How to Meet Cute Boys (24 page)

“Ugh.” I nodded my approval at a top she held up. “Looks like he’s got the Fear.”

“Nunh-unh.”

She deposited me in a dressing room and said through the door, “You have to show me everything, okay? Even the things you
think don’t work because you don’t know.”

“I promise.”

I undressed quickly and pulled a white mesh dress over my head—her choice—and struggled to pull it down without tearing it.

“Finish your story,” she said.

“Oh, right.” I was desperately wriggling—this thing was so tight. My head popped out the top. “So this is just
one
example, okay?” I said. “I purposely stopped answering my phone earlier this week to see what would happen—he hasn’t even
called.”

Now if only I could figure out how to hook the dress up.

“For how long?”

“Four days.”

“Hi? You should
dump him
.”

I looked like I was wearing a tampon wrapper. I opened the door so Allegra could see. She glanced briefly up and down.

“Horrible. Take it off.”

I resisted the urge to apologize and went back in the room, explaining that I wasn’t going to dump him quite yet—I had better
ideas.

I kept trying things on—some Allegra deemed cute, some she wrinkled her nose at and waved away—as we discussed the finer points
of my Max plan. As the “yes” pile grew and grew, so did my confidence. Indeed, Max didn’t stand a chance against the Full
Life, I said. He would end up a quivering mass of jelly by the time I was through with him, I said. I mean, really, he just
didn’t get it, I said. And all the while Allegra, my fashion pusher, kept saying “I feel you,” and “Right on.”

Her enthusiasm made me feel just a little bit better when she rang me up and said the damage was one thousand five hundred
and seventy-four dollars and thirty-six cents. It would have been too mortifying to go back now, so I handed her a second
credit card and asked if she could put half on each.

Allegra smiled and said, “Of course.”

By the time I got home, the shopping high had worn off, but I couldn’t afford another hit. No, I’d have to ride out the detox
stone-cold sober, without even a Banana Republic catalog to get me by. I couldn’t believe I’d spent so much money—more than
my rent and my car payment combined. Why? I pondered my new blouse, which looked like it could have been from Mexico and,
if it hadn’t been designed by Stella McCartney, would have cost only about $10 instead of $250.

It kind of reminded me of a top I’d seen another girl wearing recently. A couple of weeks ago I’d taken Max to a dinner for
Collin’s birthday. Kaitlyn, who’s dating one of Collin’s friends, was there. She’s the kind of girl—faux tan, pixie cut, perma
sneer—that Kiki and I call “ugly on the inside” because she’s really pretty but incredibly mean to every girl she meets. (Of
course, Kaitlyn’s as sweet as pie to all our boyfriends.) So I, stupidly, asked Max if he thought she was pretty. He replied
that he thought she was “adorable.” I was crushed. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d said that about me, and the brand-new
skirt I was wearing—the skirt that cost 150 bucks—had gone completely unnoticed.

I was hanging my new blouse up in the closet when it hit me: I was being fantastically insecure at 21.99 percent interest.

That night I arrived at Max’s house at the appointed time, as always. He’d called in the late afternoon to see if I was still
coming over, and I’d waited until the last possible minute to call back. This would be the first time I’d seen him since Palm
Springs, and I was nervous.

“Hey, B,” he said when I walked in the door. He actually got up for a change, and kissed me full on the lips. I tried to contain
my surprise.

“So, what’s over there?” He pointed across the room.

“What’s over where?”

“The brown box on the floor.”

“For me?”

“It’s not for me. Open it.”

I pulled the cardboard apart, and inside was a
stack
of clothing.

“What’s all this?”

“The Super Very Good women’s spring line,” he said, lighting a cigarette.

It was like I’d landed on the mother ship, and my people had come to take me home. There were pants, T-shirts, blouses, skirts
…
Aw, why did I go shopping?
I thought. There I was spending money so Max would like me, while he was packing a box full of new clothes for me because
he already did. I thanked him, but even though I was bursting with love and gratefulness and relief, I said it casually. Not
like I was bowled over or anything. I tossed the clothes aside like they were my due.

Max smiled and turned to fiddle with the stereo.

“So,” he said over his shoulder. “Should we order in?”

“Sure,” I said nonchalantly. “Whatever.”

He ordered Thai, like always. Our movie selection was
Aliens,
which Max had bought on DVD because he’d never seen it. We didn’t make it to the “Get away from her, you bitch” part, though.
Thank God. The sex was perfect—like last weekend had never happened.

