Enthusiasm Read online

  Nobody could ever find Ashleigh dull.

  Then there was Parr’s long disappearance during the ginger-ale quest. At the time, I wondered whether he had been trying to abandon me entirely, but when he showed up with the elusive soft drink, I was touched. What a lot of trouble he’d taken for me, I thought. Now, though, Ashleigh’s theory seemed equally likely: that he was trying to spin out his time with her.

  The other apparent signs of Parr’s feelings toward me—his friendly teasing, his disapproval when creepy Chris got too close, and his Cinderella remarks, which put him in the role of the prince—also melted away on closer inspection. I bit my lip to keep from crying with jealousy. Why did Ashleigh always get everything? Not only had she taken over my enthusiasm for Jane Austen, but now she seemed hell-bent on stealing my secret love!

  For a long time I struggled with myself, feeling bitter resentment and condemning myself for it. After all, I could not question Ashleigh’s generosity or the purity of her motives. When she fell for Parr, she had no idea that I had gotten there first. You could even say the whole thing was my own fault for not taking her into my confidence from the start. Ash would never have looked twice at a boy she knew I liked. She was too loyal. For my sake, she had even given up her plans to become a nun at age eight, when she learned that Jewish girls couldn’t enter a Catholic sisterhood. If she had known my feelings, I believed she would have tried to suppress her own.

  No, if somebody had to suppress her feelings, it should be me. After all, I was much better at it than Ashleigh. I would prove to myself, if it killed me, that I could be as generous as my friend.

  Still, if Parr didn’t see me in a romantic light, it didn’t necessarily follow that he had chosen Ashleigh. She and I were far from the only ones who admired the handsome fencer. I remembered the Wharton girl in the bathroom with the crush on Parr. She considered him beyond her reach. She thought he was already taken. Well, perhaps he was—not by me or Ashleigh, as she seemed to assume, but by someone else!

  And even if Parr’s heart was free, did Ash or I stand a chance with him? Impossible to say. For, as I gradually realized, he was stuck in Forefield, and we would have no chance to get to know him better.

  Hopeless, hopeless, all of it. The world that had seemed so bright and sharp faded to gray. Even the leaves blazing outside the window looked washed out, as if fall no longer mattered. I lay back on the bed, closed my eyes, and let tears leak into my ears.

  “Jul—Oh, napping?” said my stepmother disapprovingly, coming into the room with a perfunctory knock. “Would you mind helping me downstairs, sweetie? I’m not supposed to lift anything.”

  I awarded myself half a dozen imaginary dollars: one for not answering snappishly that Amy had interrupted a period of quiet, mindful contemplation; two more for not telling her she could perfectly well carry her own groceries; and the rest for not smashing the furniture in my despair.

  I spent the afternoon stowing bulk packages of toilet paper, diet soda, and other scintillating commodities in the laundry room and hauling junk from the other basement room up to the attic. Although I didn’t have the emotional strength to ask what it all meant, I hoped the I.A. was preparing a new home for her sewing machine, so I wouldn’t have to live with it in my room. She had been using it quite a bit over the last few weeks; the table next to it was covered with pastel-colored fabric scraps.

  I worked obediently, the physical activity distracting and soothing me. Still, my sorrow preyed on my mind, killing any urge to socialize; when Ashleigh called on Sunday, I even let Amy tell her I was too busy to talk.

  It wasn’t until Monday evening—Columbus Day—that I summoned the strength to check my e-mail. I found this message waiting:

  From: Downing, Ned

  To: [email protected]

  Sent: Sunday, 2:21 P.M.

  Subject: upsidedown headmasters

  hi julie,

  hey it was fun dancign with you and ashley. if you guys snuck into the great hall and turned the headmasters upside down would that make them feetmasters? if you hung them on teh stairs would they be stairmasters? i hope you’ll come help i have a plan but i’m not sure it’ll work. pleaes say hi to ashley for me. do you have her email address?

  best wishes

  ned

  Oh, great, I thought. The first time a boy ever invites me to hang out with him (or, more precisely, hang pictures with him), it’s (a) the wrong boy, who (b) can’t type, and (c) has the world’s least romantic ulterior motive—a practical joke.

