“Rachel said you got into USC. Congrats!” Louis said.
At first I thought he was talking to me and my mind was trying to figure out how Rachel would know what colleges I had and hadn’t gotten into.
I was about to say no when Seth said, “Thanks.”
My head whipped in his direction. “You got accepted to USC?”
“Yes.”
“That is the perfect school for what you want to do!” I said happily.
“Sure.”
The word sure was not my favorite word. People never used it when they really meant sure. It usually meant the exact opposite of sure. I furrowed my brows at him.
He just shook his head and his eyes went to Louis, then back to me. So he didn’t want to talk about it right now. I could wait.
I picked up a bucket and dumped its soapy water in the bushes that surrounded the back lot. When I turned around, Louis was walking away, back toward the zoo.
“Where is he going?” I asked.
“He said Carol wanted him to split his time between this and kiddie land.”
“Oh.” The tension that had been sitting on my shoulders as I waited for my secret to be spilled melted to the ground. “So?”
“So?” Seth asked, scrubbing a bucket. “What?”
I picked up the hose to rinse. “Tell me. What’s with the sure?”
“The sure?”
“You know. I say, USC is the perfect school for you. You say, Sure. Sure is basically like saying, If someone drags me kicking and screaming, I guess I’ll do it.”
“Really? That much context in one word?”
“Yep.”
He chuckled. “No, I’m happy about getting accepted.”
I raised my eyebrows. “That’s what happy looks like? You look like the depressed teen from one of your movies.”
“I have no depressed teens in my movies,” he said. “Only sad adults.”
I smiled. “You must’ve gotten inspiration from my house.” This didn’t make him smile like I’d hoped it would. “Seriously, why aren’t you more excited about your college acceptance?”
“I am. It’s great news. I just don’t know if I’m going or not.”
“What? Why wouldn’t you?”
He scrubbed a bucket and shrugged. “I’m not sure college is the right choice for me right now.”
“Why not?”
“So many questions.” He waved his dirty toilet brush my way, sending water spraying at me.
“Gross! Don’t put manure water on me.”
“That’s why you’re wearing a rubber apron.” He flung more water at me.
“You do not want to get in a water fight with the girl holding the unlimited supply of water.” I squeezed the handle once, the water hitting him right in the face.
He gasped. “I got your apron, not your face!”
“Yeah, well, my water is clean so I think the exchange was pretty even.”
“I think someone is a dirty fighter.” He flung more water at me.
“Yeah. You. Literally.”
He laughed and I squirted him in the face again, causing his laugh to become more of a sputter. His hair that was normally full of body flattened and fell into his face. He picked up one of those buckets full of dirty, soapy water and started walking toward me. I screamed and began a continuous spray in his direction. It didn’t stop him from tromping forward.
“Don’t you dare,” I called out, but he kept walking. I backed up until the hose, which I hadn’t fully unwrapped from its housing, stopped me. I either had to abandon my weapon or stay and face the bucket. He got within ten feet and sent the water flying at me. It hit me right in the neck, soaking the bottom half of my hair and my entire shirt, regardless of the apron I wore. I kept spraying even through my screams. He managed to outmaneuver me and got around behind me, wrapping his arms around mine so I could no longer spray him. We were both dripping wet and laughing.
“Drop the hose,” he said.
I did, but he didn’t let go. Like he didn’t trust that I wouldn’t pick it up again.
“I won’t spray you anymore,” I assured him. “But for the record, you started it.”
“Is that why I’m wetter than you are?” His face was by my left ear, his bear hug still fully engaged. His breath became deep, and I could feel each rise and fall of it against my back. I wanted to lean back against him, let my head drop back, and rest on his shoulder.
Oh no.
Blaire was right. Seth was part of my hesitation in leaving Southern California. Maybe not all of it, but at least ten percent of it. His arms tightened a little and I closed my eyes. Or twenty.
I cleared my throat and forced that line of thinking out of my head. “But seriously, Seth, I think you’re college material. You’re smart and work hard and plus you have that thing that I don’t have that will make you a much better college student than me.”
“What thing is that?”
He slowly dropped his arms and backed up. I turned to face him, not realizing how little he had backed up. Our aprons squeaked against each other and I met his eyes. “You’re easygoing.”
“Easygoing? How will that help?”
“Professors want you to think creatively on assignments, not always have to tell you exactly what to do. You’ll be on your own, surrounded by new things and places and people. It’s good not to get uptight about all that stuff.”
“In other words, you have to let go of some control?” he asked.
“Right.”
“Are you worried about college, Maddie?”
I laughed. “No. I’ve been preparing for it my whole life.”
He nodded slowly like he wanted to call me out on that. But I was prepared. Totally prepared. This pep talk was for him.
He ran his hand along the top of his head, sending a mist of water into the air. “I needed this today.”
“Me too,” I said.
Monday morning I learned the true meaning of the words pop quiz. It wasn’t that I hadn’t known the meaning before. But it had never mattered to me because I had always been prepared. Always being prepared meant a quiz had never caught me off guard. But on Monday, as I sat down in History class, I wasn’t prepared. So I felt that panic other people must’ve felt all the time when staring at the surprise questions on the page in front of me. Questions a little bit of studying would’ve helped me easily answer. I fumbled my way through each one, vowing to go home that afternoon and study all my subjects for an hour each just in case another teacher decided to take advantage of my recent distractions.
It’s just a quiz, I told myself, to keep at bay the panicked thoughts racing through my head. It would not have that much bearing on my overall grade. I took every minute of class to go over the questions and answers. When the bell rang, I was forced to turn it in, not sure how I fared. I’d never not been sure.
At lunchtime, I ran into Trina on my way to the library. “Come off campus with us for food,” she said.
“But it’s a closed campus.”
She laughed. “And? It’s lunch. We’ll be back for sixth period.”
“Do you do this a lot?”
“Almost every day.”
I pointed to the library. “My friends are in there and I really need to study. I’m falling behind.”
“Okay. Have fun.”
I headed off, but a thorough search of the library produced no friends. I shot off a text: Where is everyone?
Blaire got back first with: Grading tests for Mr. Stovall.
I cringed. This meant Blaire would see my awful quiz score before I would. Maybe it wouldn’t be as awful as I thought.
I have a lunch meeting, Elise texted back next.
I sighed, then quickly hitched my bag up higher on my shoulder and rushed out to the parking lot. Trina and a group of her friends were piling into a big SUV. I hightailed it across the parking lot.
“Is there room for me?” I asked.
Trina smiled. “You changed your mind? No studying for you?”
“I’ll study after school. My friends all had obligations.”
“Lucky for us.”