The Last Best Kiss

  Hilary shrugs. “Whatever.”

  “There is nothing bad about this offer,” Oscar says. “Which is why I’m sure my parents will find something to object to about it.”

  “You can promise them we’ll be good little boys and girls,” Lily says. She holds up two spread fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

  “That’s a peace sign,” Lucy says.

  “Fine. Peaceful Scout’s honor.”

  “We won’t really be good little boys and girls, will we?” Oscar asks hopefully.

  Lily grins at him. “Good? No. But we’ll be great.”

  I glance over at Finn. He’s carefully lowering his hand to the grass and staring down at it. He’s letting the little bug crawl to safety.

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  six

  I’m happy I’m retaking the SATs at my own school. Usually I forget to register ahead of time, and by the time I finally do remember, there’s no room left at Sterling Woods and I have to get up super early to drive a long way to some school I’ve never even heard of and wait in line with a thousand strangers and take the test in a room that’s totally alien and unwelcoming (because any school that’s not yours feels wrong)—so I’m relieved I remembered this time.

  (Okay, the truth is I didn’t actually remember to sign up early online: Lucy did. When I happened to be over at her house. So we both signed up.) And now I’m very glad I did, because it feels like home when I arrive at Sterling Woods at 7:45 that Saturday morning. A home where you have to wait in line with a couple of hundred other people to go inside to take a four-hour test. So . . . not a great home. But a home.

  Lucy and I had agreed to meet at the courtyard fountain so we could wait in line together. When I join her there, she’s already talking to Finn, who greets me coolly. He’s wearing his glasses and red-plaid pajama pants and a T-shirt. Lucy’s wearing capri leggings and a Yale hoodie (“To inspire me,” she says defensively, when I raise my eyebrow at it) and has her hair pulled back in a ponytail so severe that no errant lock can possibly swing in front of her eyes, causing her to fill in the wrong circle, thereby lowering her score. I know how her mind works. I’m wearing the most comfortable sweatpants I own and a tank top under a zip-front sweatshirt.

  “You guys both look like you just rolled out of bed,” Lucy says.

  “I did,” Finn and I say at the same time, and we grin at each other before remembering that we don’t make eye contact anymore. He drops his eyes first.

  “Did you at least have some coffee or Coke or something?” Lucy asks as we all head together toward the line that winds from the front entrance almost to the gate. “I made myself drink a cup of coffee even though I don’t like it, because I read a study that said caffeine really does help you do better on tests.”

  “It also makes you have to go to the bathroom,” I say. “Risky trade-off.”

  “Yeah, well, I always have to pee a million times before a test, anyway,” Lucy says, and, sure enough, as soon as we’re in line, she excuses herself and runs off. Leaving me and Finn alone.

  “Guess no one else is taking the test here this morning,” I say, to head off any potentially awkward silence.

  He glances at the long line in front of us. “No one?”

  “Of our friends, I mean.”

  “The twins are taking it at University High,” he says. “And Oscar’s not retaking it. I don’t know about the others.”

  “Why isn’t he retaking it?”

  Finn shrugs. “I assume he’s either happy with his scores or just doesn’t think he can get them up any more.”

  “Either way, I’m jealous.”

  A pause. “You remember your number-two pencils?” he says, after a moment.

  “And my calculator, yes.” Another pause. “I feel like we should be quizzing each other or something. Cramming.”

  “It’s kind of too late for that.”

  “Then distract me. I’m getting nervous.”

  “This seems like a good time to remember that many of the greatest minds of our era never even graduated from college,” he says. “Like Steve Jobs. Bill Gates. Mark Zuckerberg.”

  “That guy who pushes a shopping cart on the Promenade . . .”

  He shakes his head. “Wrong attitude, Anna.” It’s nice to hear him say my name teasingly. First time in a very long time.

  Lucy returns to the line a moment later. “Oh my god, it was so gross—some girl was literally throwing up in there.”

  “You really have to stop doing that before tests,” I say.

  “Very funny.” She twists around to look at the line behind us and then stands on tiptoe to see how far it goes. “They have to let us in soon, or we’ll start the test late.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Finn says. “They time each segment separately.”

  “Still . . .” She tugs at her blond ponytail, shifts from side to side, scratches at her elbow. “I hate this waiting. It’s worse than taking the test.”

  “You think that,” I say, “but wait until you hit a question you can’t answer. And then you’ll be all, ‘I want to be back in line with Anna and Finn.’”

  “No, I’ll be more like, ‘I want to die.’” She fidgets some more. “I’m going to the bathroom again. I can’t tell if I really need to or if I’m just thinking myself into it, but either way—”

  “Use a different bathroom,” I call after her. “A less vomit-y one.” She nods and switches direction.

  “Odds are good someone’s throwing up in all of them,” Finn says. “It’s crazy to me that people get so nervous.”

  “That’s because you’re a super-genius with a photographic memory. I’m surprised you’re even retaking this.”

  “I’m not,” he says. “It’s my first time.”

  “Really? You didn’t take it last spring?”

  “I was too lazy.”

  “No,” I say accusingly. “You knew you wouldn’t have to take it more than once—you knew you’d do great.”

