Little Miss Red (10 page)

“Yes, ma’am, I’d like a Coke, please,” I heard Jack’s voice say in my ear. “Whaddya say, Red?” he whispered as she poured it. “You wanna be my girlfriend for a while?”

This time I couldn’t even open my mouth. A slide show immediately began on the movie screen in my brain of all the amazing girlfriend/boyfriend adventures we’d have together—riding together in the tour bus with his band, jogging together on the beach outside our Hawaiian vacation house. Granted, I didn’t actually
like
jogging, but I bet with him it would be fun.

“But I bet someone as cute as you already has a boyfriend,” he continued whispering as she put the Coke down on his tray. “Am I right?”

I swallowed. “Actually—”

He put his hand on my arm and grinned. “You know what? Don’t tell me. I don’t know if I could handle four hours with a broken heart.”

My face wasn’t just red anymore; now I was
sweating
as well, as if I had just run the six-hundred-yard dash. Maybe jogging wasn’t a good idea. I wondered if he had a
Things to Say to Make Any Girl Fall for You
book hidden inside that
Motocross Action
magazine.

I cleared my throat. “So, uh, do you have a girlfriend?” I mumbled.

The right corner of his mouth lifted and his dimple appeared. “Me? Nah. I’m not really the boyfriend type.”

My face fell.

“At least not until now, that is,” he added with a wink.

Forget needing fuel to fly the plane—
I
could’ve flown it with the excitement that whooshed from the bottom of my feet up to the top of my head.

“Hey, Red, you don’t have anything more to eat by any chance, do you?” he asked. “All I had for breakfast was a slice of leftover pizza.”

“I think I have some grapes,” I said. See, he
needed
a girlfriend—to make sure he ate on a regular basis.

As I reached down into my carry-on to get them, the plane jerked to the right.

“Omigod!” I yelped, grabbing onto the armrests as my Diet Coke fell into my lap.

Then the plane dipped to the left.

“Oh my heavens!” said Harriet as Lord Byron began to yowl.

Then it dropped a few inches.

“Holy sh—” Jack started to say, before Harriet shot him a look. “—oot,” he finished.

With the next swerve, Jack grabbed at my arm and hid his head near my chest. I loved that he already felt so comfortable around me that he didn’t feel like he had to act super-brave all the time.

After the plane was upright, he lifted his head. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “I’m not a great flyer.”

“Omigod—me, neither!” I gasped.
Another
thing we had in common.

“Attention passengers,” the captain’s shaky voice said over the loudspeaker. “Remain calm. I repeat—
REMAIN CALM
. We’re just experiencing a bit of turbulence.”

“Well, isn’t
that
the understatement of the millennium!” snapped Harriet.

The plane rolled and dipped. By this time, plastic cups were rolling up and down the aisle while people screamed. I wondered how long before the oxygen masks fell from the ceiling.

The plane took a nosedive.

“Jack?!” I yelled above everyone’s screams, as I clutched on to the armrests for the little life it looked like I had left.

“Yeah?!” he yelled back.

“I just want you to know, I did have a boyfriend,” I shouted, my voice vibrating with panic, “but I don’t anymore.…I mean,
technically
, I still do, but two nights ago he decided we should take a break…so we’re still together, but it’s on hold at the moment,” I babbled, reaching for the airsickness bag. “And the reason I’m bringing this up is”—the plane dipped again and my stomach did a roundoff back handspring—“because…well, because I want you to know that I would very much like to be your girlfriend. I mean, I know we just met and all, but, yes, I would like to be your girlfriend.”

He looked confused. And terrified.

Lord Byron yowled from under the seats.

“Remember when you asked me if I wanted to be your girlfriend?” I yelled, my voice quavering. It felt important to get this settled before we crashed to our death. “Before the plane started to freak out? Anyway, the answer is yes, even though it won’t be for long because we’re probably going to die any minute.”

“Oh. Well, um, thanks,” he replied nervously, as the plane shimmied and shuddered back and forth as if it was in belly dancing class. “Thanks a lot. That’s really sweet of you. And, uh, I would’ve been interested in being your boyfriend too.”

And then, as quickly as the crazy turbulence had started, it stopped. Within a second, the plane righted
itself, and I didn’t have to worry about dying anymore. Not physically, at least. But of total and complete embarrassment, yes, because I had just told a totally hot guy I had just met that I wanted to be his girlfriend.

