Perfect Couple (22 page)

“Oooh, I love your hair!” I exclaimed as she sat down.

“Thanks,” she said flatly. “Aidan said it looks like I have an afro.”

Not the thing to say to Kaye. “An afro would be cute on you, but that’s more fashion forward than you usually go.”

She glowered at me. I wasn’t making her feel better.

“It’s not really an afro, the way you have it styled in front. I think of a real 1970s afro as being round all over. Anyway, calling it an afro is not an insult.”

“He meant it as an insult,” she said.

“If he did, he must have meant you looked retro. He wasn’t being racist. Aidan isn’t like that.” He had many qualities I didn’t like, but that wasn’t one of them. “I’ll bet he was just surprised. You’ve worn it in twists for a long time.”

Her mouth flattened into a line, and flattened again whenever Aidan leaned around Tia and Will, whispering her name to get her attention. She wouldn’t turn in his direction.

They were still fighting when we filed around a big table in the center of the room at the Crab Lab.

“Sorry,” I heard Tia tell Sawyer in his Crab Lab T-shirt and waiter’s apron as we sat down. “I didn’t think you’d be working this late tonight, or I would have convinced everybody to go somewhere else.”

“I took a longer shift. I have nothing better to do since I quit drinking.” He smiled wryly. “It’s okay.” He moved toward the kitchen.

“What was that about?” I asked Tia across the table.

“He has a little problem with one of us,” she said quietly.

“Oh. With Brody or me, because of last night?”

“Gosh, no,” she said. “Believe it or not, it’s more fucked up than that.”

I figured he must dread having to serve Kaye and her boyfriend. Lucky for Sawyer, Kaye and Aidan were still three seats from each other. Anyway, I’d hardly had time to ponder this before Sawyer marched back with a tray full of drinks balanced precariously high on one hand. He set a soda in front of me and an iced tea in front of Brody.

“Wait,” Brody said. “Did we order drinks?”

Ten minutes later, it was the same thing: “Wait. Sawyer. Did we order food?”

“Y’all, save it,” Tia warned. “He’s in a bad mood.”

“When was he ever in a
good
mood?” Kaye asked.

Tia glared at her.

Kaye spread her hands. “If you know he’s in a bad mood, don’t you need a good mood for comparison? I’ve never seen it.”

“You’re picking on him.”

“We’re not picking on him,” Will clarified. “At least, I’m not.
I’m
eating grouper when I wanted shrimp.”

Sawyer came back from the kitchen again and bent over the table between Noah and Quinn. “I didn’t put in an order yet for you two. Sometimes you want one thing, and sometimes you want another.”

A spontaneous snicker burst from two or three people, then instantly hushed. After a moment of silence, Quinn said, “You know what’s consistent? You’re a complete jerk-off,” at the same time Noah stood.

Before I even registered what I was doing, I jumped up and put a hand between Noah and Sawyer. Just as quickly, I was pulled backward. Brody had his arm around my waist, wrestling me back down into my chair. He said in my ear, “Don’t.”

Sawyer stared defiantly up into Noah’s dark eyes, pen to his pad. “Cheeseburger or patty melt?” he asked.

“Cheeseburger,” Noah said grudgingly.

Sawyer leaned around him to ask Quinn, “Fried or broiled shrimp?”

“Broiled,” Quinn said.

Sawyer made a show of jotting the orders on his pad with a flourish. “Mm-hm,” he said as he turned for the kitchen. The way he intoned it made it sound like a “So there.”

Noah sank back down into his seat and told Quinn, “I won’t miss him when he goes to jail.”

Sawyer came back out with another laden tray. Working his way around the table, he set a plate of shrimp and fries in front of Kaye. The food had been arranged in a smiley face. The fries were the mouth, and two cherry tomatoes were the eyes. The shrimp had been spaced in a semicircle across the arc of the head, like Kaye’s beautiful new pouf of hair.

“Sawyer, dammit,” she said. “What is this supposed to be?”

“It doesn’t look quite right, does it? Here.” He took one of her shrimp from the picture and tossed it onto Tia’s plate.

“We didn’t even order,” Aidan complained from down the table.

“Kids’ grilled cheese?” Sawyer asked. “That’s what you
always order when you come here with your mommy and daddy, Aidan.”

Kaye burst into laughter.