  “I did okay on the PSATs,” he admits, and I know him well enough to know that “okay” means he probably got perfect scores. “I figured it would be similar.”

  “Plus you were too busy inventing apps and making a fortune.”

  He leans against the wall. “You’ve heard that rumor, have you?”

  “You never talk about it. But everyone else does.”

  “I helped invent an app,” he says. “With this older guy I know—my astronomy teacher back up in Seattle. It was sort of my idea, but I couldn’t have done it without him. And I didn’t make a fortune off of it. I made a little spending money. That’s all.”

  “So the rumors that you’re going to buy the island of Manhattan—”

  “Grossly exaggerated,” he says with a smile. “But I’m looking into Queens.” The line starts to move. He stands up and we do that walking-in-line thing—a tiny step, then waiting, then another step, then waiting . . . “They’re checking IDs,” he says, craning his neck to see what’s holding us up.

  I pull mine out of my pocket, and he tilts his head to see the picture on it. “You look different.”

  “It’s two years old.” I start to lower my arm, and he puts his hand on mine to stop me.

  “That’s how you used to wear your hair,” he says, still examining it, holding my wrist to keep it where he can see it. “The bangs . . . I always liked the bangs. I was surprised you didn’t have them anymore.”

  I flush. “I grew them out a couple of summers ago.”

  He releases my arm. “Did you get a good essay out of it? ‘What I Did Last Summer’?”

  “I’m saving it for my college essay. ‘How Growing Out My Bangs Taught Me Compassion.’”

  “Work a third-world country in there somehow,” he says. “Colleges like to see some global awareness.”

  The line takes us through the front door.


  “Progress,” Finn says.

  “Look.” I point to a kid who’s clutching some beads and murmuring to himself. “Is he actually praying right now?”

  “There are no atheists in the SAT line.”

  “Remind me to ask him in a few weeks if it helped.”

  “I’m guessing the success of his prayers will correspond to the number of hours he spent studying. Okay, now look at this.” We’re stopped again, and Finn’s right in front of a painting. It’s a parched landscape: cracked red clay bordered by small, withered trees. It looks like maybe it was once a water hole, but a drought has dried it up. Kneeling down next to the empty hole are two minute scratchy figures: a small girl and her dog. She’s petting him, but he’s looking away from her, at something in the distance. If you follow his gaze, you can just make out a tiny creature peeking out from between a couple of the dead trees across the dried-up pond from them. It’s so small, you have to squint to see that it has too many limbs and a malevolent gaze. “Now that’s actually good,” Finn says. “I mean, you look at it quickly, and it’s just this interesting landscape. But if you keep staring at it, you notice that there’s something else going on, and it’s more tense than tranquil. Almost scary.”

  I’m starting to respond when Lucy slips through the door and rejoins us, fingers anxiously twisting in her ponytail. “The bathroom scene was intense. All these girls freaking out together—it was like a support group for people who are terrified of taking tests, except they were only making each other crazier.” She glances at the wall over Finn’s head. “Oh, Anna—your picture! I totally forgot that was right here. I always come in the other way. I love this one. It’s so weird.”

  “Wait, you did this?” Finn says to me. Then, his eyes narrowing “You might have said something. Or signed it at least.”

  I smile sheepishly. “I did. On the back.”

  “Anna thinks signatures on the front of pictures are distracting,” Lucy explains to him.

  “Plus how can you make someone look stupid for not knowing you painted it if you sign it where they can see?” Finn says irritably.

  “I didn’t make you look stupid.” We’re almost at the front of the line where they’re checking everyone in. “You said exactly the right thing about it. And it meant more to me because you weren’t just being polite.”

  “You should have told me.”

  “I was about to, but Lucy interrupted.”

  He just shrugs and stares off into the distance, his arms crossed over his chest. He’s clearly pissed off, which isn’t fair. He was the one who started talking about the painting—I didn’t trick him into it or anything. And I really was about to tell him.

  It’s especially frustrating, because for the first time since Finn has come back to LA, he was talking to me like I was a normal person and not someone he has to be wary of.

  On the plus side . . . he really liked my painting. Not knowing it was mine, he liked it. And that thought must be making me at least a little bit happy, because when I give my name and ID to the proctor, he says, “That’s the first smile I’ve seen this morning.”

  The three of us are sent to different rooms. As we part, we wish one another luck—Finn even tosses good wishes my way, so he can’t be too mad.

  I’m glad I end up in my ninth-grade English room, because I loved my teacher that year, and the way she has the room decorated still feels cozy and welcoming to me. And I’m also kind of glad the three of us were split up. I really don’t need to sit near Lucy, who’ll be chewing her lip and twirling her hair and groaning out loud when she doesn’t know an answer. She wraps herself in anxiety during exams. And I think it would be hard for me not to glance over at Finn if we were in the same room. And I really need to focus on the test: I don’t want to have to take it again in December.

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  seven

  I get a text that afternoon from Lily, inviting me over to their house to celebrate being done with the SATs, and I’m superstitious enough to wince a little at the “being done” part, but I text back that I’ll be there at eight.

