Macarons at Midnight Read online

  He looked defensive until he saw my teasing smile, and then he cracked one of his own. “What? Don’t I always look like I’m having fun?”

  “Um … pretty much never,” I joked. “When you’re in the pressroom, at least.”

  I expected him to laugh, but instead, his face turned sheepish. “I was drawing. I guess I get lost in it sometimes, in the worlds I make on the paper.”

  “I could see that on your face before. You were in that other world.”

  He studied me, as if he was trying to come to a decision about something. Then he seemed to make up his mind, and added, “I … I’ve never said this out loud before, but I actually hate editing. I’d pick art over writing any day.”

  I stared at his face, watching the cloud descend over it again. “So why don’t you, then?” I suggested, feeling brave. “You should sign up for a class with Mr. Diaz. He seems like a great art teacher. He already loves your work.”

  Raj frowned. “What? How does he know my work?”

  Oh no! “Oh, he doesn’t. I mean, I assume he would love it. You know?” Whew, that was close. “It’s a hunch, that’s all.”

  Raj looked thoughtful, but then shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what he’d think. He’s never going to see it. My dad would freak.”

  Well, now we were getting somewhere. “Because of the waste of time hang-up?” He looked as if he was about to ask how I knew, so I added a quick, “Viv told me.”

  “That, and because if I took art, I’d have less time to focus on the paper. If I’m on the law track, he doesn’t want me distracted by ‘fluff.’ That’s what he calls it.” Raj sighed.

  “You could try talking to him about it,” I pressed. “If art makes you happy, then—”

  “Then what?” He frowned at me. “I talk to Dad and, in an after-school special sort of way, he suddenly has a change of heart? That’s not how he works.”

  “Okay,” I said softly, not wanting grouchy Raj to return, when it seemed as though the two of us were finally connecting face-to-face for the first time since Swoonful. “Sorry.”

  His eyes softened. “No. I’m sorry.” He gave me a small smile. “I should’ve known better than to bring up my dad. I get worked up every time. So … no more!” He smiled, then picked up his sketchpad. “Do you want to give it a try?”

  “What … sketching?” I laughed, shaking my head.

  “Oh, come on,” he challenged. “I thought you were braver than that. Guess I was wrong.”

  I glared at him, sticking out my hand. “Give me that.”

  He grinned in satisfaction and set the sketchpad in my hands, along with a piece of charcoal. “We’ll try something easy.” He grabbed a tiny flower vase off one of the other editor’s desks and set it on the table in front of me.

  “What do I do first?” I asked, feeling suddenly self-conscious at trying my hand at something I knew so little about.

  “Whatever you want,” he said. “That’s what’s great about it. The freedom.”

  “Like writing,” I said. “When I’m doing it for myself, and not as an assignment.”

  I stared uncertainly at the vase, then shooed Raj away. “I can’t work while you’re watching me. Go … slash some poor reporter’s word count down or something.”

  “Funny,” he said drily, but sat down across the room pretending to look busy with work.

  I took a breath, then swept the charcoal in a slow curve across the page, trying to create the silhouette of the vase. I added another curve, and another, until slowly a shape started forming. I held the sketchpad at arm’s length, then snorted. “It’s all wrong. It looks like a deranged hippopotamus.”

  Raj came up behind me, surveying the page. “No …” he said judiciously, “it looks like a deranged hippopotamus vase.”

  I slapped him with the sketchpad, and he yowled playfully. Then he leaned toward me. “Let me show you,” he said. He placed his hand over mine, slowly guiding the charcoal over the shape I’d made, rounding it out, adding in shadows. My hand warmed under his, fingers tingling at his touch. His chin hovered just above my shoulder, and his minty breath blew faintly across my neck in a way that made me dizzy. And then, our hands weren’t moving on the page anymore. They were resting together, fingers entwined. It only lasted for a second before he pulled away suddenly, clearing his throat.

  “There,” he said awkwardly, without meeting my eyes. “That’s better.”

  It wasn’t better. It was … heaven.

