A Girl Like Gracie (7 page)

I hate standing out, but I think I hate
forks even more than I hate standing out.

“
I like you, Gracie James,” Noah
says.

“
Thanks. I think.”

“
We still on for tomorrow?” he asks,
in a quiet voice.

“
Yeah,” I answer. “By the way, how
formal is this wedding?”

“
Um… well my dad is Charles
Pennington,” he says.

I run the name through my head to see if I
can recognize it. It takes a few minutes, but it comes to me.

Charles Pennington is a rock legend. I only
know this because Alfie was obsessed with him when we were kids. He
decided he was going to learn to play the guitar like him. He quit
after three lessons, but it’s because of Alfie that I started
playing the piano. My parents signed me up for lessons, but I loved
it and wanted to keep going.

“
What does one wear to the wedding of
a rock star?” I ask.

“
Washed up rock star,” Noah says, his
voice a little bitter. “It’s his fifth wedding, so it’s not going
to be super fancy. He’s marrying a model. It’s her second marriage,
so neither of them are making a huge deal out of it.” He pauses.
“Wear something you don’t mind being photographed in.”

“
Photographed?” I ask.

“
Paparazzi,” he says. “My dad needs to
publicity. That pretty much why he’s marrying her. His band is
doing some kind of reunion tour in a few months and he wants to get
in the spotlight.”

My face is warm, so I touch a hand to
it. “Photographed,” I repeat. “Paparazzi.
Aish
! I haven’t even told Alfie that I’m going.
We were supposed to keep it quiet.”

“
Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle
Alfie,” he says.

“
How will you handle him?” I
ask.

He just smiles. “Alfie owes me.”

He doesn’t expand on his statement, but
leaves me wondering.

Why do I feel like my world has completely
imploded?

Oh, right. Because it has.

Never Have I Ever.

All of us get into a huge circle to
play a game called
Never Have I
Ever
. I’ve never played the game before, so Alfie is
explaining the rules to me while everybody gets seated.

“
This is a drinking game, but we don’t
use alcohol,” Alfie says. “We just use soda, but it’s still fun.
Basically, somebody says something they’ve never done. Like I would
say never have I ever worn a dress. And anybody who has worn a
dress would have to take a drink. It’s a good way for you to get to
know everybody.”

An ice breaker game.

“
Are you guys playing this just for
me?” I ask.

Alfie nods. “It was Jace’s idea. But it’s a
fun game.”

Once everybody is sitting down, with a
bottle of soda in front of them, Elliot starts the game off.

“
Never have I ever been to Korea,”
Elliot says, grinning.

Both Alfie and I take a drink, but we’re the
only ones. The person to the left of him goes next.

“
Never have I ever broke my arm while
trying to impress a girl,” the boy says.

“
You just had to bring that up, didn’t
you,” Jace says, then takes a drink.

“
I want to hear the story behind
this,” I tell him.

“
Later,” he says, then winks at
me.

The next girl goes. “Never have I ever
flirted my way out of a speeding ticket.”

A couple of the girls giggle while taking a
drink.

“
Never have I ever shoplifted,” the
girl next to her says.

I’m surprised by the amount of people, guys
and girls, who take a drink. All of the kids in this room comes
from families who are well off. They have no reason to steal or
shoplift anything.

“
Never have I ever fallen down because
I was walking while texting,” Jace says.

“
Dude, seriously,” Alfie says, but
takes a drink.

I take a drink too, because that happened to
me once. It was on a crowded sidewalk in Seoul. Everybody is
constantly on their phones there and I ran face first into a guy
who was texting. The guy never once even looked up from his phone
and kept walking. Some older guy helped me up. It was humiliating.
After that, I tried not to text and walk anymore.

Alfie goes next.

“
Never have I ever cut my brothers
hair while he was sleeping,” he says.

“
I was four,” I say, then take a
drink.

“
It was so bad that I had to get a
buzz cut,” he says.

My turn is next. I just say the first thing
that comes in my head. “Never have I ever fallen in love at first
sight.”

A few people take a drink, Noah, who is
sitting right beside me, included.

“
You’ve fallen in love at first
sight?” I ask, feeling surprised.

“
He always falls in love at first
sight,” Elliot says.

“
Falls out of love just as quickly,”
Lola, the blonde girl from earlier, says.

“
Yeah, yeah. Let’s not talk about my
love life,” Noah says. “Never have I ever been trapped in an
elevator.”

I take a drink and am the only one.

“
Seriously? You were trapped in an
elevator?” Alfie asked. “When?”

“
In Tokyo. I went there a few times.
But this time I went with my school,” I say. “The teacher sent me
and this boy, Kim Jun Yeong, to get some supplies. And there was an
earthquake. It knocked out power and we were stuck in that elevator
for, like, twelve hours. Since it wasn’t life threatening, they
weren’t as worried about getting us out. It was actually my teacher
and some of the other students that rescued us.”

“
I’m jealous of that Kim-something
kid,” Noah says.

“
Why?” I ask.

“
He was stuck on an elevator for
twelve hours with a hot girl,” he says.

I roll my eyes. “Kim Jun Yeong and I didn’t
get along. We were the top two students and we constantly fought.
After that we stopped fighting. We talked on the elevator and found
out that we had a lot in common. He was cool. We still didn’t talk
at school, but we also didn’t try to bully each other anymore.”

“
Huh,” Noah says. “Well, he’s an
idiot.”

The girl next to Noah, Lola, goes next.
“Never have I ever sung karaoke in front of a crowd.”

I take a drink, along with a few other
people.

“
You sing karaoke?” Noah asks
me.