And now I had to sit next to him for the next four hours.

As I wrapped my arms around myself and hid under my hat, I almost wished the plane
had
gone down.

The good news about having a brother with Asperger’s is that, when I want to, I know how to be hyper-focused too. Like then, when I chose to be hyper-focused on Devon and Dante and how their passion was propelling them to spend a lot of time kissing. I figured if I looked like I was really busy reading, I wouldn’t have to talk to Jack. Like ever again.

All I wanted was to get to Florida and get off the plane—no,
run
off the plane toward baggage claim and Grandma Roz and her “gentleman friend” Art, dive into his red Cadillac that smelled like it had been dunked in pine air freshener, and get as far away from Jack as possible. He had obviously been kidding when he had made that comment about me being his girlfriend. It was just something to say, like, “So do you like Coke or Pepsi?”

“Hey, Red,” I heard Jack say quietly a moment later. I was so entranced with how Dante’s strong hands were encircling Devon’s tiny waist that I almost didn’t hear, but unfortunately, his voice had been singed into my soul, like
the voice of the Swiss mountain climber, Hans, on Devon’s in
Awakened by Ardor
. I would’ve been able to hear it anywhere, even if he had been speaking at a decibel level that only dogs could pick up.

“Cinnamon Girl,” he said.

I turned to him slowly, glad that I hadn’t had a chance to get my bangs cut before my trip so that now they were hanging in my eyes. Every little bit of protection against melting from his hotness helped.

“Yeah?” I mumbled.

He held out his hand, which held three smooshed Starburst candies. “You want one? They’re a little warm ’cause they’ve been in my back pocket, but they should be all right,” he said with a smile that could’ve melted the biggest glacier in the world and been responsible for tons more global warming.

I felt like I was being soaked with a cold bucket of relief. Obviously, the way I professed my love (or at least the fact that I wanted to be his girlfriend) back when I thought we were going to die hadn’t scared him off, and we were still together! Not only that, but I couldn’t believe how thoughtful he was. When Michael offered me candy, it was stuff like Now and Laters that could break your teeth.

I reached for a red one. It
was
warm. “I think I’m going to save it for dessert,” I said. Or, you know, the Sophie-n-Jack scrapbook I planned to make as soon as I got home.

He chuckled. “Ohhh…I get it. You’re one of those girls who waits until
after
the meal to have her dessert.”

“Not all the time,” I replied defensively. “Once, when my parents were on vacation, I had a cupcake
before
dinner.”

He gave me another smile. But this one was more…wolfish. “It’s kind of fun to mix it up a bit sometimes, huh Red?”

I nodded.

“Wanna try it?”

“Try what?” I asked.

He pointed to the candy. “Mixing it up a bit.”

Even though I got the sense that he wasn’t just talking about the dessert-first thing, I unwrapped the candy and popped it into my mouth. Because of the heat it was soft and chewy, and the flavor seemed even more intense.

“How is it?” he asked.

“Mffgud.” That was I-have-candy-stuck-in-my-molars speak for, “It’s good.”

He nodded and sat back in his seat. “It’s a trip to be wild sometimes, isn’t it?”

I nodded again. Being around Jack not only took my breath away; it took my vocabulary away too.

He unwrapped the lemon and the orange ones and popped them into his mouth at the same time. “You see, Red?” he said, leaning in to straighten my hat. “There’s a whole other world out there. Stick with me and I’ll show it to you.”

Boy, was he right.

Although the flight crew kept insisting that what had happened was just run-of-the-mill turbulence, a half hour later the captain got on the loudspeaker to tell us we’d be making an unscheduled landing at Raleigh-Durham International Airport and switching planes. “By no means is this an emergency landing,” he announced, “but there’s a
slight
malfunction with the fuel tank.” The passengers started buzzing. “Seriously, folks, it’s absolutely nothing to worry about,” he added. My dad freaked if I ever let the fuel in his Volvo get lower than a quarter of a tank (“You’ll ruin the engine!”), so I could only imagine what could be happening with our plane.

“You can bet that this airline is going to be receiving a letter from
me
,” harrumphed Harriet as we started our descent.

