“Oh, we should?” Shani asked in a snotty tone that was uncalled for. “Carly’s just too nice, is all. Too nice to see that the people she calls her friends really don’t care very much about her.”
“Shani—” Carly began.
“Let me say this, girlfriend,” Shani begged, and turned to me. “Just because you hang around with all the geniuses—”
“Genii,” I corrected, feeling a little snotty myself.
“—doesn’t mean you’re smarter than we are. In fact, you can’t be all that smart if you’re deliberately mean to other people. We’re getting a little tired of being ditched in favor of Mister Physics Olympian Wanna-be, who’s in some percentile that doesn’t even let him converse with normal people. Who wouldn’t know your friends if they fainted on the floor in front of him. Who knows? Maybe you guys are selling exam answers for fun, and the rest of us have to suffer for it.”
Holy crisis on a cracker. I pulled my jaw off the floor with some difficulty. “I can see I’ll wait a long time for forgiveness from you,” I said. “But for that crack, you’re going to wait just as long for forgiveness from me.”
Enough was enough. I’d come here with humility and good intentions, and she’d spoiled it all. I spun on my heel and walked out the door, leaving my friendships in splinters behind me.
VTalbot
Miss me?
Source10
You’re hard to miss.
VTalbot
Is that a compliment, Mr. Source?
Source10
How can I miss you if you won’t go away?
VTalbot
:( Most guys aren’t so mean to me.
Source10
Variety is good for you.
VTalbot
I could be good for you.
Source10
??
VTalbot
Are you seeing anyone?
Source10
Does it matter? You are.
VTalbot
Keeping tabs on me?
Source10
VTalbot
Would it matter to you if I said I broke up with him?
Source10
Did you?
VTalbot
Yes. Interested?
Source10
Don’t have time for jokes. Good night.
B
ELIEVE ME
, I’d never seen anything more beautiful than Lucas’s grin as he pushed open the passenger door and waited for me to toss my tote bag into the backseat of the Mini Cooper. I slid into my seat and he leaned over and kissed me—which, as far as I was concerned, pretty much set the tone for this beautiful Saturday morning.
Despite my waist-cinching vintage wrap top, he didn’t say anything about the fact that there was half an inch less of me than there had been last week. On the other hand, he usually saved his kisses for the ends of dates, not the beginnings. If seeing me at all, no matter what my volume currently measured, put him in a kissing mood, then I was all for it.
“How’s it been going?” he asked as he crunched down the drive and through the gates. “I’ve been buried under Olympics prep. Did you get that composition thing done?”
I laughed. “Not a chance. I’ve had some tunes in my head, but nailing them down and arranging them is the hard part. I’ve got that to do tomorrow, and today was supposed to be going over the chapter questions for Chem with Carly, but I guess . . .” My voice trailed off.
“What?” He glanced at me as he headed for Market, which would take us to an on-ramp for Highway 101 and south to Palo Alto. I’d already Mapquested it.
“I kind of had a fight with them all the other night,” I confessed. “Carly’s my Chemistry partner, but she hardly said a word to me in our last class except, ‘You’re overfilling that beaker.’ So I guess she’ll find someone else to study with.”
I wasn’t sure when I’d get the chapter reviews done myself, but I still had time. Unlike my Comp project, the stuff was all stored in my brain. The chapter reviews just reminded me about what was already there. In reality, I needed to get my piano arrangement done more urgently than I needed to study chemistry, so spending today helping my boyfriend capture a major achievement like a place on the U.S. Physics Olympics team hardly seemed like a sacrifice.
Lucas just shook his head. “Girls. You’re all about the drama.”
“It’s not drama. It’s emotion. I think they’re a little jealous.”
“Of what?” He accelerated up the on-ramp and we flew over the roofs of smaller buildings as the elevated freeway took us south.
“Of you and me. None of them have boyfriends.”
“They’re jealous of me?” He snorted. “That’s a first.”
“They’ll get over it.” I hoped. Time to change the subject to something less boring for a guy. “So, what’s the agenda for today?”
“Breakfast with my dad and one of his colleagues at Il Fornaio first; then we’ll head back to the apartment for some coaching units.”
