The Secrets of Attraction (17 page)

I STOPPED HOME TO TAKE A QUICK SHOWER AND
wash the rehearsal-space funk away. Lot 23 may have been soundproof, but it stunk. Madison was expecting me at six and I had about fifteen minutes to get there. I grabbed a tee, pulled it over my head, and towel-dried my hair. I hadn't had a cut in months and the most I could say for it was that it covered my head. I ran my hand through my hair, pushing it to the side so it wouldn't hang in my eyes. Maybe I'd swing by Vito's for a trim before I came home. My stomach growled. Mom had chili on the stove, but I didn't think it was the best thing to chow on before meeting a girl.

“Be back in an hour or so,” I called as I bounded down the stairs and out the front door, ignoring the questions that were hollered at my departure.

I arrived at Madison's with five minutes to spare, taking my time, climbing the two sets of stairs to reach her porch. My finger was poised to touch the bell, when the door opened.

“Hey,” I said.

“Come in, come in,” she said, grinning. She held out her arms for my jacket.

“Oh.” I shrugged off my jacket and she took it. I followed her into the dining room. The house was dim, her computer the only light source in the room. She snapped a switch on the wall, and the chandelier above the table slowly came to life.

“Sorry . . . you ever do that? Lose track of time and the next thing you realize, you're sitting in the dark? Seriously, if I hadn't heard you stomp onto the porch I'd still be staring at the computer, oblivious,” she said, tossing my jacket over a highback chair.

“Yeah, totally,” I said, looking around. “So whatcha got for me?”

She slid into the chair in front of her laptop. Her computer was pulled up to a page with a modern-looking house on it; it was all lines and angles and looked suspended in the midst of trees and a cascading waterfall, but made sense somehow. I know I'd seen it before. She jiggled the mouse, trying to close down the page.

“What's that?” I asked.

“Oh, just the most amazing house design, like, ever. Frank Lloyd Wright designed it when he was in his late sixties.
His sixties
. There's hope for me yet.”

“Wait, that's . . . What is it . . . water . . . something . . .”

“Fallingwater. You've heard of it?”

“My aunt lives in Pennsylvania, not too far from there. It's in the middle of Bumfuck and Where-the-Hell-Am-I.”

Her eyes lit up. “Yeah, that's it. That's the most amazing part of it, isn't it? That something so beautiful is in the middle of nowhere. Could you imagine driving up to it and staying there? Like that was your house?”

“Are you doing a project on it or something?”

“Kind of—I'm writing an essay on Frank Lloyd Wright and organic architecture for art, but . . . I think that's what I'd like to study. Architecture. It's like math and design all rolled up into one. I'd love to— Sorry, you're here for this logo, not to be bored off your ass.” She shut down the window and opened up another file.

“No, it's cool. It's just . . . wow, I feel like a jerk for asking you to do this, obviously you're into bigger and better things.”

“Please, ‘bigger and better'—this was fun. Well, it will be, if you like it,” she said, clicking through a few pictures before coming up to it. “I worked up three—all pretty simple, straightforward. I mean, you want kids to doodle this on their notebooks when you become a household name.”

“Ha.”

“Here,” she said, getting up. “Just click through these, see which one speaks to you. Want something to drink?”

“Uh . . .”

“Water? Soda? No fancy leaf patterns, though.”

I grinned. “Okay, water's good.”

She disappeared into the kitchen. The first logo was simple, just
Yellow #5
in old typewriter lettering. The second one was a little funkier-looking, like the letters were dripping. Definitely something that could be doodled on a notebook. The third one popped. The
Y
in
Yellow
had a long tail and became part of the hashtag and the five was stylized. They all spoke to me, maybe this one a little more. All of them made me wonder how much work she'd put into this. They were amazing.

She came back in, two bottles of water in her hand.

I flipped my bangs out of my eyes, but they flopped back into place. “I think I like this one the best.”

“That's my favorite too—I got inspired by looking at the back of labels; Tanner's right. You'll get loads of free advertising. Although I guess the whole unnatural food-dye thing is a little scary.”

“What do I owe you for this?”

“You don't owe me anything, this was fun. I can use this for my application.” She took her index finger and moved my hair across my brow, more serious than flirty. She tilted her head to the side, studying my face, then ran her fingers through my bangs, pulling them straight before letting the hair flop across my forehead again.

“Application?” I said, trying to ignore what having her touch me, even in the most innocent way, was doing to my insides.
Just be cool.

“Who does your hair?”

I laughed. “
Does
it? I don't get my hair done. I get it cut. Vito. I know, I'm due.”

“Would you . . . I could do it,” she said.

“Yeah, right.”

“No, I can—it's sort of my thing.”

She wasn't joking.

“When, like, right now?”

“Unless you have somewhere you have to be. Sorry, I just . . . I think you'd look really good with it a bit choppier, maybe even a darker shade. It would stand out onstage more. I did Wren's hair a while ago, blue highlights, but . . . Oh god, I'm being pushy. I just think, it might be fun.”

If letting her dye my hair meant having her touch me again, she could give me a purple mohawk with hot-pink tips. “No, let's do it.”

“Excellent,” she said, tapping her fingers together like a mad scientist. “To the kitchen.”

What had I just signed up for?

“Is that a good tee you're wearing? 'Cause these are some heavy-duty chemicals. We're going blue-black.” She dragged a chair across the tile floor so it was situated next to a small café table where it looked like she'd set up a makeshift hair salon.

“We are?” Dark was one thing; blue-black was really dark. She waved her hand dismissively.

