Little Miss Red Page 16

  “Yeah, well, you can’t have it both ways,” Michael said coldly. “You’ve made your decision. Anyway, I have to go now. We’re about to go into Red Lobster for the early bird special. Good-bye, Sophie. It was nice knowing you.”

  I opened my mouth to say something, but the line went dead.

  No wonder Devon ended up in rehab—the pressure from feeling torn and the guilt of having to break someone’s heart was enough to make anyone drink and become addicted to antianxiety medication on top of diet pills.

  eleven

  I was right—when I came out of the bathroom, Jack and Grandma Roz were watching The Sands of Time. Apparently, the drama of a nurse named Monica making out with Dr. Geraldo Alonso, who had to leave his country during a revolution, had replaced the drama of the break-in.

  Jack looked up. “You okay, Red? You look a little upset. It’s not me, is it?” he asked anxiously.

  “No, it’s not you,” I sighed. Okay—thinking it was always about you? So not sexy. But I was upset. I had gotten what I thought I wanted—a free-spirited, motorcycle-driving hottie—but maybe at the end of the day, I liked sitting on a couch watching MTV Cribs on a Friday night. Or maybe not. I didn’t know anymore. Drama really jumbled your brain.

  “You kids should go out for your night on the town,” Grandma Roz said. I couldn’t get over how calm she was about everything. “No reason to sit here on your tushes and watch me fill out a police report. Especially since you’re all dolled up after your day of beauty, Sophie.”

  Unfortunately, with the humidity, all but one of my curls had uncurled and my makeup had pretty much melted down my face.

  “Whaddya say, Red? Ready for another adventure?” asked Jack.

  “I guess so,” I replied. It was either that, or sit there wondering if I had made the wrong decision about breaking up with Michael.

  “Where are we going?” I asked a half hour later. Once you got out of the West Palm/Boca Raton area of Florida, there were less orthopedic-sneaker-wearing old people and ALL YOU CAN EAT EARLY BIRD SPECIAL signs and more rusted-out cars on cinder blocks and check-cashing places. On a good day, it was kind of creepy, but when you were in a Buick with a guy who may or may not be a criminal, it bordered on downright scary.

  “Not quite sure. Thought we’d just drive for a while. Find a romantic spot and just hang,” he said, flashing me a grin.

  Not the answer I was hoping for. How could I not have noticed how yellow his teeth were before now? And was it just my imagination, or were they kind of pointy?

  My iPhone buzzed.

  Just wanted u to know I met someone new 2. So now we’re even.

  Little bubbles of jealousy began to stir in my stomach. I typed back.

  Who is she? A waitress at Red Lobster?

  NO. She’s a video vixen. I met her at the shuffleboard court.

  A VIDEO VIXEN???? YEAH, RIGHT.

  She is! She did a 50 Cent video! She’s half-Cuban/half-Jewish. Her grandmother lives here. Oh, and she’s an older woman—18.

  The bubbles began to rise higher.

  Yeah, well, Jack’s even OLDER. He’s 19!

  Yeah, well, she once met Beyonce!

  The bubbles began to pop.

  “Who you texting?” Jack asked as he pushed the preset radio stations looking for a good song. Unfortunately, all that came up was easy listening and classical.

  “Just someone…stupid,” I replied, texting back:

  U said you liked my flat butt, but i just KNEW what u really wanted was someone with a booty!

  Do your parents know ur hanging out with a guy who rides a motorcycle and only went to community college?????

  “Hey look, a Dairy Queen,” said Jack. “Wanna stop?”

  “Sure,” I said, not looking up from the phone. Maybe a Blizzard would help calm the jealousy bubbles that were now burning—like how Grandma Roz took baking soda for her heartburn.

  Other than the bored kid behind the counter reading a Fangoria magazine, we were the only people in the place. The day before I probably would’ve thought that it was superromantic, but now? I wasn’t so sure.

