Excuse me?
I turned to Neil in confusion, but he shook his head, just as clueless.
Francesca click-clacked toward us in her skinny heels, brushing by a waiter and ignoring the stares of the other diners. Her face was flushed and her jaw was set.
Why was she here?
She stopped by our table and looked at me coldly. “Am I interrupting your time together?” she snapped.
Whoa—Francesca’s bitchiness was out full force. I racked my brain, wondering if I’d done something to upset her at our last meeting. I hadn’t made too much fun of The Devil Wears Prada, had I?
“Well,” Neil was saying, “we are on a date….”
“No,” I jumped in. “It’s okay.” Maybe I could use Francesca’s mysterious appearance as an excuse to escape. I started to push back my chair.
Francesca crossed her arms over her chest. Her face was turning pinker by the minute. “Well, are you or aren’t you on a date? Are you guys, like, serious now?”
I paused: Those were the exact words Griffin had used, yesterday in the Book Nook.
“Did Griffin tell you we were going to be here?” I blurted. That was the only reason I could think of that she even knew about our “date.”
Francesca took a deep breath, and nodded. “He called me last night,” she said softly.
“Why?” Neil and I asked at the same time.
Francesca lifted her bare shoulders—believe it or not, she was wearing a tube top, even though it was still coolish outside. “Because he knew,” she murmured.
“Knew what?” That was me and Neil again, doing our “in unison” act. This was feeling more and more surreal.
Very slowly, Francesca turned to Neil, and my mouth dropped opened in shock as I identified the expression in her eyes: longing and … desire.
“How I felt about you,” Francesca whispered.
To Neil!
I was dying. I wondered if I could reach into my bag for my cell phone and call Audre without their noticing.
“What are you—talking about?” Neil sputtered, looking stunned. He probably figured one girl (i.e., me) liking him was doable. But two at once? And Francesca, no less?
Francesca turned to the bug-eyed couple at the table beside us—they’d obviously been listening to every word—and asked to borrow their extra chair. Then she moved the chair up to our table, next to Neil, and sat down, acting as if this was a perfectly normal setup. We could have been three friends from a book group having a casual dinner together. The waiter even came by to ask Francesca if she wanted a menu, but she waved him off.
“I have something to ask you,” she said to Neil, taking another big breath. Her hands were clasped in her lap and I noticed she was trembling. I wondered if I should excuse myself to give them privacy, but this moment was way too delicious/scary to miss.
“Do you remember going to an awards ceremony at Columbia last year?” Francesca asked quietly.
Oh, yeah! The photo! I nodded eagerly, but neither of them looked at me.
“The City-Wide Physics Contest, sure.” Neil frowned. “How did you know I was—”
“There?” Francesca cut in, smiling. “I was there too, Neil. We sat next to each other at the winners’ dinner, and we talked about our favorite science-fiction writers the whole time. Remember?” She briefly stared off into the distance, her gray eyes dreamy.
Neil reacted like someone had dumped a tub of ice water on his head. He blinked and shook his head at least five times.
“That was … you?” he whispered.
You do like science fiction! I wanted to cry.
Francesca smirked. “I’ve improved, huh?”
Neil’s face colored. “You weren’t too bad….” He must have been remembering those eyebrows.
Francesca laughed. “That’s sweet of you, Neil,” she said. “But I was pretty bad. I didn’t know the first thing about clothes. All I lived for was school, and science stuff. And for fun, my friends and I did”—she shuddered—“Dungeons and Dragons.” She whispered this last part as if it were a terrible, evil secret. For the life of me, I couldn’t picture Francesca Cantone playing Dungeons and Dragons. “But the night I met you,” Francesca went on, her face lighting up, “I realized I needed to change myself. I was so into you, but I knew you didn’t like me back. No guys ever did.”
I swallowed, suddenly feeling weepy. Who’d ever have thought I’d understand Francesca?
She kept going, her voice determined. “I decided to”—she gestured to her clingy striped tube top, gold nameplate necklace, and Lucky jeans—“fix myself up. Change my style, or whatever. I started to do it in little ways—like, getting contacts, kind of avoiding my friends.” She looked so guilty for a moment that I almost wanted to reach over and give her a hug. “Over summer vacation, I went for it big-time: I bought a whole new wardrobe, changed my hair, and even practiced how to act different. That was when I made friends with Mimi—she lives in my apartment building, and she noticed my new look, so we started hanging out together.” Francesca sighed. “When senior year started in September, I was suddenly, like, in Mimi’s crowd, I was a new person. I was … me.” Francesca grew quiet and I could see the relief on her face. She seemed much freer—more relaxed—now that she’d finally uncorked all her long-held secrets.
And now I couldn’t hold back my innermost thoughts anymore. “So do you really like to read The A-List and all that stuff, or was that just made up?” I asked. (For me, it always comes back to books.)
Francesca glanced at me like she’d forgotten I was there. “Oh. Yeah. I’d never read that stuff in my life. Mimi told me about it. I wanted everything I did to match my new … image, or whatever.” Then she faced Neil, her eyes very big and hopeful. “I wanted to be this … this perfect girl you’d fall for when I saw you again.”
