The Sweetest Thing (11 page)

“You might want to try another establishment.” The girl smiled, fake-nice and condescending. “There's a Duane Reade down the street. If you hurry, they might have some Dora the Explorer outfits left.”

“Excuse me? Do you even know who I am?” For someone who's always hiding from the paparazzi, Sara-Beth asks that question a lot. She straightened up, draping the little white skirt over her arm. But either the saleslady didn't know or didn't care. She gave Sara-Beth a once-over.

“Actually,” she said, “I take that back. You don't need a costume at all. You can just wear light brown and go as a toothpick.”

Sara-Beth burst into tears. “You horrible, horrible woman! How dare you make fun of my metabolism! Come on, Flan, let's get out of here!”

The saleslady smirked. I shot her a nasty look as I followed Sara-Beth out of the store.

“How could she speak to me like that?” she demanded, storming down the street. Trying to keep up with her, I almost tripped over someone's little dachshund. “It's not my fault I have small bones!”

“She was pretty awful,” I agreed. Sara-Beth had been loud and kind of rude, but the toothpick remark was still totally uncalled-for.

“I eat! I eat all the time!” Sara-Beth looked at me angrily, as if daring me to contradict her. “Come on, Flan, let's get a cupcake right now!”

So the two of us walked down the street to Magnolia Bakery. I could already smell the sugar from half a block away. Magnolia Bakery is a really cute bakery, and they're open pretty late—more than once I'd been there at eleven-fifteen, waiting in line with February for an icebox cake and two coffees. Of course, that was before she became a total psycho dictator over my personal life. Anyway, Magnolia Bakery is famous for
its cupcakes, which are sweet and fluffy and just about everything you can hope for. They're so popular there's actually a limit of one dozen per person. We grabbed two pale pink–frosted ones from the counter and paid.

As we turned the corner onto West Eleventh Street, Sara-Beth still seemed upset about the toothpick remark, so I started talking about whatever I could think of to take her mind off it. I started describing Bogie, the tadpole, and how cute he was with his bugged-out eyes and weird little tail, how he bumped his nose up against the side of the jar when he wanted to say hello, and how I thought he'd already started to recognize Adam and me. Which got me talking about Adam and how good he was with animals, and how now even Bennett thought he was a great guy—which was great, sort of, but kind of weird too. Before I knew it, I was complaining about how Meredith and Judith were so obsessed with him that it was practically destroying their friendship.

“I mean, they keep acting all competitive with each other—they were even jealous of me, just because Adam and I were saying hi to each other up on the roof. It's totally out of control. Really, no guy is worth throwing away your friendship over. Even if he is handsome … and friendly … and athletic … and,
okay, funny and generous and good with animals—there's still no way
I'd
ever go after someone like him if it meant ditching Meredith and Judith. Even if he does like to read and watch old movies …”

I trailed off, because Sara-Beth Benny had stopped in her tracks. For a second, I thought she'd spotted a paparazzo and we were going to have to run and hide behind a parked car or something. But instead she just stared at me. She'd taken one bite of her cupcake, but now she let the rest of it fall dramatically into the street.

“Oh. My. God,” she said.

“What?” I finished my cupcake and wiped icing from my lips.

“Flan, why didn't you tell me?” Sara-Beth seized my arm. Her fingers dug into my skin.

“Why didn't I tell you what?”

“
You're
in love with Adam!”

“What? No way!” I protested.

“It's so obvious, I can't believe I didn't see it before.” Sara-Beth threw her arms around me exuberantly. “I'm so sorry! I'm the first to admit that I can be a tiny bit self-involved. I've been so wrapped up in this decorating business. …”

I shook my head and tried to laugh it off. My heart was racing so fast I felt like it might explode. “Listen, Sara-Beth, I'm not in love with Adam. It just doesn't
make any sense. I have a great boyfriend, remember? And Meredith and Judith—”

“Flan, you're so silly.” Sara-Beth grabbed my hands. “Love is absolutely not supposed to make sense! It's crazy, crazy, crazy. That's why they call it love.” She linked her arm through mine and began tugging me down the street. “Now I see we'll have to go a whole other direction with your costume—historical. You could be … oh, what's-her-name, King Arthur's wife.”