“My mother can fix any hair disaster, so if it looks awful, you can change it before you play in Hoboken. Sit,” she said, gently pushing on my shoulders until my butt hit the seat. She shook out a black plastic cape and it billowed around me, falling into place as she snapped it closed at the back of my neck. Then she tucked a small black towel around the collar.

“This probably isn't the best time to ask, but where'd you learn to do this?”

“My mom's a stylist. She has a few clients who only come to the house, so I sort of learned by assisting her. I do my own, otherwise I'd be this horrible shade of dishwater blond that would make me just disappear in the crowd.”

“You? Disappear in the crowd? Right.” It had come out without thinking—a friendly thing, but it sounded flirty. Was I flirting? Madison was anything but a disappear-in-the-crowd kind of girl. Even now, without makeup or anything fancy, she was pretty . . . but
that night at the dance
. . . damn. Maybe I
was
flirting.

She chuckled as she lined up three bottles in various sizes on the table. She placed a black bowl, a flat black brush with a long thin handle, and a little thing that looked like a whisk on the newspaper. Then she began hooking up the portable sink to the one in her kitchen.

“Do you need help or anything?” I felt like lazy just watching.

“Nope, just let me have my way with your hair and we're good.”

Was she flirting with me?

Once the sink was hooked up properly, Madison grabbed a small jar of Vaseline and stood astride my legs. Her fingers were in my hair again, the tips grazing my scalp, smoothing the hair away my face. She was so close—I could smell her lip gloss, something sweet and sugary like bubblegum. The way she was standing I could easily pull her down to my lap, run my hands along the smooth, soft curves outlined by her jeans, taste her mouth. My tongue felt on fire.

“What's um, what's up with the Vaseline?” I asked, the words thick and hot, lava spilling from my mouth.

“It'll keep the dye off your face,” she said, popping open the lid, oblivious to how this was affecting me. I was glad to be covered in a cape.

She dabbed the Vaseline along my hairline with her thumb, her hand anchored to the top of my head. My heart swelled, aware of the space between us, her fingertips gliding along my skin. I sat stock-still, afraid if I moved, I'd actually do the things I was imagining doing with her.

Cool it, Jess.

I tried to think of something to say to keep my mind from getting too twisted up in dirty thoughts. What about that guy she was with last week at Mugshot? Had that been her dance date? Was he her boyfriend? Bringing that up would be such an obvious fish for information but . . . I'd been that guy. The one who'd been oblivious to something going on right under his nose. Not that there was anything going on. Oh, hell. I just wanted to know.

“Who was that guy you were with last week at Mugshot?”

She put the lid back on the jar and wiped her hands on a paper towel.

“Zach? I introduced you, right?”

“Yeah, is he your, um, boyfriend?”

She bit her lip as she poured white liquid from one of the bottles and began whisking the mixture in the bowl. “He's a boy, and he's my friend, so . . . I dunno, that sounds so serious.
Boyfriend
. We hang out, how's that for a definition?”

“I guess it's good.” Was it? I'd seen them together. They looked like a couple to me but . . . I was here now. Were we hanging out? Dyeing hair was probably on the first page of the friend-zone handbook. Hard to have sexy times when your hairline has a strip of petroleum jelly on it. I relaxed into the chair. Perviness subsiding. Talk of the other guy the equivalent of a cold shower.

Just then the front door groaned open. Madison's eyebrows rose in surprise. Heavy footsteps and the sound of paper rustling followed until a tall guy with sandy hair filled in the doorway, arms full of brown shopping bags. He looked at Madison and then at me, and then to Madison again.

“What's up?”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

“WHAT
'
S UP?”

Paul smiled as he walked into the kitchen. He'd decided to stay with us until he found a place of his own, but his schedule with the corporate-jet gig had been pretty full. We hadn't had the chance to talk except to say, “We should really talk,” since my mother had broken the news. Part of me was really okay with that. I wasn't sure how to act around him, which made me even more self-conscious because . . . I'd never had to think about acting a certain way around him.

“Hey, I um, didn't expect to see you,” I said as he placed the bags on the counter.

“The flight I was scheduled for got canceled.”

Paul looked over my shoulder at Jesse. “Hair? In the kitchen?”

“Mom doesn't really use the kitchen to cook when you're not here,” I said, chuckling. “This is my friend Jesse. He's in a band, I'm giving him a new look.”

I picked up the whisk and resumed mixing the dye.

Paul put out his hand in greeting. Jesse wrestled his from underneath the plastic cape and gave him a hearty shake.

“This is Paul,” I said, “he's a . . .” I stumbled—the word
father
would not come out.

“A friend of the family,” Paul finished. “I was going to make my vegetarian stir-fry, but I see you're busy.”

“We should be done here in about a half an hour. I can dry him upstairs, if that's okay with you.”

Paul nodded. He didn't know the no-boys-on-the-second-floor rule, but since it was a special situation, I didn't feel like I was taking advantage. And it's not like I was going to be doing anything else but drying Jesse's hair.

“Uh, yeah, sure, that's great.” He unpacked the groceries—mostly veggies—and put them on the top shelf of the fridge, then grabbed an apple. “I'll be out of your hair in a minute—ha, hair.”

I shook my head.

“It's Dana's late night, right?”

“Yep,” I said, pulling on purple latex gloves with a snap. I wiggled my fingers maniacally at Jesse. He had a wide, curvy mouth that stretched into an adorable smile. It transformed him from broody to hot in two seconds flat.

“I'm not going to regret this, am I?” he asked.

“Nope, especially not when the Hoboken girls swoon.”

“Hey, you guys mind if I turn on some music?” Paul asked, flipping through the mail on the counter. He grabbed today's newspaper and put it under his arm. “I'll just hang in the dining room until you're done.”