Unfortunately, I am not the only person who notices the aforementioned dimple and white teeth and tall, dark handsomeness. Plus Jack plays football. He smiles a lot. He even seems genuinely nice.
The time Joanna Towers, obese and socially stunted, broke a desk chair just by sitting in it? Pretty much everyone laughed. It was horrible. But Jack didn’t laugh. He just helped her pick up her books and then went back to his seat like it was nothing—like he did that every day. I was impressed.
When you factor all those things in, you’re not surprised that he’s pretty popular. There are a lot of girls in my senior class, all of them with two eyes that match, and Jack Freeman could have his pick of any of them.
So, yes, someone like Jack is out of my league even in my wildest daydreams. In my more realistic daydreams, I make accidental eye contact with him and manage to smile rather than trip over my own feet—this has happened in real life—and turn as red as a strawberry. But that might be asking a bit much of myself. Daydream Mina is a lot more put together than Real-Life Mina.
In fact, Real-Life Mina should be paying attention to the road rather than reliving embarrassing middle-school experiences. I follow an ugly red sedan as it pulls onto my street, and as I turn into my driveway, the red sedan pulls into the driveway of the house next to mine. It’s Cohen; we’ve been neighbors our whole lives. We’re not particularly close, but I like him and his sister, Lydia, well enough.
We’re the same age, and Cohen started driving his beat-up old car at the same time as I started driving mine, except where my drivers’ license has my embarrassing multicolored eyes on it, Cohen’s shows a large, crooked nose and a lopsided smile that’s a little misshapen—he was attacked by a dog when he was a kid, and along with a broken nose, he also got a scar that runs straight from just beneath his nose all the way to his chin. You’d think a scar like that might make him less handsome, but somehow all it does is lend him an air of ruggedness. Like he just got done fighting a bear or something. I thought he was cute when we were kids, and he was always nice to me.
He’s nice to most people, really. So when Jack floated into the popularity scene, Cohen just kind of got pulled along with him, because he’s pretty funny, too. He’s got an easy smile, which is something I like about him, although that smile is maybe less easy now than it was before his dad moved out.
We turn off our cars and get out in tandem, our eyes meeting briefly as we nod in acknowledgment, just like we have for years—other than when he has football practice or some other manly activity.
I’m so glad I’m not athletic. It sounds terrible.
I hoist my bag over my shoulder—it’s way too heavy, but I guess my history teacher justhadto have the biggest textbook—and trudge inside the house, closing the front door quietly behind me.
“I’m home,” I call.
“Hi, baby girl,” my dad calls from the living room. I smile at the name that only he calls me.
“Hi, Pops,” I say, stepping into the living room briefly and leaning against the door frame. “Did you get off early today?” He’s stretched out on the couch, doing a crossword puzzle, his work clothes still on. He works at the only bank in town. It sounds boring to me, but he seems to like his job, so who am I to say any differently?
“Sure did. Good day?” he says, smiling at me. His hair is starting to silver, and he’s got wrinkles around his eyes, but somehow he still doesn’t look old.
“Yep,” I say.
I hear my mom’s muffled voice from somewhere in the basement—she’s probably working on the arrangements for the Hughes wedding—so I slip my shoes off, grab an apple from the kitchen counter, and make my way down. As I descend the stairs, I’m slowly overcome with the smell of flowers.
Sure enough, there she is, standing in front of our ping-pong table. It hasn’t been used for ping-pong in a very long time, because ping-pong is boring and difficult. Now it just serves as a workspace for my mom.
She’s a florist, and I love it. There are always flowers in our house, but when she gets hired to do a wedding, the flowers multiply—like right now. There are over a dozen vases on the table, each holding a mix of red roses and white baby’s breath.
“Red roses again,” I say, smiling. We always joke about red roses, because they’re the most cliché wedding flower imaginable. I get it, though. They’re pretty, and they’re romantic.
If I ever get married—which is on the to-do list but is not looking especially likely, considering my complete inability to talk to 99 percent of the male population—my bouquet is going to be wildflowers. I haven’t done much daydreaming about the actual wedding, but my bouquet is planned. Pale pink ranunculus, some moonshine, some blue thistle and pink gomphrena, and, of course, lots of greenery—all mixed in a sort of dreamy, colorful chaos.
You will not find me drooling about a bride’s dress or shoes or ring. You will find me drooling about her bouquet.
Hopefully by the time the whole wedding thing happens (speaking optimistically), I’ll have access to all the flowers I could want, and I’ll be able to do all my own arrangements. That’s the plan, anyway.
“Red roses again,” my mother agrees, smiling slightly.
My mother is beautiful. Her eyes are roughly the same colors as mine, but on her they’re intriguing rather than bizarre. I’m not sure how that works, but it does. Her hair is almost the same color as mine, too, just a little darker—light blonde rather than white blonde. Mostly, though, she just has this way of carrying herself that makes her seem almost regal. She’s confident and composed.
I want to be her when I grow up.
She looks over the table in front of us, tapping her chin with one finger, and she narrows her eyes in contemplation. “Tell me what you think of these. Here?” she says, sticking a sprig of something dainty and pale green into a bouquet. “Or here?” She moves the sprig slightly. It looks much better now.
“That one,” I say.
“I agree.” Then, changing the subject, she says, “Do you have much homework?”
“Some,” I say. “I’m heading up to do it.” I turn and start up the stairs again.
“Good. I’m making spaghetti for dinner,” she calls, almost as an afterthought.