The Sweetest Thing (10 page)

Judith shook her head innocently. “You can barely even see the players way down on that field.”

“Besides, they all look the same in their uniforms,” Meredith agreed.

“Okay,” I said. “I guess it'll be fun. But seriously, no more drama.”

Meredith and Judith looked pleased—maybe a little too pleased—but they only exchanged one quick, suspicious glance before the three of us settled down to study a little bit for our classes later in the day. I decided that maybe this wouldn't be such a total disaster. After all, how were they supposed to get over Adam if they stayed cooped up dreaming about him all weekend? Getting out to the football game might even help. I was flipping through my biology textbook, looking at pictures of baby frogs and daydreaming about Bogie, when all of a sudden both my friends gasped.

“What?” I asked, startled. But it should have been obvious. The sun was in my eyes, but I could still see who they were staring at. Surprise, surprise, it was Adam—but even I'd never seen him looking quite like this. I guess he and a couple of his friends had just come from the pool down on the ground floor, because they were wearing swim trunks and flip-flops and sitting around on these big multicolored beach towels that looked like they belonged out on Coney Island or something. Adam was smiling and laughing, shaking water out of his curly hair. I'd never noticed before that he had a tan, but he did. He was practically golden.

For a second, I was just as speechless as they were. Then I rolled my eyes. I'd been giving this guy way too much credit. Who tans at school? And at the end of October, no less? An arrogant meathead, that's who. My friends were crazy to be pining over some jock who jumped at the chance to strip off his shirt—he had nice abs, sure, but that was no excuse for being vain.

“Oh my God,” Judith breathed, clearly hypnotized by Adam's six-pack. She smiled sweetly and, leaning in front of Meredith, batted her eyes in his direction.

“Judith! Come on!
NAR
! You promised!” Meredith yanked Judith out of the way, then leaned forward herself, blocking her friend. She tossed her hair and cast Adam what she probably imagined was an impassioned, soulful gaze.

I waved my arms like I was stopping traffic. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Come on. You're both way out of line. Forget about this guy already.”

But the minute the words were out of my mouth, Adam looked over at us. His eyes skimmed over Meredith and Judith, then stopped at me. He smiled, and it was such a gentle, friendly smile that for a second I couldn't say anything. Then he hopped up and took two big strides and there he was, all of him, right in front of us.

“Hey, Flan,” he said, towering over our blanket. His shadow fell over our books. “Hey, you guys.”

“Hey,” Meredith and Judith murmured in unison, their eyes wide.

I awkwardly stood up. “What's up?”

“I was just wondering—do we have to turn in any lab reports today for Bogie?” He smelled liked chlorine.

“No, I don't think so.”

“Cool. Because I didn't get a chance to type up my log entries last night.”

“No, don't worry about it.” I raked my hand through my hair. Up close, Adam looked less like some lame lifeguard from a soap opera and more like some kind of mythological sun creature. When he smiled again, his teeth were blindingly white.

“Well, thanks,” he said. He saluted Meredith and Judith. “Catch you guys later.”

“Later,” Meredith and Judith murmured in unison. As soon as he started walking back, they both stared at me, their mouths forming little
O
's of surprise.

“What was
that
all about?” Judith asked.

I picked up my cell phone and pretended to inspect it. There was a text message from Bennett asking if Feb had been mad about last night. I closed it again. “What was what all about.”

“He
smiled
at you,” said Meredith. “Adam
McGregor smiled at you. And then he looked at you with his sensitive eyes like he knew your very soul.”

“Oh, Meredith, he did not!” I reached up and touched my cheeks, which were kind of flushed.

“Well, he checked you out, that's for sure.” Judith stared at me accusingly. “Why didn't you tell us you were friends?”

“He wasn't checking me out, Judith. And we're not friends. We're lab partners.” I tapped my textbook like it was evidence for my case. “For biology.”

“He's your lab partner?” they both squeaked in unison.

I slapped my forehead. “Look, I didn't want to tell you because I knew you guys would flip out. Now stop it, okay? You promised. And grilling me about this guy totally counts as breaking the No Adam Rule.”

