Hardheaded and bullish.
Doesn’t know how to relax. Everything’s a fight.
Completely nonconforming.
Magenta/teal/pink/green hair.
Habit of snorting derisively. (What is she, a horse?)
Tapping his pen against his chin, he looked at the list, already feeling 200 percent better. Sure, there was a small part of him that felt a little… uneasy about the list, a little bad at having written down Pinky’s undesirable qualities. But that part was very small. Almost nonexistent.
Samir filled his lungs with the lightly scented air of the room and then slowly let it out. Yes, he could put up with Pinky’s volatile weirdness for a few more weeks. Because at the end of it was a Harvard pennant with his name on it, waiting to be tacked up in a dorm room in Cambridge. And that would last the rest of his life.
CHAPTER 8 Pinky
Pinky finished her shower and texted Ashish. On the floor, Drama Queen ran around, sniffing at all of Pinky’s belongings.
Pinky: how did I not realize before how annoying samir is
Ash: what happened?
Pinky: nothing he’s just…
She thought about it and finished.
Pinky:… #$DH%SR#$#@#@
Ash: lol well you know what they say
Ash: behind every hateful relationship is a tsunami of passion
Pinky: what who tf says that
Ash: THEY
Pinky: whatever dude just hope I don’t kill him by the end of the week
Ash: he’s not really that bad is he??
Pinky considered this. The truth was, it wasn’t anything Samir had done that she could put her finger on. It was just mostly… his do-gooder, smug, I’m always right attitude. He thought she was a selfish, immature brat. Well, better that than being some premature forty-year-old like he was. And what the hell was up with that planner? Planning every single minute of his life, even summer break? Didn’t that point to some deep-seated crap? Not to mention, he always knew the right thing to say somehow. He’d fit in seamlessly with her family like she never had. Why was it so easy for a stranger to come in and insinuate himself with her parents? Why couldn’t Pinky do that after seventeen years of living with them?
She sighed and typed, gotta go
There was a knock at her door and, slipping her phone into her pocket, she called, “Come in!”
Dolly walked in, her hair damp from the shower, dressed in a starfish-print sundress. “Hey.”
Pinky put her shoe-clad feet up on her bed, even though her mom would go nuts if she saw, and leaned back against the headboard. “What’s up?”
Dolly narrowed her eyes and walked in, taking a seat on Pinky’s armchair. “What is up?”
Pinky frowned. “Huh?”
“You and Samir.”
Pinky waited for more, but Dolly was just watching her quietly. “Yeees?”
Dolly took a minute to think. “There’s something off about you two.”
Pinky’s heart began to beat faster. She sat up. “Off?” she said casually, reaching into her nightstand drawer for lip balm so she wouldn’t have to look directly at Dolly. “What are you talking about?”
Drama Queen ran up to Dolly and sniffed her toes. Dolly wiggled them and the possum fell over, dead. Dolly gasped. “Oh my gosh. Is she—”
“She’s fine. Just, you know. Being dramatic.” Pinky smoothed her lip balm over her lips and smacked them together. “So when do you think my dad’s going to rope us all into another Boggle tournament?”
Dolly cocked her head. “Pinky. Really?”
“What?”
“What’s going on with you and Samir?” Dolly said, leaning forward. “You can tell me; I’m not going to go rat on you or anything.”
“There’s nothing going on,” Pinky said as convincingly as possible, given that her palms were sweaty. She had no problem lying to her parents, but Dolly was another matter. She wanted to tell her, she did, but… she needed to keep this thing as “pure” as possible. The fewer people who knew about this, the less chance there’d be of an accidental slip or something else to derail her—and Samir’s—plans.
Dolly’s phone dinged and she pulled it out of her pocket, making a face at the screen, fully distracted.
“Cash?” Pinky guessed. Awash in a flood of relief, she hopped off the bed and scooped up Drama Queen’s limp body. She walked to her closet and put her carefully back into her shoebox.
“Yeah.” Dolly sighed. “He wants to come over.”
“What? When?”
“Tonight.” A faint blush spread over Dolly’s cheeks and neck.
“Hookup session.” Pinky nodded knowingly. “Don’t do it.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not.” Dolly slipped the phone back into her pocket. “Problem is, he doesn’t seem to like hearing the word ‘no.’ ”
“After he burned down our barn?” Pinky walked to the window and leaned out to look at the pile of black wreckage. “Jerk.”
“It’s my fault,” Dolly said, “for hanging out with him in the first place. But there’s something just… really persuasive about him.”
Pinky turned around, her hands on the windowsill. “You can’t let him bulldoze you. No means no.”
“That’s the thing, though,” Dolly said, looking slightly tortured. “I kind of want him to come over anyway. I like who I am with him. And even though I knew he’s no good for me and my parents would be super disappointed in me for hanging out with him, I want to anyway.”
Pinky blew out a breath, making her bangs jump. “Yeah. Been there, sister.”
Samir
The next day, Samir woke up, brushed his teeth, and took a shower before making his way out of his room. In the hallway, he passed Pinky’s parents’ empty bedroom and Pinky’s closed bedroom door (not surprising; it was barely nine o’clock in the morning, and she hadn’t woken up until close to ten so far into his stay) before slowing to look at the large gallery wall of pictures. He’d noticed them before but hadn’t really taken the time to look.
There were a lot of photographs, most of them black and white, in black frames with white matting. He touched a frame with his fingertip; it looked like wood, but the texture felt different. Weird. Was it made of plastic or something? But then his attention was caught by a photograph in the center, of two little girls, clearly Pinky and Dolly when they were about seven or eight, in identical pigtails, eating ice creams on the front porch of this house. Dolly’s pigtails were immaculate, whereas Pinky’s were halfway out of their hair elastics. Her face was smeared with chocolate—even her eyebrows were covered—while Dolly looked like she might be in an ice cream ad.
Grinning, Samir looked at another picture, on the right, of a ten- or eleven-year-old Pinky sitting between her parents on a couch, a tiny kitten in her lap. The kitten’s foot had been bandaged, and Pinky was petting it gently, not at all focused on the camera. There was another picture right below it, of just Pinky and her mom, in what looked like a garden, surrounded by butterflies. Pinky was very little, only about four or five, her chubby hands outstretched, her eyes crinkled in delight, her mouth open mid-laugh. Her mom was gazing down at her adoringly, oblivious to the cloud of butterflies around them, as if no one and nothing else existed in the world except for her daughter. How did they get from that to where they were now?