He tapped the music book against his thigh. “Do you know what my sisters called me when I was little?” I shook my head, unwilling to hazard a guess. “Little Orphan Allie.”
It wasn’t hard to imagine him as a little boy with golden ringlets and winsome blue eyes. Possibly in a blue velvet sailor suit and knee socks. “My sisters called me Uriah Heep,” I admitted, matching his confidence with one of my own.
“Excuse me?”
“FromDavid Copperfield. Because I was always spying on them and touching their stuff.”
He gave a huff of laughter, but I didn’t mind. It was still better than his nickname.
“My hair sucks,” he said a moment later, staring into the distance. “If I don’t put anything on it I look like Albert Einstein. And I can’t shave it off because my skull is too lumpy.”
“People used to think you could tell things about a person from the shape of their cranium. Phrenology. It was a pseudoscience.”
“Do I even want to know how you know that?”
“Moby Dick.”
“And here I thought it was about whales.” He peered down at me. “I guess you used your spying skills to find me here, Uriah?”
I nodded. “I wanted to ask you something, if you have a minute.”
“Should I come down, or do you want to keep doing it like this?” He waved a finger between us. “Because I’m pretty sure the neighbors think I’m talking to myself right now.”
“Or maybe—” I clamped my lips together, cutting off what I’d been about to say. This was nothing like the balcony scene fromRomeo and Juliet,and only a blithering idiot would suggest otherwise. “Yes,” I said instead. “Good idea.”
We met on the sidewalk. He looked expectantly at me.
“I guess we can go to my house.” I pointed in that direction, trying to mask my uncertainty with a purposeful air. My mental to-do list consisted of one bold-print item: Ask Alex Ritter for Romantic Advice. I hadn’t thought beyond that to the practical details, including where such a dialogue should take place.
The sidewalk wasn’t quite as wide as I could have wished, but it would have been weird to walk behind or ahead of him, so I resigned myself to the tight quarters, clasping my hands behind my back after my fingers accidentally brushed his.
Alex cleared his throat. “Is this about the dance?”
I stumbled, staring at the cracked pavement as if it were to blame. “How did you know?”
He shrugged and looked away. His body language suggested he was too polite to answer.
“Oh my gosh,” I exclaimed as the penny dropped. “You think I’m about to ask you to go with me. Why on earth would—” Halfway through, the question answered itself. No doubt there was a line of girls eager to solicit his company for Winter Formal. He probably needed one of those big red number dispensers they had at the deli counter to keep track of them all.
“Trust me, that isnotwhat I wanted to talk to you about,” I assured him. “First of all, it’s not about me,per se. It’s more of a group thing.”
“You want me to go with all of you?”
“What? No. This is something totally different. Mostly. But still serious and respectable.”
“I would expect nothing less from you, Mary.”
I couldn’t tell whether this was a genuine compliment, so I held my tongue as I led him around the side of my house and unlatched the gate leading to the backyard. Leathery leaves blanketed the grass, crumpling underfoot. The Porter-Malcolms were not as vigilant as some of our neighbors when it came to raking.
Seating options were limited, now that we’d taken down the reading hammock for the season. Not that a hammock would have been in any way appropriate for the two of us. That left only the wrought-iron bench, which seemed very small, once we were standing in front of it.
Brushing if off, I gestured for him to sit. “Would you like some tea?” The words sounded stiff and formal, like I was pretending to be an adult, and an elderly one at that. It was hard to strike a balance between thank-you-for-doing-me-this-favor and I-swear-I’m-not-trying-to-woo-you.
“And crumpets?” he asked.
“We don’t have crumpets.”
“Curds and whey? Blackbird pie?”
