Page 30 of The Do-Over

Take different route to school

Convince Mrs. Bowen that she must honor scholarship

Ensure Josh and Macy cannot kiss

Convince Dad that he doesn’t want to move to Texas

I tried taking a different way to school. I stuck to the neighborhoods all the way there, but still managed to collide with Nick. This time he pulled out right in front of me on Edgewood Boulevard.

He came to my door again and pulled it open. “Hey—you okay?”

I got out of the car. “You pulled out right in front of me.”

Nick’s eyebrows went up. “I’m sorry?”

“You should be—this whole thing could’ve been avoided.” I was thoroughly enjoying playing the hard-ass for once. “Insurance information, please.”

His eyes narrowed. “You first, sinceyouhitme.”

“Fine.” I went back in my car and grabbed the info while he grabbed his. Once we exchanged, I looked at his insurance card and said, “Stark. Nick Stark?”

He didn’t answer, but just looked at me like he was already annoyed by what I was about to say. I said, “Do you have Mr. Bong for Chemistry?”

His eyes narrowed the tiniest bit. “Yeah…?”

“Huh—I recognize your name from attendance. Fourth block?”

“Yup.”

“Hmm—small world.” I pointed to my engine and said, “That’s a lot of smoke—I bet this thing catches fire. Let’s move.”

This time I called 911 while he looked at his phone, and this time I was wearing jeans, boots, my wool peacoat, and a hat, so he didn’t fetch me that old jacket. He did offer me a ride to school, but this time I had a perfect plan for peace.

As I buckled up, I said, “Thank you so much for the ride.”

To which he responded, “No problem.”

And then I took my new book out of my bag, opened it to the folded page, and started reading. Surely I’d be his dream passenger if I read my book and didn’t say a word, right? Histruck started moving and I started reading, but I only made it two sentences before he said, “Are you seriously reading Rebecca DeVos in my car?”

I looked over at him, torn between surprise that he’d heard of the author and annoyance that he sounded disgusted. “Yeah…?”

“She is one of the most overrated authors in American literature. She puffed up her prose with so many flowery, fluffy descriptions that it’s hard to even find the plot.” He gestured to my book and said, “That story is one of the worst. I’m not sure if I ever figured out what the main character looks like because I had to use a dictionary and a thesaurus to decipher the freaking colors.”

“Let me guess.” I looked at the antiquey dashboard of his old truck and thought again what a mystery Nick was. Even after a couple of days of knowing him, he didn’t make sense to me. I said, “You’re a big Raymond Carver fan.”

“I appreciate his work,” he said, turning down the music, “but there’s quite an expanse between DeVos and Carver. I could name twenty writers who are more purple than Carver but less… overblown than DeVos.”

So could I. I actually wasn’t loving the book and absolutely agreed with him. Which still shocked me. “Dina Marbury is a redhead, by the way, with pale, flawless skin and blue eyes.”

Technically they were “eyes the color of the brightest summer sky, cloudless and cerulean and shimmering with the flawlessness of the jewels worn by kings, queens, and the smattering of mistresses who dappled the land,” butbluewas close enough.

“I knew I was supposed to root for her, but between you and me, I was happy when Dina walked into the ocean.”

“Nick.”I shut the book and said, “I wasn’t there yet—did you seriously just tell me the ending?”

He gave a little laugh. “Oh, shit—sorry.”

“It’s actually okay.” I reached down and shoved the book into my bag. “To be honest, I probably wasn’t going to finish.”

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