  For a painful minute I considered going along with his plan, whatever it was: since it would have to take place on the Forefield campus, there was a chance I would see Parr again. But such pleasures, I told myself sternly, were not for me.

  How, then, should I answer Ned’s message? Sending him Ashleigh’s e-mail address could only lead to more excruciating escapades. Given half a chance, the Enthusiast would surely insist on flipping the portraits, not only from her love of mischief, but from the same motive I was resisting: the hope of seeing Parr. However, it seemed cruel not to respond to Ned at all—what if I was right that he had fallen for Ash? And if he had, I caught myself thinking, perhaps he could win her away from Parr, leaving the field open for me. Hastily I squelched the thought.

  After some hesitation, I wrote back:

  Hi Ned,

  Thank you for your message. I had a great time at the dance too. Overturning the Forefield headmasters sounds a little beyond me, though. Ashleigh might be up for it—but please don’t let her get mauled to death by fierce turkeys!!!! Her address is [email protected]. (Remember to spell her name with an eigh, or it won’t get there.)

  I added, “Please give my regards to Parr,” deleted it, undeleted it, deleted it again and added, “Hi to Parr,” deleted and undeleted that a few times, reinstated “Please give my regards to Parr,” signed the message, and hit .

  By Tuesday morning, while no more cheerful, I was at least calm enough to meet Ashleigh and pretend things were normal. Our first chance to speak came during lunch. “There you are,” she said excitedly, slipping into the seat next to me. “Why didn’t you call me back? Didn’t Amy give you my message?”

  “What message?” I lied.

  “Oh, that certified public adder! Of course she wouldn’t give you my message, even though I told her it was important. I was calling to say I received an e-mail from Him.”

  “Him who—Ned?”

  “Ned! Faugh! How your mind does run on Ned! From Parr, of course.”

  My sandwich—one of Amy’s ordinarily delicious pesto-and-roasted-vegetable specials—turned to leaf mold in my mouth.

  “Really? What did he have to say?”

  “He was glad we reached home in safety—I e-mailed him right away, as he had requested. He described his experience with kendo and recommended it as a sport well suited to an active young lady. He passed along greetings from several of the gentlemen with whom we danced. He also praised my dancing—he said he had enjoyed my ‘unique approach to the quadrille.’ What do you think it means? Do you think he likes me?”

  On the whole, I did tend to think so. Yet I feared that in her enthusiasm Ashleigh might have mistaken a mild regard for a more intense emotion.

  Or did I merely hope so?

  “Sounds like it might be a good sign,” I said cautiously.

  “Doesn’t it? I really think it is. Oh,” added Ash, “and he said to tell you hi.”

  Yvette and Yolanda joined us, and the conversation turned to more general topics, such as the impossibility of getting parts in the school production of West Side Story when competing against people like Michelle Jeffries and Cordelia Nixon, who ran the show like a popularity contest.

  After school Ashleigh wanted to delve deeper into the subtleties of Parr’s message, but I begged off, pleading homework. I hurried to my father’s house. For once the I.A. was in a subdued, even glum mood that matched my own, and she left me alone. For sev
eral hours I balanced chemical equations, memorized French verbs, and tried to anticipate Ms. Nettleton’s opinion on the death of Romeo’s cousin Tybalt. When it came to history, however—a chapter on European weapons and military strategy in the Middle Ages—I couldn’t concentrate. The subject reminded me too much of Ashleigh and Parr.

  I checked my e-mail again, and there it was:

  From: Parr, Grandison

  To: [email protected]

  Sent: Tuesday, 9:45 P.M.

  Subject: Help me stop them

  Dear Julia,

  Your friend Ashleigh gave me your e-mail address—I hope that’s okay?

