The Trouble With Flirting

  Everyone gathers at the edge of the cliff, facing the ocean. I quickly slip to the back of the crowd, getting as far away as I can from the actual fireworks.

  There’s a small boom and a sizzling noise as a rocket snakes up to the sky. It explodes, and blue and white sparks fly down.

  People ooh and aah. My heart thuds, and I can feel sweat prickling under my arms and at my temples. I know I’m perfectly safe and should be enjoying this, but my body refuses to believe that. Where’s William when I need him? He was the only thing that kept me from fainting when I was little. He’d stand next to me and I’d close my eyes and press my face into his arm.

  Two loud booms in a row and suddenly I’m finding it hard to breathe. I move closer to the tree and press my whole body against the rough bark. Maybe I can just kind of shield myself behind it—

  I suddenly feel a strong arm behind my back and a warm, steady hand on my shoulder.

  I open my eyes. Alex is standing next to me. He doesn’t say anything, just keeps his arm tight around me. I’m protected by him on one side and the tree on the other.

  Five rockets are set off in quick succession and boom, boom, boom, boom, boom above us. I stare up at the shower of lights as each burst breaks through the one before it. I lean against the trunk and think, It’s beautiful. Because it really is.

  Alex’s arm is reassuringly solid across my back. I want to relax against it, but I don’t, because he’s probably just being nice, and I don’t want him to think it means anything more than that to me.

  I thank him when it’s all over. He says, “Don’t mention it,” gives my shoulders one last squeeze, then walks back to Isabella, who’s standing with Harry near the front of the group.

  He takes her hand and says something, gesturing back toward me and the tree, and she nods, like she understands what’s going on. But the next time we walk by each other, her eyes linger on my face like she’s trying to figure something out.

  A couple of nights later, I find my friends curled up together in a corner of the common room, talking wistfully about chocolate chip cookies.

  “The ones here suck,” Julia says. The sofa is full, so she curls up her legs and drapes them across Vanessa’s lap, making room on the floor for me to sit below them. “They’re always stale. I want bakery ones, all warm from the oven.”

  “At home I bake cookies all the time,” Vanessa says, gently scritching the top of my head in greeting, like I’m a pet. “They’re good, too.”

  “If we had a kitchen, you could bake us some,” Julia says.

  “Yeah,” Harry pipes up from the other end of the sofa. Alex is between him and Julia, and Isabella is once again curled up on Harry’s lap with her head on his shoulder. They’re such an adorable couple, Harry and Isabella—why can’t they just actually be a couple? That would improve my life. “We need a kitchen,” Harry says. “Then all you girls could go in there and bake stuff for us guys. Preferably in skimpy bikinis and barefoot. But with lots of lipstick on.”

  Marie is perched on the sofa arm next to him. She pushes at his arm with flirtatious indignation. “You are so sexist.”

  “I have a kitchen,” I say. “I mean, my aunt does.”

  “Would she let us use it?” Julia asks.

  “I think so . . . but I also think we’d have more fun if she’s not there.” I’m definitely more certain of the second point than the first one. “She doesn’t go out a lot, but she said something about a book club this weekend. Let me ask her about it.”

  Amelia does have book club on Sunday evening. “We only read books that expand our horizons,” she informs me. “They have to be translated from another language and take place in a foreign country—it’s important to learn about other cultures. And they can’t just be fun books—this isn’t about reading for pleasure; it’s about becoming better informed. Do you want to come along with me?” I politely decline and ask her if I could invite a few friends over while she’s gone.

  “A few?” she repeats suspiciously.

  “Four or five . . .”

  “Just girls?”

  I shake my head and say quickly, “But they’re all good kids, I promise. Everyone’s exhausted. We just want to relax and watch TV.” I don’t mention the cookie baking—she’s such a neat freak she might say no just to keep her kitchen clean.

  “No alcohol,” she says. “Or anything worse.”

  “Of course not.”

  I guess I sound sincere because she reluctantly agrees to let me entertain in her absence.

