Little Miss Red (11 page)

“Wow, you’re a
member
?” I asked as we stood in front of a door that said “American Airlines Admirals Club.” I knew from Dad that part of the reason the Admirals Club was so exclusive was because it cost something like five hundred dollars a year to be a member. Maybe Jack was lying when he said that every month he had to struggle to make ends meet and pay his rent. Maybe, like Marco in
Nailed by Nirvana
, he had a huge trust fund and was just
pretending
to be poor until he made sure I loved him for himself and not his money!

“Not exactly,” he replied with a wink.

“But it says ‘members only,’” I said, pointing at the door.

“Yeah, but I talk my way into these places all the time. It’s easy.” He pushed the door open. “C’mon.”

I paused. Sharing earbuds was one thing, but this?

He grabbed my hand. “Don’t worry, it’s not like we’re going to get arrested.”

The minute he grabbed my hand, all my fear about possibly breaking the law by trespassing disappeared. His hand was a little calloused (because of the guitar playing, no doubt), but that didn’t stop electric shocks from shooting through my body—like the time my blow-dryer shorted out.

“Good afternoon, ma’am,” he said to the woman sitting behind the desk. He leaned in to peer at her name tag. “Ms. Yolanda Crabnick. What a lovely name. Is it okay if I call you Ms. Crabnick?”

From the way she looked us up and down, the “crab” part of her name seemed spot on. “May I see your Admirals Club membership card, please?” she asked.

Jack reached for his wallet, which was attached by a chain to his belt loop, and rifled through it. Not that I was being nosy or anything, but in addition to his driver’s license, ATM card, MasterCard, and YMCA card, I spotted
a lot
of scraps of paper with phone numbers written in loopy, girly handwriting.

He looked up at Ms. Crabnick and gave her one of his most charming roguish smiles. “Uh oh. Seems like I forgot it. Think you can let it slide this one time?”

She shook her head. “No card, no admittance,” she said firmly.

He sighed. “I
knew
I should have had my secretary double-check my briefcase when I got back from that business trip to Japan. I bet it’s in there.”

He had such an incredible imagination. If he could come up with great stories like this one on the spot, I could only imagine what a terrific songwriter he was.

But from the way that Ms. Crabnick glared at him, it was clear she didn’t buy it.

He smiled at her again. “I’m sure you get this
all
the time, but has anyone ever told you that you could be Angelina Jolie’s older sister?”

She rolled her eyes. “As the Admirals Club is a
members-only
establishment, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

My eye landed on a tote bag next to her chair that said, “Sometimes you have to kiss a lot of frogs before your prince comes along.” Peeking out of the top was a book. And I would have recognized that cover anywhere.

“Hey,
Enveloped by Enigmas
is one of my favorites!” I exclaimed. Lulu may have been a fraud, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t a brilliant writer. I had had no idea that the Balinese masseuse Devon fell in love with in the book was actually a Russian spy who was trying to start a nuclear war.

“You’re a Lulu Lavoie fan?” said Ms. Crabnick.

I whipped out my copy of
Propelled by Passion
. “Not only am I a fan,” I said, “but Lulu just happens to be my
best friend’s mother. This is her new book that’s coming out next month.” I flipped it open. “See—it’s even dedicated to me.” I left out the part that the dedication was a total lie. And that my name was spelled wrong.

“Oh my,” she gasped. “It’s like you’re famous!” She leaned in. “I really shouldn’t be doing this,” she whispered, “but why don’t you two go on in? Any close personal friend of Lulu Lavoie’s is definitely Admirals Club–worthy.”

I turned to Jack and flashed him a smile. I was hoping to find him impressed by the fact that I knew a major celebrity, but instead he looked embarrassed that I was the one who got us in and not him. I know I should have been all “equal rights” and stuff, but I thought it was beyond sweet that he wanted to impress me like that. Michael had given up trying to impress me a month after we started going out.

But by the time the doors hissed closed behind us, Jack was back to being his confident self.

