Charmed Thirds_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [69]
1. People Who Wanted to Pick Fights with Us (“Why the hell should I talk to you? Are you crazy people?”)
2. People Who Wanted to Prove They Were Smarter Than We Were (“What's so revolutionary about your project when oral historical narratives predate Homer?”)
3. People Who Wanted to Get on Camera Because They Thought We Were Taping a Reality Show (“Is this network or cable? Can my agent look over this release before I sign it?”)
4. People Who Wanted to Know How We Got the Book Deal They Were Convinced We Had Even Though We Told Them We Weren't Writing a Book (“Who's your agent? I've got a novel that's Harry Potter meets The Da Vinci Code.”)
5. People Who Wanted to Mock Us Because They Thought We Were Scientologists (“Hey! Where's my free copy of Dianetics? Can you introduce me to Tom Cruise?”)
6. People Who Wanted to Have Sex with One or Both of Us (“I'll tell you a story you'll never forget. I'll tell it all night long, know what I'm saying?”)
And throughout our shift, Bastian maintained a purely professional demeanor. I, on the other hand, barely heard a thing because I was too busy imagining what my hot, married grad-student partner would look like naked.
If I ever do become a shrink, I'll have to open a very specialized practice, one that only caters to the emotional needs of women and extremely homely men.
the sixteenth
Dexy is as tireless as she is exhausting. Every morning she asks the same question, and today was no different.
“Where are you and your Spanish boyfriend headed today?”
“Dexy, I'm supposed to talk to strangers, not my best friend.”
“Come on! I've got a ton of stories! I want to be immortalized in Columbia's archives!”
“Isn't it enough to be immortalized on television?” I asked, intentionally changing the subject.
“Yeah, I guess,” she said, adjusting a long platinum blond wig. “Today I'm getting set up with a mechanic who, according to the producers, loves ‘hot rods and cold Bud.'”
“Sounds like a winner,” I replied.
“It'll make good TV,” she said.
Dexy scores extra cash by appearing on any one of a number of cheesy-ass dating shows that are taped around the city. These are the late-night cable staples that make The Bachelor look like high art: Blind Date, Elimidate, Extreme Dating, etc., etc., etc. She's become such a fixture on these shows that she's relied on her talent for clever costuming so the producers won't catch on to her repeat casting. She's not looking for love, just easy money.
“If you tell me where you are today, I can swing by and introduce you to him . . .”
“Out!” I shout, literally pushing her through the door.
I can do my best to prevent Dexy from stalking me for camera time. But I can't stop random run-ins with the most unfortunate acquaintances. Since the first day Bastian and I have gone out of our way to encamp far from campus—from the Lower East Side to Washington Heights—to avoid seeing the same faces. Unfortunately, the steps of the Brooklyn Public Library weren't far enough.
“Well, well,” Mini Dub said this afternoon, as he approached our sign. “If it isn't Darling, Jessica.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“You two are acquainted?” Bastian asked.
Neither William nor I acknowledged the question.
“I should have known that you would be participating in this waste of money,” William said. “Oh, I mean this important interdisciplinary yadda yadda yadda.” He opened and shut his hands like two squawking mouths. William was one of many engineering students who thought the money spent on the Storytelling Project should have been put toward what they refer to as the “real sciences.”
“What are you doing in this zip code?”
“It just so happens,” William said, “that I'm meeting a friend.”
“Another date from the facebook?”
“The facebook,” he said, clutching his hand to his stomach, pretending to laugh. “That's rich.” If you closed your eyes and listened to William, he would sound just like any popped-collar yuppie meanie played by James Spader