A not-quite rom com starring a bold, outspoken antiheroine, this Turkish-American Romeo and Juliet remix is refreshingly snarky. Witty, whip-smart dialogue plays with the complexities of multicultural identity and female friendships, from Ros’s very first screw-up to her unconventional happy ending.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Leyla Brittan’s Ros Demir Is Not The One, which is out now.
Sixteen-year-old Ros is a go-getter. When she wants something, she makes sure she gets it.
But a lingering rumor (and maybe some ambivalence about her half-Turkish heritage) has kept Ros from achieving the kind of reputation she deserves. So, after years of plotting her big comeback, she just needs one thing: a hot, adoring guy on her arm at junior year homecoming. And when she meets charming new classmate Aydın at the Pine Bay resort over the summer, she thinks she’s found The One.
It doesn’t work, though. And things get messy when Ros’s plan ends up hurting the only friend she has left… poor, sweet, forgiving Eleanor. This has happened before—things tend to get messy with Ros around—and it’s getting harder for her to ignore the pattern of hurt feelings. Plus, it seems like Ros and Aydın aren’t really meant to be. What kind of a plan results in everyone ending up unhappy? Not a very good one.
Prologue
You should know before you get started that this is not my love story. I mean, it is, but not in the way you’d expect. Definitely not in the way that I expected.
The other thing is that this story isn’t just mine. This is my version of a shared story. Because people who play supporting roles in the movie of someone else’s life have their own movies, ones in which they’re the protagonist. Have you ever thought about that? It’s kinda wild.
Chapter One
The thing about Pine Bay is that it’s the kind of place I wish my parents were cool enough to stay at every summer.
The first time I remember hearing the name was back in sixth grade, when Lydia’s family started going. She came back from summer vacation with a face almost as tan as mine, a miniature braid in her straight blonde hair, and something new in her attitude, something she never talked about explicitly, but that was more than evident to me in every confident step, every cold-eyed look at someone in our grade who had said or done something that revealed their immaturity, every twirl of her tiny blonde braid around her finger. I knew, watching Lydia, that Pine Bay held some sort of magic.
I, meanwhile, had spent the first half of summer visiting both sets of my grandparents, and the second half at sailing camp, which could have been cool if any of the other kids were cool, but we weren’t the cool type of kids who sailed—the ones whose parents owned yachts, who were taught how to sail by their parents’ friends to pass the time while anchored in the turquoise-blue water in the bay of some Greek island. No, we were the nerds who sailed—the ones whose parents wanted them out of the house in the summer, doing something active, but who weren’t quite athletic enough for soccer camp.
I begged my parents to go to Pine Bay instead the next summer: I had dreams of beachside bonfires with cute boys, of wearing a bikini for the first time, of getting my own tiny braid. Of course, my parents said no. And when my parents say no to something, they’re usually saying no for good.
“We can have a fun summer without spending a fortune. Didn’t you like sailing camp?” my dad asked.
My mom tried another tactic. “It’s a resort for wealthy families to hang out with other wealthy families and pretend they enjoy nature. Wouldn’t you rather actually be in nature than stay in a manufactured summer camp for adults?”
So I let it go. At least on the outside. But four years later, when Eleanor told me her family was going to Pine Bay for the summer, I had to ask her to bring me along.
The drive got things off to a disappointing start. Eleanor’s mom drove, her dad was in the passenger seat, and I was crammed into the back row with Eleanor and her little brother, Mason. Between the five of us, we had too many suitcases and backpacks to fit in the trunk, so the floor of the back seat was lined with bags, and I had to sit cross-legged. Eleanor had volunteered to take the middle seat, though, so at least I didn’t have to suffer through that. Mason spent the whole drive from Connecticut to Maine playing games on his phone, and Eleanor, predictably, spent it with her nose in a book—a massive tome about female workers during the industrial revolution that I couldn’t imagine reading outside of a class assignment.
Luckily, I had plans to make. I spent the drive distracting myself by manifesting my perfect Pine Bay experience. We were going to find the coolest people to hang out with, I would get a hot boyfriend, and we’d have tons of stories to tell when we got back to school.