“You make it sound like a class.”
“We are talking about my dad,” he said dryly. “He’s got the day all divided into major topics, using his old textbooks from Stanford. Then supper, and you and I can take off and do something fun.”
“Like a movie.” The Jodie Foster movie was closing tomorrow. I still had a chance to see it.
“Maybe,” he agreed. “Or we could go down to the Tech Museum in San Jose.”
“Or take in a play.”
“As long as it’s not a musical. I hate those.”
“Oh, too bad. I saw
Hairspray
on Broadway last year and loved it. Not to mention
High School Musical 2
and
3
. Call me corny, but I have this terrible weakness for them.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing.
Hairspray
has these great sixties clothes and
HSM3
is all about cute. But you know what? I totally learned all the dance moves in junior high when the first one came out.” I did the Wildcat claw thing with my hands for emphasis, but he just looked blank. “Never mind,” I said. “You had to be there.”
It was a little bit much to expect an Olympic-level genius to know the Wildcat celebration song, I had to admit.
“I may not know how to dance,” he said a little stiffly, “but I know the difference between kinetic energy and magnetism, which is what’s going to be important two weeks from now.”
“Oh, I know,” I reassured him. “I hope you’re ready for today. You’re going to need some R&R by the time we get done with you.”
He grinned, and before I knew it, we were parking on one of the side streets off University Avenue in Palo Alto, and walking into Il Fornaio. Inside there were lots of people in power suits, even on a Saturday, as well as men in khakis and collared shirts who could have been golfers—or multimillionaires. It was kind of hard to tell. But what I did recognize in a booth near the rear was Lucas—as he might look in thirty years or so.
“Dad, Thomas, this is my friend Gillian Chang. Gillian, my dad, Andrew Hayes, and his colleague Dr. Thomas Barchuk, visiting from M.I.T.”
They stood, and I shook hands. “Dr. Hayes. Dr. Barchuk. I’m very happy to meet you.”
“How are you?” Lucas’s dad indicated a seat next to him, which put me across from Lucas. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Uh-oh,” I joked.
“No, nothing bad at all. Lucas tells me you’re the second smartest student at Spencer.”
“Oh, thanks.” I grinned at Lucas. “Because we all know who the smartest one is.”
“You’ve got competition for the Olympics team, I understand, Lucas,” Dr. Barchuk put in. “But it’s good to know the school will back you up when you make the semifinals.”
“It’s props to them,” I said. “Anything Lucas has done from the moment he applied reflects well on the school, and they know it.”
“Props?” Dr. Hayes looked at his son.
“A feather in their cap,” he translated.
The waitress came, poured coffee for all of us, and handed out menus. I ran an eye down the selections, but it was hard to focus. I wanted to make a good impression, which of course made me nervous. And when you’re meeting your boyfriend’s dad for the first time, you really don’t want to make a pig of yourself and spend the whole time with your mouth full.
“What do you think?” I said to Lucas. Maybe I should take a cue from him.
“Omelet,” he said firmly. “They’re really good here.”
When the waitress came back, Lucas ordered his and I kept it simple. “Make that two.”
“You seem to have a good grasp of school politics, Gillian,” Dr. Hayes said when the waitress had taken our menus and gone. “That’ll stand you in good stead in the working world.”
I shrugged, trying not to seem too pleased at the compliment. “It probably comes from listening to my dad talk at the dinner table.”
“What does he do?”
“He’s the chairman of the Formosa-Pacific Bank. They have offices in Taipei and New York.”
“So you’re Taiwanese?” Dr. Barchuk asked.
I shook my head. “American. My parents were born in Manhattan. My family has owned the bank since the mid-1800s, but in 1970 they opened offices in the States and my grandfather moved to New York permanently.”
“Must be one of the last of the family-owned banks,” Dr. Hayes observed. “Most of them have been bought out by conglomerates, same as in any industry. Stock exchanges, publishing, high tech, you name it.”
“I didn’t know your dad was a banker,” Lucas said. “How come you didn’t tell me?”
“I did tell you. Remember? Type-A personality? Freaks when I don’t bring home the A’s?”
