Page 11 of Eye of the Beholder
Her face is reddening again. “And I work. And I’m filling out college applications.”
“All right. School and work. Is that it?” I know I’m being obnoxious, but I need help. If I don’t get my score up, I won’t get into anyplace worth attending. “Mina, I really need help,” I say. “If I want any chance of getting into a good school, I have to get my test score up. Please, will you at least think about it?”
And then a crazy thought hits me. A bargain I could make. Stupid, desperate, and far-fetched.
“I’ll make you a deal,” I say, and I can hear the desperation in my voice, but I go on. “If you tutor me for the ACT, I’ll help you get Jack to ask you out.”
Even as the words come out, I know they’re insane. Mina will never go for this.
Her head turns slowly to face me, her eyes wide. “What do you—”
“The road!” I almost shout, because she’s rapidly approaching the car that’s stopped suddenly in front of us. Mina slams on the brakes, and the whole car lurches to a stop.
“Sorry,” she says, sounding breathless. She eases the car back into motion. “But what do you mean?”
I feel relief flood through me. Her reaction tells me that I’m on the right track.
I shrug, trying to look nonchalant. “You’re clearly still into Jack. If you tutor me, I’ll help you get him to like you. I can’t guarantee anything, obviously, but I know him better than almost anyone. I know what he likes.”
“Yeah,” Mina says, sounding annoyed—a rarity for her, although it seems to come out around me more than anyone else I’ve heard. “He likes Virginia.”
“Eh,” I say, waving my hand. “She has a tendency to flit from guy to guy. It won’t last.” I pull out my water bottle and take a drink.
“That doesn’t change the fact that Jack likes her,” Mina says, still annoyed. “Which doesn’t make sense, by the way. She’s psychotic.”
I give a burst of laughter, and the water in my mouth spraysout. It would normally be embarrassing, but it’s just Mina—and anyway, I’m still laughing. “She is,” I say, wiping the wet spot on my shirt and pants. “She really is.”
“Cohen, you got water on my glove compartment!” she says, looking quickly over at me and then back at the road.
“It’s fine,” I say, still grinning. “I’ll wipe it off.” When I’ve used my backpack to wipe down her car, I say, “All right, so Virginia might be a hurdle. But we could deal with that. I honestly think we could. I’m serious. I could help you. I could at least give you a chance.”
Mina thinks for a minute. Then she says, “You’re a terrible person for bribing me with this.”
“And I feel bad about it. I really do.” Eh. Debatable. “But I really need help.”
Mina sighs as we pull into the school parking lot. “I’ll think about it,” she says. She pauses, and then she goes on, “How much higher do you need your score to be?”
“A few points or so,” I say. It’s notquitethe truth—five points or more would be ideal. But I need this.
She pulls into a parking spot, turns off her car, and eyes me. “I’ll think about it,” she says again. “Now hurry up and get out before any of your friends see you with Wet Willy.”
I give a snort of laughter but open my door. “Thanks for the ride, Willy,” I say, swinging my backpack over my shoulder and facing her again. “I’ll text you later? About the tutoring?”
“Meh.”
I grin. “I’ll take that as a yes. Thanks, Mina.” I straighten up, close the passenger door, and walk away, hoping my shirt will dry before anyone notices the big wet spot.
5
Mina
Ican’t believe I’m considering this. I can’t believe I’m actually considering this.
I woke up in a fairly good mood this morning, because it’s Friday, and I am all about that. Fridays are my favorite day of the week. I come home and do all of my homework, which makes me feel accomplished; I stay up late because I don’t have school the next day, which makes me feel free; and I look forward to all the things I’m going to do on Saturday, which makes me excited. It’s a win-win-win situation. Of course, when I say “all the things I’m going to do on Saturday,” what I really mean is “all the things I’m not going to do on Saturday so that I can read a book instead.” But still. Good feelings all around.
But when Cohen pounded on my door—so hard that I half expected it to be SWAT or something—the day went rapidly downhill.
I can’t tutor Cohen. There’s no way. For a million reasons, but several stick out. One, that would require an extensive amount of social interaction with someone who makes me sort of nervous due to his superior social status. Two, that would take a lot of time, and I’m already pretty busy. I don’t know that I have time for another commitment. I mean, yeah, when he said it like that—“School and work. Is that it?”—it sounded sort of lame. But I really am busy with that stuff. And three, it would be awkward for me to try to teach Cohen things when he’s so much better than I am at basically everything, like being athletic and smelling good and talking to people.