  Sunday’s perfect, since the Mansfield students always have it off.

  “It was meant to be,” Lawrence says, when I tell everyone at our next meal that we’re good to go.

  “That’s a ridiculous thing to say,” Vanessa tells him. “Life is all chaos and happenstance and occasional good or bad luck.”

  “I don’t know,” Isabella says. “Some things feel inevitable to me.”

  “Like death and taxes,” Harry adds.

  “What do you know about either?” Julia asks him.

  “Only that my grandfather’s equally terrified of both,” he says with a laugh.

  After dinner on Sunday, I lead our group to Amelia’s apartment, slightly nervous because most of them come from huge, expensive estates—I know they won’t make fun of the way we live or anything like that, but I still feel a little embarrassed about it. Which is a feeling I’m used to. Story of my life, really.

  At least I know the place is clean: Amelia is meticulous about her housekeeping and expects me to be the same. If she finds so much as a single dirty fork in the sink, she’ll grill me on it: Why didn’t I wipe it off and put it in the dishwasher? Did I expect her to do it for me? Or our invisible maidservant? Or maybe a little elf? Life isn’t all fun and games and letting other people clean up after us, missy. We’re responsible for our own messes and if I think otherwise—

  It’s easier to just clean up after myself than go through that.

  As we walk toward our entryway, Julia nudges Harry and points to the raised hot tub in the tiny courtyard. Harry nods and says, “I am so in.”

  Up on our floor, I unlock the door and swing it open. “Here you go. It’s not much, but I don’t call it home.”

  They glance around the living room, which is also the dining room and the TV room.

  “It’s nice,” Julia says politely.

  Lawrence says, “I have an old maiden aunt too, and her place smells just like this. What is that smell, anyway?”

  “Age and desperation?” I suggest.

  “Bitterness and despair?” Vanessa says.

  “Baked fish?” says Harry.

  “She does like tilapia,” I admit.

  Marie sidles up to Harry. “Oh, hey,” she says brightly. “Want to go with me to the hot tub?”

  “Sure, but I don’t have a bathing suit.”

  “You’re wearing boxers, right?”

  He turns to the rest of us. “I swear I don’t know how she knows that. She must be psychic.”

  She giggles. “You can wear those. And I can borrow a suit from Franny.”

  I say, “Okay, but I only have one.”

  Harry looks over at that. “Do you want to go in the tub, Franny? Because I always say the girl who owns the suit gets first dibs on it.”

  “You say that all the time, do you?” Isabella says to him, amused.

  “Yes, I do. I can’t count the number of times it’s come up in conversation.” He turns back to me. “So do you want to do the hot tub with me, Franny? It’s safe: I haven’t urinated in a public bathing facility in at least”—he thinks—“four . . . seven . . . carry the two . . . at least two and a half months. I mean, weeks.”

  “As appealing as that sounds, I’m going to pass. I want to make cookies.” I had actually been thinking that Julia might want to borrow the suit too, but she doesn’t lay claim to it, just follows me to my room, where I dig out my Speedo while she complains about how the hot tub was her idea—she spotted
it first—and it’s not fair, nothing’s fair, Marie gets everything first, and her—Julia’s—life is terrible, horrible, miserable.

  “You want this?” I ask, offering her the suit.

  “It’s too late now,” she says, so I go back into the living room, where I give the suit to Marie.

  “Don’t you have a bikini?” she asks, and when I shake my head, she snatches it out of my hand like she’s doing me a favor and disappears into my room to change.

  Harry comes out of the bathroom with a towel tied around his waist, and I give him the keys to get into the pool area and then back into the building. I also manage to sneak a quick peek at his chest, since it’s standing right there in front of me, and it’s really a pretty excellent chest—broad, muscular, smooth.. . . The guy could be a male model. Should be one. Then he could strike poses in front of admiring people all day long—his dream job, no doubt.

  He lets the keys dangle from his fingers. “After the cookies are done, if you change your mind about joining me in the hot tub—”

  “You’ll be the first to know,” I say.