“That I remember.”
“She’s not your average China doll,” Dr. Hayes said to Lucas with a smile at me. “I guess you don’t have to worry she’ll marry you for your money.”
I blinked at him. “Not that I’m getting married anytime in the next decade, but I don’t think any guy has to worry about that. I’m perfectly capable of earning my own living. My parents want me to be a doctor or a scientist. I haven’t decided what I’ll do yet.”
Dr. Barchuk stared at me. “Pretty forthright with your opinions, aren’t you? You sure aren’t like any Chinese girl I ever met.”
“That’s probably because I’m as American as you are, Dr.
Barchuk
.” I gave an ever-so-slight emphasis to his last name, which was as ethnic as mine. “My grandmother is always telling me I talk too much.”
“Maybe you should listen to her.”
Maybe Lucas’s dad should choose his friends better. Or maybe the guy was just a colleague and he’d brought him along to breakfast because otherwise he’d be all alone in his empty apartment. I felt sorry for the woman who eventually got him.
Dr. Hayes laughed. “Ease up, Tom. She’s just a kid.”
“Just a kid who could use a little discipline. Talking back like that. The Chinese girls I know have better manners.”
I opened my mouth to explain that I was an American girl, and here in America, it wasn’t considered bad manners to express an opinion, when the waitress arrived with our meals.
Just as well,
I thought as I tucked into my omelet, creamy with cheese and spiced with poblano chiles and cilantro. So California. It just doesn’t taste like this in New York. I wanted to make a good impression on Dr. Hayes, and pointing out that his friend was a pompous idiot probably wouldn’t help.
In the end, it turned out that Dr. Bigot—er, Barchuk—had just come along for breakfast and wasn’t part of the coaching team. Dr. Hayes lifted a hand as the guy drove away from the apartment complex, and turned to us in the living room. Dad’s place in Taipei was a palace compared to this. Of course, it’s probably a palace compared to most people’s houses, but it was all I had to base an opinion on. Everything here was beige—carpets, furniture, kitchen counters. The walls were white. It had about as much personality as, well, Tom Barchuk, which made me apologize mentally to the place.
While Dr. Hayes got his papers organized in the living room, Lucas showed me around.
“How come your dad hangs around with that guy?” I asked Lucas as we stood on the balcony outside his bedroom, admiring the trees of the green belt behind the building.
“Who, Tom? He’s the other senior physicist. Dad likes to talk to someone who operates at his level.”
“Too bad his social skills aren’t operating at the same level. How come you didn’t tell him to shut up?”
Lucas stared at me. “He’s a colleague of my father’s. It’s not my place to tell him what to do.”
“It is when he’s insulting your—” I stopped. “Friend.”
It just occurred to me that Lucas hadn’t introduced me as his girlfriend. Only as a friend. Would it have made a difference in how the guy had treated me? I considered this briefly.
Nah. Probably not.
“How did he insult you?” Lucas wanted to know, coming a little closer.
“Oh, all that stuff about needing discipline and manners. I wasn’t being rude. I just don’t like being treated like—mm!”
I forgot what I was going to say as his kiss cut me off.
I felt the urgency in it—as though he was afraid his dad was going to walk through the sliding glass door any second. It felt secret, dangerous. Exciting. Maybe Lucas had never brought a girl to his dad’s place before.
A sound from the living room made him pull back and step away from me.
“What was that all about?” I whispered. Maybe his dad wanted him to focus totally on physics and not the physical. I’d heard of kids whose parents were so insane about grades and medals and competition that they put their kids on complete lockdown. No girlfriends, no dates, no extracurriculars. Just how big a risk had Lucas taken in inviting me here? Was his dad just putting a good face on it, and the whole time he was out there wanting to toss me into a cab and send me back to the city?
“Nothing,” he said. “I just wanted to kiss you. You’re my girlfriend. Your job is to support me. That’s why you’re here, right? So we can work together and I can win that place on the team. You didn’t come down to mouth off my dad’s colleague. Yeah, you have opinions, but you have to pick your time and place.”
“You think I was rude?”
“Doesn’t matter if I do. He did.”