The Sweetest Thing (15 page)

“This party is going to be the event of the semester,” Judith declared with obvious satisfaction. A terrible thought crossed my mind.

“What do you mean, ‘the event of the semester'?” I asked.

“I mean, just because SBB always throws the best parties,” Judith clarified lamely.

Meredith giggled loudly for a second too long. “Let's go shopping for costumes! Right now!” She was wearing a bunch of beaded necklaces I'd never seen before. I wondered if they were part of her explosion of creativity from the night before, but I didn't dare ask.

The three of us walked over to Screaming Mimi's on Lafayette Street, a little store that sells vintage costumes, and we started hunting through the clothing racks. I was mostly looking at classic things like old flapper dresses with seed-bead stitching, puffy crinolines, and a suede cowgirl suit from the '40s, but
Meredith and Judith went straight for all the more …
alluring
things in the store: a skintight catsuit, a super-short white mod dress with matching thigh-high go-go boots, a '50s-style yellow bikini top with Daisy Dukes. But when none of these fit quite right, they insisted we shop somewhere more “modern.” So I put the feathered, antique Mardi Gras mask I was holding back on the shelf, and we piled into a cab to go a little farther uptown to Ricky's NYC, a big costume superstore.

This place had plenty of variations on the sexy bunny/policewoman/nurse–type getups, and Meredith and Judith ran around like crazy, dodging little kids waving plastic swords, exhausted-looking parents with baby bags on their shoulders, and display rack after display rack of brightly colored costumes in square plastic bags. While Meredith was in the dressing room trying on a very revealing ladybug ensemble, Judith snuck up behind me and tapped my shoulder.

“Flan,” she whispered, “I'm so excited about this party. You know why?”

Actually, I didn't really want to know, but it seemed like I didn't have much choice. “Why?”

“Because I'm going to invite Adam! When I was Googling him last night, I found his e-mail address, and I'm going to send the invitation to him as soon as I get home.” She flipped her hair. “I just have to find
an amazing costume first. There's no point inviting him if I'm not the hottest one there!”

My heart sank. “Judith, please, please don't do this,” I begged. “You promised you'd leave him alone. Remember your promise?”

Judith picked up a low-cut stewardess costume and held it at arm's length, considering it. “Listen, if I don't do it, Meredith will. You saw the way she was giggling earlier.”

“How can you say that about your best friend? I mean, don't you trust her at all?”

Just then Meredith skipped out of the dressing room, wearing a red-and-black leotard, fishnets, and red patent leather pumps with three-inch heels. A headband with glittery red-and-black antennae bobbled on her head. She struck a pose. “So … how do I look?”

Judith glanced over at me significantly, like she was trying to say,
See, I told you so!
I sighed, realizing she was probably right, but I didn't want to be in the middle or take sides, so I just stared back at her like I had no idea what she meant.

Judith found a costume that rivaled Meredith's on the scandalous-scale: a pirate getup with a striped bandana and cutlass. Her patent-leather high-heeled boots almost reached her knees, but her frayed black skirt ended way, way above them. It took me a lot
longer to find my costume, but when I did I was glad I'd taken my time. It was a powder blue princess dress, a little bit like Cinderella's, with puffy sleeves and this really delicate silver stitching on the skirt. Even though it was a little expensive, I knew the minute I saw it that I had to have it. I decided to wear it with my pair of clear Lucite heels I'd bought for a dance way back in seventh grade, just to complete the Cinderella look. I was really excited. This is why I love Halloween: it's like my last chance to play dress-up the way I did when I was younger. I could tell Meredith and Judith thought my costume was kind of lame, but they didn't say anything. I got the feeling they were a little relieved I wasn't going to outshine them by wearing something even more revealing than they were. Although I wasn't really sure that was possible. After we paid, their shopping bags were so tiny, it looked like they'd gone shopping for handkerchiefs—which in a way, I guess they had.

