M or F? (6 page)

But then, Jeffrey did something incredible. He held out a small bunch of daffodils and said, “These are for you.”

I stared at the flowers in his hand, completely speechless.

“Ooh! Look, Frannie—flowers!” Marcus said giddily. He sounded really proud of himself. “None for me?”

Smiling, Jeffrey pulled one out of the bunch and handed it to Marcus.

Marcus's eyebrows flew up in surprise. I guess he was really taken off guard by that move. “Thanks,” he whispered. He hesitated a moment, then accepted the flower. I could feel Marcus looking at me, but I just couldn't tear my eyes away from the daffodils in Jeffrey's hand.

“You . . . are . . . whoosie1988, right?” Jeffrey asked. I looked up into his face. He was starting to blush, and he hesitated. “I mean . . .” He laughed nervously. “Maybe I'm making a huge mistake right now. . . .”

“No, no,” I said quickly. Shaking my head, I took the flowers. This was unbelievable. I mean, it was the kind of thing that happened to people in movies or to my sister, Laura, or something—not to me. “I just can't—I mean, how did you know it was me?”

Jeffrey looked relieved, and he laughed. “Well—I guess I didn't. Not for sure. I was just . . . hoping.”

He was hoping it was me! I thought dizzily. I looked over at Marcus, who looked like he was about to burst.

“Anyway,” Jeffrey said, clearing his throat, “I wanted to thank you guys for coming out today. You were a huge help.”

“I think I got more dirt in my hair than I did around my tree,” I confessed.

Jeffrey smiled. “You look great,” he said. “Brown's your color.”

I thought I was going to die.

“We had a great time!” Marcus said brightly.

“So, uh—would you . . . would you like to have lunch together sometime?” Jeffrey asked. “I was thinking Monday.”

“Oh, that's perfect!” I said quickly, looking over at Marcus. “We'd love to!”

A strange look flickered across Jeffrey's face, but he recovered. “Oh, uh, great. Okay, well, uh—” He ran a hand through his soft, wavy brown hair. “Look, I've got to—” He gestured toward the supply shed, and I knew he meant that he had to help clean up. He was in charge of Green Up Day, after all. “So I'll—I'll see you Monday.”

“See you!” I grinned as he walked away. The minute he was out of earshot, I turned to Marcus. “How'd you like that move, huh?” I asked him. “He wanted to hang out with us, and I said yes to lunch, just like that!”

Marcus rolled his eyes.

“What?” I demanded. “Aren't you proud of me?”

“Frannie, you adorable moron,” Marcus said, “he was asking you out. You just accepted for both of us when all he wanted was you.”

I was still trying to absorb this information when Jenn bopped over to us. “Hey—flowers!” she said, eyeing the bouquet in my hand and then the single flower in Marcus's hand.

“Where did they come from?” Belina asked as she and Keith walked up.

“Jeffrey Osborne,” Marcus said quickly—like he was the one with the crush or something.

“Oh, really?” The corners of Belina's mouth twisted into a wry smile.

“What are you smiling at?” I asked.

Belina shrugged. “Nothing,” she said. “I'm just glad we could all be here to do this valuable community service.”

“Frannie, you sly dog,” Keith put in, holding up his hand for a high five.

Giggling, I slapped it.

“What?” Jenn asked. “What's going on?”

“Frannie's about to get it on with Jeffrey,” Keith explained.

Jenn's blue eyes were wide. “You are?” she squealed. “He's so cute!”

“Good choice, Frannie,” Belina said, her dark eyes shining.

“Yeah, better than your usual,” Keith agreed. “Ow!”

Belina had just punched him on the arm.

I couldn't help smiling, though. This was it. Real romance.

Involving me . . . for a change.

I was in the middle of making a Big Deal when Frannie came in to see me.

 

Big Deals are our biggest sellers. I've made so many, I can almost literally do it with my eyes closed: cut a brownie into four pieces (triangles, not squares), slice half a banana (wheels, not chunks) and scatter the pieces on top of the brownie, then add three scoops of ice cream (Very Vanilla, Chocopalooza, and Chocolate Chipmunk, or you can special order), then three toppings (hot fudge, peanut butter, marshmallow, or special order), whipped cream, pecan halves, mini-chocolate chips, and a paper flag that says SCOOPS! on top of the whole thing.

Scoops is the place where I work in the mall. It pays more than minimum wage, and the ice cream is great, but the uniforms are hell, as in, striped polyester shirts and these seriously humiliating hats they make us wear. Still, for me, it beats bagging groceries or folding sweaters at the Gap. Plus, you can have a friend here talking to you as long as they act like a customer.

Frannie sat down at the counter, ordered a hot chocolate, and held up two bags of clothes from Buy the Pound. “I need a consultation,” she said. “I'm trying to figure out what to wear to lunch.”

“I hope you got something for me too,” I said, slicing a banana. “We want to make a good impression.”

“Very funny,” she said, smile-free. I had been giving her a hard time ever since she had accepted Jeffrey's invitation—for both of us, which actually seemed appropriate. The whole thing was starting to feel like a joint project.

“You're more into this than I am,” she accused me.

“I don't know about
more
into it,” I said.

“Okay, just as into it as I am.”

“Let's just say I want this for you as much as you want it.” I leaned into the freezer with my scoop. “What time are we supposed to meet him?”

“Tomorrow after fifth period,” she said. “What about this?” I looked up from the freezer to see her pulling a striped men's business shirt with a white collar out of one of her bags of clothes.

“Very eighties,” I said.

