Page 64 of Guy's Girl
“No, it’s not.” She doesn’t say it argumentatively. She states it like plain fact. “You’re not incapable of love, Adrian. No one is.”
He watches her a moment. Then he asks, “How do you think people see you? If you had to guess.”
“Hmm.” She unfolds her legs, leaning forward and wrapping a hand around each side of the board. “I think... the boys see me as kind of ridiculous. Emotional. Zany. The girl who cooks for everyone and gets too drunk at parties. Who can never hold downa stable relationship.” She exhales through her lips. “My brothers and sister see me as the smart one, but a little scatterbrained. Always losing things. Never looking both ways at a crosswalk. That sort of thing.”
He bites the inside of his cheek.She took all her positive traits and spun them into negative ones.“That’s... not how I would describe you.”
“No? Well, then—howwouldyou describe me?”
Carefree. Thoughtful.
Beautiful.
“Is that your official question?” he asks.
“No.” Ginny chews at her bottom lip. “Okay. I’ve got one: At what age do you think we come of age?”
“What,” Adrian asks, “does that mean?”
She shrugs. “Well, it used to be, like, sixteen, right? I’d be a girl living on a farm, and at sixteen, my parents would sell me off in marriage for a load of cows or pigs. Now all sixteen-year-olds do is learn how to parallel park. And drink Busch Light. Hopefully not at the same time.” She smiles. “So, when do you think we grow up? Like,reallygrow up?”
Adrian considers the question. From his perspective, his life can be divided into four parts: Budapest, Indiana, Harvard, and New York. He had to grow up when he moved to America. He had to grow up when he went to college. And he certainly had to grow up when he left college to live on his own.
“It depends what you mean by grow up,” he says. “For some people, it’s financial independence, which can happen at eighteen or twenty-two or, in the case of Tristan, never.”
Ginny laughs.
“For others, it’s settling down into a serious relationship. But our generation is so fucking stunted when it comes to love that I don’t know if that’s the best metric to use, either.”
“Are we usingour generationin the royal sense here, Adrian?”
At that, he laughs. “I think my answer is that it’s different for every person. We all undergo change or trauma at different parts of our lives that forces us to grow up. It could be at nine or it could be at sixteen or it could be at forty-three. I don’t know.”
“That’s one stunted forty-three-year-old.” Ginny pauses. “You left Hungary when you were nine.”
“That was just the first number that came to mind.”
“Right.” She eyes him closely, then says, “Your turn.”
Adrian is ready. “What do you think you would be like in jail?”
“What?” She chokes out a surprised laugh.
“Well, you know how there are roles in prisons? Gang leaders, information gatherers, cigarette dealers.” He’s getting warmed up now. “Don’t you ever think about where you would stand in that ranking?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Well, take a guess.”
“Um...” She scans the shore. “Cigarette dealer?”
“No way.” He shakes his head. “Uh-uh. Stop being modest. Obviously, you would befriend every single inmate in there, whether they liked it or not, and eventually become their benevolent dictator.”
She shakes her wet hair slowly back and forth. “Who are you and what have you done with Adrian Silvas?”
He winks. “Your turn.”
“Fine.” She leans backward, relaxing onto her palms. “Last question: What was the hardest part about learning English?”