  “Um … I should get to class,” I mumbled, standing up so quickly I nearly knocked the vase off the table. I righted it and handed him his sketchpad.

  “Yeah, but … wait!” If it was possible for him to look even more bashful, he did. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Really? What?” I asked hopefully, then cursed myself for sounding so eager. I didn’t want to end our conversation, but I didn’t want to act like an idiot, either.

  His cheeks deepened to a burnished walnut color, and he took a step toward me in a way that made my heart skip deliriously. Then he spoke.

  “Viv.”

  “Viv?” I repeated faintly as my heart stopped, then fell with a thump. “Oh. Yeah. Viv. Right.”

  “I’m having trouble figuring her out. The first time I met her at Swoonful, talking to her was so … easy. But when I’m with her now, sometimes I don’t know what to say. Online, we always connect. Like, amazingly. Over art, music … everything. But when we’re together she seems sort of … bored by what I’m into.”

  “Well, what about stuff she’s into?” I suggested, trying to keep calm. You connect with me online! I kept thinking.

  “That’s what I mean! We had this great chat about music online, but when I brought up Chopin yesterday, she said she hated classical music! How could she change her mind about that in less than twenty-four hours?”

  “Oh,” I said. Or, more like uh-oh. “Maybe she just … forgot?”

  “About her taste in music?” he said. “Not likely. It’s like, there’s the girl I see at school, and then the girl in her IMs and emails.” He shook his head. “She seems like two different people sometimes.”

  “Hmmm.” I nodded, trying to look understanding while I smacked my internal forehead over and over again. Of course Viv seemed like two different people. She was! “Well … she is kind of shy.”

  Raj laughed. “No, that’s not it. She’s anything but shy.” He paused. “I’ve seen other guys flirting with her in the halls. And sometimes, I feel like she’s as into them as she is into me.”

  “But she’s not,” I said. Yet, I added mentally.

  “You know what I mean though,” he said. “She’s beautiful and so confident.”

  “So that’s why you like her?” I asked, my spirits sinking.

  “Of course not. But she keeps every guy practiced in the art of drooling. I’d be an idiot to let her go. Right?”

  I looked at him for a long time before saying quietly, “Who are you trying to convince?”

  “No one!” he blurted. “I mean, I don’t need convincing. I’m lucky she’s interested in me at all.” He paused. “I just wish we got along in person as well as we do online.” He rubbed his forehead. “I know it doesn’t make any sense—”

  “It—it does,” I stammered, my heart racing. “She feels the same way.”

  “Really?” His face brightened. “How do you know?”

  I shrugged. “Oh … I just have a feeling,” I said. Despite all the gushing he’d just done about Viv, I felt like I was in danger of melting into those eyes of his. What was wrong with me?

  “I, um, I’ve gotta get to class,” I managed to say.

  He nodded reluctantly, and I could’ve imagined it, but I thought a trace of disappointment flashed across his face. “I’ll see you tomorrow on the field trip?” he asked.

  “Tomorrow,” I said as I stumbled out the door.

  So Raj acknowledged that we had a connection! Only … he thought it was a co
nnection with Viv, not me. Only it was me, not her. But then he’d said Viv was beautiful, which was true. And that she was interested in him, which she wasn’t. Only … what if she was? Now my head and my heart hurt.

  I floated down the hallway in a daze, thinking about how much I wanted him to recognize me, how much I wished that he would somehow magically sense that I was the girl from that night. Not the Viv version of me, but the real, plain Jane, stubborn me.

  As I sat down in English, trying to reorient myself to gravity, I realized what I had to do. It was time to tell him the truth.

  I paced back and forth in front of the school, my impatient breaths puffing in the air like steam from a train.

  “Where is she?” I grumbled. We were supposed to be boarding buses for our field trip to Concord in just a few minutes.

  “That’s the fourth time you’ve asked,” Kyan said. “She’ll be here.”

