Rhymes With Cupid (9 page)

“That was ages ago. It’s been, like, almost an entire year.” They were close enough that I could hear the sound of Tabby’s gum squishing between her teeth. “But I guess some people never get over stuff.” She sighed, then seemed to brighten. “Oh my God, though. That just made me realize. Can you even believe it, Matty? We’ve been together almost an entire year. I’m getting these. They look hot, right? I’m totally going to wear them on our anniversary.” I bit hard on my bottom lip to keep a sob from escaping. A few seconds later, I heard the sound of her changing room door closing.

“Elyse?” Dina whispered from the hallway. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t risk opening my mouth. I was determined that Matt Love was
not
going to hear my voice crack. Tabby was
not
going to know she’d made me cry. Another door closed. “Elyse?” I heard the whisper again, this time near my feet. I jumped. There was Dina’s face, sticking through the gap underneath the partition between our two changing rooms. “Are you okay?”

The tears started running down my cheeks. I couldn’t stop them. “Elyse,” she whispered again. “I’m coming over.” If I hadn’t been so totally destroyed, I might even have laughed. Instead of standing up and coming through the door, like a normal person might have, Dina pushed her head all the way through the gap, then wriggled her shoulders frantically until they somehow slid through. The rest of her body followed more easily, but it still wasn’t pretty—especially considering how small both changing rooms were, and the fact that she was wearing a see-through minidress.

Finally, she pushed herself to her feet and put her arms around me. She didn’t ask a single question while I cried, soaking the barely existent fabric covering her shoulder.

We stood there, huddled in the corner, until we heard the changing room door opening and closing again, and Matt’s and Tabby’s voices receding down the hallway toward the cash.

Dina stepped back and brushed a strand of tear-soaked hair off my cheek.

“Sorry. Those people were—” I started to explain, but the words got choked off by my sobs.

“Matt Love, right? And Tabby? Your ex and your former best friend.” I nodded. “Yeah. I figured. Assholes,” she muttered under her breath.

Hearing sweet, sensitive Dina use a swear word caught me so off guard that I actually stopped crying for a second.

“What?” she said, looking at me indignantly. “They are! I’m sorry, but you don’t treat a friend that way. And you definitely, definitely don’t do that to someone you claim to love. Come on,” she said, moving another chunk of tear-soaked hair off my face. “Get changed. I’ll go out first to make sure the coast is clear.” I nodded and she lay down on the floor, starting to rewriggle into her own changing room, feet first.

“Dina?” I said. She stopped and looked up. There were so many things I wanted to say to her right then. “Thank you” was near the top of the list. And “I promise I’ll never do something like that to you” was a close second. But she looked so worried, and going all schmoopy on her wasn’t going to help matters—which probably explains why my first instinct was to make a joke. Something to let her know I was going to be all right. “Please don’t make me buy this dress, okay?” She smiled, clearly relieved.

“Yeah,” she admitted, looking up from the floor. “That’s maybe not the best look for you.”

“You think?” I said, sniffing. I stuck out my reindeer boobs and looked in the mirror. “It’s festive.”

She laughed. Then her head disappeared underneath the partition again. I looked in the mirror and wiped at my cheeks with the back of my hand. Strangely enough, I was feeling better now. A lot better. I mean, yeah, I was still sad about what had happened with Matt Love last year. I still had no intention of opening up my heart to that kind of hurt again, but when it came to Tabby, I suddenly didn’t care anymore. So what if we weren’t friends? She’d been kind of crazy and fun to hang out with—always up on the latest gossip about who liked who and which teachers secretly smoked behind the football field—but the truth was, she was mean. She’d
always
been mean. In a lot of ways, she’d never really been much of a friend to begin with.

“I’m not getting this dress either,” Dina said from the other side of the wall. “It looks awful.”

“No, it doesn’t,” I said. “It makes
me
look like a sausage link. But on you, it looks amazing. You should get it.”

“It
so
doesn’t
make you look like a sausage link,” she said, but she hesitated a second too long before saying it. “Okay. So it
does
look a little bit terrible on you,” she admitted, “but it’s still better than Miss Thing’s tight jeans. Did you see her butt in those?” Dina whispered. “It was so flat you couldn’t tell if she was walking backward or forward.”

“Dina!” I whispered back. My jaw dropped.

