1
My best friend went to Barbados and all I got was this crappy T-shirt.
I mean, just kidding. Gabby has vials of scotch bonnet pepper sauce for Leah and me too. Which will taste great on scrambled eggs. But honestly? It’s not quite the same as jetting off to some fabulous Caribbean island with a Jamaican sailing-pro dad and bohemian-artist mom. All I did over Christmas break was sit at home with my grandparents, picking my ass. Not literally. Leah’s family stayed in Santa Fe too, so we not-literally picked our asses together. But still.
“Don’t you look refreshed,” I say, shoving irritation and hot sauce into my school bag. “How was Barbados?”
“Yes, how was Barbados?” Leah glares meaningfully at Gabby, then shoots me an eye roll. “She wouldn’t say a word after she picked me up, insisting we get to your house first. And now, I am dying. I’m telling you, I might literally explode.”
“Gabby,” I gasp. “Leah’s life is at stake here—come on already! Did you cure cancer? Surf? Hook up?”
“No, yes, and yes.” A mysterious grin lingers on Gabby’s glossed lips. Her skin has deepened to an even richer dark brown, and she looks all kinds of tropically euphoric. I, on the other hand, could pass for Elsa of Arendelle.
We pile into her jeep, and Gabby tosses me her phone, all cued up to a montage of highlights from her trip. Leah and I ooh and aah, commenting on the sexy surfer guy from New Year’s Eve; the crystal-clear beaches where she snorkeled and swam with tortoises. The fish balls, the starfish, the starry nights.
Eye roll.
Okay, loving eye roll.
“What about the T-shirts?” she asks, hard braking at a red light. “Cute, right?”
Buttery-yellow cotton, geometric-trident pattern. Leah squeals and I nod, because it is going to be cute, once I run a cheese grater over it for that distressed look and cut the bottom hem.
The light turns green, and I punch Gabby’s arm.
“Ow—someone’s in a hurry to get to school.” She snorts a laugh and turns right on Peralta. “So, tell me everything. What did I miss over break?”
“Nothing,” Leah mumbles, unscrewing her hot sauce. She brings it up to her nose, and her whole face sours. “Less than nothing.”
“Don’t forget about Grandpa,” I remind her. “He finally stopped using his cane after the hip replacement surgery. So, I mean, that was pretty big.”
“Jo, that is huge. Why didn’t you lead with that hot gossip, and why aren’t there videos of your gramps on all my feeds, dancing the Pachanga?”
I laugh. “Nobody puts Grandpa in the corner.”
Even though she’s crammed in the back seat, Leah manages a half-decent Dirty Dancing move. She’s been perfecting it since seventh grade, when her mom insisted the movie was a rite of passage. The hip gyrations have Gabby and me doubled over laughing, joking about Grandpa’s newly minted hip and the idea of Gran getting frisky with her ol’ man (okay, ew).
Making fun of them is a kind of therapy for me, though. That sounds bad. What I mean is, most adopted kids live with like, regular-aged adoptive parents. Not me, though. My dead mom’s parents are raising me. And, I mean, they’re sweet and all. It just makes me feel like a foreign exchange student sometimes.
We reach the school parking lot, and our laughter withers into a dull hum. Because—hooray—the first day of second semester. For a minute, we fall into our usual before-school routine. Gabby with her NARS Blush, Leah on lips. I smudge some eyeliner around my upper and lower lids, slipping chunky rings over my fingers, a crisscrossed cuff around my upper ear, blond hair twisted into Minnie Mouse knots. I make sure my ancient Sex Pistols sweatshirt falls casually off one shoulder, and then I’m ready.
One day, in a galaxy far, far away, I am going to have a colorful peacock-feather tattoo coming up my back and curving over the top of my shoulder. But, yeah—no. Not now. My grandmother would go ballistic if I did anything to defile the body our Lord ’n’ Savior bestowed upon me. Hence the mounds of jewelry in my backpack and a temporary tattoo addiction.
Leah and I ditch Gabby at her favorite class—political science—and go find a couple of seats next to each other in US history. The classroom has a dull, stale-cheese smell from being unoccupied for the past week and a half, and if it weren’t thirty degrees out, I’d be begging Mr. Garner to crack a window.
“Look what the vampire bat dragged in.”
I glance up from my backpack, lips souring at the sight of symmetrically blessed Tim Ellison in his hunter-green polo and pressed jeans. “And look what the janitor forgot to throw out,” I purr.
His glare narrows. “Nice eyeliner, freak.”
“Thanks. Your dad lent it to me.”
“Freak,” he mutters again, bangs flopping over his eyes as he stomps confidently to the front row where he can more effectively brownnose.
Poor Tim. Since seventh grade, he’s thought calling me a freak is a put-down, when merely interacting with his stuck-up, asinine self has already lowered my day from a ten to a six. I turn to Leah and say, loud enough for Tim to hear me, “Maybe I should get a lip ring—what do you think?”
Leah’s eyebrows hike up, followed by an unsavory nostril flare.
“What? I said I’m thinking about it.”
The eyebrow remains hesitant. “How about this. You get a lip ring and I’ll get a crucifix tramp stamp.”
I chuckle, picturing the reaction of her rabbi dad. “I’m talking about someday. Like when I’m living in SoHo, running my own boutique. I could cover it up with one of those sick-people masks when I go home for Christmas.”
“Well,” she says. “In that case.”
The whole room goes quiet as our slightly Hagrid-looking AP history teacher stands from his desk and immediately starts rattling names off his roll-call ledger. Nice to see you too, Mr. Garner. I do my little Johanna Carlson finger-twiddle when he gets to my name, then basically zone out until the door swings open around the V names and cold air tickles my cheeks. All eighteen of us look up. I mean, you are not supposed to be late to any class ever at our magnificent institution for academic excellence, because God forbid Yale wait-lists you for getting one tardy. Anyway, everybody’s eager to see which lazy dumbass is going to get written up, but then—RED ALERT. A boy appears. A new boy. Even with the door wide open, with the wind rustling our papers and goose bumping our arms, heat blasts my cheeks. I swear to God, my heart wobbles.
“Yes?” Mr. Garner snaps. But then his face brightens, palms smacking together as he squeezes around the side of his desk. “You must be our new transfer student!”
“Yeah. Hey.” He shakes Mr. Garner’s hand. “Milo Schmidt.”
That voice. Deep, smooth. Joy Division wrapped in chocolate. Mr. Beautiful shifts his hips as he takes a brand-new textbook from Garner and tucks it under his arm. Brown hair pokes out from under a gray knit cap. An Adam’s apple bobs under olive skin as he swallows. I swallow too.
“Take a seat, uh, let’s see …” Garner pauses to scan the room. “There’s one. Beside Johanna.”
Leah squawks and kicks my boot. I kick her back and sit up a little straighter, then quickly slouch. Milo Schmidt. Broad shoulders tucked into a wool coat. Milo Schmidt, looking cautious but confident. He walks closer, and I take in the sharp cut of his jaw, a callus on his right thumb. Eyes, stormy blue and wide. He flashes me an amiable grin as he sits, but my stupid lips only twitch in response.