  After I had paid for our ice cream and we were settled at a table, Jack sighed and looked at me. “Red, we need to talk.”

  Oh my god. How many “We need to talk” talks could a girl handle? My arms began to itch again. I was going to have to buy some calamine lotion with the little money I had left.

  “About what?”

  “Well, any self-help book worth its salt talks about how good communication is key in a relationship, and I’m just feeling…I don’t know…that we’re not communicating so good lately. Like ever since you got home this afternoon, you’ve been on Venus and I’ve been on Mars. Especially after the break-in.”

  I fiddled with the brim of my cowboy hat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said nervously.

  “I just feel like, I dunno, suddenly you don’t trust me or something,” he continued. “And everyone knows that trust is the most important part of a relationship.”

  “And humor, that’s important too,” I added. “And chemistry.”

  He shrugged. “Well, yeah, but after a while that chemistry stuff settles down. It’s just a fact of life. Actually, that’s when a relationship and true intimacy really begins. Before that is what they call the ‘infatuation’ phase—when the oxytocin is being released.”

  “Oxy what?”

  “Oxytocin,” he repeated. “It’s the same hormone that’s released when a woman breast-feeds. They call it the ‘bonding hormone.’”

  Who was this guy? What happened to the dangerous Jack? The one who winked and turned on electronic devices when they were supposed to stay off? What on earth was he talking about? “How do you know this stuff? From your therapist?”

  “No, I saw it on a special during a PBS pledge drive.”

  Jack watched PBS?

  He took my hand. “I know you think I was the one who tried to steal from your grandmother,” he said quietly. “I can see it in your eyes. But I didn’t. I’d never do anything like that.” He shuddered. “I still remember how much my butt hurt after my dad found out I stole a Charleston Chew from the Quick-E-Mart when I was seven. Plus, stealing really screws with your karma.”

  Self-help books, karma…the next thing I knew, Jack was going to tell me he was a Buddhist.

  “And while I’ve come to really, really care about you this past week, Red, I’m not sure I can see a future with someone who would think I could do something like that. Which sucks because I think I’m kind-of-sort-of falling—”

  Before he could finish my phone started ringing.

  “You gonna get that?” he asked.

  I shook my head and turned the ringer off to shut it up. It seemed rude to take a call when someone was about to tell you that they were kind-of-sort-of falling in something with you.

  “Kind-of-sort-of falling what?” I asked.

  “Huh?”

  “You said you were ‘kind-of-sort-of falling’ something before the phone rang.”

  He looked confused for a moment. If I had learned anything about Jack over the past few days it was that he had close to zero short-term memory. Finally it clicked. “Oh right. I was about to say that I feel like I’m kind-of-sort-of falling in—”

  The phone buzzed.

  He sighed. “I gotta tell you, Red. I’m thinking you might end up in rehab because of that thing,” he said, pointing to the iPhone.

  “I’m ignoring it!” I cried. Although I had to admit that in doing so, I felt like my mom said she felt when she started craving a cigarette—like my head starting buzzing and my heart started beating faster. I couldn’t win. My willpower gone, I picked up the phone. “Just—it might be important…”

  I looked down.

  Not that u care or anything, but Carmen and i are going to Pablo’s Putt-Putt Palace…M.

  “Is it important?” he asked.

  “No,” I scoffed.

  Before I could s
top him, Jack took the phone from me and read the text. He looked up at me. “Who’s Carmen? And who’s M?”

  I sighed. If Jack could sit across from me and bare his soul and tell me he was kind-of-sort-of falling in something with me, he deserved to know what was going on inside of me. I took a deep breath and told him about my relationship with Michael, about the uncomfortable yet exciting feeling of being torn between two lovers. His eyes started glazing over twenty-five minutes into my confession, so maybe the “honesty” and “communication” he had been talking about didn’t have to include every little detail, but I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.

  “…and then when he started saying that I was only with you because you were the total polar opposite of him and I was doing it because my parents wouldn’t approve—”

  Jack looked up from the inchworm he had made with his straw wrapper and raised an eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t your parents approve?”

