“It wasn’t her heart’s desire,” Bash says, his voice irritatingly light.
“How could itnothave been? That was the hottest thing I haveeverseen.”
“It was very nice,” I agree, hoping no one can hear the quaver in my voice.
“Nice?Nice?Tandy, that wasepic. Tell me you’re not a quivering bag of jelly right now. Tell me.”
Irrespective of the jellylike state of my body, I sit on the desk and take a calming breath. “The kisses aren’t going to work, Sasha, no matter how…”Earth-shattering? Heart-stopping?“Nice they are,” I say.
“Why? What’s your heart’s desire, then?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t still be here.”
“Well, if it’snotkissing attractive people all the time, I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” she says, sounding a little peeved.
“Ah, but she’s not kissing them,” Bash says. I still haven’t looked at him, though I’m not sure why, since Calla kissed me.
“What do you call that, then?” Sasha demands. “She fullysnoggedPrince Calla there.”
“They kiss her,” Bash says, his voice soft. “She doesn’t kiss them.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Sasha says. “Who kisses who—it’s all stillkissing.”
“It matters,” he says, gently.
“No one kisses me at all,” Sasha grumbles, “and I don’t kiss anyone, so I don’t see the difference.”
“What about Amaritha?” I say. I’ve promised myself I won’t interfere in Sasha’s crush on the perfidian, but anything’s better than having Bash try to explain the difference between kissing someone and being kissed by someone.
“She’s not…we’re not…” Sasha stumbles over her words and stops.
“Are you going to ask her to the year-end ball?” I ask.
“We’re just friends. She’s had loads of girlfriends anyway, and I’m so…you know.”
My heart rate is finally beginning to slow; nothing like a bit of teenage drama to distract oneself from one’s own romantic problems.
“You should ask her,” I say. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“She says no and never speaks to me again and I’m a pariah forever.”
I doubt Amaritha would say anything other than yes, very enthusiastically, but I have the benefit of distance and a few years on the situation. “And social exile aside, what else might happen? What if she says yes?”
Sasha colors a little and says nothing.
Outside the bells chime the hour. “I should go home,” Sasha says, and wanders off to collect her things. I finally turn my gaze to Bash, who’s still sitting on the stairs. He’s watching me; even in the dim light, I can feel the weight of his gaze. We hold each other’s eyes for a long moment, until Sasha reappears, sounding a little less glum and promising to return with Amaritha after school tomorrow. We watch her leave in silence.
I clear my throat, but he stands before I can say anything. “I should shove off, too,” he says.
“No banter? No commentary on this one?” I ask, with the faint realization that I don’t want him to go.
“Not this time,” he says softly, and with that he’s gone. I spend an hour after he leaves searching, but if he’s taken anything and left something in exchange, I can’t find it.
Chapter 36
Saturday rolls around and with it, the grand reopening. I’ve spent the week spelling the new logo onto bags and boxes of stationery, page after creamy page of beautiful paper with my little green dragon asleep on her pile of books in the bottom-right corner. The bookstore is in perfect shape; clean, cozy without being cluttered, and filled with thousands of wonderful books, not a single one of which will fall on or trip up a customer. Light streams in from outside; the air is clean and clear, and we couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day. Sasha has even set up a ribbon to be cut, which she is graciously allowing her mother to snip in her capacity as Lord Mayor of Little Pepperidge.
She has also—and this was a truly thoughtful gesture on her part—set the ribbon to be snipped far enough away that I can see it from the third-floor window. Yenny arranges his fanfare trumpeters alongside the Lord Mayor, three to a side, and they beginplaying at ten. I hope their lips will hold out until noon, the appointed hour of unveiling.