As we strode over to the table with the free snacks (okay, maybe not strode, because we were both dragging our carry-ons), I realized I had finally arrived. Maybe at Castle Heights I’d always be invisible (or worse, exceptionally visible—especially since the calendar fiasco), but here at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport, all eyes were on me for all the right reasons. Or maybe it was because I kept bumping into things because my hat was too big. Still, it was nice to get the attention.

“Great view, huh?” asked Jack as he threw some roasted peanuts back and chased them with a swig of his complimentary soda. He really needed to be more careful about potential choking hazards.

“Oh yeah,” I agreed, sipping my Diet Coke. This place was so fancy, they even put a slice of lemon in the soda. We were so close to the tarmac that I could actually see one of the baggage handlers smoking a cigarette next to a tank that said,
WARNING: FLAMMABLE
.

“It’s like having third-row center seats at a Neil Young concert,” he said.

I had never considered looking out at a runway strip all that interesting before, but with Jack, everything seemed exciting. As I listened to him crunch his ice, I was hit with one of my psychic premonitions. They didn’t happen often, and they usually had to do with pop quizzes, but in this case I had the vision of us sitting in Admirals Clubs around the world while Jack toured with his band. Instead of places like Raleigh and West Palm Beach, we’d be in airports in Paris and Rome and Tokyo.

My iPhone buzzed, and I almost knocked over my soda. Sure, I was totally focused on Jack, but maybe there was the
teensiest
part of me that was wondering if Michael would finally come to his senses and realize how badly he’d screwed up. Not that I was interested in pushing the play button with him again. I looked at the screen. Just an e-mail from Always 16 about an upcoming sale.

Jack pointed to my phone and shook his head. “I gotta
say—I don’t get that being-in-constant-communication thing. I mean, sure, I have a cell and all, but I can’t get my e-mail on it. Sometimes you just want to be unplugged and enjoy the moment, you know?”

I nodded. He was so…
Buddhist
.

“So how long have you been with your boyfriend?” he asked.

The image of Jack and I enjoying a crepe at an outside café in Paris was replaced by Michael’s face covered with chicken pox. Talk about a buzzkill. “My boyfriend?” I repeated.

He laughed. “Yeah, your boyfriend. Didn’t you say on the plane that you had one?”

Not only was he Buddhist, but he was
psychic
. He must have intuitively known that even though I had no interest in getting back together with Michael, I was still waiting for that e-mail saying he had been an idiot.

I pointed at his soda. “So are you a Coke person or a Pepsi person? Personally, I like Tab best, but it’s really hard to find,” I blabbered nervously. “I’ve only found two mini-marts in L.A. that carry it, and even then, they don’t have it
all
the time. Just, like, every three months or so.”

He gave me one of those half-smiles that drove me crazy. “Did you know that you’re trying to change the subject and not answer the question?”

“No, I’m not,” I replied, fiddling with the salt and pepper shakers.

He took the pepper shaker from me. Of course, he
took the pepper. It was spicy, just like him. “Red, changing the subject is the only thing I get straight As in—especially when it comes to talking about relationships.”

“Well, like I said, he’s not exactly my boyfriend at the moment. It’s kind of on hold.”

“Oh man, did he push the pause button or something?”

I nodded, stunned. Was this something that
all
guys did?

“Sorry to hear that,” he said. “That’s a tough place to be. How long have you guys been together?”

“Three years.”

“Three years?!” he hooted. “That’s like almost a third of your life!”

“Actually, it’s 18.5 percent of it,” I said. “What’s the longest you’ve been in a relationship?”

He thought about it. “Three months.”

Okay, so he just hadn’t met the right girl yet. And it was impressive that rather than stay in something that wasn’t working, he wasn’t afraid to be alone, which, according to my mom, was the reason most people were in relationships.

“No, wait…it was two months,” he said.

Okay, so he was a free spirit—until now. Until me.

“But because the pause button’s been pushed, technically I’m, you know,
available,
” I said. I was, right? I wasn’t sure on the etiquette of this situation. I’d need to do some research to find out for sure. I pointed to a row of
computers. “How much do you think it costs to use one of those?” I wanted to Google, “If your boyfriend has pushed the pause button, is it okay to kiss someone else?”