  “It’s not that they wouldn’t approve,” I said, starting to backpedal. “It’s just that, you know, you’re…different than the guys I know.”

  “Because I have an accent and didn’t go to some fancy college?” he asked. “You know, I’m sick and tired of people trying to put me in a box and judging me by the way I look and sound,” he said angrily, slamming his hand on the inchworm and squashing it. “Ow,” he said, wincing.

  “I’m not judging you,” I said.

  “No, but your parents are!”

  “But my parents haven’t even met you yet,” I replied, confused.

  “Oh, so now you’re so embarrassed of me that you’re afraid to introduce me to your parents?” he scoffed.

  I felt like this conversation was turning into a very complicated word problem, and I was totally lost.

  He stood up. “That’s it. We’re going to Pablo’s Putt-Putt.”

  “We are?”

  He nodded.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m going to kick your boyfriend’s butt,” he replied, stomping toward the exit. “C’mon.”

  I couldn’t believe it—Jack was jealous, and he was going to fight for my hand! Or at least fight for the right to be the only guy I made out with. So what if Michael wasn’t technically my boyfriend anymore; that was just a minor detail.

  As we walked back to the car, I thought about how hot Jack looked when he got jealous.

  “Red, this is about self-respect and self-esteem and all those other ‘self’ things,” he said.

  “Self-respect? Whose? Mine?” I asked, confused.

  “Mine!”

  I sighed as I opened the door. “So you wouldn’t, like, fight for me?”

  “Well, yeah, of course I would. You’re my…”

  “Girlfriend?” I suggested.

  “You know how I feel about labels,” he reminded me. “I was going to say you’re my Red.”

  A half hour ago I may have fallen for that line, but now it just sounded super-cheesy. Even though she wasn’t supposed to discuss her patients, Mom once told me about a guy who would literally have a choking fit any time he tried to say the word “girlfriend” or would sneeze whenever anyone else used the word. Which meant that for three years, Mom had to use the word “ex-something” when talking about his girlfriends.

  “But the thing of it is, you wouldn’t want a…Jack…who let someone disrespect him like that. You’d want a Jack who stood up for himself.”

  Then it happened.

  There had been a few times in my life where suddenly I had a moment where it felt like a veil was being lifted off my face, and I could really see someone. It had happened when I was eight, when one day I looked over and saw Jeremy sitting so close to the television that his nose was almost touching the screen, and I realized that he was always going to be weird, but even so, he was always going to be a lot more interesting than my other friends’ siblings. Not to mention he could help me with math and organizing. It had happened with Lulu that Sunday when I realized that she was a total hypocrite.

  And it happened at that moment with Jack.

  Of course he was talking about his self-respect and his self-esteem. Of course it was about him. Wasn’t it always? How many times did he seem to react to something I had just said, only to then come back and say something about himself? And then there was that conversation yesterday where he was going on and on so much about himself that he didn’t even notice I had gotten up and gone to the bathroom, and then he was still talking when I got back? With him, it was “The Jack Show” 24/7. Granted he was hot enough to have his own series, but I didn’t want to be in a relationship where I was a minor character with only one line. I wanted equal screen time. I deserved equal screen time!

  I could sit there and make up as many excuses for him as I wanted: he was just super self-reflective and I was super-generous and that’s why we spent so much time talking about him, or he had a bad memory and that’s why he never remembered anything that didn’t somehow have to do with him. But the truth of the matter was that he was totally self-centered and way too preoccupied with himself to ever be in love with another human being (i.e., me). Not only that—he was a mooch!

  And right then, as if by magic, a spell was broken. Jack wasn’t a charming, wolfishly hot dream-guy. He was a regular old selfish whatever-guy, and I just wasn’t into him anymore.