“Kaye,” Aidan barked around Tia and Will. When he got her attention, he pointed at her, then firmly pointed to the empty seat beside him.

She set her jaw and shook her head.

He raked back his chair. Everyone in the restaurant turned to stare. He blustered out of the restaurant, hitting the swinging front door so hard that it took several moments to close behind him. Kaye looked sick.

Without missing a beat, Sawyer swept up Aidan’s untouched plate and set it in front of Brody, above his usual dish of fish sandwich and vegetables.

“Thanks, buddy,” Brody said.

“You’re welcome, buddy.” Sawyer rounded the table and bent close to Kaye’s ear. He said, so quietly I could hardly hear him, “I love your hair like that. You look very pretty.”

She blinked in surprise, then stared across the restaurant at him as he headed toward the kitchen. After the kitchen door had already closed behind him, she mouthed the words “Thank you.”

Even though I didn’t believe Aidan had meant to hurt Kaye’s feelings so deeply, I did think he was being insensitive
to her. He should have known better after dating her so long. Or cared more. And I wasn’t too surprised when Tia leaned over and whispered to me that we should both spend the night at Kaye’s house. When Kaye and Tia and I needed each other, boys came second. Whatever adventure Brody and I might have had after dinner, it would need to wait.

Brody drove me home to pack. As we got back on the road again, headed across town to Kaye’s house, I asked, “Did it freak you out when Noah and Quinn were holding hands in the movie?”

He was silent for a few seconds. “Was I acting weird?”

“You kept looking over at them.”

He laughed uncomfortably. “A little. But Noah is so happy. I mean, if the guys on the team would leave him alone about it, he’d be happy. This town is full of people who are out, but they’re not seventeen, you know? It took cojones to do what he and Quinn did. They stood up for themselves. If they can do that, they can get through anything.”

As we drove on in silence, I thought about the couples who’d sat at the table. Other than Will and Tia, Quinn and Noah seemed the most stable. Kaye and Aidan were starting to act like Kennedy and me. I could only imagine Kaye must feel lost, especially after spending all of high school together with Aidan.

“Are you mad I’m going over to Kaye’s?” I asked Brody.

“No.” Pulling to a stop at a traffic light in a quiet intersection, he glanced over at me and smiled. “Disappointed.” He accelerated as the light changed. “How about we meet up tomorrow? Would you like to go surfing? Can you surf?”

“Yes. Badly.” Surfing was something most of my friends knew how to do. We’d learned when we were too young to know that the small waves on the Gulf Coast weren’t worth the trouble. Canadians probably felt this way about swimming in frigid water. But the downgraded hurricane way offshore might produce good waves tomorrow.

I snapped my fingers. “I don’t have a surfboard.”

“I’ll bring Sabrina’s for you.”

“Will surfing still be safe as the storm gets closer?”

“Define
safe
.”

Right. To take advantage of the thrill, we’d have to swim in waters that were far from calm. Kind of like dating Brody. But some thrills were worth the trouble. I’d enjoyed my day with him enough that I was willing to take on the next challenge.

15

KAYE LAY TUMMY DOWN ON her bed, her bare feet swinging behind her in the air, while Tia slipped on one of my A-line dresses and I pinned the side seam to fit her slender body. There wasn’t enough material in the bottom to let the hem out. What had been a minidress on me would be a micromini on Tia. She didn’t mind.

I’d brought a few other dresses I would tailor for Kaye. She and Tia kept trying to talk me out of it. “I worked hard on all my clothes,” I said, “and I don’t want them to go to waste. I’m really attached to some of the dresses, but they do seem kind of stuffy now. I might keep a few for myself and alter them with a shorter hem or a lower neckline. But if I wear them again, do you think people will say I’m not being consistent? They can’t figure out anymore whether I’m supposed to be Old Harper or
New Harper?” I’d told them what Kennedy had said about me trying to dress like Grace, which still bothered me.

“Consistency is overrated,” Tia said over her shoulder as I pinned her other side. “Some days I look cute, if I do say so myself. Some days I oversleep and don’t bathe. I like to keep people guessing.”

Straightening, I sniffed her hair and didn’t smell anything. Mostly she bathed.

“Brody told me he wants me to wear my glasses sometimes because they’re sexy and he likes surprises.”

“I would be wearing my glasses, then,” Tia said at the same time Kaye said, “Oooh, that sounds like an invitation. So, you guys made up? You seemed really happy tonight.”