“Guinevere,” I said. I couldn't help smiling, imagining what kind of bizarre getup SBB would have me wear.

“Yes, that's her!” She smiled dreamily. “And Adam can be your knight in shining armor. Or you could be that other one, that poor Russian lady who threw herself on the train tracks for love. I know a wonderful, wonderful makeup artist who can make it look exactly like your head was severed and reattached. It's mostly a question of fake blood and glue and railroad spikes … unless you'd rather be that pilgrim lady from
The Scarlet Letter
!”

I laughed. “I'm not sure I want to wear buckles on my shoes all night.”

“Ooh, and they had those ugly bonnets, too. Good thinking, Flan—we need to make you look cute. But, anyway, this will be so much fun.”

As Sara-Beth kept chattering, I bit my lip and stared into the windows of the stores we were passing. Even an eyeglass outlet had a Halloween-themed display. I was glad SBB was wrong about Adam and me, because if I did have a crush on him, the holiday would be a total disaster. So would the rest of the school year, most likely.

Sara-Beth and I wandered all over the place looking for dresses. After about four hours of searching, she finally found a crazy black, Renaissance-fair-looking gown at this awesome punk place, Trash and Vaudeville, in the East Village. And even though they were covered with safety pins and tattoos, the salespeople there were a million times friendlier than the lady in Cynthia Rowley. They suggested a good alterations place where we could go to get Sara-Beth's dress made small enough, and they even took her picture to hang on the wall before we left the shop.

Sara-Beth was meeting Philippa and Liesel at the Rose Bar up by Gramercy Park for drinks, and I had to get home to get ready for the football game, so we split up around six o'clock. But as I climbed the steps to my town house, I was still thinking about our conversation. I'd tried to laugh it off, but it was really starting to bother me. Did I like Adam?

As a friend, of course. Yes, he was charming and
definitely cute, but it was Bennett, with his great sense of humor and his hipster tastes, who was perfect for me. Sure I was curious about what costume Adam would choose for Halloween, but it was Bennett who I actually wanted to hang out with on Halloween … right?

Meredith, Judith, and I were meeting that night at the stadium. I'd e-mailed Bennett about the plan and he'd written back that he'd come by around seven to pick me up. When I came to the door, he was wearing a leprechaun T-shirt that said KISS ME, I'M IRISH.

“Hey, Bennett,” I said, grabbing Noodles before he careened out of the house. “You want to come in for a second?”

“No, we better get going. You have everything?” “Sure.” I glanced into the hallway mirror and gave myself a quick once-over. I hadn't gotten a Halloween costume yet, but I had bought some new clothes. When we were wandering around SoHo, Sara-Beth had insisted we go into Betsey Johnson, and I'd bought a cute new dress, which was teal with little yellow roses all over it. I'd also gotten this fuzzy yellow
sweater from an awesome little vintage shop just a few blocks away from my house. At first, I figured my new outfit wouldn't look too dressy for a football game if I wore sneakers, but then I decided I might as well wear my heels too. I'd gotten all dressed up, but then, fortunately, sanity had reclaimed me at the last minute, and I'd changed into jeans and a Stuy tank top, but I decided to keep on my strappy sandals … just in case. I shrugged on a blue cardigan and grabbed my purse. “What's up?”

“Not too much.” He noticed my tank top. “Hey, that's awesome. School spirit.”

“Yeah, totally.” I rolled my eyes. Judging from the way he'd reacted to the pep rally, I figured he was being sarcastic. “I hope you don't mind me dragging you to this game. I know sports aren't really your thing.”

“You're not dragging me. Actually, after talking to Adam the other day, I switched my assignment at the paper to the sports column for this week. My first article will be about tonight's game.”

“Wow.” I looked over at him in surprise, but he was dead serious. We reached the Fourteenth Street subway station and made our way down the puddly concrete steps—somehow subway stops are always drippy and wet even when it's not raining. Bennett
swiped me through the metal turnstile with his MetroCard, and we walked along the platform, waiting for the next 1 train to come.