“Sure, and having joint custody of a tadpole doesn't?” Judith grumbled.

“Judith, we're sharing a microscope, not a martini at the Carlyle.” I said with finality.

Meredith let out a little lovesick sigh, and they both went back to their homework. I set the biology textbook aside—I'd already spent way too much time thinking about Bogie the tadpole and, yes, Adam—and picked up my English book instead. I flipped to the assigned story, but before I even got through the
first page, Meredith asked, a little too casually, “So, has Adam talked at all about what kind of books he likes to read? Just out of curiosity?”

“Meredith …” I warned her.

“I was just wondering, that's all,” she said defensively. “I mean, for future reference, I want to know if I'm a good judge of what a guy is like. It seemed to me like he had the heart of a poet, so I was just wondering if I was right.”

I rolled my eyes. Heart of a poet? She needed to stop renting all those costume dramas from the video store.

“Listen, it's not like he's poured his heart out to me. Mainly we just study this frog, okay? And he's not making up haikus on the spot about its webbed feet or the flakes of food we feed it.”

Meredith looked back at her economics worksheet so sadly that I almost told her about how much Adam liked Hemingway and old movies. But it would've only encouraged her to obsess about him more.

“While we're on the subject of Adam—and for the record, I didn't bring it up,” Judith added sharply to Meredith, who had just opened her mouth to protest, “I was just wondering if you two ever talked about me.”

This time I refused to look up from my book. “No, Judith, we haven't.”

“Now, come on. I'm not going to make a big deal about it. I just want to know what he said about me. For my own peace of mind.” She tucked a pencil behind one ear. “I'd appreciate your honesty.”

“Okay. Honestly, we've never talked about you. Not even once. If something's not green and slimy, you can pretty much bet we've never discussed it.”

Judith looked crestfallen. “He never asked about me? Doesn't he know we're friends? Because when he talked to me about the weather that time, it seemed like he
really
wanted—”

I shook my head emphatically. It's always so weird talking to Meredith and Judith about guys. They always have these elaborate love affairs going on in their daydreams, and then they act all confused when, in real life, the guy in question has no clue what's going on. Not only had Adam never asked me about Judith, but I kind of doubted he even remembered their supposedly meaningful conversation. That seemed like a pretty harsh thing to point out, so I decided to change the subject instead. I stood up and looked down over the ledge of the roof, into the street below. A bunch of the shops and apartment buildings had haystacks and jack-o'-lanterns sitting on their stoops. One creative person had balanced a papier-mâché witch on a broomstick out on the rail of a fire escape.

“I can't believe it's almost Halloween already,” I said. “Are you guys going to the Halloween parade?”

Fortunately for me, Meredith took the bait right away. “Oh, absolutely. My mom and grandma have been taking me every year since I was little. They get tons of ideas for designs from the costumes.”

“We should all go to the parade together this year,” I suggested. “Judith? You in?”

Judith set down her calculator. She still looked peeved, but she tried to match Meredith's enthusiasm. “Sure. It'll be … fun.”

As the two of them started talking about what kind of costumes we should wear—fishnets and smoky eye makeup seemed to figure into every ensemble—I let myself sneak one last look at Adam. He was drinking neon green Gatorade from a bottle, and his hair had almost dried in the sunshine. I tried to tell myself that I was keeping Meredith and Judith away from him for their own good, but it was hard not feeling like a hypocrite. Who was I to enforce the No Adam Rule when I was developing a soft spot for the guy myself?

Bright and early Saturday morning I went off to go shopping with SBB. Since she moved in next door, it's kind of become a tradition of ours. At first, she needed things for the house—like towels and bath mats and sheets—because she considered everything from her old apartment to be contaminated with bad energy and allergens and other things that made her wake up screaming from nightmares. More recently, she's needed clothes for photo shoots, new sunglasses, and a pillbox to hold all her anti-anxiety drugs, which she stopped taking a week later because she said she “couldn't think.” That morning, though, we were shopping for the most fun thing of all: Halloween costumes.

