Depth of Field (Book #2 in the Pippa Greene series)

Chapter One

THE PLAN

1. Go to NYC! For the first time in my life! (Aside from the 72 hours I lived there after traveling down the birth canal — TMI? probably — and being born, but I was 0–72 hours old, so I don’t remember much. Correction: I don’t remember anything.)

2. To Tisch photography camp! Yes! Because even though Ben Bastard (a.k.a. Ben Baxter) came first place at Vantage Point this year by using my photos, I came second!

3. Ignore Ben Baxter because there will be 22 other students there from the East Coast. And . . .

4. There will be Dylan! A.k.a. Official Boyfriend. (Or OB, as Dace is now calling him, which makes him sound like a feminine hygiene product.) Dylan’s going to work for his uncle, the Manhattan-based concert merchandise mogul, and totally see the ins and outs of working in the music industry. And meet a ton of bands. Maybe even pitch his own music to a record producer? Pipe dream, probably, but then he could forget about college—what Harvard?—and move to New York, with me (if I get into Tisch for college of course, small detail). Bottom line: Dylan + me + NYC = pretty much as awesome as it gets.

5. And Dace! Who’s coming along to find an agent and start her path toward becoming the next Cara Delevingne. Minus the drug scandal.

6. So, in sum: 336 Hours. 1 Big Apple. 0 Rules.

THE REVISED PLAN

1. Go to New York alone. Why? Because:

2. Dace’s mom decided that the likelihood of Dace becoming the next Cara Delevingne with the drug scandal was possibly greater than her becoming C-Diddy without. Or that all she’d end up doing was shopping. (Likely.) And that algebra was more important than all of the above. (Debatable.) And:

3. Dylan isn’t coming either. Turned out Dylan’s uncle isn’t going to be in NYC because he’s going to be on the road managing merch sales for the Cherry Blasters. Feeling guilty, maybe, about kiboshing Dylan’s NYC trip, he offered Dylan the chance to join him and the Cherry Blasters on tour. And Dylan took it. (Obvi.)

4. So now I’m going to be in New York WITHOUT my BFF or my OB. And instead:

5. Stuck in New York WITH the single person I despise most in the world: Ben Baxter.

“I have to say, for someone who hasn’t stopped talking about Vantage Point and Tisch and New York for, like, months, you are totally missing the point right now,” Dace says, winding a section of my hair around her new five-attachment curling wand. It’s the kind without the clamp, which gives you great waves, only you have to wear the glove or you’ll burn your fingers off, which is why Dace is curling my hair for me while I moan. It’s late Saturday afternoon and we’re in my room—me on my desk chair, Dace standing behind me.

“I’d like to feel sorry for you,” she says, “but I don’t think I need to remind you that I’m the one who’s stuck in Spalding, while you’re in the greatest city in the world. Even your emo boyfriend is traveling across the East Coast with one of his favorite bands.

So can I get a little pity party over here, please?” she says, making sad eyes at me in the mirror.

I laugh. “OK, OK. You have a point.”

“Aaaaaand you’re done. Shake it out.” I flip my head over and shake my head as instructed, then flip it back again. Dace smoothes it and nods her approval just as the doorbell rings.

“It’s your big night,” she says excitedly.

What she means is it’s my final date with Dylan pre-departure. He’s planned something—no idea what. Dace thinks it includes sex. Which I’ve told her a billion times it doesn’t, on account of my three-month rule. She thinks I’m just holding out so that she can have sex before me, since she’s always claimed she’d be first, but she doesn’t even have any prospects at this point. Which would be totally fine with me, because I’m in no rush. I mean, OK, I’m not exactly the poster child for virginity at this point— er, technically—but Dyl and I haven’t actually done it. No Capital S sex. Yet. And I do think that’s a big deal, which is why I’m determined to stick it out for three months before I turn in my official V-card. Three months is kind of arbitrary I suppose, but when Dylan and I finally became exclusive BF/GF, I decided on it: Three Months. It seemed like a respectable amount of time to wait—more than, say, summer vacation, but less than an entire semester of English class, which is where we seem to only read about star-crossed lovers: Catherine and Heathcliff, Lancelot and Guinevere, Romeo and Juliet. Anyway, tonight is our last night together before we’re separated for two whole weeks. Parting really is such sweet sorrow.