“I’m serious though.” She changed the subject. “I’m not getting this dress.” I heard her changing room door open. “It’s got bad associations now. If I wear this to the party, all you’re going to think about is Matt Love and Pancake Butt. I’ll find something else.” I heard the clink of the metal hanger against the rejects rack as she hung it up.

“Dina, honestly,” I started, “you should get it.” But she didn’t hear me. She’d already gone out into the store to make sure Matt and Tabby had left.

Dina Marino, I thought—as I yanked my jeans up and put the horrific transparent dress back on its hanger—sweet, loyal, loving, passionate about the things she believed in, and surprisingly catty when the moment called for it. Now
that
was a true friend.

Chapter 9

B
ecause of the whole terrible Matt Love/see-through dress episode, we ended up being almost ten minutes late for our shift. Mr. Goodman was pacing the floor in the day-planner section when we got there, obviously annoyed about the fact that his dinner was at home getting cold.

“Girls,” he said. “If you need help remembering what time your shift begins, might I remind you that we carry a wide selection of planners and agendas.”

“I’m really sorry, Mr. Goodman,” I said, taking my name tag out of my backpack and pinning it on.

“It was my fault,” Dina cut in. I shot her a look. “My, um, watch battery died.” I glanced at her wrist. She wasn’t wearing a watch. Thankfully Mr. Goodman either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

“Do your best to keep it from happening again,” he said. “That’s all I ask. In any case”—he walked to the cash and we followed—“you can make it up to me. Sales are still slow.” He patted Cupid’s head. “So I’m starting a new incentive program for staff. For every ten new customers you sign up for the customer loyalty card between now and Valentine’s Day, I’ll add fifty dollars to your paychecks.” Our eyes went wide. Fifty dollars was
a lot
of money, considering we only made minimum wage.

By the time Mr. Goodman left two minutes later, Dina had already done the do-gooder math in her head. “You realize if we sign up a hundred people, and add that money to what we collect at the party, we’ll be able to sponsor two pandas. A hundred people is nothing. That’s just twelve or thirteen people per shift. We can totally do that!” My head was still achy from crying in the dressing room. My heart still felt heavy. I had a hard time sharing her enthusiasm and—honestly—if I had an extra fifty bucks, I wanted to spend it on a really good blond wig. That way, I could disguise myself at work and never risk Matt or Tabby spotting me at the mall again. . . . But Dina looked so optimistic. And after she’d been there for me at American Apparel, I didn’t want to let her down.

“We’ll have to be aggressive though,” she went on. “We can’t just sit back.”

I nodded vaguely, then slit open the packing tape on a box of merchandise Mr. Goodman had left us to shelve. Inside were mini boxes of heart-shaped chocolates with love propaganda written on them in pink bubble letters:
You complete me.
Be mine always. I adore you.
Seriously, I didn’t know if I could take nine more days of this. It was beyond cruel when even my favorite food reminded me how broken my heart was.

I tried to count off the boxes against the packing slip, but I was also eyeing the entryway to make sure Matt Love and Tabby weren’t about to walk in, staring smushily into each other’s eyes. I kept getting my numbers screwed up.

“This can’t be right,” I said, crossing out my total for the third time. “The packing slip says thirty boxes, but there must be, like, one-thirty here.”

“Let me see,” Dina said, coming around the cash. She started counting. “You’re right. One-thirty exactly. They overshipped.”

I sighed as I separated out thirty chocolates and started to pile the others back into the box. “Mr. Goodman will have to return the rest, I guess.”

“No. Wait,” Dina said. “I just had an idea.” She had a strange glint in her eye. “The slip says thirty, right? It’s not like the supplier is going to remember where the extras went. And, besides.” She picked up the packing slip. “They were shipped from British Columbia. If we sent them back now, they’d never get back to the warehouse in time for Valentine’s Day. And they’ll have gone bad by next year. They’d basically be wasted.”

“Dina?” I raised my eyebrows. “If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking . . .”

“It’s for a good cause,” she added, ignoring my warning tone. She grabbed the sample Cupid doll in one hand and the box of chocolates in the other. “Cupid and I will be out in the mall corridor,” she said, pressing his tummy to start him up. “I’ll send them in, you sign them up.”

