M or F?

  “Smells like chocolate,” Jeffrey said as I sat down beside him.

  “Maybe it is,” I cooed as I put down one mug and held the other under his nose. “Maybe it’s a special treat.” I blew on the hot chocolate to make sure it wasn’t too hot. “Now open your mouth and take a sip . . .”

  Eyes still closed, Jeffrey obeyed. “Mmmm,” he said as he swallowed the chocolate.

  “Now open,” I told him.

  He did.

  I looked deeply into his blue eyes.

  A moment blinked by, then another as Jeffrey looked me up and down . . . and stopped at my Intimately Pleasurable bustline. A smile played at his lips for a moment, then wavered. His eyes fluttered closed, then opened. He cleared his throat.

  This is it, I thought. He’s going to make a move. . . .

  I leaned forward slightly. . . .

  “Frannie?” he whispered.

  “Yes?” I whispered back. My lips were millimeters from his. I could almost taste the chocolate on his breath.

  Jeffrey swallowed hard. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  Before I even knew what was happening, Jeffrey had darted away. I heard a retching noise, then the sound of running water and the garbage disposal.

  What the hell?

  Oh my God, I realized, standing up from the couch. Jeffrey just barfed in my kitchen sink!

  I raced into the kitchen. “Are you okay?” I asked Jeffrey, who was splashing water on his face. He was a putrid shade of green.

  “I’m fine,” he croaked. “I don’t know what happened. It’s like some kind of allergy. . . .”

  Yeah, right, I thought darkly. I handed him a dish towel and he dabbed his face with it.

  Jeffrey looked up at me, apology stamped across his face. “Frannie . . .” he started.

  “It’s okay,” I told him quietly.

  He nodded. “I think I’d better go,” he said finally.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Okay.”

  Jeffrey folded the towel carefully and laid it over the side of the sink. The he headed for the back door. “ ’Bye,” he said, but he didn’t turn around.

  “ ’Bye,” I whispered, but it was lost in the noise as the door slammed closed behind him.

  So there it was. I had my answer. Jeffrey was definitely gay.

  I mean, okay—I guess he could be allergic to chocolate, I thought. But then wouldn’t he have said something when he smelled it?

  No, I decided. More like he’s allergic to girls in negligees trying to seduce him.

  My chest tightened, and I sighed. I was sad about Jeffrey—sad that he wasn’t really The One after all. But in a way, I was also relieved. I mean, we’d never really had much chemistry. So at least it wasn’t because it was my fault. It wasn’t because I was a romance reject or because I’d blown it, as Marcus had said. It just wasn’t anybody’s fault. The truth was, Jeffrey and I were almost totally mismatched, and now that I knew he was gay, it all made perfect sense. Jeffrey might be The One . . . but he wasn’t The One for me.

  The worst part of this whole thing, I realized, is that Jeffrey will probably want to talk about this night and explain what happened. Then again, maybe not. I mean, it’s not like we were boyfriend and girlfriend and needed to break up. I’d just misread him from the beginning.

  My mind spun back to the night this whole mess had started. M or F? Jeffrey had asked. Male or female?

  Marcus or Frannie?

  Well, I guess now I knew the answer to that one.

  Jeffrey wasn’t interested in me. But he couldn’t help the fact that he really liked Online Frannie. Aka, Marcus.

  Wow. So . . . this night had been really humiliating. I mean, illuminating. But I guess it was worth it.

  Oh God, I thought as the memory of myself walking out of the kitchen with my mom’s negligee exposed swirled in my brain. I couldn’t even keep myself from groaning out loud. This had been one of the top three most embarrassing nights of my life—I didn’t want to ever think about it again.

  But at least it’s over, I realized. At least it can’t get any worse.

  It was at that moment that I heard keys jingling in the front door.

  “I’m telling you, Caroline, I don’t know how you thought we’d get into that restaurant without a reservation,” my dad was barking as he and my mom spilled through the door. They could see down the hall, all the way to the back of the kitchen.

  My parents stopped in their tracks and stood there, gaping at me. For a minute, nobody said anything.

  Please let me die now, I begged silently.

  “Frannie? What are you doing in your mother’s nightie?” my dad demanded.