I nod. “Not American songs. But Korean ones.
Me and my friends did it all the time when we lived in Seoul. When
we didn’t have school on Saturday, that is what we would do. It was
so fun.”

“
You have school on Saturday?” Lola
asks, looking horrified.

“
Just every other Saturday,” I
answer.

“
That’s awful,” another girl says.
“When did you have time to go out on dates?”

“
We didn’t. I mean, when you’re in
high school, you don’t exactly date,” I say. “I suppose some kids
too, but we’re all worried about college. It’s hard to get good
grades if you’re dating while everybody else is
studying.”

“
Are you saying you’ve never been on a
date?” Elliot asks.

“
Never,” I answer.

“
Does that mean you’ve never been
kissed?” Noah asks, now looking happy.

“
Once. On a dare. Actually, it was the
elevator boy. This was before the incident happened. We hated each
other, but we had to follow through,” I say. “At the time I hated
it, but I guess a first kiss could’ve been a lot worse.”

The girl beside Lola goes next. “Never have
I ever had a crush on my girlfriend’s parent.”

Alfie takes a drink.

I turn to him and gasp. “Seriously?”

“
I was fourteen. And her mom is
seriously good looking,” Alfie says. “Give me a break.”

I turn to the girl. “So you dated my
brother?”

“
For, like, three weeks when we were
fourteen. He broke up with me so he could date this other girl,”
she says, in a teasing tone.

“
That was a long time ago. I’ve
matured a lot since then,” Alfie says.

My heart sinks as I realize I have missed
out on so much of my brother’s life. Why did we both have to chose
to live with different parents? We should have stuck together no
matter what.

“
Never have I ever thrown up on a
roller coaster,” the guy next to her, Hunter West, says
next.

Elliot takes a drink, and everybody starts
laughing.

“
Why do I feel like there is a story
behind this?” I ask.

“
All of us guys were there. West,
Jace, Alfie, Noah and me,” Elliot says. “Jace and Alfie dared me to
eat fifty chicken nuggets. Me, being the rebellious fifteen year
old I was, didn’t turn down the challenge. I somehow managed to eat
all the nuggets. I was stuffed, but I felt fine. We went on this
crazy fast coaster afterwards, and I ended up puking about half way
through one of the loops. The puke landed on the guy behind me who
was infuriated. We had to run from the guy and hide. It was
crazy.”

“
The moral of the stories is never eat
fifty chicken nuggets before going on a roller coaster,” Jace
says.

We all laugh.

The guy next to West, the last guy in the
circle, goes next. “Next have I ever gone viral.”

Noah is the only one to take a drink.

“
You’ve gone viral?” I ask
him.

Once again, everybody starts laughing.

Noah just shakes his head, letting me know
he’s not going to say a word.

“
Let’s just say that Noah on morphine
is hilarious,” Alfie says.

“
Morphine?” I ask.

“
I broke my leg. Which is another very
long story. But they gave me morphine and the hospital and I said
some pretty hilarious stuff,” Noah says. “But you can never watch
the video, because it would ruin the good impression you have of
me.”

“
What good impression?” I
ask.

“
Nobody tell her where to find it,”
Noah says. “I have enough dirt on every single one of you that you
should all be scared.”

Nobody says a word.

“
Aw,” I say, pouting.

“
She’s even cute when she pouts,” Noah
says.

If I were in Korea, I would use egyo so I
could watch the video, but I’m not sure that egyo works in
America.

“
Oppppppa
,” I
say, pouting more.

“
Don’t use the on him,” Alfie says,
bumping me with his elbow. “My mom used to always do that to our
dad when she wanted something and he would agree every time. It’s
called egyo, right?”

I nod.

“
What’s egyo?” Noah asks.

“
It’s when a girl acts cute to get her
way,” Alfie answers. “I know for a fact that Gracie is really good
at it. She could always convince me to give her anything when we
were kids.”

I smile at the memory.

“
It doesn’t really work well on
American guys,” Alfie tells me. “If any other girl besides you did
it, I would call her whiney.”

“
That’s because they’re not Korean,” I
say.

“
Well, either way, you’re not seeing
the video,” Noah says. His voice is stern. “It’s
embarrassing.”

“
Fine,” I say.

But eventually, I will see it.

Saturday, August 27

It kind of is a big
deal.

Early on Saturday morning, I find Claire
getting ready to head out.

“
Claire, I need your help,” I say,
right before she walks out.

She turns around and looks at me. “What’s
going on?”

“
I um… Noah invited me to his father’s
wedding,” I say.

“
Noah Pennington?” she
asks.

I nod.

“
You’re going to Charles Pennington’s
wedding?”

I nod again.

“
And it’s happening today?”

“
Yes,” I say.

“
Why are just just telling me now?”
she asks.

I shrug. “I don’t know. I didn’t think about
it until now. But I’m kind of stressed about what I should wear or
how I should fix my hair. I thought that maybe you could help me,
if you’re not busy.”

“
I’ll cancel my plans,” she says.
“This is much more important.”

“
Noah said it’s not a big deal,” I
say. “It’s like his fifth wedding. I just am freaking out cause
there will be paparazzi taking pictures, and I don’t want to look
bad.”

“
Well, it kind of
is
a big deal,” Claire says, pulling her phone
out of her purse. She dials a number. “I have an emergency and need
to get in right away.”

Emergency?

Who is she talking to?

“
That’s perfect,” she says to the
person on the phone, and then ends the call. “We have to leave
now.” Claire grabs my arm and pulls me out the front door towards
her car.

“
Where are we going?”

“
Shopping,” she says. “You need a
dress. And after, I’ll get you an appointment to get your hair
fixed.”

“
You had to make an appointment to go
shopping?” I ask.