Rules for Being a Girl

If I think too much about the likelihood that Chloe has really ditched me for her dorky cousin Kyra, I might lose it, so instead I sit down on a bench outside the restaurant and consider my options for getting home: it’s too far to walk. My parents are at a scholarship fund-raiser Grace’s chess teacher throws every year all the way in Burlington. And I sure as shit can’t call Jacob. I scroll through my phone, trying to figure out which of my friends I haven’t alienated recently who might also have access to a car. Nothing like standing alone in the parking lot of a strip mall outside a Greek restaurant at ten on a Friday night to put your life choices in glaring perspective.

I’m about to go back inside and throw myself on Steve’s mercy when a thought occurs to me. I bite my lip, swiping through my contacts until I find Gray’s name. He put his number in there himself after the book club meeting today, then texted himself so he’d have mine: “In case I need help with the big words,” he explained, handing my phone back to me with a flourish.

Hey, I text now, hitting send before I can talk myself out of it. Are you busy?

He shows up fifteen minutes later, pulling up to the curb outside the restaurant in a ten-year-old Toyota with a bobblehead dog affixed to the dashboard. “Somebody call an Uber?” he asks as I climb in.

“Hey,” I say with a grateful grin. “Thank you. You’re totally saving me right now.”

“No problem.” His car smells like cinnamon Altoids and a little bit like a gym bag; his phone is upside down in the cupholder, Kendrick Lamar echoing quietly from the tinny speaker. “No Bluetooth,” he explains, a little sheepish.

“I’m going to have to dock you a star,” I tease, nudging aside a half-dozen empty Pepsi bottles and setting my backpack on the floor between my feet. “Seriously, though, I mean it. Thanks. I didn’t think you’d be around.”

“Because I’m so popular?”

I make a face. “I mean, you’re more popular than me right now, that’s for sure.”

Gray doesn’t comment. “I was out with some friends,” he admits, glancing over his shoulder before pulling out onto the main road, “but I was tired of them anyway.”

“You were, huh?”

“Yeah,” he says easily. “I’ll be honest with you, Marin. I’ve been thinking I need a change.”

He’s full of shit, clearly, but I smile anyway. I lean my head against the back of the seat rest. “You and me both.”

“So, um,” he says. “Where to?”

“Oh, crap!” I laugh and give him my address. “You can just drop me at the corner of Oak if you don’t want to deal with the roundabout. I can walk the rest of the way.”

“Now what kind of Uber driver would I be if I did that?” Gray asks with a grin. Then: “Hey, are you hungry?”

I literally just ate half a tray of spanakopita, but . . . “Are you?”

“I mean, I’m seventeen,” he says, grinning crookedly. “I’m literally always hungry.”

We stop at the Executive Diner on Route 4, following a stern-looking waitress to a booth by the window. I order a peanut butter milk shake while Gray gets a cheeseburger with onion rings and a side of chocolate chip pancakes. “I’ve never actually been in here at night before,” he says, looking around at the chipped Formica tables, the few schleppy middle-aged dudes posted up at the bar.

“Oh no?” I ask, wrinkling my nose at him over my milk shake. “Too busy wining and dining the ladies of Bridgewater Prep?”

“Or writing feminist op-eds,” he counters with a smile.

“Or getting kicked out

of fancy schools for being a degenerate?”

I’m teasing, but Gray flinches a little. “Is that what I did?” he asks, raising his dark eyebrows across the table.

“Isn’t it?” I ask. “I mean, I heard . . .” I trail off. “Shit. I’m sorry. I’m an asshole.”

“Nah, you’re fine.” Gray smiles, dunking one of his onion rings in a ketchup/mayo/hot sauce concoction of his own making. “I don’t know how that rumor got started. I mean, I do, I like to throw parties, but that’s not what I got expelled for.”

“So what happened, then?” I ask, stirring my milk shake with a long metal spoon instead of looking at him. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me, obviously.”

“No, it’s cool.” He shrugs. “I was too dumb.”

My head snaps up. “You’re not dumb,” I say immediately.

Gray waves a hand. “I mean, sure, not dumb, but . . . I’ve got, like, ADHD and stuff, and was not meeting Hartley’s, uh, rigorous academic standards.”