  My mom’s blue eyes were round with shock, locked on my cleavage.

  I sighed. Hey, I thought, at least somebody is impressed with my boobs.

  There he is, I thought as I spotted Marcus in the lunch line the following Monday. He was getting mashed potatoes, peas, and Frosted Flakes—a very Marcus meal.

  You will come and sit with me, I thought at him. You will walk over to our usual table and take the seat next to mine. I command you!

  He didn’t even glance in my direction.

  I sighed. I can’t take much more of this, I thought. I’d already had to endure a full weekend without him. Not that it had been horrible—Jenn and Belina and I had gone shopping and checked out a movie on Saturday, then I’d spent Sunday catching up on my class work—which I’d been ignoring ever since Jeffrey hit the scene. I know, I know. You’re horrified that I didn’t call Marcus the minute I was sure about Jeffrey. But I just didn’t feel like I could deliver the news over the phone. Besides, I still needed a signal from him that he was ready to make up. After all, he did owe me an apology for going behind my back to talk to Jeffrey. But after waiting by the phone for almost five days, it was becoming obvious that I was going to have to be the one to make the first move. . . .

  The only question was . . . how?

  I’m embarrassed to admit that the first thing that popped into my mind was an image of myself standing outside his window with a boom box blaring “In Your Eyes,” à la Say Anything. In my defense, Marcus is a movie freak, and that might actually have worked. But it seemed a little over the top. . . .

  Okay, all I have to do is come up with a good opening line, I told myself. Something witty and clever so that Marcus will remember how funny I am and how much he misses me. Something like—

  “Hey, what’s up?” Marcus plopped his tray on my table and slid it across from mine. Then he slid into the chair, just like we were best friends again, or maybe like nothing had ever happened in the first place.

  I blinked at him. “Hey,” I said finally. I held onto the bottom of my chair to keep myself from swaying back and forth. I couldn’t believe how relieved I was. Just having Marcus say one word to me had made my muscles relax.

  “I like your cowboy boots,” Marcus said.

  “Yeah?” I kicked out one of the purple boots, admiring it. I’d woken up in one of those I-hate-all-my-clothes moods this morning, so when I dug these up after ransacking my closet for something different to wear, I decided, Why not?

  “They go freakishly well with that gypsy skirt.” Marcus took a sip of his strawberry milk.

  I smiled. I may be behind on my Jeffrese, but I speak fluent Marcus, and I knew just what he was telling me then. “I love you too,” I whispered to him.

  Marcus looked down at his tray. Setting down his milk carefully, he looked up at me. “Listen, Frannie, I know that you hate it when I say this . . . but I’m sorry.” He swallowed hard, almost seeming to choke on his words. Without thinking, I reached out and took his hand. “I’m sorry that I hurt you,” Marcus went on. “And I want you to know that I’ll do whatever it takes . . . or not do whatever it takes . . . to make things work between you and Jeffrey. You both deserve it, and I never should have gotten in the way.” His eyes were bright.

  I gave his hand a squeeze and struggled to breathe through my tight ches
t. The truth was, Jeffrey and Marcus were the two who deserved to be together. They were the two who made sense. And it wasn’t fair that Marcus was suffering, beating himself up for something that really wasn’t even his fault.

  At that moment, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. Glenn was headed toward our table, tray in hand.

  Crap. Go away! Go away! Go away! I thought at him, but my brain waves were having no effect. He caught my eye and grinned.

  I had no choice but to grin back, cursing myself silently. Horrible, horrible timing. But what I had to say to Marcus just couldn’t wait. Glenn was still ten feet away.

  “Look, this should really be a longer conversation,” I told Marcus in a super-speed whisper, “but I really have to tell you this right now. I think Jeffrey’s gay and you should go for it.”

  Marcus’s hazel eyes were as round as a pair of shooting marbles.

  “Hey,” Glenn said as he walked up to our table. “Am I interrupting anything?”

  “Not at all,” I said, gesturing to the seat next to mine. “In fact, you’re just in time. I was about to tell Marcus here everything I’ve recently learned about animal husbandry.”

