Rules for Being a Girl - Candace Bushnell Page 0,1

against my cheek, and for a second I forget to be annoyed. Jacob and I have been dating since last spring in AP US History, when we happened to be sitting side by side as Ms. Shah assigned partners for our final research project. I was hoping for somebody who’d let me boss him around and get us both As, which has been my strategy for group projects for basically as long as I’ve been doing them, but to my surprise, Jacob had actual opinions about which primary sources would be most useful to build a document-based question on the social reforms that led up to the Civil War. We argued for two full weeks before we figured out how to work together. When we got our A he lifted me up and twirled me around right there in the middle of class.

Now I sit down in my own chair and pull a turkey sandwich out of my bag, nodding at Dean Shepherd as he sets his tray down beside Chloe. The two of them went to homecoming together earlier this year and since then he’s been not at all subtle about trying to date her.

“You going to this thing at Emily Cerato’s on Friday?” he asks, cracking the cap on his bottle of Dr Pepper and offering her the first sip.

Chloe shrugs, peeling her clementine industriously. “I was thinking about it,” she allows. “You?”

I miss Dean’s answer—and, thankfully, most of Joey’s ensuing monologue about how hot Emily and her dance team friends all are—catching sight of Bex perched on the stage at the far end of the room, next to Ms. Klein, a bio teacher who was new back in September. She’s youngish, in her late twenties maybe, with curly dark hair and glasses and a wardrobe that seems to consist almost entirely of belted shirtdresses from Banana Republic. She’s sitting with her ankles crossed inside a pair of boots with blocky wooden heels, eating a cup of fancy yogurt while Bex laughs at something she said.

Chloe flicks a clementine peel at me. “Now look who’s gawking,” she says, lifting her chin in Bex’s direction.

“I am not!” I whisper-yell.

“Uh-huh. Wipe the drool, why don’t you,” Chloe says with a laugh.

I sigh dramatically. “I can’t help it. You know I’m a sucker for a man in khakis.” I glance back at Bex and Ms. Klein. “Do you think there’s something going on there?” I’d be lying if I said Chloe and I aren’t the tiniest bit obsessed with Bex’s romantic life.

“What?” Right away, Chloe shakes her head. “No.”

“Why not?” I ask. “Ms. Klein is cute.”

“I mean, I guess.” Chloe looks unconvinced. “In like, a local newscaster kind of way.”

“I’d nail her,” Joey puts in helpfully.

“Nobody asked you, Joe.” I turn back to Chloe. “I’m just saying: long nights grading papers, romantic looks across the teachers’ lounge—”

“Oh my god.” Chloe pops a wedge of clementine into her mouth. “Are you sure that isn’t your fantasy?” she asks. “Maybe you should reconsider becoming a journalist. I feel like romance novels are your true calling.”

“This is journalism!” I protest, laughing. “Serious, investigative journalism into the never-before-seen love lives of America’s most important national treasure—our teachers.”

Chloe snorts. “You do that,” she says, tucking her clementine peel back into her brown paper lunch bag. “I gotta go though, I’ve got a dentist appointment this afternoon, so I’m leaving early. Are you good to run the meeting without me?”

Chloe and I are coeditors of the Beacon this year and spend basically every available moment in the office with Bex and the rest of the staff, hunched over the sluggish computers and sprawled out on the ragged, sagging couch.

“Yep, totally. I’ll text you tonight.” I wave goodbye and turn back to Jacob, who’s already finishing his second chicken sandwich. “Do you want to go to Emily Cerato’s party?” I ask.

“Sure,” he says with a shrug, opening a cellophane pack of Oreos. “Why not, right?”

“I don’t know.” I nibble at a piece of kettle corn. “I was also thinking maybe we could do that movie I was talking about the other day, the one about the sisters who inherit the house?”

“The historical thing?” he asks with a frown. “Wouldn’t you rather see that with Chloe or your mom?”

I raise my eyebrows pointedly. “By which you mean you’d rather poke out your own eyeballs than sit through it?”

“I didn’t say that,” Jacob protests, handing me a cookie in an attempt at a peace offering. “If you want to go