  I scanned the parking lot for Viv, but there was still no sign of her. I’d tried calling her again last night, but had only gotten her voicemail. She’d become friends with Raj, and everything had gotten so complicated. This was a delicate matter, and I felt like I needed to tell her about my decision face-to-face. And before Raj arrived.

  Finally, I saw her mom’s car pull up with Viv inside, frowning. From the way they were talking and gesturing, it looked like they were having an argument. Viv finally got out and stalked toward us.

  Kyan was at her side instantly, a look of concern on his face. “What’s wrong?”

  Viv threw up her hands. “Everything!” she cried. “I asked my mom if I could take a break from the modeling gigs, just for the spring. She completely flipped her lid.”

  “You want to give up modeling?” I asked. “Why?”

  “Because … I don’t even like it that much!” She scowled. “I’m tired of missing school to spend all day in some trailer while they paste my face with makeup. By the time they’re done, I have more layers than a wedding cake!”

  “But … I thought you loved getting the free clothes?” I said.

  “I admit, that is a huge perk. Still, they’re only clothes.” She sighed. “I’m tired of everyone seeing me as a pretty face and that’s it. I’m more than that, and I want to prove it.” She gave a faint smile, shaking her head sadly.

  Kyan pulled her into a sudden hug, which seemed to surprise him as much as it did her, because both of them pulled away awkwardly, blushing.

  “It took some serious guts to even talk to your mom.” Kyan cleared his throat, staring at the ground. “You should be proud.”

  “Thanks,” Viv said, glancing up at him gratefully.

  “Come on.” I slipped my arm through Viv’s as a line of buses pulled into the parking lot. Our teachers began drifting out of the school to start directing us to board. “We’ll cheer you up on the bus ride.”

  Viv groaned. “I was so busy fighting with Mom, I completely forgot about the field trip!” She glanced down at her black ballet flats. “Raj said he wanted to walk with me up to Author’s Ridge while we’re there.”

  “He did?” I said hesitantly. Oh no. What if it was too late to tell Raj the truth about myself now?

  “I think it’s over a mile,” Viv said. “I’ll never make it in these shoes.” She looked forlornly at the sturdy brown boots I had on.

  Kyan nudged my arm, giving me a pointed look that I took to mean, “It’s now or never.”

  I swallowed. This was my chance.

  “Actually, Viv,” I said, “I wanted to talk to you about Raj. I think …” I took a deep breath. “I think I want to tell him the truth.”

  Viv froze, her eyes widening as though I’d completely caught her off guard. “You do?” she said softly. “You do!” She smiled, but it seemed forced. “That’s great, Lise! It’s so much better to get everything out in the open.”

  “Really?” I said worriedly. “You’re not upset? Because if … if you like Raj. As more than a friend, I mean. If you don’t want me to—”

  “Of course I want you to!” she said. “Why wouldn’t I? Ben Jackson is going to ask me to Winter Formal any minute, and I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out a way to let Raj down easy.”

  “You have?” Kyan narrowed his eyes doubtfully.

  “This is perfect!” Viv went on brightly as we got in line to board the bus. “I’m not into hiking anyway, so you go on the walk with him and tell him then. And I’ll …” Her voice faded, and she glanced around, looking lost.

  “You’ll hang out with me,” Kyan said, looking proud of himself.

  “Mom’s put me in a foul mood,” she warned. “I won’t be good company.”

  “You’re always good company,” Kyan said simply, and Viv smiled at him.

  “That would be great,” she said. Suddenly, she raised her hand, waving. “Raj! Over here!”

  I turned to see Raj walking toward us. My heart galloped at the thought of what I was about to do. As we climbed onto the bus, he barely said two words to me and Kyan, and my courage faltered. He had eyes only for Viv.

  “I promised I’d sit with him on the bus,” Viv whispered to me as we followed him down the aisle. “But once we get to Concord, he’s all yours.”

  I nodded, but then they scooted into their seat and immediately began chatting in soft, for-your-ears-only tones. And I couldn’t help wondering, Is he really?