I had to hand it to her. Legally speaking, what she was doing might have qualified as stealing—just a little bit—but it also worked. Because, as it turns out, free chocolate will make people do just about anything. By four o’clock that day, I’d signed up forty people for the customer loyalty plan. At four fifteen, number forty-one walked in, grinning at me. He took off his giant DJ earphones and set his box of free chocolates down on the counter.

“These are for you,” he said, sliding the box toward me.
You’re so huggable.
I left them sitting awkwardly on the counter between us. “I want to sign up, but I just have one question. Do pens count toward this customer loyalty thing, or just cards?”

Not that I had any reason to notice, but he looked great. Patrick was wearing a crisp button-down shirt and jeans that fell off his hips just a little. He seemed relaxed, and even more cheerful than usual—obviously his two-day bout of fake Lyme disease had given him lots of time to rest.

“Just cards,” I answered. “Sorry.”

“Too bad,” Patrick said, filling out the sign-up form I passed him, “because I need a new one. That pen you sold me last time—it really does make a crisp line, but now that I’ve had some time to think about it, it’s almost too crisp, you know?”

“Too crisp,” I repeated, trying to strike a professional tone. There was a playful look in his eyes I didn’t like. Now that the cookie had revealed all, I could plainly see that he was flirting with me and, considering that Dina was just outside, it made me more than a little nervous.

“Do you have anything that writes really smooth? You know those pens where the ink just kind of rolls out?”

“Rolly,” I said with a straight face. “Not sploodgy or crisp. I think we have just the thing.” He followed me to the pen section where we fell into our already familiar routine. I’d hand him a pen, he’d test it on the scraps of paper and make thoughtful faces, then I’d hand him another option.

“So?” he said kind of casually after a while. “How did I do?”

“Do?”

“You know, with the cookies?”

I gulped. This was the part of the day I’d been dreading—the moment where I’d have to tell him that, as delicious as the cookies had been, his crush was unrequited.

“Yeah. About that . . .” I started. “The cookies—the second attempt—weren’t bad. They were really good, actually. You obviously followed the recipe, b—” But my “but” got cut off by Dina’s excited voice coming down the aisle.

“Elyse!” she squealed. “I just counted the forms. I can’t believe it! Forty-one customer loyalty cards. That’s over two hundred dollars. We’re practically halfway there, and it’s only the first day.”

“Dina, that’s awesome,” I said, partly because it was true, and partly for Patrick’s benefit. “It’s all thanks to you, you know. You’re so charming and friendly. Between you and the chocolate, who could resist?” She beamed. “Hey,” I said, thinking on my feet. “You know what, Patrick? Dina here knows
everything
about pens. She can probably help you better than I can. Plus, I have that last box of merchandise to unpack before our driving lesson starts. So . . .” I trailed off, already walking away.

It didn’t take Dina long to shift into full-flirtation mode. “I
love
your hair,” I heard her say as I retreated down the aisle. “I wish I could get mine to go like that. Are those curls natural? For real? Okay, let me show you our best pens. If you promise not to tell anyone, I can even give you my employee discount.”

I exhaled heavily as I stepped behind the cash where Cupid was, once again shaking his diapered butt. A bunch of eleven- or twelve-year-old girls were standing near the card display, watching and gossiping.

“That doll is sooooo cute,” one of them said.

“I’m going to tell Nick G. that you want one for Valentine’s Day,” teased another, which made the first girl shriek and pretend-hit her friend.

“If you do, I’m killing you.”

“He’d probably buy it for you, too. You know he has a crush on you.
Everyone
can tell. You’re
so
lucky. Nobody
ever
has a crush on me,” the second girl whined dejectedly.

“Hey,” I said, joining their conversation, uninvited, from behind the cash. “Don’t stress about it. You’re probably just too smart. Guys get intimidated by that. Plus, there are worse things than nobody having a crush on you.” Like the
wrong person
having a crush on you, I thought. But instead of listening to the wise advice of their elder, a few of them just rolled their eyes. Then they all walked away—one giant cluster of sixth-grade giggles. I tried not to take it personally. When I was their age, I wouldn’t have believed me either.

