The Trouble With Flirting by Claire LaZebnik Read Free Book Online Page A

times with the needle.”
    “Aw, poor Franny. Hey, I wanted to ask you—how come you even know how to sew?”
    “How come you don’t?” I say, and he smiles absently. He’s studying the plates of dessert laid out under the sneeze guard.
    “So what kind of cookie should I bring back for Isabella?”he asks. “Do girls have a favorite kind?”
    “It’s not like we vote on it.”
    “I’ll get her one of each.” He piles cookies up on a plate. One of the dining-hall workers squints suspiciously at him, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “Can you grab an oatmeal raisin for me, Franny?”
    “Sure,” I say. “Anything for Isabella.” He doesn’t even hear me. He’s heading back across the room, and Isabella is raising her pretty face to smile her welcome and thanks at him.
    She’s let her hair down since lunchtime. It falls in a shining curtain down to her shoulders, dark and glossy, but as she looks up, she smoothes it back, off her face, and you can see the delicate angles of her high cheekbones and perfectly sculpted chin.
    I think, I could hate her .
    After dinner, everyone races off to some big assembly with the graduate-student directors in the theater auditorium.
    I walk back to Aunt Amelia’s apartment, where I join her in watching reality TV shows, but after a couple of hours of listening to her complain about how tacky and rude all the people are, I’m ready to scream. “I’m going to walk over to the dorm,” I say finally, rising to my feet and stretching. “See if anyone’s around.”
    “All right,” she says. “But don’t stay out past ten. I don’t want to be kept up waiting for you.” Then she adds, as an afterthought, “Plus it might not be safe.”
    As I enter the courtyard area, I’m glad to see everyone’s out of the meeting, some of them milling around outside, most of them going into the dorm. I follow a group inside and then head into the common room, where people are sprawled on every piece of furniture. Some guy is playing a Sondheim tune on the piano, and two girls have sandwiched him on the bench and are singing along.
    I spot Vanessa and Julia talking together on one of the big sofas.
    “We got put in casts!” Julia calls out as soon as I get close.
    “Cool! Who are you both?”
    “We don’t have our roles yet,” Vanessa says. “Just our plays. Lawrence and I are in A Midsummer Night’s Dream , Julia and Harry are in Twelfth Night ”—that explains why Julia’s grinning like she won some kind of a prize: she’s with Harry—“and Alex and Isabella are in Measure for Measure . Which is funny because the main character’s name is Isabella. But maybe it’s not a coincidence. Maybe they did that on purpose so she can play that role?”
    “They wouldn’t cast her in something because of her name ,” Julia says. “That wouldn’t be fair. Anyway, they don’t know who’s going to be who yet—they’re going to listen to us read for a few days first.”
    “I hope they cast gender-blind,” Vanessa says.
    “They’ll definitely have to have some girls playing male roles,” Julia says. “There are way more girls than boys here.”
    “I want to be Bottom.”
    “You’re crazy,” says Julia. “Wear a donkey’s head for half of every performance?”
    “It would be cool.”
    “It would be hot . And sweaty and hard to see or hear anything.”
    I sit down next to Julia. “Are they all Shakespeare plays?”
    “Yeah,” Vanessa says. “They’re also doing Winter’s Tale , so four plays altogether. I’m so glad I’m in Midsummer , though. That’s the coolest.”
    “Do they always do all Shakespeare?”
    “Nope. They just felt like it this year, I guess.”
    “The directors are changing the plays a lot,” Julia says. “They’re shortening them and combining roles and stuff to make them work for us. Oh, did I tell you, Vanessa, that Charles said that if he’d realized Alex and I looked so much alike, he’d have asked to have us both in Twelfth