Will Work for Prom Dress (8 page)

Somehow when he discussed art, it didn’t sound as ridiculous as many of the conversations going on around us. It wasn’t just the words the people were using, it was almost like half the people turned British when they walked through the museum’s doors. Long, drawn-out-vowels and clasped-hands-in-church-clothes
people mingled with wild gesticulators wearing all black or bright flashes of clashing colors.

Sprinkled throughout the crowd were dressed-down student types making notes. They looked so at home sitting cross-legged on the benches gazing at the works, it was obvious they attended the attached design school. This art program didn’t quite reach the Art Institute of Chicago in my mind’s eye, but it was well respected and likely my only shot with the way the rest of my grades seemed to be going. I allowed myself to daydream about wandering through the exhibit halls of the museum in Chicago as a student, feeling like an insider.

Zander shook his head and gave up trying to dissect the photograph’s meaning. He shrugged with a grin. “Pretty cool, anyway.”

“Want to go do some sketching?”

Zander groaned.

I laughed and grabbed his hand so he couldn’t escape, dragging him through the crowded archway into the next hall. Which is when I ran into someone I was not expecting to see. A very familiar someone.

“Quigley?”

“David!”

David’s surprised smile fell as he took in my hand still holding Zander’s. I dropped it like a hot coal, which was about the stupidest thing to do because now I was caught between David’s hurt expression and Zander’s. My mouth was opening and closing like a fish’s, but I wasn’t sure what to say that wouldn’t make things worse.

“Well, I’m glad you got to see the exhibit.” David nodded with a tight smile and then walked fast toward the exit.

I fought the urge to run after him. There was no point. I could tell him that Zander was just a friend, but he probably wouldn’t believe that anyway. I didn’t owe David anything, but it hadn’t even occurred to me that I’d run into him.

Zander studied me with the same intensity he had used on the photography exhibit for a long minute before shrugging and looking away with a small smile.

“I’m sorry.” I had no idea why I was apologizing, but it just felt like the thing to do.

“No worries.”

I motioned toward the exit. “That was just—”

“Let me guess. The pompous no-talent art hack?”

“Yes.”

“I figured.”

We stood in awkward silence in the narrow archway until a woman in a big fur coat brushed past me and nudged me into his chest. I didn’t remember his wearing cologne in the design studio, but the light citrus scent seemed perfect for him.

“Maybe we should stand somewhere else,” I said.

Zander reached down and took my hand again and swung it lightly. “Want to go sketch?”

I let him lead me to the much less busy sculpture hall. I was feeling a little too confused by his sudden interest in sketching, or maybe the fact that we seemed to be walking through a museum holding hands, to be in charge. He picked out a small room with two female bronze figures on opposite sides of the gallery. Between the two sculptures was a wide flat bench.

“Perfect! Which do you want?” he asked.

“We’re not sketching the same one?”

“Not unless you want to shred the last bit of confidence I have left in me today,” he said with a laugh.

“Okay. I’ll take her.” I pointed at the young mother figure and left the dancer to him.

“Good.” Zander placed my sketchbook and the box of
pastels on one end of the bench and then sat cross-legged facing the other with a thick triangular stick of charcoal and his own pad. “Give those pastels a try for me.”

“Are you sure? I brought charcoal pencils, too.”

“I’m more of a steady black-and-white sort of person,” he said over his shoulder. “You, on the other hand, exude all these flashes of brilliant color where you least expect them.”

I smiled and picked up a dark purple. As soon as the soft chalk of the pastel smoothed over the textured paper, I felt all the confusion and stress melt away. Even when I felt Zander lean against me, back to back, it just felt warm and natural. As I added the final shadows of my figure’s contours to my sketch, he finally broke the comfortable silence.

“I’m not, you know.”

I leaned down and blew aside some loose chalk dust the pastels had left behind. “Not what?” I grabbed the deep blue to touch up the mother’s cloak.

“You know … into Ken dolls.”

My hand faltered and a slash of bright blue spilled onto the white background. I swallowed in an attempt to control my voice. “Oh. Good. I mean. Not good, not that there’s anything—”

“Gotcha.” I could hear the smile in his voice.

His hand touched my shoulder, and I looked down at his fingers holding out a gray rubbery eraser. I took it and decided I’d better keep my mouth shut before I made any further blunders that might be tougher to erase.

Anne made a rare early-morning school appearance
to make up for the fact that she had been an absentee best friend the night before. The smell of floor wax was strong this early in the day, and I counted the ugly offset linoleum tiles as we walked toward our lockers. I found it easier to think things through if I distracted the frazzled surface of my brain with something else. I thought of this process as mental doodling.

“I didn’t sleep at all. I really needed to talk to you last night about all of this,” I said.

“I told you, T-Shirt and I were heading back and he got nailed by that lousy cop in Batville. It’s a total speed trap. The road goes from fifty-five miles per hour down to fifteen in about ten feet. It’s impossible
not
to speed. And then, once he
stopped us, the guy went over the car to find any other violations he could possibly ticket. Car body modified too low to the ground, crack in one taillight—you wouldn’t believe it. He ended up with over two hundred bucks in fines.”

“Wow. Can he afford to pay that kind of ticket?”