“When you saw me again?” Neil repeated. He knitted his eyebrows together. “You knew I was going to be in this book group? Or was that just a coincidence?”
Francesca smiled sheepishly. “There’s no such thing as a coincidence,” she murmured. “I made sure you joined the group, Neil. When Griffin told me about a high school book group that was starting up in Park Slope, I thought of you right away. So I drafted a fake flyer about a sci-fi club—I knew you wouldn’t turn that down.”
Okay, I realized. She’s insane.
“You mailed that flyer to my house?” Neil could barely get the words out.
Francesca nodded. “I had your address from the contest. I’m sorry, Neil. I know that basically makes me a stalker—”
Neil shook his head. “This is a joke, right? Girls always do stuff like this, don’t they?” He was back on his paranoia kick. “You’re going to, like, embarrass me in two seconds.” He glanced toward the door, as if he expected to see Ashton Kutcher and the whole Punk’d crew storming in.
“I swear it’s not a joke,” Francesca said softly. She reached for Neil’s hand. “I thought you even knew by now—I was always trying to flirt with you, get you to pay attention to me. I kept just waiting and hoping you would ask me out. But when Griffin told me about your date with Norah—” She tipped her head toward me. “I knew I had to do something.”
I shook my head in awe. As Neil himself had put it earlier, everything was adding up. Neil thinking our group was a sci-fi club that first day. Francesca leaving the Philippa Askance search when James told her Neil wouldn’t be there. Francesca cozying up to Neil at Audre’s party. And Griffin’s unnatural interest in my date tonight.
“So you’re not with Griffin?” I asked Francesca.
Francesca shook her head, laughing. “Griffin? Not at all. We’re just good friends—he’s one of the few people that knows about my … past. We kind of bonded as soon as we met, so I felt like I could trust him.”
“So is he with that girl Eva, then?” I pressed on, knowing Audre would want me to find out for sure.
Francesca giggled. “No way. She’s not his type. Neither am I. Lately, he’s tot
ally been into—”
“Francesca?” Neil interrupted. He was staring at her. “I, um, still can’t believe you would do all that for me.” He cleared his throat. “But, okay, if this all for real, can I just say something?” Francesca and I both nodded, and Neil’s expression turned serious. “I wish you didn’t feel like you had to change yourself,” he said quietly, sounding more mature than I’d ever heard him. “At that dinner, I literally thought you were the coolest girl I’d ever met—we had so much in common. To be honest, half the time guys don’t even notice what a girl is wearing or what her hair looks like.” He shrugged. “At least, I didn’t then. I just noticed … you.”
Francesca swallowed hard, clearly trying not to cry. I was kind of close to tears myself.
“God, that’s so romantic, I’m going to bawl!” the woman at the next table whispered to her boyfriend.
“But don’t get me wrong,” Neil went on, a grin spreading over his face. “I like you this way, too.”
“You do?” Francesca asked, her lower lip trembling, and I saw a glimpse of the awkward girl she had once been.
Neil nodded, and moved his chair closer so he could put his arm around her. Francesca’s face brightened, and then she dropped her head onto his shoulder. Neil gave her a hesitant kiss on the cheek, and she sighed with happiness.
In the weirdest, most who would have ever guessed it? way, Francesca Cantone and Neil Singh were … cute together. They made sense.
Francesca wasn’t insane, I realized. She was just in love. And people will do completely crazy things for love—myself included, of course.
Suddenly, I felt wrong being there with the two of them. I stood quickly, pulling my wallet out of my bag. “Uh, guys?” I said. “I’m just gonna, you know, go….”
Neil looked at me, his eyes widening. “Oh, Norah,” he gasped. “Right. Um, listen. I’m so sorry about this—I like you and all, but—”
I held up my hand. “Neil. Don’t worry. Fm not heartbroken.”
Francesca didn’t pay any attention to me; she was too busy nuzzling Neil’s neck. She sure moved fast. So maybe Neil would get action tonight, after all.
I put some money on the table, and, as I hurried away, I saw the woman at the table next to us blowing her nose as her boyfriend patted her arm.
Without warning, I felt a little like crying myself. Not because Francesca and Neil’s surprise reunion was choking me up, but because of what Neil had told me before Francesca’s grand entrance: that James liked someone in the book group—but not me.
Which meant that now I’d never be able to rest my head on James’s shoulder, the way Francesca had done so easily with Neil. And though I’d told Neil otherwise, that realization did sort of break my heart.
Thirteen
Ring. Ring.
I grabbed for my cell phone, my eyes still half-shut.
“Audre?” I mumbled. “Didn’t we just talk, like, two hours ago?”
When I’d returned home the night before, the first thing I’d done was call Audre. We spent hours analyzing the entire surreal date, from Neil’s sketchiness to Francesca’s shocking confession to Griffin’s being “totally into” someone mysterious—who we could only hope was Audre herself. But I didn’t say anything about James also liking someone else—the possibility that James and Audre might end up together was too bizarre and painful to consider.
