Meg Cabot - Ready or Not

Her only response to this was to weep harder.

And I knew. I knew it all.

“Oh, Lucy,” I said, trying not to laugh. I knew I shouldn’t have found the situation funny. I mean, after all, Lucy was genuinely upset. But my sister and Harold Minsky? “You know, Harold probably isn’t all that used to girls asking him out. Maybe you, you know. Surprised him. And that’s why he said he had other plans. I mean, maybe he just said the first thing he thought of.”

This made her raise her head and blink at me tearfully.

“What do you mean, he isn’t used to girls asking him out?” she wanted to know. “Harold’s so smart. Girls must ask him out all the time.”

Now it was REALLY hard not to laugh.

“Um, Luce,” I said, not quite believing I was having to explain this to my older sister—the girl who had just informed me of an alternative use for the bathtub faucet, “not all girls are attracted to boys like Harold. I mean, a lot of girls like boys for their, um, bodies and personalities, and not so much for their minds.”

Lucy threw me an outraged look. “What are you talking about? Harold has a great body. Underneath those floppy shirts. I know, he spilled some of Theresa’s paella on one and he had to take it off for her to put in the wash and I saw him in just his undershirt.”

Whoa. Harold must have been working out or something in his basement, because if he had a good bod, it certainly wasn’t from playing on any of Adams Prep’s sports teams.

“It’s just,” she went on, “I mean, I watched Hellboy. I told him I watched Hellboy. And we had, you know, a nice conversation about how difficult it must be to defend others against the forces of darkness when you yourself are the prince of darkness. I would have thought, from that, that he would have realized—”

When her voice trailed off, I asked gently, “Realized what, Luce?”

“Well, that he shouldn’t judge ME by the way I look,” she said, her eyes very blue and indignant. “I mean, I can’t help looking like this any more than Hellboy can help looking the way he does. I may look like a stuck-up popular girl, but I’m not. Why can’t Harold see that? WHY? I mean, Liz saw past Hellboy’s horns.”

I had never heard Lucy speak so passionately about anything. Not even cheerleading. Not even Bonne Bell Lip Smackers. Not even Bare Essentials’ new fall line of bikini briefs.

It didn’t seem possible, but…she might actually really be in love with Harold. I mean…really in love with him.

I wondered if Harold has the slightest idea of the feelings he’s awakened in my sister’s 34C demi-cup underwire.

“Maybe,” I said carefully, since a cheerleader—even an ex-cheerleader—in love is a volatile thing, “you should give Harold the benefit of the doubt. I mean, maybe he does see the real you, under your, um, horns, and just can’t believe someone as…horny as you would ever like him back.”

That didn’t come out at all right, and Lucy’s wide-eyed glance told me I’d screwed it up, big time.

So I said, “Look, maybe you should just ask him out again for this coming weekend, and see what he says.”

“You think?” Lucy peered at me through swollen—but still beautiful—eyes. “You think he might just be…shy or something?”

“It’s possible,” I said. Although shy wasn’t the word for it. Oblivious, maybe. Or possibly afraid Lucy had only asked him out as a joke. “You never know.”

“Because I was thinking it might be because…because I’m so stupid.”

“Lucy!” I looked down at her, my heart swelling with pity for her. Pity! For Lucy! The girl who had always gotten everything she ever wanted…until now, apparently.

Because the thing was…well, there’s a really good chance she’s right. About Harold not liking her because she isn’t exactly class valedictorian. I mean, what do the two of them even have in common? Lucy is all about capped sleeves and Juicy Couture jeans. Harold’s all about…well, megabytes.

“That can’t be true,” I said, even though, of course, a part of me thought there was a pretty good chance it could be. “I mean, you aren’t, you know, book smart, like Harold. But you know a lot of stuff I bet he doesn’t know. Like about…um—”

But the only thing I could think of that Lucy might know about that Harold wouldn’t was, well, birth control.

“I memorized all those stupid vocabulary words he gave me,” she said bitterly. “Estuary and plinth. Hoping it would make him realize, you know, that I’m really trying. I mean, I want to be smart like him. I do. Just like Hellboy wants to be good. But Harold barely even noticed. He was just like, Good. Now memorize these other words.”

“Oh, Luce,” I said. “You know…you really should ask him out again. It may never have occurred to him that you like him…you know. The way you do. He may just think you like him as a friend.” I hoped.

Lucy gazed unseeingly at my giant poster of Gwen in her wedding gown—taken from Us Weekly and blown up on the White House color copier—and sighed. “Well. All right. I guess I could ask him out again. God.”

“God, what?”

“Well, I mean…” Lucy looked thoughtful. “Now I know how all those girls in school must feel.”

“What girls?”

“The ones who ask guys out,” she said. “And the guys always say no. I had no idea it felt like this.”

“Rejection?” I tried not to look too amused. “Yeah. It can really suck.”

“Tell me about it.” She looked at the clock. “God. I have to do like ten more pages of vocab before I can even think about bed. Thanks for the pep talk, but I gotta motor.”

I stopped her in the doorway, though. “Lucy?”

She paused and looked over her shoulder, her face impossibly beautiful, in spite of the tears and the pieces of Manet’s fur she hadn’t picked off yet. “Yeah?”

“I’m glad you and Jack broke up,” I said. “You deserve better. Even if he was, you know. Your first.”

“My first,” Lucy said. “But hopefully not my last.”

“He won’t be,” I said. “And Lucy?”

“Mmm?” she said.

“You do realize,” I added awkwardly, “that the same guy who played the Count of Monte Cristo played Jesus in that movie Mel Gibson directed.”

It was finally Lucy’s turn to look shocked. “He did not!”

“Um, yeah, he did. So, in a way, all those times in the bathtub, you’ve been—”

“DON’T SAY IT!” Lucy said. And then ran for her room.

I can’t say I blamed her, either, really. For slamming the door so hard behind her, I mean.

Top ten things that suck about being the sister of the most popular girl in school:

10. When the phone rings, it is never, ever for you.

9. Ditto the doorbell.

8. The door to the refrigerator in the kitchen is completely covered in newspaper clippings featuring her. The only thing about you that’s up there is a postcard from the dentist, reminding you about your six month’s appointment.

7. She will never, ever be off the phone long enough for you to make a call.

6. Everyone expects you to want to be on the cheerleading squad, too, and then when you don’t, they act like there’s something wrong with you.

5. She always gets to do everything first, whether it’s go out with a boy, drive, see an NC-17 movie, spend Winter Break skiing in Aspen with a friend and her parents, you name it, Lucy’s already gotten to do it, way before me, and probably better.

4. When people compare us to characters in John Hughes movies, Lucy always gets to be Molly Ringwald, and I always have to be Eric Stoltz. Who isn’t even a girl.

3. There is nothing more demoralizing to a disestablishmentarian like myself than having to sit and listen to your sister’s chipper voice reading off the morning announcements in homeroom during Spirit Week.