  Once he and Marie leave, Vanessa and Lawrence and I start mixing the cookie dough. Julia sulks on the sofa in the living room, and Alex and Isabella . . .

  Where are Alex and Isabella?

  “They said something about taking a walk,” Vanessa says when I comment on their disappearance. “It’s probably one of those hot and heavy ‘walks.’ The kind that don’t require any actual walking, if you know what I mean.”

  “Gee, no,” Lawrence says. “You’re just too subtle, that’s your problem.”

  Harry and Marie return first—complaining that the tub was more tepid than hot—and are already dressed and eating cookies by the time Isabella and Alex show up.

  “It’s such a beautiful night!” Isabella says, her eyes shining. Her cheeks and chin are pink, the way they get when you’ve been kissing a guy who hasn’t shaved since that morning.

  “And the cookies are done!” Alex gloats. “We timed this perfectly.”

  “I hope you don’t mind that we skipped out on the baking,” Isabella says to the rest of us. “Too many cooks and all that.”

  “You okay?” Alex asks Julia, who’s focusing a little too intently on transferring the last batch of cookies to a plate.

  “Fine.”

  Harry looks up at that and comes over to her. “You don’t sound okay,” he says. “You want to tell Uncle Harry about it?”

  She shoots him a venomous look. “Thanks but no thanks.”

  He leans toward her and whispers something in her ear. She doesn’t respond. He whispers some more. She smiles reluctantly. He whispers again, and this time she laughs out loud.

  They giggle a lot more together while we clean up. Marie glances at them from time to time, her face growing tighter and angrier with every additional minute that she’s left out of their private joke.

  We wrap up the cookies to go, and then I usher everyone downstairs—I want them safely out before Amelia returns so I have time to clean up the kitchen.

  In front of the building complex, Marie grabs Harry by the arm. “Let’s run some lines together as we walk,” she says, and he lets her pull him ahead of the others.

  After everyone else has moved off, Julia lingers behind to say to me miserably, “One second he’s all over me, the next he’s all over her.”

  “She won’t leave him alone.”

  “I know, but then he goes along with it.”

  “That’s the kind of guy he is.”

  “Whatever. I’m so done with this.” She runs to catch up with the others. I’m not sure if she means the conversation or the Harry-Marie thing, but either way I’m glad she’s moving on.

  It’s not until I turn around and reach into my pocket that I realize I don’t have my key. I gave it to Harry but he never gave it back. And I don’t have my cell phone with me.

  I lean against the door, annoyed at myself. All I can do is wait for someone else to come along who lives in our building. Amelia should be back soon, but I hope one of our neighbors shows up first, because if she sees that I locked myself out, she’ll give me a lecture I really don’t want to get.

  But then Harry is suddenly racing toward me from across the street.

  “I’m an idiot,” he calls out as soon as he’s close enough. He tosses me the keys as he comes to a stop in front of me. “I have no memory of even putting these in my pocket.”

  I snatch the keys eagerly. “No problem—you came back just in time.”

  “Okay, then,” he says with a nod. “Good night.”

  He’s turning when I say, “Harry?”

  He instantly swivels back. “Yeah?”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course. Anything.”

  “I was just wondering if you knew that you kind of hurt Julia’s feelings tonight.”

  His face falls—this clearly wasn’t the topic he was hoping for. “Did I?”

  “You really didn’t know?”

  He glances off to the side uncomfortably. “I guess I kind of knew,” he says after a moment. “But it seemed sort of stupid. If she wanted to go to the hot tub, she should have just said so.”

  “Face it: there’s some kind of weird triangle thing going on with her and you and Marie.”

  “Weird triangle thing?” he repeats, his lips twitching.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “If there is, it’s not my fault.” He holds his hands out. “I’m just being friendly.”

  “But if people’s feelings are getting hurt . . .”

  “So am I supposed to do something about it now? Go find Julia and apologize or something? I’m not sure what I’d be apologizing for, though.”

