Speed Dating (5 page)

He nodded. “These are our first six minutes together.
From now on, every Saturday at 3:17, I’ll think,
That was my first minute with Holly.
Or maybe second minute, since it took you a minute or so to get around to looking at the clock.”

“So should we say 3:16?” Holly asked. “Should 3:16 be the official time of our first meeting?”

“No, let’s stick with 3:17,” the boy said. “It has a better ring to it.”

Holly stared at him, mesmerized. What was he talking about? Whatever it was, she liked it. It wasn’t cars, or tennis, or school,
or booty. It was just itself.

He had gray eyes, mixed with blue and green and gold. His irises seemed to contain a maze, which she tried to follow with
her own eyes. It was too complicated. She got lost.

She waited for him to say something else, but he just gazed back at her as if he could find the meaning of life in her face.
The minutes ticked by. At least, Holly assumed they did. She forgot about time. She forgot about everything but that gray
maze.

“Time’s up!” Lina called.

Boy #10 smiled. The spell was broken.

Holly felt dazed. She watched him stand up, as if she were watching her own dream. He nodded and smiled at her again. Then
he sat down in front of Ramona. Holly
sensed that a new boy had deposited himself in the seat across from her, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him yet.

Who was that guy? She’d been so caught up in his mesmerizing stare that she’d forgotten to look at his name tag. She leaned
toward Ramona to get a glimpse of it. Eli Collins. What a beautiful name.

“Number 11!” Lina shouted. “Go!”

Holly looked up at Boy #11. She could hardly see his face. “Just a sec,” she said, and picked up her pen to write something
about Eli Collins. “Boy #10,” she wrote. “3:17.”

Boy #11 started talking, but she barely heard him. She hardly looked at or listened to another boy for the rest of the party.
Her eyes kept straying toward Eli. Was what he had said to her just a schtick, a line? Was he pulling the same trick on other
girls?

He chatted easily with Ramona, and Holly didn’t once see her glance at the clock. Ramona looked uncharacteristically charmed
by him, but she wasn’t his type.

As the boys streamed past her, Holly watched him with the next girl and the next. She saw him talking and laughing and listening.
But never once did he sit and stare at the girl as he had with her.

So it wasn’t an act. Maybe.

“Yoo hoo, Holly. Over here.” Boy #15 waved his
hand in front of her eyes, trying to get her attention. “I always have the same problem,” the boy said. “Girls never listen
to me. It’s like I’m invisible! Or inaudible?”

“You’re perfectly audible,” she told him, just to be nice, because she didn’t hear another word he said. Maybe it wasn’t fair,
but that was the way things were. Her decision was made. There was one boy for her, and one boy only.

Eli Collins.

To:     linaonme

From: your daily horoscope

HERE IS TODAY’S HOROSCOPE: CANCER: Everyone’s talking about you (behind your back). Just thought you should know.

W
hat about this guy, Holly?” Lina flipped through the Speed Dating Rate Cards, looking for comments on Holly. It was the evening
after the first party, and Lina, Holly, and Mads were sitting on Lina’s bed with a big bowl of popcorn. “He wrote, ‘Whatup,
girl? I wanna—’ Oh.”

“What?” Mads leaned over her shoulder to look.

Lina blushed and turned the card facedown. “It’s gross. Let’s just say a newspaper wouldn’t print it.”

“Let me guess: Gus something-or-other, right?” Holly said.

“How did you know?” Mads asked.

“If you’d talked to him, you’d know,” Holly said. “I don’t care what any of those guys wrote about me. I only want to see
one card. Eli Collins. Did you find it yet?”

“Maybe he forgot to turn his card in,” Mads said.

“Wait—here it is.” Lina peeled apart two rate cards that had been stuck together by a molecule of chewing gum. “Ick. Somebody
had gummy fingers. Not Eli, I hope.” She looked at the card. It said, “Name: Eli Collins. School: Griffith Academy. E-mail:
eli_eli_o.” That was all. No comments, no nothing.

“What? What does it say?” Holly snatched the card away from her. She frowned as she read it. “I can’t believe he didn’t write
any comments about me. He stared into my eyes as if he were having a religious experience.”

“He didn’t rate any other girls, either,” Mads said. “Maybe he doesn’t like to write. Maybe he’s dyslexic or something. Hey,
that reminds me of a joke: A dyslexic guy walks into a bra—get it? Walks into a bra?”

But Lina could see that Holly was in no mood for jokes. “That’s cute, Mads. Look, Holly, don’t worry. If he likes you, he
can look you up through school, or through Speed Dating Central. Or in the phone book, even. And
if he doesn’t, you can always e-mail him yourself.”

“Oh, no,” Holly said. “I’m not going to e-mail him unless he writes me first. I don’t want him to think I like him if he doesn’t
like me. It’s too humiliating.”

“Didn’t you like
any
of the other guys?” Mads asked. “Most of them sure liked you. What about this one, Jay Mukherjee? He says ‘Holly would be
perfect for me. I’ve already gone out with just about every other good-looking girl at our club, so she seems like the next
logical choice.”’

“That’s inspiring,” Holly said.

“Yeah, what a passionate guy,” Lina said.

“They were all like that,” Holly said. “They all had something wrong with them. All except Eli.” She paused, and Lina thought,
This would make a good Mood Swing column
—
the perils and pitfalls of Speed Dating.

“I can’t stop thinking about him,” Holly said.

“But you hardly know him,” Mads said. “You hardly even talked to him.”

“All he said to you was, ‘It’s 3:17,”’ Lina said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Holly said. “There’s something about him. I’m so curious about him. His mysterious ways got to me. I’m
helpless! What if he’s my soul mate?”

“Can you find your soul mate in just six minutes?” Lina said.

“Good question,” Mads said. “That’s basically love at first sight—if you believe in that. Which, of course, I do.”

“I’m not sure I do,” Lina said. “Do you, Holly?”

“I don’t know,” Holly said. “I didn’t think I did… .”

You see him, and your heart starts racing. How can you tell if it’s the real thing or just your caffeine habit? Take this
quiz and see.

1. When you first saw him, you thought:
   
   • a
     ew (gag).
     
   • b
     eh (shrug).
     
   • c
     hmmm… (raised eyebrow).
     
   • d
     zowiel (steam coming out of ears).
     
2. How many times have you been in love?
   
   • a
     never
     
   • b
     once
     
   • c
     twice
     
   • d
     three to five times
     
   • e
     more than five times
     
3. Why do you love him?
   
   • a
     He has curly hair, and you’re a sucker for that.
     
   • b
     His soul shines through his eyes.
     
   • c
     Everybody says he’s cute.
     
   • d
     He’s so easy to talk to.
     
4. He’s different from other boys because:
   
   • a
     he really listens.
     
   • b
     he actually likes musicals.
     
   • c
     he can dance without looking dorky.
     
   • d
     he’s got a third nipple.