Viola in Reel Life by Adriana Trigiani Page B

make new friends who happen to be boys. They are not a separate species. When it comes to boys, we all need practice. We’re at an all-girl boarding school, and our options are limited. So, let us all be open to the possibilities. We’ll talk. We’ll dance. Maybe one of us will even kiss a cute one.”
    I lean back in my chair. I think we can all guess who would come away from this dance having been kissed. It won’t be Romy, it won’t be Marisol, and it surely won’t be me. But Suzanne will do everything she can to convince us that we should try .
    The dance that I wasn’t ever going to attend in about a jillion years just turned into a make-out session with random boys we have never met. The pressure is almost too much to bear except that I really do want to kiss a boy that I like—and when the time comes, I don’t want to be bad at it. It makes sense that there should be some practice involved, or at least the development of the skills that lead up to kissing. Now, this could be a plus to being in Indiana. I could practice here and then when I go home to Brooklyn I’ll be a pro. But any way around it, I am already in the presence of a girl with wisdom and experience. Suzanne knows what she’s talking about.
    “Now…,” Suzanne continues, “you absolutely are not required to kiss any boy just to kiss them. It’s not like there’s a scorecard or anything.”
    “Really? We’re being herded onto a bus to drive across town to an all-boy academy where we disembark and join our lonely counterparts on a dance floor. Sounds like a scorecard situation to me.” I salt the tetrazzini.
    “You’re making way too big a deal out of this,” Suzanne says. “We should be talking about what we’re going to wear, not about how we’re going to feel. Who cares about that? If it sucks, and the boys are idiots, we always have each other.”
    “I’m in,” Romy says solemnly.
    “Me too.” Marisol jabs me with her elbow.
    “Okay, okay. I’ll go.” I stab my apple pie to take a bite because I oversalted the tetrazzini. I wonder what my mother would say about eating dessert for dinner, but that’s the beauty of boarding school. I make all my own decisions, small and medium, while the big ones are left up to the Prefect Academy—and as far as boys go, to the only expert I know: Suzanne Santry.
     
    “Hi, honey! We’re in Wardak. It’s near Kabul.” My mom waves into the video conference camera on my computer. “You look great!” Mom moves in toward the eye of the camera, her face so close to the screen, she fills it. It’s such a tight shot, our dentist, Dr. Berger, could examine her molars.
    “Viola, how are you?” My dad moves into the frame, pushing my mom aside.
    I look around my dorm room to make sure none of my roommates are lurking. “There’s a school dance comingup,” I tell them.
    “How fabulous!”
    One of my mom’s worst traits is that she gets excited about things like school dances.
    “Ugh.”
    “Now, Vi, attitude is everything when it comes to your social life.” Mom bites her lip and sinks back in the frame, while Dad leans forward to deal with me. His forehead wrinkles up in small lines like a tree trunk.
    “Your first dance.” Dad smiles.
    “And it may be my last! Princess Snark lives!” I make a tiara on the back of my head by waving my fingers.
    “So does your sense of humor. I think you like the idea of this dance,” Dad says teasingly.
    I just shrug.
    “I’m going to let you two talk for a moment.” Mom looks at Dad and then goes out of frame.
    “Oh, Dad.”
    “Your mother thinks we should have a talk.”
    “About what?”
    “Boys,” Dad says.
    “I know all about them,” I promise. “I mean, Andrew is a boy—and you used to be one—how much do I need to know?”
    “Good point. We’re just people.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Just talk to everybody and have a good time,” Dad offers.
    “Great advice, Dad. If I had a personality like that, I could follow your