We stepped outside, but all of a sudden Judith realized she'd left her hair clip back in the dressing room and went racing inside to get it. The minute she was out of sight, Meredith leaned in toward me and, glancing back and forth to make sure no one was watching, whispered, “Flan, I hope you won't be mad at me, but I wanted to ask you something.”

I sighed. “Shoot.”

“Would you hate me if I invited Adam to the party? I was going to do it before—but then I thought maybe I should talk to you first. Please, please say you won't hate me.” She looked at me with her large, pale eyes, and I found myself shaking my head. After what had happened between Adam and me, how could I possibly judge her for wanting to see him again? I was the biggest violator of the No Adam Rule—and they didn't even know it.

“Of course not,” I told her. “I could never hate you for something like that. But are you sure it's the best idea? It's really Judith you should be asking, not me.”

“She'd never understand, but it's just something I have to do.” Meredith's eyes got sort of starry and faraway. “It just feels right.”

To me, though, everything just felt wrong. Judith came out and the three of us continued down the street. As I carried my new dress along in its bag, I couldn't help but wish that something—anything—would keep Adam away from this party, because there was no way Meredith and Judith were going to be able to control themselves around him. Not that I blamed them—self-control around Adam wasn't exactly something I had lots of either.

I still held on to the hope that Judith and Meredith would be too shy to go through with inviting Adam to the party. One time, when she was first crushing on Jules, Meredith had actually jumped into a janitor's closet when she saw him coming toward her down the hall, because she was convinced that she had something stuck between her teeth. Judith liked to exude confidence, but if she sat next to Eric (or anybody else from her “Stuy Guy” top ten list) at a school assembly, she spent the entire time either staring straight ahead or furiously scribbling in her notebook.

But when I got to biology on Monday the first thing Adam said with that friendly smile of his was, “Meredith and Judith forwarded me the invite to your friend's Halloween party. I'll definitely be there.”

Damn, damn, damn. “Oh … that's, uh, great.”
I blinked once and tried to hide my rapidly cycling emotions of fear (how was this going to turn out?), guilt (why had I wanted him to kiss me?), and—all right, I'll admit it—excitement (I really needed to have my head examined). I really hoped Adam didn't think I'd put Meredith and Judith up to e-mailing him, but I didn't exactly know how to clarify the situation without making an already terrible situation even worse. I hung my schoolbag off the back of my chair and willed the blood to stop rushing to my face. Just seeing him again, after everything that had happened, was making me very confused.

“So, how do you know Sara-Beth Benny, anyway?” he asked.

There's a long story behind the first time Sara-Beth and I hung out, but it seemed best to spend as little time as possible talking to Adam, because every time I talked to him, I seemed to like him more, which could only lead to all around badness and complication. I stared past Adam to the poster of the periodic table on the opposite wall and said simply, “We're next-door neighbors.”

“Wow. That's pretty amazing. You know, she gets a lot of crap in the tabloids, but she's actually a talented actress. I saw her in that remake of
Breathless
and was really impressed. And it seemed like a demanding
role—she had to talk nonstop for practically the entire two-hour movie.”

“Well, that's Sara-Beth for you.” I said with a tiny smile, wishing I could tell him that nearly two more hours of SBB's endless monologue had ended up on the cutting room floor. I knew it was the right thing to do, but I felt guilty being so cold to him. Because the truth was, I liked that he'd seen
Breathless
, and that he thought SBB was a good actress. A lot of people don't know about her artsy stuff, and think she's just a huge party girl because she's always on the cover of
US Weekly
. And it wasn't his fault that Meredith and Judith were in love with him. Plus, I didn't want him to feel weird about The Kiss. I hadn't told him Bennett was my boyfriend, and I wasn't actually mad at him for kissing me. I was mad at myself for wanting him to.

Adam looked at me steadily with a questioning look in his soft green eyes, clearly a little confused at my unresponsiveness. “Anyhow, it's cool you're friends with her.”

“She's a good friend,” I said, pulling my lab notebook out of my schoolbag. “Okay. So, let's get started here.”

Adam and I spent the first few minutes of class silently taking down our observations on Bogie—how
big he was, if he was starting to develop arms, and how much his back legs had grown.

