Fear and Laundry (19 page)

“Poor guy,” she said, raising her voice over the noise of the disposal. “He doesn’t stand a chance, does he?”

“Huh?”

She leaned against the counter. “Against the competition,” she said when it was quiet again.

“What’re you talking about?” I pushed my sleeves up and plugged the sink.

“You know who I mean.”

Of course I did. But I didn't want to talk to my mother about Jake. I'd still been thinking about him too much and talking about him probably wasn't going to help me to stop.

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“He seems nice.”

“He’s Lia’s brother,” I said and turned on the tap, hoping the sound of running water would drown out her voice.

“So?”

“So you don’t think that might be a little weird?”

“You think Lia would mind?”

Oh, no, I thought, Lia wouldn't mind. I was sure she'd be thrilled to learn I'd secretly developed a crush on the guy she considered the bane of her very existence.

“Maybe," I said. "I don’t know. Doesn’t matter, anyway, ‘cause I’m not interested in him.”

She was quiet for a few seconds while I squirted soap into the sink and scrubbed the first plate. I thought maybe I'd sounded convincing and she’d leave me alone, but then she started up again.

“He’s a little quiet,” she said, looking at the ceiling and tapping her fingernails on the counter. “But once you get him talking he’s pretty charming.”

I squeezed the sponge so hard it shot out of my hand and splashed into the sink. “He is not,” I said.

She looked at me curiously and I realized my reaction to the word made no sense to her. How could it? She hadn’t been at lunch with me earlier, listening to Lia babble on about charming guys hiding something, using their charisma to cover some big flaw...

I fished the sponge out of the water and rang it out. “He’s just...not my type, okay?” I said, grasping for some way to shut her down.

She smiled a little. “Looks aren’t everything, Pumpkin.”

I made an insulted sound. So my own mother thought I was shallow, too? That was just great. “That’s not what I meant,” I muttered.

It was true. Aside from his nice lips, Jake didn’t fit most of my standard cuteness criteria. He was taller than I liked, and too skinny, and he almost always looked exhausted and messy. But for some reason I was attracted to him. I knew I wasn’t the only one. I’d seen the effect he had on other girls. Apparently he’d even won my own mother over fairly quickly.

“So then you do think he’s cute.” She said, as though reading my mind. When I didn’t say anything, she nudged me.

“He’s...got something,” I begrudged.

She actually winked at me.

“Oh, God.” I grimaced and turned back to the sink, thinking maybe if I refused to look at her anymore she’d leave.  But she hovered around a while longer, teasing me until I resorted to flicking soap bubbles at her and telling her to go away.

When she was finally gone, I thought about what I’d told her; that Jake wasn’t my type. There was some truth to it, although I hadn’t necessarily considered it a bad thing. Lia’d accused me of only being into charming but brainless pretty-boys, and she was right about my not having had the greatest luck with them. I’d thought Jake was different, and against my better judgment had let myself consider what it might be like to be with him. I’d assumed that if by some miracle we ever got together, things between us would be different, too.

Well, he might not be pretty or brainless, but my mother had said Jake was charming. Finding out he might have more in common with other guys I’d liked after all depressed me, and I went straight to my room after the last dish was cleaned. I worked on homework for a while and then went to bed early.

***

T
he rest of the week flew by. Lia milked her triumph over Ridley for a few days, until people’s interest started to wane. Then it was as if the fight had never happened. Such was the attention span of the average Carreen High School student. Luckily, the effect lasted longer on the members of Electric Torch themselves, who continued to leave Lia and me alone. Only Ridley had the guts to even glare at us. I was sure, given Lia’s rejection of her truce, she’d eventually do something evil to us again, but for now dirty looks were as far as it went.

Lia and Jake were busy toward the end of the week, helping their parents with party preparations and socializing with relatives who’d flown in early for the vow renewal. Lia’s schedule was more packed than ever, what with
Dracula
rehearsals on top of everything else. But Impressionable Youth practiced a little. Fortunately, the damage to Sierra’s drum kit after the Housewives debacle had been fixable. Jake had patched it up. And we’d borrowed a working amp and some other things from Caleb.