  Thirteen

  The camera zooms in on my face while the cafeteria falls away behind me. The background swirls, and Frannie’s voice comes in, all echoey like she’s inside my head and my head is a cave.

  I think Jeffrey’s gay and you should go for it. . . .

  I think Jeffrey’s gay and you should go for it. . . .

  I think Jeffrey’s gay and you should go for it. . . .

  It was possible that I had misunderstood her. Possible, but . . . what else could it have been besides “Jeffrey’s gay”? Chef breeze day? Je frieze que?

  I badly wanted to ask her a million questions, the first one being, Whaaaaa??? followed by, Are you sure? and, How can you be sure? and, Now what? In that alternate universe where I can snap my fingers and stop time, it would have been no problem. Here in the cafeteria, Glenn had already hijacked the conversation and showed no signs of letting us go.

  “Did Marcus tell you about our little date on Saturday night?” he asked Frannie. She looked across at me with confused eyes. I’m sure my own expression was as glazed as a doughnut.

  “Oh,” I said. “I ran into Glenn and, um . . . ”

  “Astrid,” Glenn said.

  “Astrid. At the cafeteria—”

  “The movie theater,” Glenn put in.

  “Yeah, I mean the movie theater.”

  A little drool on my chin might have completed the picture. At least Frannie knew what was going on. If Glenn wondered, I didn’t care.

  “What did you guys see?” Frannie asked.

  “Head for Hell,” Glenn answered. “The best terrible movie ever made.”

  “What’s it about?” she asked Glenn. I’m sure she didn’t care. She was giving me a little space so I could think. Thank you, Ms. Falconer. And thank you, friendship gods, for bringing her back to me.

  “Well, there’s this psychiatrist, right?” Glenn started in. “And he only has one eye, but it’s blind . . .”

  His voice morphed into a vague blah blah blah in the background as my thoughts went back to Jeffrey.

  So Jeffrey was gay? Why did Frannie think so? And what if he was? God, what would that mean for Frannie, to know that the guy she’d been hoping for was . . . the guy I’d been hoping for? Yikes. Major hurt. But, the thing was, she didn’t actually seem upset. In fact, it wasn’t like the words she’d squeezed out in the point-five seconds before Glenn arrived had been, “I think Jeffrey’s gay and I’m going to become a nun after all.” She was all about me and Jeffrey, as if she’d breezed right through the getting-over-him phase and straight to the part where she’s fixing him up with her best friend. Maybe that meant that deep down, she already knew he wasn’t right for her anyway. Or was that just me, trying to make this all be what I wanted it to be?

  And meanwhile, even if Jeffrey was gay, that didn’t automatically mean he was into me. There was no sense getting too excited yet. Although . . . whoever Jeffrey thought he’d been chatting with all that time, it had been me on the other end. A version of me, anyway, but the chemistry was undeniable. That didn’t make him gay, though. Of course, it didn’t make him straight, either. Then there was also bi, bi-curious, hetero-curious, metrosexual . . . assuming Jeffrey even had a label. Maybe even he didn’t know what he was.

  What I needed was more information from Frannie, and I wasn’t going to get it here in the cafeteria. Glenn was still going strong, somewhere in the middle of his movie review.

  “. . . so then the nurse pulls out this syringe that was for, like, spinal taps on horses or something, and she sticks it right into the guy’s eye. Marcus, wasn’t that nurse the worst actress you’ve ever seen? She couldn’t play a statue if her life depended on it.”

  I nodded. “That’s true. Hey, Frannie, can I talk to you in private for a second?”

  Frannie reached for her purse. “Absolutely.”

  Before we could even stand up, Glenn waved at someone behind me. Frannie’s eyes went wide. This part is in slow motion. Close-up on Glenn’s face, his voice extra deep in that slow-mo kind of way.

  “Yo . . .

  “Jeff . . .

  “Over . . .

  “Here!”

  Then everything speeds up again and Jeffrey’s sitting down next to me, across from Glenn and Frannie.

  My heart and my brain started competing to see which could race faster.

  “Hey, guys,” Jeffrey said. “What’s up?” No kiss for Frannie, I noticed. I could feel her foot pressing down on mine under the table. “Nice vegetarian lunch there,” he said, pointing at my tray.

