Crush du Jour (4 page)

She pushed her long, ash blond hair out of her eyes.

“Well, didn’t you swear off cute boys for the summer? Because of how they ’interfere with your concentration’?” She made little quote marks with her fingers.

I grunted noncommittally. Leave it to Anna to use my own words against me. Sometimes it was superannoying to have a best friend who knew me so well.

And as much as I can be a flirt, I wasn’t totally psychotic when it came to the opposite sex. I mean, it wasn’t that I was so insecure—more like inexperienced. At the tender age of sixteen I’d only had one real boyfriend, and
that was at camp a whole two summers ago. I’d also never crushed on anyone as objectively cute as Seth. Not that I have any sort of major facial disfiguration, but Seth was adorable, while I was more … quirky. My blunt little bob and pervasive freckles sort of sealed that deal for me. Anyway, all I meant was that Seth was a hottie, and potentially just slightly out of my league. But only
slightly
.

And anyway, it didn’t matter. Because I wasn’t going to hook up this summer—no matter
which
refugee from a CW dramedy was thrown into my path.

I waited a moment or two for Anna to chime in again, but she seemed pretty focused on her chocolate chip ice cream cookie sandwich, which was slowly dribbling onto the Formica table.

”Obviously,”
I continued, when it became clear that I was losing Anna’s semidivided attention, “even if I hadn’t made a pact with myself, Seth and I can’t date if we’re going to be teaching together. That would just be unprofessional.”

“Maybe you won’t get the job.” She licked around the edges of her ice cream sandwich to prevent drippage.

“Thanks,” I grumbled.

Not dating this summer was, as Anna pointed out, a rule that I had devised all by myself, for myself. I couldn’t go back on it five seconds after the first attractive member of the male species crossed my path.

But Seth was way more than an attractive guy. He oozed cute-itude and exuded charm. He emitted some sort of pheromone that I couldn’t help but take note of.

In fact, he was downright
yummy
.

Even if he was a snotty little know-it-all in the kitchen.

I came home from Scoops to an empty household. I wasn’t surprised; dinner with Mom was about as frequent as sightings of the Loch Ness Monster (and really, when would you see the Loch Ness Monster in Philly, of all places?). However, as I defrosted myself some turkey meatloaf for dinner, I saw that she had left me a note on the wipe board that we have hung on the fridge.

Nora
called. Call her back tonight before six or tomorrow.

My mother wasn’t very cutesy—she definitely wasn’t the type to engage in
excessive use of emoticons—so obviously Nora had said something to my mom when they spoke. Something good, that is.

Something about me getting the job.

Four

“My name is Pete, and I like to eat pizza.”

“Hi, Pete!” Like a deranged chorus, Seth and I and the five other students in the class, which Nora had named Stirring Things Up, welcomed one of our own.

Even though the icebreakers were mostly my idea, I still couldn’t believe we were doing them. From icebreakers, it was a very slippery slope to trust falls, name games, and quasi-paranormal levitation exercises. The last time I’d been forced to levitate or to pin a name tag to my chest was on my first day of middle school—which made sense, since these kids were all around twelve years old.

And while we’re on the subject: Twelve years old? Is pretty old. I mean, we’re talking free-thinking, gum-snapping, loud-talking old. This didn’t bother me so much, but Seth didn’t seem totally comfortable or in control of the room. Against my advice, he’d drawn a skull and crossbones on his own name tag, only scribbling his name underneath quickly after an impromptu visit and a questioning glance from Nora.

I did a quick mental inventory: Pete liked pizza, Marci liked marshmallows, Anthony liked apples, Gretchen liked grapes, Cameron liked cookies (I knew he and I were going to get along just fine), and Barrie liked baked potatoes. That was our class, in an icebreaking nutshell.

Pizza-loving Pete was sort of burly, like a preteen teddy bear. I wanted to scoop him up and feed him as much pizza as he wanted. Marshmallow Marci wore bright pink braces on her gums, which seemed like a deadly match for marshmallows in any form, if you asked me. Anthony was skinny, with ruddy cheeks and spiky hair. He didn’t strike me as a wholesome, apple-loving guy, but I could allow him the poetic license. Gretchen was willowy and blond and clearly
on the cusp of puberty; if it weren’t so unprofessional, I might even have been jealous of her. Cameron could have stepped off the set of a CW dramedy or a Disney musical himself. And Barrie? Well, Barrie was sweet. That is to say, sweet was the beginning and the end of it. I had yet to come up with another descriptor for her. My heart went out to her. Maybe she was just painfully shy.

What did Laine like, you ask? Laine liked lollipops. Seth, apparently, was a big fan of surf and turf, but not, it would seem, of twelve-year-old cooking class students.

I was sort of shocked to arrive at Halliday early that first Saturday morning to find Seth hunched over a table in our classroom, scowling at the aprons Nora had left out for us.

“Are they the wrong size?” I joked. They looked big enough to cover an elephant. I’d definitely have to tie mine around my waist at least three times.

“What? Um, I haven’t tried them yet.” Seth seemed a little bit embarrassed to be caught daydreaming.

“So, what do you think the kids will be like?” I asked, crossing the room and
quickly donning one of the two aprons. Yup, it was huge on me. The lower edges of it grazed the tips of my lime green Pumas, which was a shame, since they were super-cute sneakers and I was really into them. Oh, well. At least I was unlikely to get them dirty.

“I have no idea,” Seth said, a blank look in his eyes. He was either terrified of children or had been replaced by a cooking-instructor cyborg.