  Their housekeeper lets me in—Lorena lives with them, and I’ve seen her way more often than I’ve ever seen either of the twins’ parents, so I give her a big hug and she tells me to go on back.

  As I walk through the curved archway that leads to the great room in the back of the house, something rains down on me. A bunch of somethings. I instinctively throw my arms up to protect my head, and Lily laughs. She was waiting for me with a handful of M&M’s—“Minis,” she points out, “so they wouldn’t really hurt. It’s like getting married,” she adds. “Finally being done with the SATs. It’s a rite of passage.”

  “Stop saying stuff about being all done with them.” I stoop down to pick up some M&M’s to throw back at her. “You’re going to jinx us all.”

  “I said the exact same thing,” says Lucy, who’s perched on their enormous coffee table next to Hilary. She looks a thousand times better than she did this morning: her blond hair is all blown out and down on her shoulders, and she’s even wearing a little makeup. Mostly she looks a lot less like she’s ready to jump out of a window. She and Hilary are both wearing jeans and sweatshirts, like me, but Lily’s got on a short black skater dress that has a white outline of a skeleton on it that lines up with the bones of her real body.

  “How’d it go?” I ask Lucy. We didn’t see each other after the test.

  “I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know.”

  “You guys?” I glance back and forth between the twins.

  “It was great!” Lily says. “This one girl came running in ten minutes late and got into a huge fight with the proctor because he wouldn’t let her start, and she actually tried to grab a test and start filling it out, and he had to wrestle it away from her and call security to escort her out of the building. It was amazing.”

  “Were you there?” I ask Hilary, who shakes her head.

  “I was in a different room. Thank god. It was hard enough being in a strange school with no one I knew.”

  “And now we’re done talking about the SATs,” Lily says. “Oh—that’s the doorbell! It’ll be Finn or Oscar. Someone help me throw M&M’s.” She takes a new handful out of the bowl and positions herself at the door.

  Lucy whispers to me and Hilary. “Wait—just quickly—did you guys get that reading-section question about dictators? Was the answer ‘malevolent’ or ‘culpable’?”

  Hilary and I both shake our heads quickly. You can’t let Lucy start with this stuff. It won’t end. She’ll be asking for reassurance about questions all night long.

  The guys walk in together. I didn’t see Finn right after the SATs, but since then he’s put in his contacts and showered and combed his hair and changed into jeans and a sweater. He looks older and less familiar. Oscar just looks like himself: very handsome and neat, with an Oxford shirt tucked in behind a canvas belt.

  Lily pelts them both with M&M’s and is reaching for more when Finn grabs her arm. “No more,” he says with mock sternness.

  She nods meekly, but as soon as he lets go, she whips another handful at him.

  “I warned you,” he says, and gets a fistful of his own, which he throws rapidly, one by one, right at her face. They’re so light, they can’t hurt much, but she shrieks and puts up her hands and promises not to throw any more. He stops, and she instantly grabs some more and tosses them right at him. He calls her a “liar and a traitor” and reaches for a handful, which he pelts her with, and then she grabs the entire bowl and dumps them over his head.

  She crouches down, still clutching the bowl and helpless with laughter, as he shakes his head, sputtering a little. “You got a bunch down my shirt,” he says, and pulls his sweater and tee away from his body to release them.

  “Bet you missed a few,?
?? she says with a waggle of her eyebrows. “You’d better strip down.”

  “You’d better clean these up,” he says.

  She shrugs. “Lorena will do it later.”

  Eric and Phoebe arrive together while Hilary’s calling in a pizza order. The way they walk in together turns my suspicions about them into a certainty. Which is great for Eric, who’s one of the nicest guys in the world but hasn’t had a lot of luck with girls. He’s grown out of the worst of his baby fat, but he still has a round face and he’s not exactly ripped, and the fact that Phoebe—who’s only dated alpha-type jocks up until now—is willing to see past all that makes me proud of her.

  But it also makes me nervous. If they go out and then break up, it’ll ruin our group.

  Then I remember: we graduate in seven months. So maybe it doesn’t matter all that much. Besides, Lily and Finn are probably going to start going out soon too. (Not a welcome thought. But true.) Maybe this kind of thing is inevitable in a coed group of friends.

  Lucy nudges my leg with hers and bobs her head questioningly in Phoebe’s direction, and I nod my agreement: something is definitely going on with them. We’ll get it out of Phoebe before the end of the evening.

  “What do people want to drink?” Hilary asks. We’re in the kitchen now, which the family room connects to with another enormous arched opening—their ceilings must be like fifteen feet high—and she’s pulling out snacks to hold us until the pizza gets here. “We have Coke, Diet Coke, sparkling water, juice . . .”

  “Anything stronger?” Eric asks hopefully. “We all had a tough day.”

  “Not Oscar,” Lucy says. “He didn’t have to take the SATs again.”

  “We can’t all be natural geniuses,” Eric says.

  “True, true,” Oscar says loftily. “But don’t you ordinary folk worry about a thing. We superior beings will fix the world for you, so you can go about your daily lives without a care in the world, like the lower-order animals you are.”