Crazygirl Falls in Love (9 page)

“But I know the Stranger isn’t seeing anyone else. Arianna
said he hasn’t been with anyone since Lizzy.”

My voice is quiet and uncertain, and I can see it ain’t
fooling nobody. They’re both looking at me with identical
expressions of exasperation. I can’t help myself, I glance over
their heads again. The Stranger is laughing with Arianna, Antonio
and Lizzy. At least his arms aren’t draped around her
anymore.

Emma hugs my arm tighter,

“Sis, he’s handsome, fun and popular. But
how much do you know about him? Even Arianna thinks he’s a bit… Not
quite there. She’s known him his entire life and he’s
never
been a
relationship.”

“Never?” I say, weakly.

“Never.”

Exhaustion suddenly hits my body. My dreams of walking hand in
hand on a sunset beach with the Stranger are sinking faster than a
dead rat in fast water. Worse, I’m pretty certain that there is no
other man in London who I want to walk hand in hand with. I want
him and nobody else. This is not a good sitch for a girl to find
herself in.

Chloe must have picked up on my misery because her voice
softens,

“Well, maybe he’s not the worst type of player, you know,
those Charles Manson types who enjoy stringing girls along until
they turn them into walking basket cases.”

“But he’s still really bad news.” Emma adds
quickly.

She and Chloe exchange another look and I
finally register that they’re talking. Talking is good. Talking
might mean they’ve gotten over whatever it was they needed to get
over. A tiny spark of happiness ignites in my mind and I
momentarily forget about the Stranger, which is of course the exact
moment I feel arms wrap themselves around my waist.
So it’s true, the second you take your mind of
them that is the moment they will appear.

“Hola florecita,” he purrs into my ear.

Continuing to hug me from the back he gives me a peck on one
cheek but addresses my two friends,

“Hola Chloe, hola Emma.”

He shoots them his million dollar smile. They half heartedly
smile back as he continues to hug me. His body is invitingly warm
and I feel my body falling back into his. Maybe he and I have a
chance after all? I mean, he doesn’t normally act like this around
girls in public. Maybe he thinks I’m special? The most affection he
ever showed Lizzy was a friendly pat on the head once.

Well, besides tonight when he had his arm around
her.

He turns me around slowly so that we are facing each other.
Our eyes meet and I find myself grinning up at him like a freekin’
idiot. He opens his perfect lips with their perfect rows of white
teeth and says,

“Now we dance.”

He takes my hand and walks me to the DF (that’s what the cool
cats at uni used to call the dance floor). He puts his arms around
my waist, pulls me in tight, and we start to salsa. Back step,
middle step, front step, middle step. Arianna taught me and Emma
salsa one night when I was over at their place for a Game of
Thrones marathon. It’s not too difficult, salsa that is, not
fourteen hours of Game of Thrones which was actually rather trying.
Just gotta make sure I don’t lose the three-step. It’s the basic
ingredient to the dance, the flour of the cake.

“Why you no message me today?” He asks.

“I did, I replied.”
Back step, middle step…

“But you no message first.”

“I never message first.”

We continue dancing in silence for a while. The DF is getting
more squishy by the minute as other dancers flood the small
space.

“You are a much better dancer tonight than yesterday,” he
eventually says.

I’m insulted for the briefest of moments, then think back to
my jiving from the night before. It had featured an outta control
Running Man, the Sprinkler and a Wild Knee (the one where you bend
your leg, grab hold of the ankle from behind and shake the knee
backwards and forwards). I thought I had looked really awesome and
cool.

Clearly not.

“Thanks, I guess.” I take it as a compliment. My thoughts
start to move towards Lizzy,

“So… what’s up with you and Lizzy?” I ask.

“Elizabeth? We are friends. What about you and your boyfriend
Antonio?”

“Boyfriend? What do you mean? Antonio couldn’t be the furthest
thing from my boyfriend!”

“He was hugging you before, yes?”

“Well yeah, but that doesn’t mean, you know, that we’re... He
had his arm around Emma, too!”

I stop stammering when I register his grin. It was a joke. Bit
of a weird joke, but whatev. As we dance and talk I start to see he
has a ridiculously different sense of humour to me. He’s also a man
of few words. That’s okay though. He could have the personality of
a wet cornflake and I’d still be head over heels. It’s not just
that he’s the second most gorgeous man I’ve ever laid eyes on
(after Take-My-Breath-Away-Armani model), but it’s his suave and
I-couldn’t-care-less attitude that’s drawing me in. I hate to say
this but I’m in awe of him, and freaked out that he’s even the
slightest bit interested in me. It’s a lot of pressure to be liked
by a 9.

The next few hours are oodles of fun. The
Stranger is an
amaze
salsa dancer, and I was always okay at samba (Mum was right,
all those years of ballroom dance came in handy after all) so by
the end of the night we’ve developed a hybrid of salsa and samba
which I think is pretty neat. Kinda coupley in a way, don’t you
think?

Everything is going fantastically until I notice Lizzy staring
at us from the bar. She’s just standing there, glaring.

“Lizzy is looking at us,” I lean in to whisper to the
Stranger.

He doesn’t answer. I’ve noticed that he only responds to
direct questions, so I rephrase,

“Why is Lizzy looking at us?”

“Maybe she like what you wear?”

I laugh. This guy really is Mr Elusiveness, he’s got a vague,
non-committal response for everything.

The top of my head fits just underneath his
chin. I can feel the movement of his chest.
His broad, manly, strong…
Stop. Stop
it Penny.
But oh, he’s so handsome…
No Penelope Jones, he’s a bad man and you are
going to get hurt!
But he’s such a
babe…

“We go now?” He asks, stroking my hand.

