Little Miss Red (22 page)

Just before Jack could grab the bills, I snatched my hand back. “Actually…no, sorry—I can’t,” I said, shoving the money in my pocket. “This money is supposed to be for emergencies, and last time I checked, a chili dog wasn’t an emergency.” The minute the words left my mouth I felt like I grew two inches and my boobs grew a cup size. For the first time in forever, I was standing up straight and not slumping.

“But I have hunger pains,” he whined. “I’d call that an emergency.”

“Well, I don’t,” I said, “and it’s
my
emergency fund.” Even my voice sounded different—deeper, like it was coming from my belly and not my head.

Carmen reached into the pocket of her short-shorts and took out her own money. “
Chica
, I get the grrl power thing, but you can’t let your man
starve
to death,” she said as she handed it over to the counter guy.

“He’s not my man,” I said in my new strong voice.

Michael let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank God. You’re back to normal! I have to say, I was a little worried there, Sophie. I mean, I don’t want to be dating a crazy girl. Maybe it was being out in the sun that did it. You know you really should wear sunblock.” He reached over and tried to take
my hat off. “Or maybe it’s the hat. Didn’t I tell you you’re not a red cowboy hat kind of girl?”

I pushed his hands away from me. “But
you’re
not my man either, Michael.”

Carmen stopped the semi-X-rated version of fry-eating she was doing for Jack’s benefit. “Oh, honey, what are you talking about? A girl
needs
a guy,
chica
.” She motioned to Michael. “Even if, you know, it’s someone like him.”

Did
a girl need a guy? Jordan had once told me there was this famous saying:
A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle
. I wasn’t sure if that was true, but my legs sure were tired from pedaling—especially since it felt like it had all been uphill.

“Nope, I’m done,” I announced. “The whole guy thing is way too much trouble.”

Jack took a big bite of his chili dog and shook his head. “My shrink would say that’s just your fear of intimacy talking, Red,” he said with his mouth full. “You can’t
not
make a decision—you have to pick one of us.” He walked over to the box of putters and took out two of them. “I have a great idea—we’ll decide for you. Nine holes, no do-overs. Whoever wins not only gets the free soda, but gets you,” he said, throwing a putter toward Michael, who missed it completely.

I couldn’t believe this. “What happened to the whole stray-dog/girlfriend’s-such-an-ugly-word thing?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Maybe I finally realized what a catch
you are, Red. But regardless, it’s not like I’m gonna let this clown beat me at something.”

Of course he wasn’t. Clearly, no one was listening to me when I said I was done with guys and wanted to be alone. “So you’re going to play
putt-putt
to decide who gets to be with me?!” I asked. When men fought for Devon’s heart it was with yacht races or polo games in sexy, exotic locales—not a miniature golf course in humid, buggy Florida, surrounded by screaming kids and old people.

Carmen, who was now sitting on a motorized plastic horse filing her nails, looked up. “Hey,
chica
, I know you say you wanna be alone, but I can tell you from personal experience, I’ve been there and it’s not fun,” she said, cracking her gum. “I was in between boyfriends for five whole days once and it was just horrible.” She motioned me over. “If you want a different class of guy, you need to rethink your look.” She pointed to my red and white polka-dotted dress. “It’s kind of, I don’t know, what a character in one of those fairy-tale stories would wear. I am, however, loving the motorcycle boots. If you want, I’ll take you to the mall, and we can use that emergency fund of yours to pick out some new stuff.” She pointed to her shorts. “They had these in a zebra print too. You have slamming legs. I bet you’d look jalapeño hot in them.”

“Yeah, thanks. The thing is, I spent all my money on food for him,” I said, pointing at Jack.

By the third hole, the two of them were bickering so much about the stupidest things (“You’re not allowed to switch clubs midway through the game!” Jack yelled; “Says who? The putt-putt police?!” Michael yelled back) that I was wondering whether I should hang out with Jordan’s friend Isis and see if I had any lesbian tendencies and could possibly switch to girls.

I watched as Jack popped out from behind the volcano at the sixth hole each time Michael was about to take a swing, trying to scare him. Why was I sitting here again? “They’re acting more immature than those eight-year-olds over there,” I said to Carmen, who was sitting with me in the sandy moat surrounding the castle and painting her nails Dark as Midnight.

She shrugged. “I read that guys don’t reach the same maturity level as girls until they’re
thirty
.”

Maybe I didn’t need to become a lesbian. Maybe I just needed to date a much older guy. Like
thirty
. Something told me my parents wouldn’t go for that, though.

Carmen blew on her nails and pointed at mine. “Want me to do yours? Girl, that blue is
nasty
. I have some remover in my bag.”

“Sure.” It wasn’t like I had anything better to do.

As she painted my nails, Jack stomped over from the clown’s head at the seventh hole and, after unchaining his wallet, jammed it in my purse. “The weight of this is completely screwing up my swing. Guard it with your life, okay, Red?” he said, stomping back.

I don’t know why he was so worried—it wasn’t like there was any
money
in it.

“The two of them fighting over you like this? It’s just so
romantic
,” Carmen said as she painted away. “Like something out of a book.” I could tell that when she was a kid, she probably never stayed within the lines when coloring, because she was getting an awful lot of polish on my fingers.

Carmen was right—it was like a book. But unlike the books I liked to read, it wasn’t romantic or fun. It was just…exhausting. “Maybe it’s not supposed to be so exciting,” I said.

“It’s not?” Carmen said, confused.

“No, it’s not. Maybe my grandmother’s right, and life’s supposed to be boring most of the time,” I said, starting to pace and smearing my wet nails on my dress in the process. “So in those moments where there is something truly exciting, you’ll know, and appreciate it that much more.” I stopped pacing and looked at Carmen. “Plus, the truth is, this whole…
thing
isn’t even about me. The guys may say it is, but it’s really just all about them and their dumb egos.”

“Yeah, well, good luck finding a guy where it’s not about his ego,” she replied. She pointed to my nails again. “You want me to fix those?”

I looked down at my hands smeared with Dark as Midnight. Who was I kidding? They looked horrible. Even if they had been painted correctly rather than looking like
I had dipped my fingers in the bottle, me plus Dark as Midnight equaled…
wrong.
With my pale skin, it made me look like I belonged in a morgue. Maybe Lulu and Carmen could pull it off, but I was still always going to look best in pale pink. It may have been boring, but now that I had come to the realization that life in general wasn’t supposed to be a constant emotional roller-coaster ride, it didn’t really matter. Why try and fight who I really was?

She took out a bottle of bright, sparkly purple. “We could do this one instead.”

“Um, thanks, but I think I’ll just go without it for the time being,” I replied. “Let them just breathe.” When I reached inside my purse for a tissue, Jack’s wallet fell out. As I was putting it back in, it flipped open and I saw a folded-up hundred dollar bill. Okay, maybe it didn’t exactly flip open by itself—maybe it was more like I opened it—but still, I saw the bill.

Jack hadn’t had any money before—just mine. Where had this come from? He couldn’t actually be a thief, could he?

I looked over to where Michael was about to hit the ball between the hip-swaying hula dancer’s legs, his brows all mushed together like Ali’s shar-pei because he was concentrating so hard. I knew he wasn’t my boyfriend anymore, and it wasn’t like I wanted him back or anything—especially when I saw his belly shake like Jell-O when he wiped his sweaty face with the bottom of his T-shirt—but I couldn’t help but worry about his safety.

“What’s wrong,
chica
?” asked Carmen. “You’re all pale.”

I stood up. “I…think the butter on the popcorn might have been bad. I’ll be right back.”

