“I just want you to know that I’m going to be hanging out with someone who has a criminal record!” I cried.
“Let’s not forget that our family can never reenter Luxembourg without being arrested!” my dad yelled back.
Touché.
The truth of the matter was, Jesse Oliver sounded kind of lame, like the rebel-without-a-cause in a really bad made-for-TV movie. The New York Daily News reported that he had been busted for trying to steal a copy of The Catcher in the Rye from the Union Square Barnes & Noble, and I lowered my head and banged it gently against the computer keyboard. Shoplifting a paperback and getting caught? Amateur. Wanting to be Holden Caulfield? Poseur.
Jesse Oliver also knew nothing about protecting his Facebook profile from strangers and third-party phishing schemes, judging from how quickly I was able to see it. My mom came in to check on me right when I pulled up his profile picture, which just goes to show that parents have eternally terrible timing.
“Well,” my mom said with a grin. “He’ll be easy on the eyes.”
“Mom!” I cried. “Please do not ever say that again!”
“What? He’s cute!”
The worst part was that my mom was right: Jesse Oliver, damn him, was really cute. Dark brown hair that curled over his ears and forehead, hazel eyes, dark olive skin, and teeth that had either been borne from amazing genes or seen a boatload of orthodontia, judging from how straight they were.
But there was no way I was admitting this to my mom.
“He looks entitled,” I said, craning my neck to look up at her. “He got caught stealing Catcher in the Rye. What does that tell you?”
“That you’re more criminally adept than he is,” she replied.
“Exactly.” I clicked through to his information page. “His interests are ‘hanging out’ and ‘doing stuff.’ Is it too late to go back to Reykjavík?”
Even Jesse Oliver’s photo page was banal. Hanging out with friends in one shoot, giving the finger in another, hugging a golden retriever in the third. (I had to admit that the dog photo made me jealous. I’ve always wanted a pet, but even a goldfish is inconvenient when you’re constantly moving around the world.) Maybe the golden retriever would be the best part of getting to meet Jesse Oliver.
By the time I was in bed that night, I had a headful of information about Jesse Oliver and one thought that stood out above the rest: I had to stop calling him Jesse Oliver. I mean, really.
I woke up the next morning at 5:44, fifteen seconds before my alarm went off. As you can imagine, spies are morning people, except when we have to pull our version of an all-nighter, in which case we become night owls. Basically, we are very amenable twenty-four hours a day.
Still, 5:45 in the morning is 5:45 in the morning, and I felt like I had been hit by a truck. Sleep hadn’t been easy that night, and I tried to tell myself that it was because of the new bed and the fact that New York was a hell of a lot louder than Reykjavík.
But I knew the real reason: I was nervous about my first day of school.
It was time for the mirror pep talk.
“Okay, Maggie,” I said to myself after my shower, wiping the steam off the medicine cabinet. “You could eat these kids for breakfast. You won’t, though, because that would be cannibalistic and wrong.”
Even talking to myself, I was easily distracted. Not a good sign.
“Focus,” I told myself. “You are there to get information about Jesse Oliv—Jesse. That is it. You’re not there to make friends or look cool or whatever you’re supposed to be doing. You have a job. You don’t have time to worry about your bangs and whether or not they’ll stay straight all day. That is not the objective.”
I nodded firmly at my reflection.
Then I plugged in my hair straightener.
After breakfast (coffee and leftover bagels), I prepared myself to leave the safe haven of the loft.
“Hasta!” I yelled to my parents. “Don’t worry about me, I’m fine!”
I started to climb into the freight elevator, but just before I pulled the gate, my dad ran up and handed me a twenty. “Cab it,” he said. “At least until you know your way around.”
“Will do,” I said, then pressed the button to go down. We’ve never had our own private elevator before. That was kinda nice. Now we didn’t have to share with neighbors.
I wondered if we even had neighbors.
There were already tourists and residents in front of our building, streaming through Soho at seven in the morning. I put my hands in my blazer pockets and stuck my elbows out slightly to keep anyone from getting too close. I’m not anti-people at all, but it’s instinctive at this point. Still, I figured I was pretty safe. Tourists are generally harmless.
Except when they stop walking in the middle of the street to look up at all the buildings. That just bugs. Architectural walking tours are the worst. A brick wall is easier to pass than those groups.
I pocketed the cab money from my dad and hoofed it over to West Fourth and headed north instead. My parents are always, “Safety first!” but it’s important to get to know a city when you’re assigned to live there, and there’s no better way to do that than walking.
The pep talk resumed during the ten-block walk to the Harper School. “You can do this,” I said to myself, grateful for being in New York, where it’s perfectly acceptable to talk to yourself in public. “You’re considered a fugitive in Luxembourg, remember? This is the cotton candy of assignments. Fluffy, airy, bad for you.”