I nodded, smiling as I thought about our day together, and my new collection of gratuitous biceps photos. “I have fun with him. He’s hard for me to get used to, though.”

“Because he’s talking about football the whole time,” Kaye asked, “and you don’t understand?”

“No, he doesn’t talk much about football. I guess I’ve always dated guys who constantly make fun of stuff and show off how smart they are. Brody doesn’t do that. Sometimes he says things that aren’t even sarcastic.”

“It sounds to me like you’ve never dated a guy who wasn’t an asshole,” Tia said.

“Ha,” I said. “Tia, take that off. Switch.” Carefully we pulled the dress over her head without dislodging the pins. I would have plenty of free time to sew it for her at home now that I wasn’t the yearbook photographer, I thought ruefully. Kaye slipped on the next dress, which only needed to be altered to fit her athletic A-cup.

“I don’t know,” I said, carefully pinning the bust seam. “I had so much fun with Brody today, but I still have misgivings about what happened last night.”

“Why does it have to be perfect?” Tia asked. “Why can’t you just enjoy him while he lasts? It’s not like you’re going to marry him.”

Marrying Brody had never entered my mind. But now that Tia had brought it up, the idea didn’t sound too bad. I asked, “Do you know you’re not going to marry Will?”

“I could marry Will,” she acknowledged. “He’s endlessly entertaining. Except I’m never getting married.”

“Oh,” I said in protest at the same time as Kaye voiced my thoughts: “Will is more traditional than you. He’ll get married to
somebody
, if not you.”

Tia said, “I will cut a bitch,” and she sounded upset, like she was actually picturing Will dumping her because she wouldn’t commit.

“Calm down,” I said. “Who knows? You might change
your mind. Anyway, you have years of dating before it’s an issue.”

“God knows you don’t have to hurry things along because you’re saving yourselves for each other,” Kaye said. “I don’t know about Will, but you took care of your end of that a couple of years ago with Sawyer.”

“Excuse me, but
you
took care of
your
end a couple of years ago with Aidan,” Tia pointed out.

“But I’m
with
Aidan,” Kaye said. “You were never
with
Sawyer.”

I interjected, “I just had this huge argument with Brody last night about who he was
with
. You two are giving me flashbacks.”

Tia talked right over me. She asked Kaye, “What is this obsession you have with Sawyer?”

I figured Kaye would explode, but she didn’t. She asked softly, “What do you mean?”

“I mean, lately you’re always bringing up what I used to do with Sawyer and being judgmental about it. Do you have a crush on him?”

Now Kaye sounded outraged. “
No!
I’m going to marry Aidan!”

“We know,” Tia and I chorused. Kaye had shown us a picture of her wedding dress in a magazine. In tenth grade.

“But that means you’ll be with one guy your whole life,” Tia said. “Before that happens, maybe you need a little sample of someone else. Like Sawyer.”

Kaye muttered, “No, thanks.”

“It’s good stuff,” Tia said. “Right, Harper?”

“We didn’t kiss much, but it wasn’t bad,” I said appreciatively. “I mean, yeah, I enjoyed my sample.”

“I’ll bet,” Kaye said, with surprisingly little scorn in her voice. She cleared her throat. “Anyway, Harper, the one thing I worry about with you and Brody is that he’s so much more experienced than you. You hardly dated before this year. You never even had a date for homecoming.”

“True,” I said, not quite able to edit the glee from my voice. This year I
would
have a date for homecoming. My date would be the star football player. He would give me the traditional corsage, which would be too bulky for me to wear while I was photographing the game, so I would pin it to my camera bag. After he won the game, we would go together to the homecoming dance, and it would be the best night of my life.

So far.

“He doesn’t make me feel inexperienced when I’m with him,” I said. “It’s not like I’ve
tried
to stay alone and innocent all this time. I’ve just been searching for the wrong
kind of guy. I
thought
I wanted a funny, artistic guy. A successful guy.”

I’d meant to describe Kennedy. But when Tia furrowed her brow, perplexed, and Kaye sat back, I realized they seemed to think I was talking about Will and Aidan.

I shook my head and went on, “It took the senior class electing us Perfect Couple to show me what I really wanted, and that’s Brody. An athlete with a sense of humor I don’t quite understand, who plays dumb sometimes but who’s book smart and sensitive when he tries, with impulse-control issues that get him in trouble.”