She looked at the shirt suspiciously. “Good eighties or bad eighties?”

“If anyone can pull it off, you can,” I said, which was true, in a good way. “But with a skirt, not pants,” I added.

“Definitely,” she said.

I don't know why Frannie comes after my fashion advice. Compared to her I'm a total yawn, all jeans and T-shirts and sweatshirts. Still, I like that she asks.

“I vote no,” said Tina, one of the waitresses, who had just come over to pick up an order. Like everyone else at Scoops, Tina found other people's personal lives infinitely more interesting than her job. “This is some kind of date, right? Stripes are a bad idea.” Which was an ironic thing to say, given the uniform she was wearing. (I think they're intended to make customers feel extra-attractive in comparison so they'll be comfortable buying lots of ice cream.) Outside of work, Tina wore all black, to go with her piercings and heavy eyeliner, even though her personality was kind of Disney Channel. Frannie and I referred to her as Goth in a Box.

Frannie had started to put the shirt back in the bag again, when Margaret, the assistant manager, piped in from where she was at the register. “Hang on, Frannie,” she said. “Let's see that again.”

Frannie held the shirt up without even raising an eyebrow in my direction. She had learned a long time ago that there's no such thing as a private conversation at Scoops.

“Okay,” Margaret said. “Now, if you unbutton the bottom two buttons, you could tie it off. That'd be real cute.”

Frannie smiled politely. “I'm not really the midriff type. I was thinking more half tucked, with a corduroy skirt.”

The way Margaret pursed her lips said everything about how different their tastes were. She's about twice our age and divorced but likes to be part of the group. That's the other thing about this job—you end up connected to people you'd
never
see together anywhere else.

After Margaret filtered off to seat some customers and Tina went to serve the now-melting Big Deal I had made, Frannie dug back into the bag. She pulled out a big floppy cardigan sweater, like something a professor would wear.

“What about this?” she said.

“Well,” I said. “It's not slutty. . . .”

She stuffed it back in the bag. “Do you know what you're going to wear?”

“Oh God, I don't know,” I said. I picked up the next order ticket—a Saturday Sundae and a Raspberry Moo Shake.

“Liar.”

“Probably jeans and that long-sleeved blue tee,” I said quietly. I was embarrassed for anyone but Frannie to hear that I had already thought about it.

All of a sudden, Calvin was among us. He works the fountain with me and has the ability to appear out of nowhere. I could smell the cigarette break on him.

When you first meet Cal, you get one of three impressions:

He's either the smartest dumb person I've ever known or the dumbest smart person. We called him Cal, not because of Calvin, but because it's short for California. I don't even know if he's ever been there. He just kind of
is
California, with the long blond hair, the mellow attitude, and the West Coast logic.

“You've got a math problem there, Fran,” Cal said, then picked up an order ticket and went back to work.

“And this relates to math how?” I asked him. Cal almost always has a point; you just usually have to look for it.

“Well,” he said, slowly, as always, “it's like this. Date equals two people, right? And date plus Marcus equals . . .” He stopped to think about it. “Not a date.”

Before Frannie or I could respond, Tina was back in it again. “Cal's right,” she said. “I mean, you like this guy, right? You should just go by yourself.” She put a Root Beer Volcano on her tray and flew away, crossing paths with Margaret.

“Tina, those people at table three are in a hurry,” she said, and then, “What'd I miss?”

Cal raised his hand unnecessarily to speak. “I'm just saying Frannie's thing isn't a date if Marcus is there. No offense, man.”

“None taken,” I said. It's impossible to be offended by anything anyone says at Scoops, 'cause it's like working inside a cartoon.

Frannie shifted on her stool. “I don't know if I want it to be a date yet anyway. It's too early for that. Besides, what does that word even mean anymore? Dates are like this old-fashioned concept. Dates are—”

“Fruit?” I suggested.

“Yeah,” Frannie said with a grateful smile my way. “Dates are fruit.”

The only one who seemed to agree was Calvin, who nodded, although I'd give it a fifty-fifty chance that he was responding to some unrelated thought deep inside his head.

“Well, honey, you can call it what you want,” Margaret said, sliding over to the cash register, “but a girl and a boy going out for lunch? That's a date.”

“Or a boy and a boy,” I said.

“But not a boy and a girl and a boy,” Calvin said.

“Well, actually—” I started, but Margaret cut me off.

“Let's keep it PG, people.” Which was an interesting thing to say, given what I knew about the reasons for Margaret's divorce.

Frannie watched the whole thing like a tennis match, back and forth.

“Anyway,” I told her, “I think you're right. It doesn't have to be a date-date yet. You can go slow.”

She started gathering up her stuff; we'd finish the fashion show later at her house. “You're just saying that 'cause you want to be there,” she said.

“Correct.”

“Well, good, because you're coming.”

I took her ten-dollar bill for the hot chocolate and gave her a five, five ones, and a big chocolate chip cookie in change. She put the five in the tip jar.

“Tomorrow after fourth period,” she said, and turned to go.

“Don't be nervous,” Calvin called after her.

“I'm not,” she called back without looking, but I saw her dump the cookie in the garbage on her way out.

At this point in the movie version, we cut to the next day with a slow fade. Maybe go into an overhead shot of suburban streets. The music comes up loud and the camera finds Frannie's car driving along. It swoops down so you can see us inside, bopping our heads to the sound track, which it turns out is coming from the car stereo. We're both obviously a little hyper. Cut to inside the car. Frannie looks in the rearview mirror and floofs her hair, then makes a face.