Perfect Fifths_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [59]
“Gimme a dollar.”
“Dammit. Here you go, Marcus. Don’t spend it all in one place.”
“Thank you. What a shame. You were on such a roll.”
“Now we’re even. Deadlocked.”
“It’s not a game, Jessica.”
“It’s not?”
“Oh, well, I suppose it is.”
[Pause.]
“I was waiting for you to call me the Game Master. Were you tempted to call me the Game Master?”
“I judiciously refrained. That’s so senior-year-of-high-school, isn’t it?”
“You’ve evolved.”
“Oh yeah, I’ve totally, totally evolved. I’m, like, way, way more mature than to resort to high school taunts.”
“Even for nostalgia’s sake?”
“Especially for nostalgia’s sake. Now, what was I saying earlier?”
“The third p—”
“Oh, right. The third person. We call this writing exercise the turning point of view. The change in narrative perspective triggers an internal psychological shift that allows you to see past decisions in a whole new way. It’s similar to when you see a friend making a huge mistake and it’s just so obvious.”
“Yet at the same time, you’re blind to your own foibles.”
“Right.”
[Pause.]
“What about happy stories, Jessica?”
“Happy stories?”
“Yes. Happy stories with happy endings.”
[Long sigh.] “Unfortunately, Marcus, there aren’t enough of those. But…”
eight
(doth protesting)
“Hold that thought—now I’m vibrating. Let me see who it is. Oh, never mind.”
“Who was it?”
“No one I need to talk to right now, either.”
“Anyone I know?”
“Do you remember meeting my roommate, Natty?”
“The freckle-faced little boy from Alabama?”
“That freckle-faced little boy from Alabama is all grown up. He’s a Rhodes Scholar.”
“That child is a Rhodes Scholar? Oh my God. I’m so fucking old.”
“You’re old? I’m ten years older than my lab partner. She barely remembers boy bands.”
“That is a serious gap in her knowledge. How did she even get in to Princeton?”
“I know. She knew very little about the rivalry between the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC. I had to educate her.”
“That’s important work.”
“Indeed.”
“So you and Natty are still friends.”
“Yes. He’s my best friend at school. He can be an immature, er, dick, for lack of a better word, but that’s just part of his charm. He’s like the pain-in-the-ass little brother I was but never had.”
“Talk about strange but true.”
“You don’t know the half of it. Natty’s parents waged a campaign to have me kicked out of school.”
“Are you serious?”
“Serious. Of course, that only made Natty even more determined to be my friend, as these parental social interventions tend to do.”
“How did they try to get you kicked out? And why?”
“Why? They hated me on sight. And really, who could blame them, right? The Addisons of Alabama had spared no expense in molding their son—a mediocre student and hopeless athlete—into the very model of an Ivy League superachiever. They knew how much time, effort, and money it took to win a coveted spot in Princeton’s Class of 2010. One look at my dreads, my tats, my terrorist beard, and they were one hundred percent convinced that I was an impostor admitted to Princeton under fraudulent pretenses. There had been a few cases of older students with untraditional backgrounds faking transcripts and test scores to get into top schools, and Dr. Addison was damned before he was going to let another one besmirch his alma mater’s good name.”
“What happened?”
“They hired a private investigator to run a background check.”
“No!”
“Yes. My academic record has more holes than a paper target at a firing range. One incomplete after another. The Addisons tried to argue that I never technically graduated from high school and was therefore ineligible for enrollment as a first-year student.”
“Obviously, nothing came of it, right? Because you’re still graduating this spring.”
“Princeton