Lia and I worked on the zine a bit, too. She’d stopped mentioning the Clyde interview, which surprised me because now she’d announced it to everyone it seemed she should be more focused on it than ever. I didn’t ask her about it, though, not wanting to give her the opportunity to press me about the Crawford again.

Jake continued to drive me to school every morning. I told my mother I planned to give him gas money, but she told me not to dare. Wasn’t it rude of me not to at least offer? No, she said. He was trying to do something nice for me. If I offered to pay him I’d be turning it into a business transaction, throwing his chivalry back in his face. And
that
would be rude.

Chivalry?

Whatever. I never did mention the gas money to Jake, though we seemed to cover just about every other subject on the rides to school. He asked me why I collected penguins. No deep reason, I told him; I thought they were cute. I asked him if he could read music. No, he said, he composed by ear, though he’d always wanted to learn. I found out he wrote lyrics, though. He’d written almost all of Burro Bruto’s songs. But he couldn’t sing. “Only Lia got that gene,” he said.  He asked me if I’d heard from my father. Not for a few years. Did that bother me, he asked? Not especially, I said. It was hard to miss someone you hardly knew.  He told me about his plans for the future, or lack thereof, talked about the growing tension with his parents, and even his feelings about Lia. He knew she saw it differently he told me, but he’d always thought she was the luckier sibling. Maybe their parents and other people had always treated him like he was special, but that only stressed him out. It was hard, he said, trying to live up to everyone’s expectations all the time.

So my mother was wrong about Jake. He wasn’t so quiet after all. He seemed perfectly willing to talk to me about anything. I told myself it was probably safe to assume she was wrong about his being charming, too.

Alex and Melina continued to talk to me, but thankfully backed off from inviting me places. I’d told them, truthfully, that I was really busy right now. When I finally told Lia what’d happened at Scout’s, she said it was “just like” that scene in
Pretty in Pink
, when Andrew McCarthy takes Molly Ringwald to James Spader’s party and his snobby girlfriend’s all smarmy and mean to her. Seeing the look on my face, she added that neither Rory nor Nate were anywhere near as sexy as James Spader, so obviously my situation had to have been much worse.

This was what passed for sympathy from Lia, so I took it.

***

“I
still say the black dress is the way to go.” Paige cradled her chin in her hand and looked me up and down, pitilessly appraising the outfit I was trying on in The Bonfire Boutique. “That one looked pretty good.”

It was late Friday afternoon; the day of the Mlinarichs’ party. I’d been shopping for something to wear to it when I’d passed the mall’s frozen yogurt counter and spotted Paige at the register.

“Didn’t know you worked here,” I’d told her when I walked up, realizing even as I said it I didn’t know much about Paige’s life outside the band at all.

“Yeah, well, don’t let it get around,” she warned, handing a sprinkle cone over the counter to a little kid in denim overalls. She’d been about to finish her shift, so I’d waited around while she counted her cash drawer and shed her apron. I’d told her I was heading to JC Penney’s but she’d convinced me to try Bonfire instead. I hadn’t wanted to. The outfits on their window mannequins were all pretty skimpy. But Paige had insisted. In addition to her part-time gig at the yogurt shop, she worked at Bonfire, too, and could get me a discount. They had really cute stuff, she assured me.

So I’d let her walk me there, where we now stood packed together in the dressing room stall, surrounded by rejected outfits.

“Why would you wait until the last minute to pick out something to wear?” she admonished.

“The last minute is my favorite time to do things,” I told her, eyeing myself in the full-length mirror. I’d stepped into a pair of black dress pants and a yellow silk blouse I’d snatched at random from a rack. It was probably the most expensive shirt I’d pulled but Paige was unimpressed.

“Yellow’s not your color,” she informed me. “Not with your skin tone. And you look like you’re on your way to a pep rally.” Our school’s colors were black and yellow. “Didn’t you pull anything in purple? Or red?”

I thumbed through a cluster of tops hanging from a hook and held one up for Paige’s inspection.  She shook her head in disgust, confiscated it and tossed it onto a bench jutting from the wall.

“So you think the black one–?” I snatched up the black wrap dress Paige had earlier approved, holding it against myself.