  Omigod, he is gay, he does like me, I will go for it, and it’s going to be everything I ever wanted. . . .

  Frannie rubbed my foot with hers.

  And we’re back. “Oh, uh . . . yeah,” I said. “I’m not an actual vegetarian.”

  “But he does play one on TV,” Glenn cut in with this fake-announcer voice. I was glad no one laughed.

  I suppose Frannie and I could have stepped away for a conference, but now it seemed like a wrong move. And it wasn’t like I could just turn to Jeffrey and ask him if he liked boys or girls. The only thing to do was . . . keep lunching.

  “Glenn was just telling me about this movie,” Frannie said. “So the nurse sticks a hypodermic in the guy’s eye, and . . . ?” It was like she took Glenn off pause. He started right back up.

  That left me quasi-alone with Jeffrey. I wondered if I had ever been this good playing for Frannie as she was for me right now. Not that I could think of a thing to say to him. All that advice I’d ever given Frannie—relax, just be yourself, yak yak yak—came back to me as the useless pile of recycled crap that I now saw it to be. Face-to-face is harder. It just is.

  I took a big bite of Frosted Flakes mush and pretended that it needed lots of chewing. I was going to have to say something . . . anything . . . by the time I swallowed. Experience had shown that Jeffrey was not going to initiate the conversation even if he was interested; maybe especially if he was interested.

  “What did you do this weekend?” I finally said. Not bad.

  “My cousin was in town and we hung out. . . .” Was he avoiding my eyes? If so, was that a good sign or a bad sign? “Went downtown, went to the Peace and Justice Museum. You know, the usual touristy stuff.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said. “Did he have a good time?”

  “Hillary? Yeah, she did.”

  Oops. Did Jeffrey already say it was a she? Was he annoyed with me now? Was I going to die a single and lonely old virgin?

  All this time, Frannie was convincingly absorbed in what Glenn was saying. I sent off a silent bit of appreciation her way, glad to have her here and not here at the same time.

  “What about you?” Jeffrey asked. I looked over and caught his eyes. Our shoulders were almost touching, and he sure didn’t seem to mind.

&nb
sp; “Not much,” I said. “I worked a couple of shifts. Saw a really bad movie.” Tried hard not to stalk you on the computer. Wondered what kind of kisser you might be.

  “Hm.” He nodded.

  I nodded.

  Frannie burst out laughing and put her hand over her mouth, trying not to spit chocolate pudding onto the table. “So true,” she said to Glenn through her fingers. “Did you see Juicy Gossip? The Botox did more acting than she did.” I knew right away they were talking about Kitty Elizabeth Benson, who headed up mine and Frannie’s most-overrated-actresses-of-all-time list.

  Glenn cocked his head and widened his eyes in a dead-on Kitty Elizabeth Benson impersonation. “What do you mean, Frannie?”

  Now she did spit out her pudding. “Sorry!” she practically screamed.

  “Mmmm, nutritious,” Glenn-Kitty said, pretending to scoop it up and eat it. Frannie waved her hands in front of her face and lifted her knees like she was going to wet her pants.

  “Can’t take him anywhere,” Jeffrey said to me.

  “I know what you mean,” I said. “My best friend spits it out. Yours eats it up. Nice couple, right?” Then I stopped short.

  “What is it?” Frannie asked me between gasps. I’m sure I was doing the deer-in-the-headlights thing.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I just remembered something I have to do.” In truth, I was stuck on the “nice couple” comment from a second ago. Was I crazy, or were Frannie and Glenn good together? Not that I wanted them to be a couple or thought they should be, but . . .

  Jeffrey was a good person, and he liked Glenn. Frannie seemed to at least find Glenn entertaining, and for that matter, had more to say to him than she ever had to with Jeffrey. The fact that I’d been outvoted about Glenn wasn’t lost on me, either. And Glenn was . . . what? Funny. I’d give him that. He liked movies. That was a plus. He seemed like a loyal enough friend, even if he did always want to be the center of attention. I supposed I could relate to that. And . . .

  My stomach lurched with another, whole new realization. I took a bite of my cereal mush just to stall for time while Frannie, Glenn, and Jeffrey went on talking.