Nora stopped in to say hello and wish us luck for our first class. That seemed to snap Seth out of whatever little trance he’d gone into, thank goodness, because even though I had experience with kids, I was intimidated by the thought of actually being in charge of a group of them and being responsible for teaching them. Suddenly the kitchen, once my favorite room of any house, seemed fraught with danger. Knives, fire, and big, heavy bags of dry goods? Add those ingredients to a room full of hyper kids and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

For all that Seth was flustered when I found him, he pulled himself together for the actual class. That is, he stopped enacting the thousand-yard gaze of terror.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t replaced it with anything more authoritative, and as a result, the kids weren’t taking him all that seriously. It wasn’t an immediate problem, but I sensed that it could morph into one at any moment. It made me very tense.

“Well then,” I said, clapping my hands briskly, “should we get started?”

Everyone responded with medium-grade enthusiasm. Something had to be done. I wanted these kids to be super-extra-totally psyched for cooking class.

“People,” I said, leaning my hands on the table in front of me and hunching forward conspiratorially, “cooking is
fun
. Your parents sent you to this class so you could learn how to safely mess around in the kitchen while they’re at work. Come on—you really don’t think that sounds awesome?”

A mild murmur broke out among the group. While they didn’t respond with as much enthusiasm as I would have liked, the general feeling was that yes, this sounded somewhat awesome.

Okay, so maybe they weren’t exactly raring to go, but I was going to have to seize whatever energy they could muster and go with it. I grinned as widely as I could.

“The purpose of this class is to teach you basic kitchen skills and safety. That way you don’t have to have Doritos for dinner whenever your parents are working late.”

“I
like
Doritos,” Anthony interjected, looking skeptical.

I waved an arm at him dismissively.

“I’m not saying you
can’t
have chips. My point is only that you can have a real dinner, too.”

He nodded, not looking very convinced.

I was in too deep, and I wasn’t getting any help from Seth, either. There was nothing left to do but go for broke. “Today,” I continued, sounding as perky as a Barbie doll on diet pills, “we’re going to
quickly
go over some cooking basics”—I had to rush through this part; it sounded dry even to my own ears—”and then we’ll talk about the foundations of healthy eating.”

Oh, jeez. Listening to myself, I sort of wanted to curl up with a bag of Doritos myself, which was so unlike me. If I was going to curl up with a snack, it would at least be some air-popped popcorn with some cumin and garlic salt.

“Forget that.”

I looked up, startled. I thought it was
Anthony, protesting what could possibly be the most boring extracurricular activity of all time, ever. I was all prepared to tease and cajole him in a way that demonstrated just how cool and with-it I was.

(Note: As a general rule, people who are “cool” and “with it” do not need to use sarcastic quote marks when they describe themselves. But I digress.)

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that it was actually Seth who was undermining my carefully laid-out lesson plan. The lesson plan that I had gone over first with him and then with Nora. The lesson plan that had been—much like every other undertaking in my entire life—
approved
.

I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry?”

Seth looked up. “’Basics’ and ’foundations’? Who wants to work on that?”

Well, we did, according to the conversation that we had had, um,
yesterday
.

“How about we do something fun? How about we head into the pantry and MacGyver up some macaroni and cheese? Bonus points for figuring out how to add something extra weird to the mix.”

“Marshmallows?” Marci asked hopefully.

Seth flushed brightly, still somewhat
terrified by the room full of twelve-year-olds. It was becoming crystal clear to me that we were total opposites. I was a planner—except with food—and good with kids. He was a “winger”—except in the kitchen, where he fell back on total basics—and, apparently, was crap with kids. But if we each had our own special skill set, why was he going all improv on me when I least expected it? Was he trying to throw me off of my game?

Together, we either made the awe-somest, most perfect teaching team ever … or we were going down in flames.

We’d just have to wait and see.

For now, I decided, it didn’t matter. We could be a modern-day Hepburn and Tracy, or better yet, Nick and Jessica pre-divorce. Except, without the romance. And with slightly smaller bank accounts. And—at least as far as I was concerned—less shiny hair. Not that Seth was noticing my hair, anyway.

We were clearly, completely, one hundred percent polar opposites. And not the kind that attracted.

Unfortunately.

In the meantime, however, it seemed we
were going to be jumping headfirst into a macaroni-and-marshmallow casserole.

Yum.

That night dinner was a warmed-over Tupperware container of sticky grated cheddar and rigatoni, mixed with medium-spicy salsa left over from the week before. I was either going to gain ten pounds or die of malnutrition while I taught this class—possibly even both. Mom and I had resorted to communicating almost strictly through the wipe board on the refrigerator since we had practically ceased to see each other in person. In the foodie business summer was all about seasonal specials and garden openings. Tonight, Mom’s note said, she was on her way to that new place Hype for her first visit. She was going dressed as Laurel, a savvy media professional who is all business, all the time. (Laurel looks a lot like my mom wearing a blond wig.)

“I hope it lives up to all the ’hype,”
she wrote.

I winced at the awful pun. No matter how mediocre Hype turned out to be, she’d still have it better than I did. I checked my watch: I’d given myself thirty minutes of
downtime before I dove into some SAT flash cards. I planned to use those thirty minutes to full advantage. I curled up to the television with my plate of pasta and settled in for an
Iron Chef America
mini-marathon.

Five

“So, is Seth still babelicious?” Anna’s green eyes peered at me inquisitively from behind the worlds biggest Slushee. She was being a good friend, listening to me mope about a cutie I couldn’t have, rather than regaling me with torrid tales of the beach club. That Anna—she’s a thoughtful wingman. Or wingwoman.

I nodded morosely.
“Muy caliente.”

She was puzzled. “Then why do you look like he kidnapped your puppy?”

I stared at her. “Do we
really
need to go over this again?”

Obviously, we did. I sat straight up in my chair, my order of atomic wings pushed aside and neglected.