Little Miss Red (8 page)

Until then, though, I needed something to help me go incognito. Yes, school was out, but I still had to suffer through twelve more hours in L.A., and the idea of running into someone I knew sounded as painful as watching Jeremy suffer through a birthday party with non-Asperger kids.

Then I had a moment of brilliance just before I got to Nordstrom. I stopped and turned around. Luckily, I knew just the thing.

“Sixty-seven, sixty-eight, sixty-nine, seventy!” I said to the cart guy as I counted out the bills. “You can even keep the five cents.” I placed the red cowboy hat on my head. It was just as dramatic looking as I remembered. Even though it was still too big, I could feel my entire DNA change as I strode back to the car. Not only that, but when I passed by Dylan Schoenfield and heard her talking about the Urban Dictionary thing with Amy Loubalu (I couldn’t believe the news had made it all the way to the seniors), they totally didn’t recognize me.

I may not have been Miss April, and I may have been
semi-dumped the night before, but with every step, I could feel myself getting closer to my destiny.

“All set?” Mom asked the next morning when I came down to the kitchen with my carry-on. She, Dad, and Jeremy were waiting to take me to the airport three hours before takeoff. Just once I wish I could have gotten there really late like Devon always did and gotten a special escort to whisk me through security, but as long as my parents were involved, that was never going to happen. I mean, sure, I didn’t like being late, and so I understood getting there an hour early, or two hours early for an international flight, but three?

“Yes, I’m all set,” I said.

“You have your vitamins?”

I nodded.

“Copies of medical records in case of emergency?”

I nodded again.

“Maxi pads?”

“Mom!”

“What?”

I gestured toward Dad and Jeremy. “Um, males in the room?”

She shrugged. “Your grandmother went through menopause years ago. I want you to be prepared.”

“Yes, I packed my maxi pads,” I sighed.

“Sunblock?”

I hesitated. “Yes.” A lie, I know. At least it wasn’t a
huge
one, like when Devon “forgot” to tell the English prime minister that she was married to someone else before she agreed to marry him in
Frazzled with Forgetting
. I’d buy some sunblock at the Garden of Eden pharmacy.

“What about the lox and whitefish?” Dad asked.

“What lox and whitefish?” I asked, confused.

“Oh my God! I can’t believe we almost forgot the lox and whitefish!” exclaimed Mom as she rushed toward the fridge.

“Mom didn’t tell you?” said Dad. “Grandma Roz wants lox and whitefish from Nate ’n Al’s.” Nate ’n Al’s was one of the oldest delis in L.A.

“You want me to bring
fish
on an
airplane
?” I said. “That’s going to reek!”

He sighed. “What do you want me to tell you? Apparently, it’s one of her dying wishes.”

“But she’s not dying!” I exclaimed. “And there’s like four delis within walking distance where she can get that stuff.”

He shrugged. “She says none of them hold a menorah candle to Nate ’n Al’s.”

Mom held out two stinky packages wrapped in white paper. “Here. You can put it in your carry-on—”

“But—”

“But what?”

As I hadn’t told Mom and Dad I was a red cowboy hat kinda girl yet, I had put it in my carry-on for the moment.

“Nothing,” I said, placing the packages carefully inside my bag. I just hoped the smell of fish wouldn’t take away from any of the glamour of my new look.

As Grandma Roz also liked to say, “It’s always something.”

Two hours later, carry-on stowed safely in the overhead compartment, I was settled on American Airlines Flight 121 from Los Angeles International Airport to West Palm Beach. I knew that once I graduated from college and began living a jet-set life, I was going to have to get over my fear of flying, but for now, my hands were clutching the armrests, and my eyes were tightly closed even though we hadn’t taken off yet.

“It looks like we’re seatmates,” I heard a voice say.

I opened my eyes to see an old lady wearing a “San Fernando Valley Knitting Club” sweatshirt and holding a carry-on that didn’t look like it was going to fit beneath her seat.
And
an oversize, needlepoint tote bag with a picture of a cat playing with a ball of yarn on it.
And
a patent leather pocketbook.

“My name is Harriet. I’m in 12A,” she said pleasantly, pointing at the window.

I nodded. “Sophie. 12C. Nice to meet you.”

“You’re not blind, dear, are you?”

“Huh?”