That was maybe the hardest part about my parents refusing to go to Pine Bay. Everyone worth hanging out with always came back to school in the fall blabbering on about the awesome stuff they’d done that summer, and who’d hooked up with who in the boat house and whatever. And every year it was a social setback for me. Who wanted to hear about the month I’d spent going on walks with my gran and grandpa in their bland Ohio neighborhood, or the month I’d spent helping my babaanne cook köfte in her stuffy Istanbul apartment? Eventually, of course, as homecoming and Halloween parties approached, people stopped talking about summer, and I stopped feeling so out of place, but the month of September generally sucked.
Even this year, the year things were supposed to change, my plans for the perfect Pine Bay summer were hampered by the fact that we’d only have eight full days there—not including arrival and departure days. The original plan had been to spend the last three weeks of summer at the resort, but then Eleanor got into some kind of camp for history geeks, and apparently getting in was such a big deal that she just had to go.
Whatever. I was trying not to focus on that, and instead focus on the fact that I was finally going to Pine Bay. I was going to spend my time making friends, sneaking out at night, and flirting with cute guys, with the ultimate goal of securing a boyfriend. This last point was deeply important, because it was part of a long-term plan I’d made as a freshman. Now that we were going into junior year, it was time to set that plan into action.
We pulled into the Pine Bay parking lot, and before Eleanor’s mom had even shifted the car into park, I’d opened my door and jumped out.
Pine Bay smelled exactly how I’d imagined it would: like pine trees, sunscreen, and campfire smoke. At the far end of the parking lot stood a long building that looked like it was made out of giant, shiny Lincoln Logs, with a sloping blue roof and a sign that said Reception next to a propped-open door.
Eleanor got out of the car and sniffed. “It smells weird.” It was her first time at Pine Bay too. She had always been too busy with camps and summer classes, but even with that aside, I had the sense she had never picked up on the social significance of vacationing here.
“That’s the scent of summer,” her dad said. He opened the trunk and began lifting out suitcases.
From inside the car, Eleanor’s mom said, “Mason, get off your phone. We’re here.”
There was a disgruntled sigh and then Mason, a quintessential seventh-grade boy in baggy jeans and a backward baseball cap, emerged from the depths of the back seat. Like his sister, he looked around and made a face. “I thought this was supposed to be a resort.”
Eleanor’s mom climbed out of the car looking faintly like a movie star in white capris, a white button-down, and huge tortoiseshell sunglasses. She was the type of mom who told everyone to call her Sherry and always wore a full face of makeup. She regularly took me and Eleanor to get mani-pedis at the expensive salon two towns over, instead of at the cheaper but perfectly good one nearby—something my mom would never do. Privately, my mother called Sherry “high maintenance”; I tried to explain to her the difference between that and “glamorous.” Sherry was definitely the latter.
Eleanor’s dad, Harry, was a little goofy and way less put-together than Sherry, but he could be pretty funny, and I liked him. Eleanor’s parents checked in at reception, then led us down a neat dirt path to a fork in the road, labeled with a cluster of polished wooden signs. On one side: Rec Center. Dining Hall. Guest Services. Lake Cerulean. On the other: Cottages 1–30. “Looks like we’re this way,” said Eleanor’s dad. “Come on, folks.”
Our “cottage” was made of gray stone, with a sloping brown roof and a rocky path leading through a small garden bursting with purple flowers. A sign beside the front door proclaimed that its name was Orchard Oriole.
Harry hoisted up a suitcase and crossed the stone path to the front door in a few lunging steps, while the rest of us struggled behind. He swung the door open and said, “Welcome to our humble abode!” Exactly the sort of thing that American dads said in movies, but I could never imagine my own dad saying.
The interior of the Orchard Oriole was tastefully rustic. Inside the small living room were two white couches, facing each other across a rug that appeared to be made of rope, beside a stone fireplace with wood stacked inside and a glass jar of matches on the mantelpiece. It was smaller than I’d expected, but cozy and beachy. “This is where the girls will sleep,” said Sherry.
“Where are our beds?” asked Eleanor.
“One of the sofas is a foldout,” Sherry replied. There were three open doors leading off the living room, and she peered into each one. “You’ll just have to make sure you fold it up in the mornings.”
Eleanor looked around. “Where are we supposed to put our stuff?”