The silence got to me after five quiet minutes had passed. “Sorry if it seems like I'm in a bad mood today,” I said, shaking some flakes of frog food onto the surface of the water. “I found out over the weekend what's going to happen to Bogie, and I guess it still really bothers me.”

A tiny worry line appeared between his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“We're going to have to dissect him at the end of the unit.”

“No way!” Adam looked at the frog with genuine concern. “That's totally ridiculous. I can't believe it.”

I stared despondently at Bogie. He was getting cuter every day: his eyes were big and sweet and wet looking, and he was already starting to peek up above the surface of the water with this expression of total love, like he wanted to climb out on land just to be closer to us. And his fins were turning into little frog hands—webbed and suction-cuppy, but somehow kind of human too. Looking at him made me think about the frogs out by the pond at our summerhouse in Greenwich, Connecticut. When I was little, I used to go out early in the morning with a bowl of granola and eat while I watched them sit on their lily pads.
I believed their loud croaking was how they sang to one another. I knew there was no way I was going to hurt Bogie, even if it meant flunking a class.

“What're we going to do?” Adam reached into the jar to pat Bogie's slimy forehead with his little finger.

“I don't know. We could start a petition and give it to the principal, asking to release them.”

“Yeah, but where would they go?” He glanced out the window at the tall buildings. “It's not exactly like we're out in the middle of nature.”

I bit my lip. “Well, we have to do something!”

“Hey, don't worry. We'll come up with a plan.” Adam squeezed my shoulder comfortingly. It was just a friendly thing to do, but it was the first time he'd touched me since The Kiss. My heart racing, I stared down at my lab notebook, not quite sure how to respond.

“So, what are you dressing up as?” I stammered, changing the subject.

“For Halloween? I hadn't really thought about it. I guess I wasn't really thinking that I'd wear a costume.”

“Well, SBB's not letting anybody in who doesn't have a costume.” I immediately wished I hadn't said anything. It would probably be way better for everybody if he got turned away at the door.

“For real?”

I shook my head, trying to undo some of the damage. “Oh, probably not. Sara-Beth always threatens crazy stuff like that and never does it. Actresses just like to be dramatic, you know?”

“Well, that's good. My costumes have always been kind of bad.” He smiled, and his green eyes sparkled. I kicked myself for finding him so cute. “When I was a kid, I was a pirate for like five years in a row, and this was long before Johnny Depp made them hip.”

I thought of Judith's pirate costume and felt a pang of jealousy. Maybe he would think she looked cuter than I did. Then I felt like smacking my forehead in disgust. What was wrong with me? It wasn't like Adam was my boyfriend—he shouldn't even be my crush. Hadn't I told myself a million times already that I was going to stop flirting with this guy? “Well, it must be fun for you to be on a team called the Peglegs.”

“No kidding! Maybe I'll just stick on my jersey and helmet and ‘pretend' to be a football player.” Class was almost over; Adam started screwing the lid back on Bogie's jar. “What are you going as?”

“You'll just have to wait and see.” I closed up my notebook and clicked my pen shut. “My friends think it's kind of silly, but I like it.”

“I can't wait.” The way he said it made my knees wobble a little. Was it possible he was going to this party just because of me? I hoped not—but at the same time, the thought made me a little giddy. As the bell rang, Adam picked up his backpack and swung it over his shoulder. I noticed that the little white bandage on his elbow was still there. “See you later, Flan.”

“See ya.” He loped off into the hallway, but I was slow to leave the classroom. I needed a minute to think.

Adam was wrong for me in every way. I knew that crushing on him could only mess up my life—but somehow when I looked into those eyes … Well, he was just so confident and sure of himself, like he knew exactly who he was and what he wanted. I wished I could be more like that. And when I was with him I had that crazy fitting-together feeling where everything was just … effortless. But if I ended up with Adam, than I was pretty sure nobody would talk to me for the rest of high school. So I shook off every thought of him—as much as that was even possible. …