  “I don’t think you need to apologize, exactly.”

  “What then?”

  “I don’t know.” I make a helpless gesture. “I guess all I’m saying is try to be aware of how what you do affects people.”

  “I get that,” he says. “And I’ll try.” He steps a little closer to me. “And what about you, Franny? Are you aware of how what you do affects people?”

  I force a laugh, suddenly a little uncomfortable. “Not an issue for me, Harry.”

  “I don’t know about that. Us talking right now?” He lowers his voice to a throaty whisper. “I think maybe it’s affecting me.”

  I can’t tell if he’s joking or not. So all I say is, “Thanks for not just telling me to screw off.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “I know you’re just enjoying all the admiration, but Julia’s more fragile than you’d think. Don’t forget that, okay?”

  “Yeah, I’ll keep it in mind.” There’s a pause. He slides his eyes toward me. “So you think people admire me, do you?”

  “You know they do.”

  He grins with sudden delight, then holds his hand out and I take it, thinking he wants to shake or something, but instead he bends down and kisses me lightly on the cheek. “You know, if you’re going to take me aside when I’m behaving badly, I may start behaving worse. Just to get some attention from you.” His eyes briefly catch the light and glow gray-green for a moment. “Possibly even some admiration.”

  “Harry . . .” I take a deep breath and raise my face to look him in the eyes. “Don’t flirt with me, okay? Not if you want us to be friends.”

  He drops my hand and scuffs at the cement stoop. “I was being sincere,” he says.

  “Whatever. Doesn’t matter. Just talk to me normally, okay?”

  “I was.” A pause. He kicks at the step some more, then glances at me. “Do you want us to be friends?”

  “Of course.”

  “Okay, then, I’ll tell you what: I’ll promise to try not to flirt if you’ll promise . . .”

  “What?”

  He cocks his head at me. “Not to assume that everything I say to you is insincere.”

  “Even if it is?”

  He shakes his head. “Ah, Franny. That?
??s not even trying.”

  “Sorry. I’ll do better.”

  “Liar,” he says, almost fondly, and leaves.

  scene two

  Here are some of the things people say to me on Monday, while I’m measuring them for costumes:

  “I’m taller than you’d think from my measurements.”

  “Subtract a few inches—I like things to fit really tight.”

  “I can only wear cotton or I break out in hives.”

  “My waist is not twenty-nine inches, thank you very much! I wear a size two—zero at the Gap.”

  “Don’t let her put me in something ugly.”

  “Hey, watch those hands! LOL.”

  “I know you’re not supposed to tell us what our costumes are going to look like, but you can tell me. I won’t tell anyone else.”

  “You know what would be cool? If I’m the only one in the cast who’s wearing red.”

  “Kneel before Zod!”

  “What does ‘Kneel before Zod’ mean?” I ask Lawrence at dinner.

  “Superman reference. From the eighties movie with Christopher Reeve. Zod’s a supervillain from Krypton. Why?”

  I point across the room at a tall, thin, redheaded boy who is walking with his tray to a table. “Sam Carson said that to me when I was measuring his inseam.”

  “He’s such a nerd.”

  “Hey, you knew the reference.”

  “I never said I wasn’t a nerd.”

  “Gay or not gay?” I ask, gesturing again at Sam. It’s a game we all play here.

  “Gay as the night is long,” Lawrence says. “He and Brian Emmanuel hooked up a couple of days ago.”

  “People are pairing off like crazy,” I say, watching Isabella and Alex jostle each other in line.

  It’s possible I sound a little bitter.

  “Tell me about it,” Lawrence says morosely. His relationship with roommate Raymond has taken a downturn—not only did they decide that there was no romantic future there but now they can’t even stand each other. Apparently Raymond is a pig who won’t empty the trash can, not even when it’s his turn and not even when he’s just clipped his toenails into it, in front of all his roommates. “Toenail clipping is the enemy of love,” Lawrence said when he told me that story.