  I felt a little shaky, but oddly free. My soul mate wasn’t my soul mate anymore. He was just some guy. Mulling over the concept of Jack being anything other than special seemed mathematically impossible at first—like how the plural of “sheep” is “sheep,” or the plural of “shrimp” is “shrimp,” or the plural of “fish” is “fish”—but it was absolutely 100-percent true.

  Not only was Jack just a guy rather than a god, but I could see him a lot more clearly. Literally. Now it was like I saw through his disguises. Like when I looked closer at him, I saw that his perfectly wolfish grin wasn’t nearly so perfect. In addition to his teeth needing a major cleaning, his front tooth was a little chipped.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  Had his voice always been so nasal? Had I just not noticed until that moment?

  “Nothing,” I replied. That wasn’t a lie. Nothing was the matter. In fact, it was all good.

  He scooted closer to me. “You sure?” he asked, suspiciously.

  I nodded absentmindedly, but didn’t say anything. Somehow, I didn’t think “I’ve realized that you’re just a regular old human being and not a reincarnation of Dante or the guy I want to spend my next five lifetimes with” was a very polite thing to say.

  “You positive?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  As he put his arm around me, I sniffed. Was that soup? Had he always smelled like soup? How could I have missed the soup smell? “I dunno. You just seem…different. You’re not mad at me, are you?” he asked anxiously.

  “No, Jack. I’m not mad at you,” I sighed. There it was again. He never cared about me, or anyone really. He just cared about what people thought about him. And the fact that I thought he was a thief? To be a criminal, he would have actually had to think about things other than himself, like getaway cars and where to buy black ski masks.

  “I don’t know what it is, but girls are always getting mad at me,” he went on. He shook his head and sighed. “It’s like I just can’t win. You say something nice in the moment, and then before you know it they’re trying to cash the check at the bank and they get all mad at you when it bounces.” He raked his hand through his hair. “How am I supposed to know how I’m going to feel three weeks from now?” He shook his head. “Here we are, living in a society that’s always telling us to live in the moment, but when someone then actually does that?” He snorted. “Man, it’s like a federal offense.” He turned to me. “What do you think, Red?”

  “What do I think about what?”

  “About why all these girls insist on thinking that if I say ‘I love you’ at some point, it actually…means something.”

  I loo
ked over at him, flabbergasted. But he had caught a glance of his face in the side mirror and was too busy checking out his profile to see how my jaw dropped so far you could’ve fit an entire motorcycle in my mouth. “Because, Jack, it does mean something,” I retorted. “In fact, it means a lot.”

  He turned to me, surprised. “Look at you, all feisty!” He gave me one of his smiles that I’d once thought were super-sexy, but that now came off as just plain old creepy. “That’s kind of hot.”

  My response was to scoot closer to the door in case he tried to kiss me. It was funny—not a half hour before I would have killed to hear him call me hot, but now it was just skeezy.

  My iPhone buzzed again with another text from Michael.

  We’re still at Pablo’s. Not that you CARE or anything like that, seeing that you’ve got some wannabe musician as your new BF.

  Another text came through.

  FYI, just so u know, in case u planned on coming here, Pablo’s is at 11482 Hwy 35, in between Hospital Supplies R Us and Applebee’s.

  Jack snatched the phone away from me and read it. “That’s it,” he said, turning the ignition and revving the engine as Barbra Streisand filled the air. “We’re going to Pablo’s so I can kick his butt. No one calls Jack Andrews a ‘wannabe musician’!”

  I yawned. None of this was exciting anymore. Now it was just exhausting.

  twelve

  Pablo’s Putt-Putt must have been written up in some guidebook for grandparents under “Top Ten Places to Take Your ADD Grandchildren When They Come Visit You in Florida,” because when we got there, the place was packed with kids freaking out. I didn’t know which was more annoying—having to walk behind old people who moved as slow as snails despite the fact that they were all wearing shiny white Reeboks, or being hit in the head by golf balls shot by screaming eight-year-old boys who couldn’t wait until they got to the clown’s mouth or dancing cancan girl to tee off.