  “Are you sure you don’t want to come on the hike?” Raj asked Viv as we stood in front of the antique house tucked away in its cozy, wooded enclave. We’d finished the walking tour of Orchard House, the home of Louise May Alcott and her family, and now the eighth graders were splitting up into several groups. There was a group that wanted to spend more time inside the house browsing through the museum, a second group that was heading to the Concord town center, and a third that was taking the walking trail to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery to check out Author’s Ridge.

  “My feet will never make it in these shoes,” Viv said, but she said it a lot less cheerfully than she had earlier.

  “But these are the graves of the greats,” Raj insisted. “Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau. People make pilgrimages to Concord just to see them!”

  “I’m always getting Ralph and Henry confused.” Viv crinkled her nose. “Which one wrote The Scarlet Letter again?”

  “That was Nathaniel Hawthorne,” I said, smiling and shaking my head at her. She may have been overdoing it, but I appreciated the effort she was putting into getting Raj on board so I could execute my plan.

  “See?” Viv said. “I’m hopeless. I can’t keep any of them straight. And you know what I think about seeing a bunch of dead authors’ graves.” She shivered.

  “Oh.” Raj looked more than disappointed.

  Viv glanced at me, then gave Raj an encouraging smile. “Lise really wants to go, though. You guys are both into writing. I’m sure you’ll have lots to talk about on the way.”

  “Okay,” he finally said, but he looked at me with the same fallen expression someone would have being handed a consolation prize.

  My hopes for the afternoon sagged. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all. Kyan was the only one who seemed happy about this situation, and I knew it was because he’d get to spend the next hour or two with Viv.

  “Have fun,” Viv called cheerily. She looked worried as we turned down the street with the rest of our group, though, and I felt a stab of unexpected guilt. Then I checked myself. Viv had known all along that this was bound to happen, sooner or later. So why should I feel guilty?

  Raj and I walked along the street in silence for the first few minutes. “It’s beautiful here,” he said.

  “I know,” I said, tilting my head back to look up through the trees. Their bare branches wove in and out of the dappled sunshine like a sprawling wilderness tapestry. “No wonder so many writers lived in this area. How could you not be inspired by this?”

  “That’s pretty much what Emerson said, too,” Raj said, running his hands along th
e trunk of a birch tree. “ ‘The good, the wise, and the great will have left their names and virtues on the trees.’ ” He smiled at me. “That’s from the speech he gave at the dedication of the cemetery. I know it sounds strange, but I can almost feel them here. You know, in their words and ideas.”

  “That’s not strange,” I said softly. “I feel it, too. I think about that when I write, how I want to communicate ideas that matter to me.” I picked a pinecone off the trail, turning it over in my hands. “That’s why I fought you about the food beat. I wasn’t trying to cop an attitude. I want to write about things I believe in.”

  “That’s how art is for me,” he said, his eyes lighting with enthusiasm. “When I’m starting a piece, I try to see the world in a new way. So that what I draw, you know, says something.”

  “How do you do it?” I asked. “See the world in a fresh way?”

  “The world changes every second. It’s just that most people get too bogged down in their routines to notice. Come on, I’ll show you.” He motioned for me to follow him off the path. As we broke through the tree line to a lookout point atop a rocky ledge, the sky and town stretched out below us in a beautiful landscape.

  “Now … tell me what you see,” he said. “Not the objects and their names. But colors, shapes, textures.”

  I studied everything—the tiny houses, clusters of bare trees, the bright wintery sky—imagining I was seeing them for the very first time ever. “Those trees over there.” I pointed. “The way the light’s hitting them makes them look … coppery. And those clouds look like feathers with icy pink tips.” I laughed. “There’s a light blue mist hanging over that valley down there. And …” I gasped in delight. “A red fox drinking from that creek!”

  He grinned. “Wow, that’s great, Lise. I didn’t even see the fox.” We stared out at the view for a few seconds in silence, and then he looked at me squarely. “Maybe you can do that same thing with your food beat. You know, think about giving your readers a fresh outlook on some place they’ve eaten at a dozen times already. Make them see it in a different way. That’s way more challenging than just reporting on food.”