“They’re free,” he replied. “That’s one of the perks of hangin’ in the Admirals Club.”

It really
was
pretty exclusive. I bet they even had free Tampax in the ladies room.

We moved over to the computers and sat down. It wasn’t like I was
trying
to look at Jack’s computer, but because there was a fat guy who smelled like cabbage at the computer next to me, I found myself leaning toward Jack, and my eyes just
happened
to glance up at his screen after he logged on to his mailbox. And they
happened
to see that he had thirty-three new messages.

“Wow. Have you not checked your e-mail in a few days?” I asked, pointing at the screen.

“No. I checked it before I left this morning,” he replied, clicking on a message that I saw was signed,
Lots of luv, Brandi xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
. I tried to read it, but only got through
Hey Jack, How r u doin?
before he closed it and opened one signed,
Miss u TONS, Brianna xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo.

“So is it, like, lots of…junk mail…or something?” I asked, with one eye on my screen and the other on his.

“No. Just e-mails from friends and stuff.”

Yeah, “friends” that all happened to be
girls
it seemed, as I snuck another glance at his screen in time to see one signed,
Mwah! Kylie xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo.

Jack wasn’t technically my boyfriend yet, but just knowing that all these girls with names that ended in vowels had his e-mail address made me feel like I was going to explode. Some people might call the way I was feeling “insane with jealousy,” but I liked to think it just meant I was really passionate. That’s the explanation that Devon gave whenever she started doing things that were a little on the obsessive side, like spending hours doing Internet drive-bys on her boyfriends or using *67 to block her number and call whatever guy she was in love with that month just to hear him say, “Hello? Hello? Hello?!”

I had never felt jealous when I was with Michael. Not once. Maybe that was part of the problem. Maybe if I felt about Michael the way I felt about Jack at that moment—with my heart beating like I had had four Red Bulls in five minutes—things would have worked out and I’d be sitting in the waiting area of the gate reading my book instead of sneaking into a members-only lounge with Jack.

I willed myself to stick to my own screen and focus on my Googling, which, unfortunately, didn’t help, as most of what came up were articles about DVD players.

“I think I’m done,” I said, as I caught sight of the
See ya soon, Kristi xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
on his screen.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go get some lunch.” He looked over at me. “Are you reading my e-mails?” he demanded.

I could feel the color leave my face. “I…no…I just,” I stammered.

He punched me on the arm. “I’m just joshin’ with you,” he said, giving me one of his lopsided smiles that were as addictive as York Peppermint Patties.

We started to gather our stuff.

“But I gotta say—you’re even more cute when you’re freaked out, Red,” Jack said. “Makes me want to—I don’t know—
protect
you.”

I knew it was so antifeminist, and Jordan would’ve broken up with me as a friend if she ever heard me admit it, but when Jack said that, I felt this whoosh of warm energy go through my body.

I wondered if he said things like that to the vowel girls. My name ended in a vowel too, but that was different. I was a vowel girl who really
wasn’t
a vowel girl. But as we made our way to the gate, he reached for my hand, and I stopped wondering.

There was only so much a girl could focus on when a hot guy was holding her hand and scrambling her brain.

You’d think a person would go insane with boredom having to spend four hours in an airport, but because I was with Jack, the hours felt like
minutes
. After the Admirals Club, he took me to Pizza Hut Express for lunch (okay, technically, I took him because he had forgotten to go to the ATM that morning and the one in the airport was all the way down at the other end of the terminal), to TCBY for dessert (again, I paid), and to Starbucks for Frappuccinos
(ditto). He even bought me a Raleigh magnet at the gift shop (yes, me again) so I would have a souvenir of our time together.

The only real blip was the conversation we had as we ate our second dessert at Cinnabon. “Jack?” I asked, as I tore off a piece of my sticky bun.

“Yeah?” he said, as he polished off his.

Was it my imagination, or did he keep staring at the blonde girl with the
I’M NO ANGEL
T-shirt two tables down from us. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” he said.

“You know all those e-mails you had in your inbox? Are all those girls really just friends, or are they, you know…
friends
?” I rearranged my chair to block his view of her and adjusted my hat.