  I was relieved to hear that Zach Liu got you home in one piece. Or I guess I should say two pieces, since there are two of you.

  I take it all the shoes arrived safely too?

  Which brings me to the topic of this message: safety.

  I assume Ashleigh told you about the plan she and Ned are cooking up to rearrange the portraits in the Great Hall. Is there any way you can talk her out of it? Ned’s already in trouble for miking the stalls in the faculty bathroom and wiring them to the PA system. Wattles has it in for him. I’m worried that if Ned goes through with the portrait thing, he could lose his scholarship.

  I tried to talk him out of it, but he says he doesn’t want to disappoint Ashleigh. Can you stop her? She’s obviously strong willed and high-spirited, but you seem like a sensible person, someone she might listen to.

  I’m glad you came to the dance last weekend. I’ve never had such a good time at a Forefield social event. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible. If only you’d crash our classes, I’d even look forward to trigonometry.

  Sincerely yours,

  C. Grandison Parr

  My pulse beat hard in my throat as I read this message, especially the last paragraph. He was glad I had come to the dance! He’d look forward to trig if I were there! The first two times I read the message, I hardly took in the main subject, Ashleigh and Ned’s dangerous plan.

  The third time through, however, I was struck by a painful thought: In English, you can be plural as well as singular. Perhaps Parr meant that he was glad to have danced with me and Ashleigh —that the presence of me and Ashleigh would make trig bearable. After all, that was how he used you in the second sentence, the one about Zach getting us home in two pieces. And Ash was the topic of the message, its entire purpose. Probably the you in question included me only as an afterthought: probably it was meant to express more strongly Parr’s admiration for my lively friend, whom he had already praised.

  To him, I was nothing but a sensible person.

  All right, then, Julia Lefkowitz, I told myself: BE sensible.

  Dear Grandison,

  I wish I could help, I really do. But in the 10 years I’ve known Ashleigh, I’ve only been able to talk her out of one scheme—the time she wanted to jump off the roof wearing papier-mâché wings. I convinced her to try it with her doll first. After Arabella’s (the doll’s) head cracked open, Ash didn’t speak to me for a week and a half. The first thing she said to me afterward was that she’d never listen to me again. And she pretty much never has.

  Did you try to talk her out of the plan yourself? I think she’d be more likely to listen to you than to me. I know she admires and respects you.

  Or maybe you could somehow get Wattles to lock the hall extra carefully for a while?

  I’m sorry I can’t help more, especially since Ash and I owe you so much for saving us from Wattles last week.

  Sincerely yours,

  Julia Lefkowitz

  I read the message through, deleted the sentence about Ashleigh admiring Parr for fear it might be betraying her trust (or, muttered a little voice inside me, for fear it might give him ideas), and clicked .

  Chapter 9

  Rumors of rivals ~ I withdraw ~ I join up ~ a Surprising communication from my Mother ~ a Shocking communication from my Stepmother ~ Ashleigh too ~ I Endeavor to come to my Senses.

  Have you ever tried to avoid your best friend: the girl who knows all your secrets (or all but one), the girl who up to now has spent every free moment by your side and is liable to appear at your window at any hour of the day or night with acorns in her hair, expecting to be admitted?

  If so, you know how difficult the days that followed were for me.

  Ashleigh wanted me to read and interpret all her e-mail messages from Parr—and there were a ton of them. She never tired of combing through them for clues to his feelings, or of dreaming up schemes to see him in person.

  “Julia! Come read this—I need your advice,” she said one afternoon as I sat on her bed doing my math homework.

  “What is it?”

  “A disturbing message indeed. I need your help interpreting it.”

  “Is it another e-mail from Parr? I don’t know, Ash, aren’t those sort of private?”

  “My dearest Julia! You know I have no secrets from you! Anyway, it’s from Samantha Liu.”

  “Oh, okay,” I said. Looking over her shoulder at her computer screen, I read:

  Hi Ashleigh—

  I asked around for you; see below. Look how you’re ruining my reputation! I’ll let you know if I hear anything else.