“Yeah. You know, Adam's pretty cool. We've e-mailed back and forth a couple of times, and I might be going over to his apartment later this week to hang out with him and his brother. They have a Wii.” We stopped walking and Bennett leaned against a steel girder with peeling yellow paint. He looked thoughtful. “I guess he just seems a lot smarter than I expected a football player to be. Nicer, too.” The train rumbled into the station, and Bennett raised his voice over the noise. “I've been doing some research for my article, and the amount of strategy involved is really kind of fascinating.”

When we arrived at the stadium, it was like the pep rally times a thousand. The place was teeming with people, and concession stands selling hot dogs, nachos, and soda were overwhelmed with long lines of teenagers. The walls and floors were concrete, and hand-painted posters were taped up everywhere. A GO PEGLEGS! sign was hanging from a kiosk some enterprising Stuy students had set up to sell eye-patches, armbands, and knit hats with pictures of Pegleg Pete embroidered on them. When it was our turn in line, Bennett bought an armband for me.

“You're so sweet, Bennett. You didn't have to do
that,” I said, sliding it up on my arm. He kissed the top of my head.

“It looks cute on you.”

We let the crowd pull us along into the stadium. I squinted, glancing around for Meredith and Judith, then looked down at the football field. The cheerleaders were turning cartwheels and forming pyramids and spelling out VICTORY, and behind them some guy in a gigantic foam pirate head was dancing around. The band had set up down on the field, and they were playing “Louie Louie” at top volume. The musicians were so into it that some of them were swinging their tubas and saxophones in time to the music. Already, the crowd was getting riled up, and even though I'm really more used to ballet and Broadway musicals than I am to sports games, it wasn't hard to get in the spirit. People were doing the wave, and we got up and sat down twice before we even had a chance to make sure we were in the right seats. We were sitting fairly close, but the football field was farther away than I'd imagined, and I started to wonder if Adam would even be able to see us from so far away before I checked myself and put the thought out of my mind.

“There they are,” said Bennett, pointing down at the crowd filing into the stadium. I almost started
laughing; the way they were dressed definitely made me glad I'd changed clothes. Meredith had on a halter-neck dress with little flowers patterned all over it, with white patent leather heels and pink fabric roses in her hair. Judith was wearing a striped bubble skirt and a tight, low-cut black sweater she'd bought the other day at Bebe. Halos of black eyeliner framed her chocolate brown eyes. The two of them spotted us and hurried up the bleachers, elbowing each other to get there first.

“Hey, great seats,” said Judith, stretching her legs out onto the bleachers in front of her so no one could block her view of the star QB. She smoothed her hair, inspected the field, then quickly took her compact out of her purse to check her makeup.

“How're you two doing?” Meredith asked, leaning in front of Judith to see us. Judith pushed her away.

“You guys look fancy,” I said. “What's the occasion?”

“Didn't you hear about the after-party?” Judith swiped on some lipstick and shut her mirror. “Everyone's going to be there.” She stared into my eyes significantly. “Everyone.”

“Not me,” said Bennett.

“Oh no, really?” I asked.

“Yeah, unfortunately Mr. Neil, our teacher advisor, wants to look over all our articles before they go to
press on Sunday. So I've got to e-mail it to him tonight.” Bennett noticed my disappointed expression. “Hey, don't worry. You guys'll have fun without me. There'll be lots of cool people there. You know, like Adam.”

Meredith, Judith, and I all fell into a deep, awkward silence.

“Hey, look. Eric and Jules.” Bennett stood up and waved to his friends. They scaled the stairs and came over to us. Jules was holding a tray of nachos; Eric looked perfectly manicured in a brown turtleneck sweater and a pair of tan slacks. When we'd first met them, Judith had considered Eric the cutest guy in tenth grade, but now she hardly batted an eye in his direction. It made me kind of sad; why were Meredith and Judith both fixating on Adam where there were perfectly nice guys right here in front of them?

“Hey, what's up?” Bennett asked his friends. “I didn't know you guys were coming.”

“I don't think we'll stay,” Jules explained. “I got press passes to take pictures for the school paper, but when I got here they told me they already have a team of professionals working on it. Which is really just as well—I don't particularly want to be down there on the field without a helmet. Hey, Meredith.”