No one ever calls Bea a spitfire. She’s ambitious. She’s smart. She’s going places.
Whether she wants to or not.
“Maryanne, give them time. They’re so young!” Lydia Merrick, owner of the Tabby Cat Café, strolls up right in time to overhear. She pats Bea’s shoulder. “Ignore her, sweetheart.”
“You’d better go on in. You don’t want to keep Erik waiting!” Miss Maryanne chides.
Bea is unreasonably irritated that Erik is already waiting. They aren’t supposed to meet for another ten minutes, but he’s always early. She used to like that he respected her enough not to waste her time. Now his punctuality annoys her. Like being on time isn’t good enough. Even when she’s early, he’s earlier.
“You know she’s going to Georgetown,” Miss Lydia says as Bea heads inside. “She doesn’t need to get married at eighteen, Maryanne. It’s different now. She’s going to do big things someday!”
Bea used to be proud of her ambition. It felt like her defining characteristic, how much she wanted things. How determined she was never to settle. Now her dreams feel anxious-making and impossible. All year, she’s felt like she’s drowning, barely keeping her head above water, barely making the next A or the next deadline. She’s doing everything and doing it well, but somehow it feels like it’s never enough. She feels like she’s never enough. If she’s so flustered by this—her internship and Erik and getting ready for Georgetown—how will she ever be a serious journalist? Do serious journalists have panic attacks?
She’s so lost in her spiraling worry that she collides face-first with a broad chest. Iced coffee splashes onto her cheek.
Bea yelps as ice cubes slide down her chest. “Sorry!”
A callused hand reaches out to steady her. Warm fingers wrap around her shoulder, thumb brushing her collarbone.
She pushes up her glasses and looks at her victim. He’s maybe a few years older than her, tall and tanned and scruffy, with dark-blond hair caught up in a man bun. Coffee drips down his black T-shirt.
She grabs some napkins from the counter. “I am so sorry.” She starts to dab ineffectually at his shirt, then realizes that’s kind of inappropriate and hands him half the napkins.
“It’s all right. I think you got the worst of it.” His voice has a Southern twang. His brown eyes dart to the scoop neck of her white shirt, where the coffee stain is spreading rapidly.
“It was totally my fault. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going. Can I get you another coffee?” She can’t believe she ran right into him.
He shrugs and holds up the half-full plastic cup. “Nah, I’ve still got most of it.”
“Are you sure?” Bea presses.
“Yeah. No problem.” He grins at her. He is completely not her type—way too hipster. Besides the man bun and the scruff, he’s got a half sleeve of tattoos. He looks as though he should be drinking bourbon and playing a banjo in some impossibly cool bar. But he is incredibly good-looking. Totally lickable, Chloe would say. Chloe Chan was their class salutatorian and yearbook editor and is going to the University of Pennsylvania in the fall. In the five years Bea’s been dating Erik, Chloe’s had a dozen boyfriends.
“It’s okay, really,” the guy says. His eyes dart to Bea’s chest again and, while she knows he’s only checking out the coffee stain, for a second, she wishes she had Kat’s impressive cleavage instead of her own A-cup situation. “Have a good afternoon.”
“Thanks. You too.” She steps aside so he can leave. Then she pulls a stain stick out of her purse, applies it to her shirt, yanks on her mustard-yellow cardigan, and buttons it to hide the stain. Bea might not have been a Boy Scout, but she’s always prepared.
She spots Erik at a table in the back, leaning against the exposed-brick wall, sipping his iced coffee, and flipping through a stack of books. He doesn’t seem to have noticed her clumsy entrance. She squints, recognizes two guidebooks on Washington, DC, and feels like she might literally throw up.
But this is the plan, right? This has always been the plan. Their grades and extracurriculars and letters of recommendation were impeccable. Bea was valedictorian. She aced three AP classes while working after school at Arden, editing the school paper, and copyediting the yearbook. Erik was third in their class, shining star of the debate and tennis teams. They have worked so hard, and now, in eight weeks, they’ll head off to Georgetown. Together. Erik will be pre-law; Bea will study journalism.
Erik is highlighting something carefully, his forehead furrowed, his glasses slipping down his broad nose. There’s an extra iced coffee on the table. Bea knows it will have three Splendas and a dash of cream in it. They’ve been dating since they were thirteen. Erik knows how she likes her coffee. Erik knows everything about her.
Except that she’s not in love with him anymore.
Chapter Three
KAT
“It’s the twenty-first century,” Penelope Lawton complains. “Why can’t they email the cast list? Or text us? Why do they make us go through this torture in person? It’s positively archaic.”
Kat smiles, smug. “It’s only torture if your name’s not on the list.”
A crowd is already gathered at the far end of the hall, between the men’s and women’s dressing rooms. A single fluttering piece of paper is tacked to the bulletin board.
“Easy for you to say,” Pen grumbles. Jazzy piano music drifts from one of the practice rooms. “Your name is always on the list. I hate you.”
Kat grins. But beneath the grin and her confident stride, her stomach tips and tumbles. This show is important. This is community theater, not the fall play or the spring musical at Remington Hollow High. She’s competing against seniors and girls from Bea’s class, even some girls from Des’s class who are home for the summer. And she has to be Jo. She has to be Jo, and Adam Warren has to be Laurie.
Kat has it all planned out. They’ll banter and flirt all summer, onstage and off, and by opening night, when Jo refuses Laurie’s declaration of love, Adam will be heartbroken. Only he won’t be acting; he’ll be legit heartbroken. By then he’ll realize how much he misses Kat, he’ll break up with bland blond Jillian, and things will go back to the way they’re supposed to be. Except, once she has him back, once she has the upper hand, Kat will dump his ass.
It’s written out in her head like a script. Like fate.
The crowd parts to make way for her.
“Congratulations!” a few girls squeal—at her or Pen or both, she’s not sure, but Kat mutters her thanks, a smile stuck to her lips like poison as she scans the names printed on that all-important piece of paper.