“He’ll just borrow from his dad—he gives him anything he wants. T’s got the wildest plan to get back at the cop—it will be the biggest collecting expedition yet. The guy kept us so long when he was going over the car for every little thing that he added on a breaking-curfew violation since I’m still seventeen. It was totally humiliating.”

“Was your mom freaked?”

“Well, it’s her fault really, and I told her so.” Anne glanced around to make sure we were alone. “She and Pops had to hook up at a fall fashion show—if she’d gotten knocked up in the spring runway season, I’d be eighteen by now and would never have gotten the stupid ticket.”

Anne was still completely undecided on future careers, but I really thought she’d be missing her calling if she didn’t go into law.

“Interesting argument.”

Anne sighed. “Yeah, Mom didn’t go for that one, either.
The ticket is only thirty-five bucks, but you have to have a parent or guardian show up at the station or courthouse. I think that’s what got her so upset. She was going on and on about how I was risking university acceptances on stupid stunts. But I think she’s just afraid someone will see her and she’ll look bad.”

Anne pouted. “Ever since all those celeb losers started picking her gowns for their multimillion-dollar money-pit weddings, she’s had paparazzi snapping her around town, trying to get first glance at the dresses. She even had to get a police escort from the beading store once. She’s paranoid if she seems remotely interesting to them as more than a top designer, someone might go digging and ta-daaa—out comes dear old dad! Now she’s going to be even more all over me than she was before. It’s so unfair.”

“Well, at least you didn’t have any new ‘room décor’ items in the car.” I pointed out. I hadn’t yet figured out how to convince her to nix supporting T-Shirt’s little hobby.

“True. Anyway, that’s why I didn’t get your many,
many
messages until this morning. You need to fill me in on everything with Zander. I need details. How was the kiss good night?” Anne asked.

“Well, considering it was three in the afternoon, it wasn’t
so much a good-night-kiss sort of moment. And the twins from down the road throwing a Frisbee that nearly took his head off didn’t add to the romance of the situation.”

“So—no kiss? Not even a peck?”

“Well, no,” I admitted.

Anne looked at me with her head cocked. “Quigley … are you sure you’re reading this whole situation the right way?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you thought you had this big moment between you—right?”

Something about her tone was causing a whole different, and much less fun, fluttering in my stomach than I’d had in the museum. I nodded and pushed open the hall door that led to our lockers.

“But then he didn’t go in for the kiss good-bye. How did he leave it exactly?”

“Well, he just sort of waved and said he’d see me Wednesday.” Hearing it out loud, the whole thing did sound totally lame. Could I have imagined everything? “But he paid admission and for lunch at the museum café.”

“Who asked who?” Anne asked.

“I told him about the exhibit and he asked if I wanted to go with him.”

“Well, whoever asks, pays. So that’s not much of an indicator.”

“But after the thing with David, he held my hand.”

“Were you upset?”

“I guess. I felt like a complete jerk.”

“So Zander’s your friend. He knew you were already dealing with a bunch of guilt over insulting David last week. Doesn’t it sort of make sense that he would try to comfort you?”

I was such an idiot. She was right. “But wait! What about all that Ken-doll stuff? Why would he have made such a point to tell me he’s straight?”

“Oh my God, Quigley. You basically told a straight guy you thought he was gay. You’re lucky he’s mature and so laid back or he might have peeled off in his hot little convertible and left you in the dust. He’s your
friend
. Which way you swing is a pretty big part of your life, don’t you think? I think that would be a misconception he’d want to clear up just so you could get to know him better … as friends.”

My ears were on fire. My face was probably solid red. Anne gave me a little sympathy hug as we neared our lockers.

“Look. I’m not saying all this to make you feel dumb. It’s just that I’ve been in a lot more of these situations that you have. I don’t want you to get hurt or disappointed. And I also
don’t want you to miss out on
something
with David because you’re chasing after
nothing
with Zander.”

My laugh came out bitter. “David? I’m sorry, were you not following the story? If he didn’t hate me before, he does now. I doubt he’ll ever speak to me again.”

Anne laughed and pointed to my locker. “Don’t be so sure.”

I stared at the single flower stuck through the handle of my locker. A little tag hanging from the stem was signed with “Love” and an unmistakable David drawing of a crown.

“I don’t get it.” It was the understatement of the year.

Anne rubbed her hands together and giggled. “All these years I’ve been trying to teach you the ways of the master—you must have picked up something!”

“But—”

“Didn’t I tell you? Keep several on the line—it’s the only way to go. I wouldn’t let on to David that you and Zander are only friends. Let’s just see how far you can play up the aftereffects of your pseudo-date.”

“I guess so. Thanks.”

Pseudo-date. Any excitement from getting my first-ever flower from a guy was flattened by the realization of how wrong I had read things with Zander. I was hopeless at all
this love stuff. At least Anne had saved me from making an idiot out of myself on Wednesday night.

She gave a little wave and ran off toward the theater to track down T-Shirt.

I put the flower up to my nose and sniffed. It smelled like dye, probably from the unnatural pink-red on the petals. Was I supposed to carry this around with me all day? I didn’t know the etiquette. I hung up my jacket and pulled out my hated chem textbook. At the last minute, I tucked the flower up on the shelf and slammed the metal door shut, hoping it wouldn’t die before I got it home.

I headed toward the science lab thinking about Anne’s take on recent events. It all made perfect sense. