The Trouble With Flirting (21 page)

Julia and Manny show up just as the band (guitar, bass, drums) starts tuning their instruments.

But they’re not alone. Harry, Alex, Marie, and Isabella are with them.

“Oh, God, Franny, I’m sorry,” Vanessa whispers when they all file into the restaurant. “Julia didn’t say anything about the others!”

So much for our low-key evening. I feel my entire body tense up.

On the other hand . . . Alex. I haven’t talked to him since he showed up on my doorstep last night and kissed me. I’m curious about seeing him face-to-face.

After the way he ignored me at lunch today, I’m wary. But still curious.

They descend on us.

Marie says, “Oh, Franny,
you’re
here?” and glances sharply at Harry, but he’s not even looking at me. Isabella’s greeting is equally unenthusiastic.

It’s kind of funny when you think about it: Isabella and
Marie are both acting like I’m some kind of threat, and meanwhile
I’m
the one who’s there without a date.

Alex says a general and pleasant hello to all of us.

The live music has started, and the pub has completely filled up in the last half hour, which means there aren’t any free tables, so everyone squeezes into our booth. I’m grateful I’m already sitting between Vanessa and Lawrence, since it saves me from having to squish up against someone less friendly. The guys nab a couple of extra chairs to pull up to the open side of the table, and Alex and Manny take those. Marie curls up tightly on the booth bench against Harry, who rests his arm on her shoulders and smiles affably at no one in particular.

The waitress comes over. “These booths aren’t meant to hold this many people,” she mutters. But she doesn’t tell us we have to move. Harry, Marie, and Isabella order mixed drinks, and she says, “I can’t serve you if you’re underage.” Harry and Isabella pull out their fake IDs. She scrutinizes them and then hands them back with a begrudging “okay, I guess.”

Marie makes a big show of searching her clutch. “I think I left my ID back in my apartment,” she says with a little laugh. “I’m so stupid. But I’m with them, so . . .”

“No ID, no drinks,” the waitress snaps.

“Maybe I should speak to your manager.”

“Be my guest,” the waitress says. “Want me to call him over?”

“Oh, just forget it,” Marie says. “Give me a Diet Coke.” The others also order sodas, and the waitress leaves. “She is so not getting a tip,” Marie says to Harry.

“Yeah,” Harry agrees. “What a jerk. Actually obeying the law and keeping herself from getting fired.”

“Oh, please. She could have served me. No one cares.” She shrugs. “Oh well—I’ll just share yours.”

“Where’d you guys get your IDs, anyway?” Lawrence asks, leaning forward.

“Isabella has connections,” Harry says.

“I do,” she agrees, with a little smile.

Alex fidgets in his seat. Our eyes have met a couple of times, and each time he smiled at me—and then looked away. Since he’s on a chair, he and Isabella aren’t snuggled up together, but there’s enough PDA going on in the room with Marie practically in Harry’s lap.

Julia says, “What do we think of the band?”

“I like them,” Manny says.

“So do I,” she says with sudden conviction.

“Oh, look, people are starting to dance!” Vanessa says. She sways a little in her seat, in time to the music. “We all need to dance tonight. When else are we going to get the chance?”

“Mansfield Mayhem is next week,” Julia says. I have no idea what that is—but I assume it’s some kind of party. I miss a lot of information because I’m working when they’re all at morning assembly. “But Vanessa’s right—we need to dance.
Come on, everybody. Especially you, Manny.” She slides out of the booth, and Lawrence, who’s next to her, eagerly follows.

“Come on, Franny,” he says, and I let him pull me out of the booth.

“You coming?” Vanessa asks Harry and Marie as she wriggles her way out after us.

“Want to dance, babe?” Marie asks Harry.

“Once I get my drink.”

“I’ll wait for you. I want some too.”

Now that the booth is less crowded, he takes his arm off her shoulders and shifts away a little. “Look at
you
,” he says to me. I’m standing near the booth, waiting for whoever’s going to dance. “You never got all glammed up like that for me, Franny.”

I shrug. What am I supposed to say to that?

“Hoping to pick someone up tonight?” Marie asks me.

“Oh, yeah,” I say. “That’s the goal. Preferably a homicidal maniac, if someone would only introduce me to one.”

“We dressed Franny tonight,” Lawrence tells the others proudly. “Vanessa and I picked out her clothes. Doesn’t she look great?”

“Beautiful,” Isabella says coolly.

But she’s the one who’s truly beautiful tonight, in a shimmery nude spaghetti-strap top and a gauzy scarf artfully draped around her neck, her hair pulled back into that elegant, twisted knot.

“You guys coming to dance?” Julia asks them.

“Yeah. Come on, Isabella.” Alex stands up abruptly.

“I haven’t gotten my drink yet,” she says. “But you go ahead.” She doesn’t mean it. She wants him to say he’ll wait for her. I know, because
I’d
say, “Go without me,” and I’d want my date to refuse.

Guys are stupid. Alex says, “Okay. Meet you on the dance floor in a couple of minutes, all right?”

“Fine,” her lips say, but her eyes narrow. I can see it. Doesn’t he? Or does he see it and not care?

We all go together to the tiny dance area, a slice of floor wedged between the band and the bar. We start off all dancing together in one group, but it’s instantly clear that Lawrence was telling the truth about how he takes a lot of dance classes, and Vanessa quickly nabs him as a partner. She has mastered a gawky-cool style of moving, arms dangling, feet turned in, shoulders slouching. I wish I could pull that kind of thing off, because it’s so much hipper than the way I dance, which is your basic wriggling to the music.

Julia and Manny gradually move closer together, and pretty soon they’re touching and pretty soon after that their dancing devolves into more or less making out to the beat.

Which leaves me and Alex facing each other. He’s not the best dancer I’ve ever seen. He overconcentrates, listens to the music too intensely and then tries too hard to move his shoulders and arms in rhythm. And he gets this slight frown of concentration on his forehead. I don’t want to think it’s cute,
but it is—it’s very cute.

I’m careful to keep my distance from him, like we’re at a middle-school dance where the chaperones say stuff like
We’d better be able to see air between you two!

Our eyes meet. He smiles at me, and this time he doesn’t instantly look away again.

I bite my lip, not sure how I want to respond. On the one hand, there was last night and the kiss he gave me on the front stoop of my aunt’s apartment.

On the other hand is everything else since then, which is precisely nothing.

He says something to me that I can’t hear, so I lean forward and respond with a brilliantly insightful “huh?”

“You look nice tonight.” He has to shout since we’re close to the band. “How are you doing?”

“Me?” I shout. “I’m great. I’m fantastic. I’m like so incredibly wonderful.”

The music stops suddenly, and the word
wonderful
rings out loudly in the moment of silence before people clap. “I hate when that happens,” I say, embarrassed.

“Me too,” he says, and smiles at me again.

The new song starts. It’s really slow. Too slow to dance to, unless, like Julia and Manny, you’re happy just to clutch each other and barely move.

Alex and I stand there awkwardly.

Vanessa touches my arm. “We’re sitting this one out. It stinks.”

“Yeah, I agree.”

Alex and I follow her and Lawrence back to the table, where Marie is on her feet, trying to pull Harry out of the booth.

“Come on!” she’s saying. “I love slow-dancing when I have a good partner.”

“You want me to find you one?”

“Don’t be so lazy. You’re so lazy. Isn’t he lazy?” She appeals to Isabella, who takes a long swallow of her drink—emptying it—and shrugs, then rises to her feet, saying, “Come on, Harry. Prove you’re not lazy. Dance with me.”

He gets up, gently pushing Marie aside so he can join Isabella. “All right.”

Marie crosses her arms. “You’re going to dance with her, not me?”

Harry shrugs. “What can I do? She has this power over me. Always has.”

“Isabella . . . ,” Alex says, but she ignores him and takes Harry by the arm.

“Life is confusing,” she tells him, resting her cheek on his arm.

“Tell Papa all about it,” he murmurs, briefly resting his own cheek on the top of her head as they move toward the dance floor.

“Better grab a blanket, because you’re spending tonight in the doghouse,” Vanessa says to Alex as she and Lawrence scoot back into the booth.

“I’m always in the doghouse,” Alex says with a pained laugh.

“Ever think maybe there’s a reason?” Vanessa asks.

“What would that be?”

She doesn’t answer, just exchanges a look with Lawrence.

“This is so annoying,” Marie says, plopping down angrily onto one of the wooden chairs. “If those two love each other so much, why don’t they just go out?”

“They’re best friends,” Alex says.