She pointed to my Chunnels.

“Oh. No. I just…” I thought about telling her I was going incognito in case I ran into any of my classmates (Florida, at least for those of us who were Jewish, was a big Spring Break destination), but announcing you were incognito kind of ruined the point. While I did take the glasses off, I kept my hat on. It was a little crumpled after being folded up in my bag for the ride to the airport, but thankfully, it didn’t smell too fishy.

“So, would you mind getting up so I can sneak in there?” she asked. “Back when I was your age, I was a real slimster and probably could’ve weaseled myself right by you, but that was a long time ago,” she chuckled. Judging from the size of her butt in her polyester elastic waistband pants, it had been a
very
long time ago.

“Sure. Sorry,” I said, finally letting go and standing up.

As Harriet wriggled her way through the narrow space in our row, I heard what sounded like a meow coming from the overly large carry-on.

“Excuse me,” I said politely, pointing at the carry-on. “Is there a cat in there?”

She looked down at it, where the one meow had now turned into a bunch of nonstop meows, and then looked up at me and smiled. “There sure is,” she said proudly. She
lifted up a Velcro flap and shoved the case toward me. Through the mesh I could see the shadow of something very large and white, which began to hiss. “This is Lord Byron,” she said.

I gasped. “You named your cat after the greatest love poet in history? How cool!” I hadn’t actually
read
any of his poems, but one of the prison guards in
Battered by Betrayal
, the one where Devon was thrown in jail after she broke up with a Venezuelan dictator, used to read his poetry to Devon.

“I sure did,” Harriet said proudly. “After Nora Roberts, Lord Byron is my favorite writer.”

She settled herself in her seat and set Lord Byron between us on 12B. “I’m just going to keep him here until our other seatmate arrives.”

“Actually, my boyfriend was 12B, but he’s not coming because he has chicken pox,” I explained before sneezing.
And because he pushed the pause button,
I thought to myself. Maybe I’d tell Harriet about that later. Because she was old, I bet she had some wisdom she could share with me.

“Oh heavens. I’m so sorry to hear that, but maybe that means Lord Byron is in luck,” she chuckled.

I sneezed again.

“You’re not allergic to cats, are you?” Harriet asked.

“Uh huh,” I got out before sneezing again.

She fished around in her handbag and pulled out a box
of pills and handed it to me. “Here, take one of these,” she said.

“What is it?” I asked suspiciously.

“Benadryl. It’ll stop you from sneezing.”

I made sure to read the entire box—especially the CAUTION! paragraph—to make sure it didn’t say anything like, “Do not take if you recently drank a Frappuccino,” or something along those lines. A person could never be too careful. As I pushed one of the pills out of the foil wrapper and washed it down with my bottle of water, Lord Byron’s meowing got louder and louder.

Harriet sniffed. “Do you smell fish?”

“Uh…no,” I said nervously. I was glad my carry-on was in the overhead compartment and not underneath my seat, or else Lord Byron
really
would’ve been yowling.

A few minutes later I dozed off, thanks to the Benadryl—that is, until I was awoken by the arrival of the new tenant of 12B. Not only was he the hottest guy I had ever seen in person, but as I stood up to let him get to his seat, our arms touched and I immediately knew we were soul mates.

After he was settled and I was wracking my brain for something flirty to say, he reached for my book. “
Propelled by Passion
,” he read. “Is this any good?”

I shrugged, hoping my face wasn’t too red. “I don’t know. I just grabbed it off the shelf in the terminal bookstore so I’d have something to read.”

“But it says here that it’s an ‘advance reading copy’ and it isn’t coming out until June,” he replied.

I grabbed the book back and shoved it in my purse. “Really? How weird.”

“Can I see it for one more sec?” he asked.

I fished it back out and handed it to him.

“He looks kind of familiar to me,” he said, squinting. Omigod—I had no idea a squint could be so
sexy
. “Wait a minute—we kind of look alike, don’t you think?”

I pretended to examine the cover as if I hadn’t spent hours already doing so. I hoped there weren’t smudge marks from where I had kissed it. “I don’t know…maybe a little.”

He turned to me all excited. “Hey, do you think it’s true when they say that everyone has a twin?”

“You mean a doppelgänger?” piped up Harriet.