“Aw, it’s not so bad. Look at it as an adventure,” said Jack, eating a Fig Newton that she had given him. After our
near-death experience, Jack had done a great job of calming Harriet down, not to mention Lord Byron. Not only did he have a real way with people, but with animals too.

She patted his cheek. “It’s so refreshing to see a young person with such a positive outlook on life. Are you on antidepressants, dear?”

He shook his head. “Nope. Just one hundred milligrams of living in the moment,” he said proudly.

I smiled. Even if it didn’t really make sense, it sounded catchy. Maybe if the music stuff took a while to take off, he could get a job in advertising. As Dad said, it was important for artists to have a “B” job.

“Plus, Raleigh’s real cool. You ever been there, Red?”

I took my tongue out of my molar. “Uh uh,” I said, shaking my head.

“Well, I have. My band played a gig there, and afterward we kicked back at this awesome Denny’s. It was
huge
. With a Dennyland playground and everything.”

“Wow. That sounds…great,” I replied. I had only been to Denny’s once, with Michael after a movie, and when we sat down in the booth, my hand hit something, and when I looked down it turned out to be a
pair of dentures
someone had left behind. That had to break a few laws with the Board of Health. Needless to say, we left without ordering and I never went back. Even though I had to admit the brownie à la mode I saw someone eating as we walked out looked pretty yummy.

“So what kind of gig did you play there?” I asked. An image of him and his band playing in this huge stadium, with girls throwing their bras up on the stage, popped up on the movie screen of my brain.

“It was my drummer’s grandparents’ fiftieth anniversary at a Rotary Club,” he replied.

Okay, so there probably wasn’t any bra-throwing going on. At least he was a working musician. I knew from when Devon fell in love with the Parisian mime in
Seduced by Silence
that making a living as an artist was very hard.

“Maybe I’ll write a song about you,” he said, tapping me on the nose.

“Really?!” I gasped.

He shrugged. “Sure. Why not?” He thought about it for a moment. “What’s a good word that rhymes with Red?”

I could hardly believe it. I was becoming his
muse,
just like Devon had been to the Danish painter she fell in love with in
Steamrolled by Satisfaction
! I had never admitted this to anyone—not even Jordan (
especially
not Jordan)—but becoming someone’s muse was my life’s ambition. I’d probably have to get a second job, but that was okay. To be adored 24/7 and to be told the person couldn’t live without you?

I couldn’t think of a better existence.

Once we landed and it was safe to turn on my iPhone, I discovered that Michael
still
hadn’t e-mailed me. Not
even a reply to my “I can’t believe you haven’t e-mailed me” e-mail. Well, it was a good thing I had Jack. After we deboarded, we walked toward the arrivals/departures board. “They said they’re putting us on Flight 18,” I said. I looked up at the flights. “Which doesn’t leave for…
four more hours
?!” That meant that instead of getting in at six o’clock at night eastern time, we’d now be getting in at ten o’clock, which meant I’d miss the original TV movie based on Lulu’s book
Singed by Secrets
.

“Awesome,” said Jack. “That means we have time to go downtown and do some sightseeing.”

I looked at him like he had just suggested we go run around the tarmac naked. “We can’t leave the airport!”

“Why not?”

“Well, because you have to be
at
the airport two hours before your departure time.”

“I’m not a mathlete, but according to that board, we’ve got four hours,” he replied.

“Yeah, but what if there’s a seven-car pileup on the highway on our way back and we get stuck in it while we’re waiting for them to remove the dead bodies?” I said. “Or if we’re at a restaurant and a gunman comes in and takes everyone hostage?”

I really don’t know why he gave me such a weird look. It could happen—both of those things had happened to Devon in the
same
book,
Controlled by Chaos
.

“You know, I never thought about that,” he said. “I
guess it’s good to think things through sometimes.” He smiled. “I have a feeling you’re going to be a real good influence on me, Red.”

I smiled back. Just wait until I taught him how to use a PalmPilot so he could become super-organized.

Most people probably wouldn’t find the American Airlines terminal of the Raleigh-Durham International Airport all that glamorous, but that’s because they’d be stuck having to hang out at places like Cinnabon or the Great American Bagel Bakery. I, on the other hand, had Jack to take me to the A-list hot spots.