Weaving my way between the little kids and their grandparents, almost crashing into an old man on a motorized scooter, I made my way to the bathroom. Once I locked myself in a stall, I whipped out my iPhone to call Lulu. If anyone would know how to handle this, it was her. But as I went to push the button, I stopped myself. Who was I kidding? Lulu was
nuts
. And I had watched enough detective shows to figure out what to do myself.

I could call the cops. But if I called the police, and Jack was arrested, and there was a trial and he was found guilty, what would I do if he put a hit out on my family from jail? And how would I keep Jack busy until they arrived? This was harder than I thought.

Michael. I had to tell Michael what was going on.

I found the guys at the last hole, and I knew that the planets had gone totally haywire.

Jack and Michael had stopped fighting over me, and were now total BFFs.

Mercury or whatever was
definitely
in retrograde.

“Red, you didn’t tell me that Michael was going to be an intern at a record company this summer!” Jack boomed. “That’s even cooler than my buddy who won that radio contest where he got to spend a week as a roadie on the
Gods of Metal tour.” He turned to Michael and punched him in the arm. “Dude, you da bomb!”

Michael flinched and rubbed his arm. “Thanks, bro,” he said. He turned to me. “I told Jack that I want to try and hook him up with Dogz Howz so they can do a duet. Kind of a Kid Rock–redneck-meets-inner-city thing.”

“Man, I
love
that idea—it’s so five minutes in the future,” Jack said. “But I prefer ‘nouveau classic rock’ rather than ‘redneck.’”

“That’s cool,” Michael said.

I turned to see what Carmen thought of all this, but she was nowhere to be found. “Where’s Carmen?”

“She got bored and went to Pizza Hut with some guys from a gospel group,” Jack said. “Hey, can I have my wallet back?”

I froze. If I said no, he’d know something was up. But the police would probably be really grateful that I was saving them time by presenting them with the evidence.

“You still have it, right?” he asked.

I reached into my bag and took it out. “Yup. Right here.”

He reached out his hand to take it from me.

“But I don’t mind holding on to it,” I said, not letting go of the wallet.

He yanked at it. “No, it’s okay. It’s my wallet, and I should carry it. Especially since, you know, you want to be
alone
.”

“It’s okay. Really,” I insisted, yanking back.

He gave me a weird look and tugged so hard not only did I let go, but I almost fell in the process. “I don’t want to get all in your business, Red, but you might want to look at that codependency stuff.”

I grabbed Michael by the arm and started marching him to the corner. “Will do. Can you excuse us for a second?” I yelled over my shoulder.

“
Ow
,” Michael said, rubbing his arm. “What’s your
problemo
?”

“My
problemo
is that your new BFF is a criminal,” I whispered.

We looked over at Jack, now talking to a girl with pink hair and a nose ring who was examining his snake tattoo.

Michael rolled his eyes. “Give me a break. Is that what happened to that chick Devon in one of your books?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, it kind of did,” I replied. It happened in
Smitten by Surprise
, when Devon returned to L.A. after being in New York for Fashion Week to find that not only had her old lover and her new lover become friends, but they had actually fallen in love with each other before her old lover found out that her new lover was a criminal. “But I don’t have time to sit here so you can make fun of me when we’re in danger.”

I filled him in on the details about the break-in, the hundred dollars, everything.

“Okay, maybe it
does
sound a little strange,” Michael conceded when I was done. “But I’m sure there’s a rational explanation for all of it. He seems like a really good guy. Maybe…I don’t know…the hundred-dollar bill is like, I don’t know, emergency money from his mom or something.”

“If it’s emergency money, then why have
I
been paying for everything?”

“You have? You never pay for me.”

I rolled my eyes. When I got back to school, I was going to have to ask Mr. Dreyer, the biology teacher, if there was something in male DNA that made them all self-centered.

He shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. I really think you’re overreacting. I’m gonna go finish our game now. We’re on the last hole.”

He was no help. “By the way—who’s winning?” I asked, curiosity getting the best of me.