  —Sam

  > Oh, so your “friend” wants to know about Grandison Parr, does

  > she? Really, Sam, I wouldn’t have thought he’d be your type—

  > isn’t he a little romantic for you? I mean, he writes *poetry*!

  > Well, you’re in good company, according to my sources at Miss

  > Wharton’s. He’s—what’s that thing they all chase after in

  > Quidditch? The Golden Snitch? Unfortunately, they say he’s

  > going out with a tall blonde. I haven’t been able to pinpoint

  > which one, but it might be Emily Wardwell or Kayla Thwaite—

  > they were both seen with him at the recent Forefield dance.

  > Sorry! But don’t despair. I’d back you against any Wart, no

  > matter how tall and blonde. Do I get a reward for this? Maybe

  > you could get me a date with that yummy brother

  > of yours?

  > Just kidding, sort of . . .

  “Well?” I said.

  “Well, what do you think?” said Ashleigh. “Do you think it’s true?”

  “I don’t know, Ash. What do you think?” I selfishly hoped it was. I would far rather have a Wart girl as a rival than my beloved Ashleigh. Maybe then Ash and I could even share a companionable gloom.

  But Ashleigh quickly cheered herself up: her enthusiasm comes with a hearty dose of optimism. “I don’t know!” she said. “My impulse is to believe Miss Liu, whose judgment is remarkably sound. However, we have no information about her friend’s judgment—we don’t even know who her friend is. It’s just like Samantha to be so discreet! Perhaps those ‘sources’ may be mistaken. Parr’s last message sounded very encouraging. Listen to this: ‘Sounds like you and Julia had a great time apple picking last weekend. I wish I’d been there.’ What do you think that means? Do you think he likes me?”

  These discussions made me so miserable that I tried my best to avoid them, and when I found that impossible, I began to avoid Ashleigh.

  At least one good thing came from her devotion to Parr: she agreed to give up the plan to monkey with the headmasters. I heard this first in an e-mail from Ned, who blamed me for her change of heart. Later Parr made the same mistake and thanked me. I answered Ned politely but briefly, and Parr not at all, although I found it hard to keep my cursor away from the button. I couldn’t let myself carry on a correspondence, however innocent, with Ashleigh’s beloved. After a few unanswered messages, Parr stopped writing.

  I threw myself into my schoolwork, the best way I knew to numb my mind. I took dawn bike rides and hikes in the hills among the ever-barer trees, sneaking out while Ash was still in bed. I spent long hours working in the storeroom and on the computer, attempting to s
traighten out the inventory and accounts of Helen’s Treasures. And holding my inner nose, I joined the staff—or, as Ms. Nettleton called it, the crew—of Sailing to Byzantium, our high school literary magazine.

  The Nettle gave me the position of assistant editor and began smiling at me in class. My father was overjoyed. He rained down little pellets of smugness, like a squirrel shelling nuts overhead. “I’m glad you’ve started taking a real interest in your academic career,” he beamed. “Amy will be so proud.”

  When Ashleigh expressed her astonishment at my extracurricular activity, I lied to her (a painful new habit), explaining that Dad had threatened to withhold my allowance unless I joined up. She generously offered to keep me company, but I told her it would only make the whole thing worse if she suffered too.

  Even without her, I suffered. The worst was the loneliness. Though surrounded by people, I felt utterly isolated. I missed my friend, the only person who really understood me, yet in her company I felt lonelier than ever.

  Early one evening, as I sat on my bed staring out the window at the pattern made by the oak branches—a lattice of bars between me and heaven—I heard a knock at my door.

  “You in there, honey?” asked my mother.

  “Uh-huh—come in.”

  “It’s so dark in here! Why don’t you turn on a light? No, leave it if you like this better—listen, I want to talk to you.” She sat down on the end of my bed and curled her legs under her. “I’ve noticed that you haven’t been yourself for the last few weeks, and I think I know why.”