After, Max said, “So listen, about Saturday …” and my heart sank.
Maybe I should just forgive him,
I thought. Because now that he was being so nice I
really
wanted to see him over the weekend. But I remembered what Kiki said—I’d been making it too easy. I had to tell him I was
busy for our own good. I was about to do so when he said, “The Japanese buyers are coming into town and I’ve got to show them
around.”

I looked at him like,
Say what?

“It’s going to be crazy, B. They, like, want to go all over and they don’t really speak English. And they obviously can’t
drive over here.” He laughed. “I’m going to have to take them to all these big dinners. Probably Disneyland. Shopping. It’s
going to be madness.”

This wasn’t happening.

But maybe I should offer to help. I smiled. “You know, I love shopping. Disneyland …”

“Nah. I’m cool.”

Why? Why? Why?

“So,” he said, changing the subject, “the Japanese buyers are, like, totally into those skirts I just gave—”

I interrupted, “I’m busy, too. I have plans. All weekend.”

“Oh. Great.” He ran a finger up and down my arm. “Then it works out.”

BY BENJAMINA FRANKLIN

You’re at the edge of a metaphorical precipice, unsure of what to do. But when you ask a friend for directional input, is
she really giving you good advice? Take this Filly Quiz to find out if she’s a true friend—or bitter foe.

FILLY
QUIZ

1.
You’re in a fight with your boyfriend. Lately you’re always picking
him
up, and you think he should do the driving once in a while. Your friend says:

a. “Dump him. If you capitulate any more you’re just a wimp who’s asking for trouble.”

b. “At least you
have
a boyfriend.”

c. “I know how you feel. The other day, my boyfriend and I were on our way to yoga, and he was all, ‘Can I borrow your mat?’
And I was like, ‘Why didn’t you bring your own mat?’ And he was like, ‘I forgot.’ So I said …”

d. “He
could
be taking you for granted—talk to him and suggest splitting the driving time.”

2.
Your boss is a maladjusted skank and if you have to take any more of her mood swings you’re going to brain yourself with your
Rolodex. Then again, you
think
you’re up for a promotion and you have −$172 in the bank. Your friend says:

a. “You can’t afford to quit. You spend money like it grows like killer mold. Plus the job market is terrible, and frankly
it’s amazing you’ve been able to hold a job this long.”

b. “See if that promotion’s going to pan out. If not, quietly start looking for a better gig and don’t tell her until you
have a lock on something.”

c. “Walk into that fat cow’s office and tell her she’s a flatulent piece of dung and she can take that job and stuff it up
her you know what.”

d. “Remember the time
my
boss told me to redo all the filing systems like five minutes after I got that manicure? I was totally pissed and she couldn’t
have cared less …”

3.
Your cousin can be such a flake. The last three times you had plans with her, she canceled, but that didn’t stop her from
calling you drunk on a school night asking if you could pick her up. Your friend says:

a. “Send an e-mail telling her how you feel, but make sure you let your cousin know you want to hear her side and you’d really
like to make your relationship better.”

b. “At least you don’t have brothers. I have four, and it’s like they’re in their own little club. Take the time when …”

c. “I would have let her drive her ass home. If she got in an accident, it would have been her own damn fault.”

d. “I can’t believe you’d talk about your relatives like this! She
loves
you. And what would you rather she do? Drive home drunk?”

4.
In a moment of fashion lunacy you bought a new dress that’s tight, bedecked with sequins, and extremely expensive. She says:

a. “Oh my God, that looks just like mine!”

b. “Oh my God, that makes you look like a prostitute!”

c. “Oh my God, I had no idea you had such bad taste!”

d. “Oh my God, please tell me you saved the receipt!”

Even though Max was busy, I still had to go through with my strategic engagements, pointless as they now were.

Friday night I brought Chandra to a barbecue at Collin’s. It wasn’t the laid-back affair I was expecting—when we arrived,
there was a cluster fuck of Industry PIBs (Personas in Black) huddled up on the outdoor patio. I was seriously not in the
mood to talk about box-office reports and which executive had done what to whom—not to mention the fact the PIBs, who always
claim to have recently quit smoking, help themselves to all my cigarettes. But it would have looked too crazy to run screaming
back down the front walk, so I found a place to sit in the corner, where I filled Chandra in on my Max hell while watching
Collin whipping around mixing sangria and grilling salmon.