“I don’t dance with
my
best friends.” No one responds to that, and Marie’s eyes fall on me. “I’m really surprised to see you here, Franny,” she says. “Your aunt was saying she was worried about how much work you still have to do. The costumes
have
to be ready on time, you know. We can’t all just go onstage naked because you decided to go out and have some fun—”

“Shut up, Marie,” Lawrence says.

“God!” she exclaims. “Why is everyone ganging up on me tonight? I was just joking!” She jumps up from the table. She’s wearing a very tight, short, electric-blue dress and high silver heels. She’s a little too dressed up for the pub we’re in, but she definitely looks hot, and I see several guys at a nearby table swiveling to get a better look at her. She pulls on Alex’s arm. “Come on, Alex. Let’s go break in on them. They should be dancing with us, not each other.”

He hesitates.

Marie snaps, “If you don’t want to dance with her, then
fine. Stay in the doghouse.”

“No, you’re right,” he says. “Let’s do it.” He glances toward me uncertainly. I look away and take a sip from my water glass. It’s his choice.

Come to think of it, it’s always his choice. And I’m always sitting around waiting for him to make it.

I don’t think I like that.

He rises to his feet and follows Marie across the pub, toward where Harry and Isabella are deep in conversation. They’re supposed to be dancing, and they
are
swaying to the music, hands clasped behind each other’s waists, but really what they’re mostly doing is talking.

Isabella turns her head as the other two approach. She studies Alex gravely, thoughtfully. We all watch. Marie says something to Harry. He shrugs and releases Isabella, and Marie smiles smugly and moves into his arms. But over the top of her head he’s looking at Isabella, who’s not moving toward Alex, even though he’s holding out his hand, clearly asking her to dance with him.

“This is interesting,” Lawrence says, and Vanessa agrees: “Better than TV.”

“If it were
Jersey Shore
, someone would punch someone else very soon,” Lawrence adds.

“My money’s on the dark-haired girl,” Vanessa says.

The dark-haired girl shakes her head, refuses Alex’s extended hand, turns on her heel, and walks back to us, her chin high, her shoulders back.

She comes straight over to
me
, to where I’m sitting at the edge of the booth, and she says, “Franny?” and for one giddy second I think she’s going to ask me to dance and wonder what I’ll say, but of course she doesn’t. She says, “Will you come with me to the ladies’ room for a second?”

“Okay,” I say, too curious to refuse. I stand up.

“Can I come too?” Vanessa asks eagerly, peering at us from behind those thick glasses that don’t distort her eyes at all—it occurs to me for the first time that they’re probably fakes, just clear glass.

“No,” Isabella says. “I want to talk to Franny alone.” She nods toward the back of the pub. I’m just starting to follow her as Alex comes back to the table.

“What’s going on?” he asks, looking back and forth between us.

“Franny and I need to talk,” she says, and leads me away from him.

O
ur path takes us by the tiny dance floor, where Marie is now curled up against Harry’s chest. She’s smiling and talking and rubbing her cheek against his T-shirt. He barely seems to know she’s there. He’s shifting rhythmically from one foot to the other, but his eyes are on me and Isabella as we go past him.

Isabella opens the restroom door and we go inside. It’s a one-room kind of thing. She locks the door, and we have just enough room to stand at a slight distance and regard each other warily. So we do.

“Are you going to beat me up?” I ask.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she says, her lips twitching into a reluctant smile. “If I decide to shank you, Franny, you won’t see it coming.”

“How
was
your time in prison? I’ve always wanted to ask.”

“Seriously . . . ,” she says.

“Seriously. Why are we in the bathroom?”

She leans her hip against the sink and regards me. “Harry says I should trust you.”

“Excuse me?” She starts to repeat it but I stop her. “No, sorry, I heard you. I’m just surprised. Harry told you to trust me? That’s the last thing in the world I’d have expected him to say. He hates me.”

“No, he doesn’t.” She tilts her head back and regards me
through half-closed eyes. “He
should
. You’ve treated him like shit. But Harry’s not a hater. Anyway, he says that if I ask you to be honest, you will be. Is that true?”

“What’s the point of asking me that? If I’m a liar, I’ll just lie about being truthful. And, by the way, I didn’t treat Harry like shit.”

“
Are
you a liar?”

“Not usually, no.”

Our eyes meet, and she gives a little nod, like she believes me. “What happened between you and Alex last night?”