“Didn’t I just say so? Yes, already.” The design would give the illusion I actually
had
a waist, she said. “Trust me, your little Greek friend won’t know what hit him.”

I felt myself blush.

“Now there’s a nice shade of red,” Paige snickered, pointing at the heat crawling up my neck.

“Shut up,” I said cleverly.

“What’s his name again?”

“Alex.” I shrugged out of the blouse and pants and traded them for the dress again. I wanted to see it on me one more time, make sure it was the right choice before I paid for it. Even with Paige's discount, Bonfire wasn’t cheap. “And he won’t even be there. His sister’s got a ballet recital.”

“Really.” She raised her eyebrows. “Then who’s all this for?” She waved her arm at the dress.

No one, I said. I wanted to look nice for the Mlinarichs. It was a special occasion, after all.

She ignored what I’d just said, temporarily distracted. “Do you have, like, a padded bra or anything at home?”

“What? No.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

“Okay,” Paige tsked, “But you should probably invest in one. So let’s see. Who could it be?” she wondered as she straightened my hem. “Some cousin of Lia’s? A friend of the family?” She tried to think of who’d be invited to the Mlinarichs’ anniversary party.

I primped uselessly in the mirror, not answering and wishing I’d kept walking when I’d seen Paige at the yogurt stand.

“Fine. Don’t tell me. Guess I’ll just have to figure it out on my own.”

I’d been trying not to think about it, but Paige’s words reminded me she’d be at the party, too. Probably insinuating herself between Jake and me, as usual.

“How about you? Are you bringing a date to this thing?” I hoped she’d say yes.

“Who would I bring?”

“I dunno. Maybe Dustin?”

She laughed.

“What? Aren’t you seeing him?”

“We messed around. But he isn’t really...”

“Relationship material?” I finished for her, echoing Lia’s assessment of him.

“Yeah. Also, he’s got a big mouth. I mean, he talks too much. Which I hate.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he talked about
you
,” she illustrated. “He said you were a prude.”

“What?” Well, it was a nicer word than he’d said to my face, at least.

“I told him I wasn’t surprised.”

“Thanks.”

“And then I told him I didn’t appreciate him talking about my friend that way and to get bent.”

“You did not.”

“Sure I did. What do you think I am?”

She looked at me and for some reason, I believed her. So now I knew why Dustin’s attitude toward me had changed. After Paige had shamed him, he hadn’t been able to look at me anymore. I wasn’t sure whether I should be grateful to her or not.

“What are you planning to do with your hair?” She asked.

“Do with it?”

“I’ve got some time. What if I come over and help you fix this mess?” She swatted the ponytail hanging limply at the nape of my neck.

“You’d do that?”

“Consider it a favor,” she said, “to the rest of us.”

***

“D
o not laugh,” Lia ordered through the door.

Paige and I’d taken separate cars from my house to the Mlinarichs’. We’d driven up to their place at almost the same time, and now stood on their front porch, waiting to be let in. Lia’d opened the door only a crack, reluctant to let us see her in her dress. I told her we promised not to laugh and she threw open the door.

“You promised,” she reminded me.

“What? You look great,” I told her. It was true. Contrary to Lia’s claim, the spaghetti-strapped dress wasn’t pink but coral. It was beautiful, and Lia looked beautiful in it, her auburn hair manipulated by Elyse’s hairdresser into an impressive formation of intricate loops, tendrils and tiny braids. She’d gotten lucky and her black eye had faded quickly, the remaining splotches easily covered by professionally-applied makeup. If I hadn’t known what to look for, I wouldn’t have noticed the slight puffiness and discoloration just at the top of her right cheekbone.

She bunched the gown’s skirt in her fists and hiked it up, doing a mocking little jig. “I look ridiculous,” she said, “But thanks, anyway.”

“Sorry we’re a little late,” I said, walking in. “Paige and I sort of lost track of time.”

“My God, are you wearing a dress?” Lia let her skirt fall and stared at me open-mouthed.

“It was Paige’s idea.”

“What did you do to her?” Lia gasped at Paige, who lingered by the door, playing with the clasp on her purse and examining the Wall of Shame.