Noah stilled beside her. “Six. We ran out of gin at Christmas, so he flipped the table.”
AJ’s mouth went dry. “Does he not have an emergency stash?” she heard herself say. “My dad keeps four cases hidden behind the boiler at all times. That’s in addition to what’s in the garage.”
Noah snorted. “My dad’s more the get-a-DUI-on-the-way-to-buy-more type.”
“See? Like I said, nothing alike,” said AJ with false lightness. Then, “Do you think I’m a coward? For not intervening the other night.”
“Not at all,” said Noah emphatically.
“I do,” AJ whispered. “I am. But he’s just so…”
Noah leaned forward. “I know,” he said soothingly.
“Do you?” said AJ, finally looking at him. “What’s theworstthing your dad’s ever said to you?”
Noah’s bangs were getting long; they fell carelessly across his brow ashe said, “Probably that I’m his biggest mistake and the reason he drinks. You?”
AJ’s eyes stung. “That it’s my fault Emily was born the way she is.”
She’d been ten when it happened. Emily had blown up on a class field trip, and AJ had walked in on her parents arguing about it. When she’d tried to insert herself, her father had gone off—his actual comments had been so crude AJ couldn’t bear to recall them even seven years later. He had apologized after, tried to take it back, but the words had already left their mark.
Noah’s eyes were burning. “We say the worst things to the people we care about. It’s shitty, and there’s no excuse for it. But I need you to know that…you’re not alone.”
There were tears in AJ’s eyes as she nodded. She waited for shame to envelop her. But as Noah held her gaze, she could sense him with her and all she felt was…relief.
After a beat, she said, “Thank you. For the book.”
Noah’s hand twitched, and for an instant AJ thought he might reach for her. Then he nodded and leaned back, and the two of them immersed themselves in the show.
Midway through July, AJ’scast came off. Though she wasn’t allowed to play soccer for another eight weeks, she could now type usingboth hands.To celebrate, Noah let her drive his Camaro. And Eudora gave her a gift from Home Shopping Network:NOW That’s What I Call Music! 4.
“It’s supposed to be all the hip tunes,” she said sternly, as AJ and Noah roared with laughter.
“According to who? Bob Barker?” said Noah, wiping his eyes.
NOW That’s What I Call Music! 4was seventy-one minutes and one second long, and the first time they used it for kinetic synthesis, AJ and Noah giggled almost the entire time.
But they moved—more easily than ever before. IfA&M Goldwas asock hop,NOW 4was MTV bubblegum: overplayed, overproduced, and familiar. After one afternoon ofNOW 4,AJ felt more ownership of kinetic synthesis than she had in several weeks of ancient, deadlyA&M Gold.
Eudora wasn’t picky about what they did, so long as they kept dancing, and as the days ofNOW 4strung together like pearls on a strand, AJ and Noah began to develop a routine.
They devoted an entire session to the choreography from track two, Britney Spears’s “(You Drive Me) Crazy,” which Libby had taught AJ the previous fall in a rare act of sisterly bonding.
“No,youbend forward when Britney does the hand-cross thing,” AJ scolded. “Like this.” She folded at the waist, rolling up one vertebra at a time. As her hair flipped back, she found Noah gazing at her midriff. Her shirt had rolled up. He didn’t look away; instead, he reached over and gently tugged it down. AJ’s heart jumped as his hand withdrew.
Then he frowned. “Wait. If you’re Britney, who does that make me?”
AJ nodded, recovering. “You’re Britney’s backup dancer. The one in the blue-and-yellow shirt.”
Noah crossed his arms. “I don’t even get a name?”
AJ shrugged. “There can only be one Britney.”
By the time they finished that day, they could do the dance in perfect unison.
Noah didn’t watch MTV, so AJ dutifully took it upon herself to fill this gap in his cultural knowledge, although Noah tended to take the fun out of it.
“So she’s in a green bug and then they go to a diner and then she dances in a snake pit,” he said, summing up AJ’s description of the music video for “Candy,” by Mandy Moore (track four).
