Starry Night by Isabel Gillies Read Free Book Online

Nolan.
    â€œYeah, thanks, Wren, it was the real deal, I think. But— but , there is this other guy down there … Nolan , and he is so freaking gorgeous. He was wearing this Bronx Science shirt, like all cool and faded and worn in. And he had purple high-tops on, and he had this long, cool sort of black-brown hair and he’s tall, right?” Vati looked at me for confirmation.
    â€œThat is Nolan Shop. I’m sure of it,” Reagan said in a towel, standing in front of my Starry Night poster with my Tweezerman in her hand.
    â€œHow do you know?” I asked, with a little more edge to my voice than I meant to have. (That’s another ADD thing, or maybe it’s a big-feeler thing, but not having a lot of control over the emotion in your voice.) That is what Reagan is like. It can’t just be my thing that I had an encounter with a hot guy in my house, of course Reagan knows him. It felt like she was ever so slightly taking something from me. She does it even with random things, like magazines. I’ll have just cracked open a brand-new issue of Vogue and she’ll ask to see a picture for “just a second” and then she’ll end up reading the whole thing.
    â€œIt’s got to be him,” she said, gesturing with the tweezers she was holding like some teachers do with their reading glasses. The octopus in my tummy was going bananas.
    â€œThere’s a sort of famous Nolan that goes to Bronx Science. How many Nolans could there be? He’s all over Facebook. And Facebook is all over him,” she said. I felt like I was going to murder my parents that I had to wait until I was sixteen to have a Facebook page. I rushed into the bathroom to look at myself in the medicine cabinet mirror that was completely steamed up because of Reagan’s shower. Who am I if I don’t even know what is all over Facebook? The mirror had no answers. All I saw through the steam was that my hair looked wild and unruly from the wind.
    â€œ Who. Is. Nolan. Shop?” I heard Farah say from the bed. I saw my eyes in the mirror open wider and then I kept going with that and opened my eyes as wide as I could. I mouthed Nolan Shop so I could see my lips form his name.
    â€œOh! I think I know who that is!” Charlie chimed in. I turned away from my reflection and looked back into the room to see Reagan whip her hair up over her head and then back down again so I got sprayed with tiny darts of water.
    â€œHe’s in a band,” she said.
    â€œYes!” Charlie jumped off the bed.
    Reagan opened her towel to readjust, showing everyone on the bed the Crenshaw melons that are her boobs.
    â€œThey’re called the Shoppe Boys—like P-P-E shoppe—because his last name is Shop: S-H-O-P,” Reagan said.
    â€œ Yes! Yes, yes, yes—my guitar teacher totally told me about them. They’re still in high school but they are incredible. Yes, that is definitely him,” said Charlie, who got back on the bed happy that he knew what he was talking about. He was oblivious to Reagan’s boobs, which I couldn’t believe because I could hardly stop myself from staring at them.
    â€œYou seem to know a lot about that band, Reagan,” Farah said, like she was getting to the bottom of something. I leaned against the sink to listen. But before Reagan could answer, I heard someone pounding on the door of my room.
    â€œWren!” Dinah yelled, at the top of her lungs. “Mom wants you to come downstairs and try on the dress !”
    â€œDinah! Come in here.” Farah and my other friends had spent so much time with Dinah she was like everyone’s little sister. Dinah skipped in, followed by May.
    â€œDid you see anyone come home from school with Oliver today?” Farah asked her.
    â€œUm, no? I was shooting , if you didn’t notice.”
    â€œI know, you little fish fryer, I just thought you could be helpful to us, but … never mind.”