“To where?”

“To my house.”

“Are we going to have dinner first? I could murder a
kebab.”

I regret saying it as soon as the word ‘kebab’ flies out of my
mouth (even though it couldn’t be more true, I could use a grease
hit right about now). It came out sounding desperate and needy.
Hasn’t he always said he doesn’t ‘do’ dinners? I’m pushing the
issue, and it’s never appealing when a chick pushes a relationship
issue.

On another side note, why is it that when a guy chases a girl
it’s sexy and romantic, but when a girl chases a guy it seems so
pathetic? I guess that’s why I never message guys first.

Adding fuel to my minor embarrassment the Stranger starts
laughing,

“I do not do that, but there is nice wine back at my
house?”

It takes a superhuman effort for me to
untangle myself from his grasp.
His
masculine, virile, fabulous, sumptuous…

“And
I
do not do
that
, so it looks like we’re at an
impasse. Excuse me for a moment, I need the ladies
room.”

I feel powerful and self assured as I turn my back to him and
walk away. It actually physically hurts to leave him when I know I
could just as easily continue to dance and end up back at his place
(where I get carte blanche to ravage that incredible body as I see
fit).

But that would be a short term plan with an even shorter shelf
life. I need a new plan, a better plan. Maybe I can wear him down
with my relentless insistences on proper dating rituals like dinner
and movies, until he eventually caves? But isn’t that just a
different version of the same old mistake known as
If-I-hang-around-long-enough-he’s-bound-to-start-liking-me?

God I hate being single sometimes.

I move carefully between the wild dancing.
Legs fly, arms wave, hips turn, couples spin in and out.
Ah salsa, you are a sexy sport
indeed
. I weave my way through the passion,
noticing as I go Chloe chatting with Antonio at the bar, Emma
dancing with an extreme ginge and Arianna and Bruno, the mysterious
boyfriend we rarely see because he’s agoraphobic and gets Stranger
Danger. Lizzy has disappeared.

I find myself in front of the mirror of the restroom. I stare
at my reflection. What’s so wrong with me that the Stranger doesn’t
even want to take me out for a coffee? I study my reflection. I
could pass as either European or Australian. I don’t look very
Polish, and the Aussie accent fools most people. I have very long
blonde hair, a side fringe, an okay complexion (except for the
problematic forehead and chin regions), a small nose, full lips
(not Scarlett Johansson big, but big enough).

It’s nothing overly exciting, but surely he might at least
like the shape of my eyes? They’re large and cat-like, but the
colour lets them down, they’re beer brown. I’ve never liked them
but people sometimes tell me they look green, which I love to
believe. I also have dimples, but they only emerge when I’m
grinning ear to ear. He Who Shall Not Be Named used to comment on
them all the time. He used to call me Dumpling.

“Hey Pen, what’s going on?”

Chloe comes to stand beside me. I hadn’t noticed her come in,
hadn’t really noticed anything for the last few minutes, so
absorbed I’ve been in my own reflection. Narcissus reborn.
Semi-disgusted with myself I hide my one-on-one insecurity session
from Chloe by turning the focus onto her,

“Nothing, saw you and Antonio cooing to each other, how’s that
panning out?”

I bump my shoulder with hers as she takes out her lipstick. I
should probably reapply too.

“He’s alright,” Chloe replies without much
enthusiasm.

Crap. It’s ‘the Tone’ again. She has used it
to describe every single guy who has shown an interest in her since
Crazy. She ignores my silent stare and starts applying her blood
red lippy. She is the only person I know who actually looks good in
red lipstick. I gingerly take out my generic pink gloss, thinking
as I do that I wish I looked more like my strikingly beautiful
friend. One night Chloe stepped out wearing
yellow
eye shadow and still managed
to look like the face of Chanel. She and Antonio would look so good
together, but I can tell by ‘the Tone’ that she’s about to blow him
off.

Before I start dabbing the sticky stuff onto my lips I turn to
face her and put on my most stern of voices,

“Chlo, he is tall, gorgeous, nice, funny, into you and not
addicted to booze or crystal meth. Promise me that when he asks you
for dinner you’ll accept.”

“He won’t ask,” She replies confidently.

“He will. And you have to promise you’ll say yes.”

“No.”

“Oh come on, it’ll be fun.”

“It won’t.”

“Do it for me.”

“Why?”

I consider explaining that the number of
nights she’s spent at home alone watching
Friends
reruns is a cause for
psychological concern. No one likes
Friends
that much.

“Because no one likes
Friends
that much.”

“Excuse me?”

“Forget it. Do it for the potentially gorgeous children you
might be depriving the world of.”

“I hate kids.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

But just as I think I’m out of ideas…

“I got it! Do it to peek into his dark and disturbed soul.
Surely a guy that hot has some serious issues or flaws.”

“Oh geeeeeeeez,” she throws her lipstick into her clutch,
“alright.”

“Woohoo!”

I grab her in a side hug and start singing, “You’re going on a
da-ate! You’re going on a da-ate!” and jump up and down, trying to
lift her with me.

“I’m not going on a date,” she laughs, trying to untangle
herself, “he hasn’t even asked yet!”

We make our way back to the dance floor. Antonio is waiting
for Chloe but the Stranger is nowhere to be seen. I eventually find
him in a dark corner drinking vodka with more of the Beautiful
People. My step slows as I approach. I can’t help but be
intimidated by the Spaniards. All of them could be models straight
out of a Ralph Lauren window display.

“Hi,” I greet him.

“Mi amor!” He seems thrilled to see me. I wish he didn’t, now
it’s going to be thrice as hard to accomplish Mission
Get-Him-To-Start-Thinking-Of-Me-As-Girlfriend-Material.