especially not in public, or I’ll be forced to deny this friendship ever existed.”
“Hey, it got you to smile!” He points at me and winks, exuding major dad-joke energy. “See you at lunch?”
We get out, and I smile at him over the top of the car. “Yeah. See you later.”
A call comes from a few spaces over in the lot.
“Hey, Whiner!”
I look around, confused. But then I follow Sam’s gaze to a black Audi parked across from us. And getting out of it are Nico, Poppy, Grayson, and Rhys. The founders’ kids, the CW cast.
I get the sudden urge to run away. My conversation with Caroline this morning is surely written all over my face. Acquaintance? What was I talking about? Nico and I aren’t acquaintances! The crazy stalker vibes are wafting off me, and he’s going to pick up on them and then this plan will be dead in the water before it even begins. Plus, Sam is wearing those cargo pants that zip off at the knee, you know, to, like, make shorts? Why they even make these I have no idea. Do people find themselves in situations often where they have to quickly change the length of their pants? I like Sam a lot, but these pants don’t belong anywhere in my love story.
There’s no time to escape, though. The four of them are heading right for us.
“Hey, Whiner!” Nico says again. I don’t get it. Is Whiner, like, Sam’s nickname or something?
Sam looks like he’s just going to keep walking, but Nico comes up and does one of those slap-back things that guys always do. They are polar opposites of each other: Nico is slim and intimidatingly tall, while Sam is eye-to-eye with me and has a soft belly that pushes against the bottom buttons on his shirt. Sam has relaxed shoulders and an easygoing demeanor, and Nico’s posture is sharp, like he’s standing at attention.
I’m struck again by how much Nico is like Thomas. No wonder I gave his name so readily to Caroline when she brought up Sam.
“Sam Whiner!” Rhys, the ginger, says. So it’s Sam’s last name. Whiner is probably really Weiner. I feel kind of silly for not knowing that already, after weeks of drives and lunches together. “So you finally got in. Third time’s a charm?”
Something changes in Sam with that. His face, which was just doing a goofy impersonation to make me laugh a few moments ago, gets hard and tight. “Yeah.”
“Did you make it into the theater conservatory?” Grayson asks, a smirk on his face. “We all know you can turn on those waterworks, huh, Weiner?”
Grayson draws out “Weiner” in a high-pitched tone. I decide immediately that I don’t like him—if only for the way that Sam’s jaw tenses as he looks away. Plus, Grayson also has a fuzzy hope of a mustache littering the top of his lip that only a douchebag would think looks good.
“Oh, but you must be in the new culinary arts conservatory, right, Sam?” Poppy asks. This is the first time I’ve seen her up close, not just from me sneakily spying on them during lunch. Her skin is poreless, but not because she’s wearing a whole bunch of makeup—because it’s actually that flawless, like one of those girls who model for Glossier.
“Yeah, I am,” Sam says.
“And I’m sure your famous mommy joining the board didn’t have anything to do with that,” Grayson says under his breath. Famous mommy? I don’t know what that means. But I do know that I want to punch Grayson in the face. Nico, I notice, doesn’t join in when Rhys and Poppy laugh along with Grayson.
“Sam’s really good at what he does. He made this,” I say, holding up my half-eaten donut. Probably not the defense Sam was looking for, but he sends a secret smile my way.
“Tessa, right?” Nico’s looking right at me, and then everything else kind of slips away. All I can think about is that his eyes are like pools of chocolate. I want to step closer, so I can dive into them. I want to trace the path of his collarbone that’s peeking, just barely, out of the top of his button-up.
But instead I say, “Mmmmm.”
“We have Art of the Novel together?”
I’m suddenly only capable of single syllables. “Yep.”
“We better get going, babe. You know Mr. Garcia has it out for you with the tardies.” Poppy puts her arm around Nico’s waist, and he sticks his hand in her back pocket. They fit together.
Of course they’re together. I don’t know how I missed it in all of my lunchtime stalking. Guys like Nico like girls like Poppy. I’m going to have to find someone else for Caroline’s plan. Or maybe just forget about it altogether.
“Bye, Tessa. Bye, Weiner.”
By the time I finally croak out, “Uh, yeah, bye!” they’ve already sauntered off too far to hear me. Sam looks at me, his eyebrows pressed together, a clear question there. But I ask one before he can. “Are you okay? What was that?”
He rubs the side of his face and shakes his head, and he gives me a sad smile. “I’ll see you later, Tessa.”
At lunch I don’t let him slip away so easily, though.
“Okay, are you ready to tell me what’s going on?”
We’re sitting in what has become our regular spot on the porch of the Bungalow. Three rocking chairs and a stool that Lenore swiped from a group of creative writers last week. I’m fighting the urge to look up at Nico and his group, sure I’ll see all the relationship signs I missed before with him and Poppy.
Sam’s perched on the stool, writing in a notebook that I know contains his recipes. He shrugs. “It’s nothing. Really.”
“It isn’t nothing,” I insist.
He looks up at me with a smirk. “I don’t know . . . maybe I just caught your bad mood from earlier.” Touché.