When Audre and I finally clicked off near morning, I’d semi-dozed, dreaming restlessly about tofu and physics. Now that it was morning, my head was throbbing.
“It’s not Audre,” a male voice said. There was a pause. “It’s James.”
Oh.
“James?” I said, struggling to sit up. James Roth? I looked at my bedside clock, wondering if I’d overslept and missed the reading. It was kind of late—I had only fifteen minutes to shower and change—but there was still time. I figured James was calling with some emergency question.
And it was weird, but now that I knew that I had no chance with James, I felt surprisingly calm. Maybe I was finally over him.
“I’m glad you called,” I said, swinging my legs off the bed and stretching. “I need to get ready for Philippa. Are you at the Book Nook now?”
“No,” James replied distractedly. “I’m still at home. So, how was your date?”
I paused, the phone tucked against my ear. “With Neil?”
“Yeah.” James swallowed. “He told me that you asked him out.”
“I know,” I said, my pulse speeding up. “He told me he told you.”
“He did?” James was quiet for a second and I pictured him, pacing in his room, like I was pacing now. His voice sounded kind of tense, but I figured that had to do with the Philippa reading. “Well … how did it go? Are you guys … a couple?”
I started laughing. “Wait—you didn’t talk to Neil this morning? You don’t know about Francesca?”
“Francesca?” James repeated, sounding rattled. “What do you mean?”
“Norah!” Stacey yelled from the hall. “I’m about to get in the shower! Do you need to use the bathroom?” After our bonding last night, my usually selfish sis was still in considerate mode.
“Oh, God,” I said to James, looking at the time again. There were now only ten minutes left before we had to be at the Book Nook. “I should go. We both should—we’re gonna be late to the Philippa reading!” Then I clicked off and sprinted out into the hall to stop Stacey. I had a reading and the last session of my book group to attend. I didn’t have time now to ponder the meaning behind James’s odd phone call.
I ran into the Book Nook, out of breath, tripping over one of the store cats. My hair was still wet and I was wearing the denim skirt from last night paired with my old Belle & Sebastian T-shirt—the first things I could grab off my floor.
The place was mobbed. It seemed that all of Park Slope had turned out. Endless rows of chairs—each one filled—stretched out in front of the podium near the door. One entire row was filled with people carrying cameras and notepads and wearing official-looking badges around their necks—probably reporters or journalists. A friendly-looking fortyish woman with shaggy-chic blond hair—whom I guessed was Philippa’s editor—was helping Patrick stack signed copies of Bitter Ironies on a counter. This was huge.
I noticed a group of Griffin’s NYU buddies, Eva among them, clustered in one corner, but I couldn’t find Griffin himself. Then I saw Audre holding court at a table near the back, proudly passing around slices of the “bitter” lemon pie she’d baked for the occasion. (She’d finished the pie last night during our phone marathon.) The rest of our book group was sitting in the front row seats Griffin had reserved for us; Scott and James (he’d beaten me there!) were comparing their copies of Bitter Ironies while Francesca and Neil held hands and stared at each other lovingly.
Suddenly Griffin jogged up to me, out of breath. “Dude, thank God you’re here,” he said. His blond hair was sticking out all over the place and he looked, possibly for the first time in his life, stressed. “Philippa hasn’t shown yet.”
“She hasn’t?” I felt a prickle of panic. “Isn’t the reading supposed to start, like, now?” The plan was that Philippa would sweep in, do the reading, and then join us in the back for the book group meeting.
Griffin nodded. “Her agent has been calling her every two seconds, but she’s not having any luck.” He groaned. “If this reading doesn’t happen, my boss is going to eat me for brunch.” He glanced over his shoulder at the fidgety audience. “And the natives are getting restless,” he added. “You know, the editor of Teen Vogue is here.”
“Crap,” I muttered. Had Philippa actually bailed? After our conversation on Seventh Avenue, I’d somehow believed she really was coming. Was that insanely naive of me? “What are we going to do?” I groaned.
“You mean,” Griffin corrected, “what are you going to do.” He put his hands on my shoulders—I forgot to blush—and grinned at me. “You need to say something to the crowd, Norah, just to distract
them. At least until Philippa gets here, If she gets here.”
My skin turning cold, I glanced at the empty podium. Do I even need to tell you that I have horrible stage fright?
“Please,” Griffin said, all but pulling me toward the podium. “It’ll be fine. You just have to be, like, ‘Hi, I’m Norah Bloom, and welcome to this glorious event.’ Then just say a few words about why you like to read Philippa’s stuff and hope like hell that she walks in the door. You can do it, Norah. You’re the leader of this book group, after all.”
“I am?” I whispered, my feet stuck to the floor. One of the cats—I think it was Virginia Woolf—rubbed against my legs, as if to remind me: Yeah, you are, idiot.
Somehow, with Griffin steering me, I made it to the podium and faced the noisy crowd, trying not to think about the Teen Vogue person, or the fact that Philippa’s important agent and editor were out there. My legs felt wobbly. I didn’t think fainting would even be all that bad in that moment—at least it would take me away for a little while, like a nice vacation.