Fifteen minutes later, as Patrick and I walked across the icy parking lot toward his red car, I mentally rehearsed what I was going to say:
“You’re a great guy, don’t get me wrong . . . but I’m just not interested in dating. . . . We should still be friends/neighbors/people who work at the same mall. . . . It’s for the best. . . . You’ll find someone else—someone who cares as much as you do about the plight of homeless people . . . someone who looks out for the welfare of helpless animals, perhaps . . . someone who loves your hair. . . .”

Sure, it was probably going to make for an awkward driving lesson, but it was the kind of thing that was best done quickly—like ripping off a Band-Aid. He’d really only known me a week, anyway, and I hadn’t always exactly been nice to him in that time. How serious about liking me could he actually be?

Apparently, the answer to that question was about to be revealed to me in surprising detail.

“Wait, wait,” Patrick said as we walked around the column for parking row C-10. “Close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“Because I have a surprise for you.”

“Is it a unicorn?” I said sarcastically.

“No,” he answered.

“Okay. Then forget it. I’m not closing my eyes.”

“It’s better than a unicorn,” he tried. Now, that, I found hard to believe. Not that I’d been into unicorns since I was six or seven years old—but still, a real, live unicorn in the SouthSide Mall parking lot would be pretty unbeatable when it came to surprises.

“Even if it
is
better than an enchanted magical horse with a golden horn—which is impossible,” I countered, “it’s not safe to walk through a parking lot with your eyes closed.”

“I won’t let anything happen to you. I’ll hold your hand,” he promised, which, considering the situation, didn’t do much to make me feel better. The only reason I eventually gave in was because it was cold. I didn’t want to stand out there arguing all day.

“Okay. Fine,” I said, but I shoved both hands into my pockets, forcing him to hold my arm instead. I closed my eyes. “This’d better be good.”

He steered me carefully over the icy patches and around parked cars. I heard him fumble with his keys. “Okay,” he said as he opened the door. “You can look now.” There, stuffed into the cup holders in the front seat, were a dozen red roses—or, to be more exact—a dozen, red,
dead
roses. Each rose’s long stem was slumped over in a different direction—as if the weight of their big flowery heads had suddenly become too much to bear. On a scale of one to ten, with one being nothing at all and ten being the unicorn, they were definitely no higher than a two.

“Oh no,” Patrick said, diving past me into the car when he saw. “They weren’t like that this morning.” He tried to prop the floppy stems up against the dash but they just wilted over again. “I swear. The lady I bought them from said they’d probably last three days. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to leave them out in the cold,” he said, scratching underneath the brim of his blue and white hat.

I stood, shifting my feet in the snow. “Flowers like water, too,” I added unhelpfully. The exposed bottoms of the roses’ stems were sticking through the cup holders and resting against the floor mat.

“Yeah. I’ve heard people say that.” He sighed. “Okay, never mind. You must be freezing.” He climbed out of the driver’s seat to let me in. “There’s another surprise, anyway.” He ran around and got in. I shut the door, dreading whatever was coming next.

Patrick turned the key in the ignition and hit the power button on the CD player. Soft music filled the car. Even though I’d only heard them once—during our last driving lesson—I recognized the band as Surely Sarah. This was a slower song, though. A romantic song. Patrick turned to me.

“Elyse,” he started. I could tell he was nervous. “Since the very first time I saw you through your window, I’ve thought you were beautiful . . . not to mention a kick-ass interpretive chair dancer. I mean, that scuba move, c’mon. . . .” He just
had
to tease me about that, didn’t he? I gave him a look, but he just kept going, using a more serious tone now. “And, now that I’m getting to know you, I’m starting to really like you. You’re so smart, and so funny. And, this song kind of says everything I’ve been wanting to say to you for a little while now, so—”

I couldn’t let him go on. The smell of dead roses was overpoweringly sweet. The singer’s voice was sickeningly sentimental. The look in Patrick’s eyes was so intense it made me squirm. I reached over and hit the power button on the CD player. The car fell silent.

“Stop, Patrick,” I said. “Please.” He stared at me expectantly. “Look, I told you the other day. I don’t date. So . . .” I picked up a rose, then let it flop again. “While this is all really nice, really sweet, honestly, I’m not interested in having a boyfriend. If that’s what you were about to ask me.” He looked heartbroken. “It’s not you,” I went on, “it’s just, like I told you, I’m really focused on school right now. Plus, I’ve done the boyfriend thing before. It didn’t end well.”