Sherry had disappeared through one of the doors, into the primary bedroom. “Mason’s room has closets. You all can share, I’m sure.” Eleanor and I peeked into the other bedroom. Mason had a bunk bed, a dresser, and a desk. I waited for Eleanor to say something—that bunk bed was clearly meant for us—but she didn’t. Instead, she dragged her suitcase from the living room into Mason’s room, where she started hanging up her dresses in one of the closets. “You should ask your parents to let us switch with Mason,” I whispered, following her.
Eleanor shook her head. “It’s fine,” she said.
I wanted to press further, but then Mason trudged in, dragging a duffel bag and wearing his backpack on one shoulder. He dropped the bags on the floor, looked around, then flopped on the bottom bunk, still wearing his sneakers, and started watching a video on his phone.
I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms. “Fine, then,” I said. “Let’s go look around!”
“I want to get settled first.” A wraparound dress with little purple roses came out of the suitcase and into the closet.
“Come on! You can ‘get settled’ later,” I pointed out. Eleanor just frowned and kept unpacking.
I went back out into the living room, where a pair of gauzy white curtains covered a glass door. I opened them and found myself on a small porch with two rocking chairs. The house sat on the side of a hill that sloped down into dense forest by the edge of the lake. The lake itself was enormous, bordered all the way around by dark green foliage.
“Gorgeous, isn’t it?” Sherry asked, coming out onto the porch. “I can’t believe we’ve never been here before.”
“Me neither.”
“The PTA moms never shut up about this place, and I’ve been so curious about it. I’ve offered to bring Eleanor a few times over the years, but she’s never had much interest. I’m so glad it finally worked out this summer.” She gave me a warm smile. “What do you think?”
“It’s pretty great. Thanks again for letting me tag along.” She smiled. “Of course, Rosaline. We love having you around. You’re good for Eleanor, you know. You bring her out of her shell. She needs that.”
“She’s a really good friend,” I said.
Sherry nodded and stepped back inside, and I returned to contemplating the view, thinking again about how different Eleanor’s parents were from mine. Sherry cared what the PTA moms said. My mom tended to assume anything that was popular among Bardet parents was overpriced and pretentious.
In the middle of the lake, someone was sailing a dinghy with a rainbow sail. I closed my eyes and let myself slip into a daydream, in which I sailed beside a tanned boy in sunglasses. His lean muscles rippled as he tugged on the mainsheet, tightening the sail against the wind, urging us faster over the water, faster, faster, as he turned to smile at me. . . .
That night Eleanor and I lay side by side on the foldout couch, nestled under a large blue comforter.
“This is comfier than I thought,” said Eleanor.
“The bed?”
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you ask your parents to let us switch with Mason? He doesn’t need that room to himself.”
“He’s the younger sibling. We can handle sleeping out here.”
“Since he’s younger, doesn’t that mean he should get the couch?” “That’s not how it works.” She paused. “And besides, I got to bring my best friend on this trip, and he didn’t. It’s fairer this way.” Eleanor and I had only really become friends in ninth grade. Our school was one of those awkwardly medium-sized schools: not tiny enough that everyone knew everyone, but not big enough that there were people in your grade you’d never heard of. Everyone knew of everyone, if that makes sense.
At the beginning of freshman year, I mostly just had sort-of friends. The type of people you said hi to in the hallway or could ask for notes if you missed class one day. After everything that had happened in eighth grade, I wasn’t exactly close to anyone. Most of my sort-of friends were guys—I didn’t think I could trust other girls anymore.
That year, though, I sat next to Eleanor in AP Bio. I didn’t know much about her except that she was quiet and really smart, and those types of people typically annoyed me. I got good grades, but I didn’t make it my whole personality. So I wasn’t all that interested in being friends with her at first. But our teacher kept pitting the assigned-seat “pods” against each other in quiz competitions, and my competitive side came out. Eleanor and I won—every single time. Soon we started hanging out to study for tests, and then we started hanging out just to hang out.
If I’m being honest, part of why I liked Eleanor was that she was so different from Lydia. If Eleanor had been anything like my last best friend, I would’ve run in the other direction. Instead, Eleanor was sweet and earnest. Her timidness got on my nerves, but in those moments I’d just take a breath and remind myself that I was trying to be more forgiving. . . and that Eleanor wasn’t Lydia. She had believed and supported me when it mattered.
“You’re too nice,” I said, flipping my pillow over to the cool side. “I still want to switch rooms.”
“Of course you do.” Eleanor rolled over. Before I could ask why her voice had an edge in it, she was sound asleep.