“Y’all better tell us what’s going on instead of carrying on like we can’t hear you,” Lenore cuts in. She’s wearing another magazine-worthy outfit today: a black leather beret, Doc Martens, and a sleeveless black dress with gold-embroidered bugs.
Sam lets out an exaggerated sigh but then nods, giving me permission, and I quickly fill Lenore in on the weirdness of this morning, knowing she’ll be able to get the details out of him. I need to know Sam’s history with Nico. Okay, yeah, he may have a girlfriend, but this hasn’t been verified just yet. And Nico wasn’t, like, mean to Sam or anything—not like Grayson and Poppy. Sam might have an in.
“Ooohh, so Sammy boy knows the founders’ kids,” Lenore chirps. “How come you didn’t tell us about your bougie friends?”
“They aren’t my friends,” Sam says. He closes his recipe book, looking exasperated. “Look, I went to middle school with them, and our parents knew each other . . . but we weren’t friends then, and we aren’t now. In eighth grade, they all auditioned for Chrysalis and got in, and I didn’t. . . . I think they made that pretty obvious.”
“What other conservatories did you try out for?” Lenore asks.
“Film . . . and creative writing.” He looks at me. “But I wasn’t very good at either. They weren’t my things . . . I just wanted to come here instead of Bixby High.”
“So, no acting?” I don’t want to mention what Grayson said about the crying, but I also want to know what he meant. Thankfully Sam gets the message without me having to say more.
He sighs again. Maybe I’m pushing this too much. “That’s . . . it’s just an old stupid joke. I don’t know why they keep bringing it up. I was on this show when I was in sixth grade. . . .”
“Oh, wow, so you’re, like, a child star?” Lenore interrupts.
“No. No, no. It was a baking show. Like one of those competitions on Food Network? I got sent home, and I cried. It was stupid.”
“Nah, real men cry,” Lenore says, getting up to pat his back. I quickly nod in agreement.
“It wouldn’t have been that bad, except Rhys recorded it and, like, put it up on YouTube—it was black and white with all these effects, like falling leaves and a fake storm. It was stupid. But I don’t know . . . maybe it started his interest in film, so it was, like, valuable or something.” He gives us a sarcastic smile.
“And what did that asshole mean about your mommy—mom getting you into the school?” I ask. “That’s not true, right? I mean, he obviously hasn’t tried your chocolate-chip cookies.”
That finally makes Sam’s dimple appear, for the first time since the encounter this morning. But then his face clouds over again, and he looks down at his hands, picking at the side of his nail.
“My mom did join the board this year . . . but that’s not the reason I got in. I had to audition, same as anyone.”
“But who’s your mom? He said she was famous?”
“My mom’s Audrey Weiner.” He forces the words out, like they taste bad. “I just . . . I don’t like people to know or, like, think of me differently.”
The name sounds familiar, but I can’t quite place it.
Luckily, Theodore does it for me. He was deep into his sketch, but that makes him look up. “Your mother is celebrity chef and four-time James Beard Award winner Audrey Weiner?”
Just like that, her face snaps into place: dark curly bob, signature red lips. I can see her saying her catchphrase, paired with a snapping finger, at the end of every recipe. “And there you go!” She’s everywhere—her own show on Food Network, appearances on talk shows, restaurants. Like the female Guy Fieri, but less irritating.
“Damn, Sam! How come you didn’t tell us you were rich? My mom watches her holiday specials!” Lenore side-eyes me. “And you guys are neighbors. Are you rich too, girl?”
“No, I mean . . . we’re comfortable,” I sputter. “But, like . . . I don’t know. This isn’t about me!” I look at Sam, who’s still studying his fingers. “How come you didn’t tell me your mom was Audrey Weiner?”
Why has he told me all about his bubbe’s last three boyfriends and her year-long grudge with a personal shopper in Saks, but not this? I replay all of our conversations in the car, searching for times his mom could have come up.
He shrugs. “Your mom met her. Figured she told you. And is it really important anyway?”
“Not at all,” I say. “It’s not like all of a sudden I want to cozy up to you because you have a famous mom.” That makes Sam’s cheeks turn red. “But it’s just a lot to not mention. That, and then all the drama with the founders’ kids. That’s the kind of thing you tell your friends.”
“Other people’s opinions of me aren’t really my business. And I think that situation says more about them than it does about me. So I’ve let it go.” And then he shrugs. Like that kind of perspective and confidence is no big deal. I wish it was so easy for me.
“Whoa!” Lenore shouts. “Drop! That! Knowledge! Samuel!”
I’m reminded of the conversation we had in his car on the first day. It’s like a filter has been removed, and this whole other side of him is being revealed again. I’ve assumed a lot about Sam because of the bad hair and the dorky clothes, and I feel like a jerk. I hate when people do that to me—because of my skin color, because of my awkwardness. Maybe I need to let Sam be whoever he is, zip-off cargo pants, Hawaiian shirts, dad shoes, and all.
“Mmm-hmm, okay, but can she, like, introduce me to Alton Brown?” Lenore says, pursing her lips. “I’m interested.”
“Disgusting, Lenore,” Theodore says. Then, pausing, “But also, I suppose I wouldn’t turn him down, with ten years and a little disillusionment under my belt.”
I laugh so much that I almost forget what’s coming for me next period.