I figured we'd go to someplace like Halloween Adventure or Abracadabra Superstore, but Sara-Beth Benny had other plans.

“I'm sure those places are super, super cute, Flan, but they sell fake barf and whoopee cushions. And those little black-and-white saddle shoes like Gwen Stefani used to wear when she was still in No Doubt.” SBB shivered at the memory.

“So where are we going?” I asked.

“Let's try Ina first—they have the best vintage clothing. Wouldn't it be wild if I were a zombie queen from the seventies?” Sara-Beth checked her BlackBerry. “Oh my God, this is horrible, horrible, horrible!” She frantically pushed little buttons as we walked along Perry Street.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It's just too terrible for words!” Somehow, this didn't stop Sara-Beth from rapidly typing on her tiny keypad. “My new decorator, Yvette St. Lucien, hasn't been able to find the watered silk curtains I wanted. She's been searching all over Paris!”

“
Paris
?” I asked as we turned onto Bleecker. I peered into the Marc Jacobs accessory store—there was a cute elephant key chain in the window—and at the line of people waiting outside Magnolia for cupcakes.

“Of course. You know, I didn't realize this until a couple of days ago, but did you know that if you want really high-quality materials, you have to go over to
Europe and get them yourself? Yvette explained the whole thing to me, so of course I put her on the next plane. But now it looks like it's all been a big waste of time!” Sara-Beth scrutinized her little screen. “Oh, wait, she just texted me. Wait … wait … she found them after all!” She shut off her BlackBerry and held one hand to her forehead, like she was about to swoon. “This is such a relief. I really didn't want to wait another week while she tromped all around Venice.”

“Why do you want these curtains so much?” We passed a leafless tree that had cute mini pumpkins with painted smiley faces dangling from the branches.

“Well, I haven't seen them myself, because they only have them in certain very exclusive boutiques overseas, but Yvette tells me they're the very best—the same kind that were hanging in Versailles when Sofia Coppola shot her Marie Antoinette movie. And you have to trust a Frenchwoman in matters of taste—I mean, it's absolutely in their blood.”

“Yvette is French?”

“I think so. Or French Canadian.” She waved the question away with her birdlike hands. Then she grabbed my arm and pulled me along behind her as she made a beeline for Cynthia Rowley.

“What about Ina?” I gasped, trying to keep up. But
Sara-Beth just rushed over to a high-necked red silk dress that was hanging on the back wall.

“Isn't this hideous?” she shrieked. “Imagine it with stilettos. It's totally, totally something from the depths of hell.”

“Can I help you?” a saleslady asked, stepping briskly from behind the counter. Her hair was swirled up into this kind of tornado of hairspray, and she had on such dark eye shadow that, even if she hadn't been glaring at us, she would've looked a little bit like an evil arch-villain from one of Bennett's favorite superhero comics. After one look at her, I was ready to get out of there. But Sara-Beth had already veered over to another clothing rack.

“Thanks, we're just browsing,” I said sheepishly, and slunk over to where Sara-Beth stood, pawing at a black-and-white patterned tube dress with multicolored ruffles around the middle.

“This is like something from my pod nightmare.” She picked the hanger up and held the dress to herself for size. “It's absolutely schizophrenic! A psychotic clown suit.”

“It seems like you ladies are looking for something in particular,” said the salesgirl, following us across the room. Her arms were crossed, and I noticed that the top she had on was made from same fabric of the
dress that had now reduced Sara-Beth to tears of laughter.

“We're just shopping for Halloween costumes,” Sara-Beth exclaimed. “And it looks like you've got a whole store full of them. Ooh!” She seized a white pleated skirt from a nearby clothing rack and swung it around, making ghost noises.

“I'm afraid we don't carry anything like that,” the salesgirl said, touching the oversize beads of her chunky rainbow-colored necklace.

“You must be joking! This place is insane!” Sara-Beth spotted something else she wanted to look at—probably a metallic silver minidress that looked a little like a skimpy spacesuit—but the saleslady stepped in her way before she could dart over to grab it.