The two of us turned to her. I was so busy falling in love that I had nearly forgotten all about Harriet and Lord Byron, even though he was now yowling at full volume. I guess that’s what Devon had meant when she said that the world fell away when she met Dante.

The Hot Guy sat up straight. “What’s a doppelgänger, ma’am?” he asked, all polite.

He was nice to old people! I
loved
that. “Yeah. What’s a doppelgänger?” I echoed. I loved that we didn’t know the same words.

“Well, literally translated from the German, it means
‘double-goer,’” Harriet explained. “Someone who acts the exact same way as you.” She paused and leaned in. “But they’re usually somewhat…
evil
.”

“Huh,” said Hot Guy. “So am I his evil twin, or is he mine?” he joked, winking at me.

“Oh, you can’t be evil,” I assured him.

“I can’t?” he asked playfully, giving me a wolfish smile. “How do you know?”

I blushed.
Because you’re way too cute? Because you’re nice to little old ladies?
I wanted to say. “I don’t know. It’s just…a feeling I have,” I said in what I hoped was a throaty voice like Devon’s. “I mean, this guy here”—I pointed to the cover—“he’s just a model, and from what I’ve read in magazines,
they
can be evil, especially the ones who throw phones at their assistants, but you…you’re a real person.” I started twirling a lock of hair around my finger like Devon did when she was trying to be seductive. The problem was, she had long, thick, raven-black, silky hair, whereas mine was chin-length and on the thin side, which meant that instead of looking sexy all I managed to do was snag it. “Ow,” I said as I yanked my finger out, taking a few strands of hair with it.

He handed me the book back. “Be careful, Red—you don’t want to lose any of that pretty hair.” He gave me another sexy smile. “Is it all right if I call you Red—you know, on account of your hat?”

My mouth fell open. He already had a
nickname
for me! I
knew
our soul-level connection wasn’t all in my head.
“Sure,” I replied. I quickly shoved the book back into my bag. “So, uh, what’s your name?”

“Jack.”

“Jack,” I sighed.
Jack and Sophie. Sophie and Jack. Mr. and Mrs. Jack…
“And what’s your last name?”

“Andrews.”

I nodded.
Sophie Andrews
. Kind of bland, but it could work. Especially if I hyphenated.
Sophie Greene-Andrews
. Now
that
worked. It sounded so sophisticated!

Jack reached into his knapsack and took out a copy of
Motocross Action
magazine and his iPod. “You want to hear something awesome?” he asked, holding out the earbuds.

“But they already announced that we need to turn off all electronic devices until we’re at our cruising altitude.”

He smiled at me. “Are you serious?”

I nodded. Of course I was serious. I don’t think it was a federal offense if an airline attendant caught you, but I bet they
really
yelled at you. Also, wasn’t it a safety thing?

As he leaned toward me, his brown eyes flashing, he opened my palm and wrapped them around the earbuds. “You only go around once, Red.”

“According to the Buddhists you don’t,” I said nervously.

He laughed. “Ha. Not only are you a cutie, but you’re funny too!” He pushed my hat up and looked deeply into my eyes. “C’mon, break a rule or two. Live a little.”

It was like he was hypnotizing me. I felt like I was going to throw up, but instead of feeling gross or scary it was…
the
good
kind of throwing-up feeling. Which, until that moment, I hadn’t known existed.

“But…I read you can get ear infections sharing these,” I blurted.

He laughed. “Well, good thing I cleaned my ears just this morning then.” He gave me a smile. “C’mon, take a walk on the wild side.”

When he said that, something in me just clicked. Maybe it was the Benadryl, or maybe that reminded me of a song that my parents used to sing on the rare occasions that they had a few glasses of wine and were being silly, but it was like this powerful force invaded my body. As I shoved the earbuds in my ears, he pushed play, and the pulse of drums filled my head.

“Ow,” I yelled.

He turned down the volume.

The drums were joined by the wail of a guitar, and I started to bob my head. I usually only like Top 40 dance music, but this sounded amazing. And the skeez factor of sharing earwaxy earbuds wasn’t even bothering me. “What is this?” I yelled.

He put his finger to his lips.

Those lips. They were so…
puffy-
looking. Like superexpensive down-feather pillows. “Oh. Sorry,” I yelled again.

He smiled as he took one of the buds out. “It’s Neil Young,” he replied.