Perfect Match by J. Minter Page B

It’s all wrong. Yuck. He hated the Kinks too, if you can believe that! Plus, he does this really weird impersonation of his pet turtle that I just don’t think I could ever be cool with.”
    â€œI’m gonna need a visual on that,” I said.
    Morgan scrunched up her lips and retracted her head back into her neck and started speaking in this really slow, hilarious, if-turtles-could-talk voice.
    I started cracking up, and when Morgan saw my face, she started laughing too. By the time the waitressarrived with our snacks, we were practically rolling out of the booth.
    â€œSo yeah, enough said.” I laughed, raising my mug of tea to cheers Morgan. “Looks like it’s a good thing Random Exeter Boy didn’t exactly come out of his shell. You should never be with someone who doesn’t appreciate the Kinks.”
    When Morgan finally stopped laughing, she sighed. “You know, in a city this big, sometimes I think it really is fate when you run into someone you’ve been avoiding. Here I’ve been beating myself up for weeks imagining Random Exeter making out with someone else. Now that I’ve seen it up close, I’m so not worried about what I’m missing.”
    â€œGood,” I said, offering her a bite of my linzertorte—and instead of disdaining the heart-shaped, red jelly–filled cookie, she took it.
    â€œThis is amazing,” she said, wide-eyed. “I can’t believe I’ve never tried one of these before.”
    â€œWait—hold that pose,” I said, pulling out the battered old camera I’d gotten for my birthday in sixth grade. “I think this could be just the look I’ve been trying to get.” As Camille posed for delicate bites of the most Valentine’s-y of cookies, I took almost a whole roll of film. With all the votives on the tables and the dusk outside, the lighting was perfect, andeven more noticeably, something in Morgan’s face looked lighter than it had just minutes before. I wondered if now was the right time to bring up the dance.
    â€œMorgan,” I said hesitantly, “I know we all agreed to go to your cabin next weekend, and it sounds really great, but—”
    â€œBut you want to go to the Valentine’s Dance with Alex,” she filled in. I nodded. “I know,” she said. “I thought about that last night. Maybe I was a little too forceful with my whole solidarity thing. You shouldn’t be punished for having a cool boyfriend.”
    â€œBut I do want to be there for Camille,” I said.
    â€œListen,” Morgan said, taking a final shuddering glance at Random Exeter. “Next Tuesday is our pre– Valentine’s Day Girls’ Night Out. Camille was telling me all about how the two of you used to celebrate in middle school, and she wants to reinstate it this year.”
    I’d forgotten how much fun those nights used to be—no boy pressure, just exchanging valentines with your friends and doing the gushy stuff guys usually only pretend to like on Valentine’s Day.
    â€œWe’ll go all out for Camille that night and see how she’s doing. We can adjust our plans for the weekend based on her needs.”
    That sounded fair. The bottom line was that we both did really care about Camille—we were justshowing it in slightly different (and, well, personally gratifying) ways.
    As we paid for our pastries and grabbed our coats, I said, “You know, it
might
cheer Camille up to go to the dance. What if I could find her a really amazing date? Doesn’t any part of you want to go too? Especially now that you’ve got proof positive that you’re over Turtle Man in there?” I stuck my thumb in the direction of the still-making-out prep school boy.
    Morgan bit her lip. “Yeah, right, who would I even go with? I’m so sick of these private school boys who think they’re so great. All they want to do is trade up. It’s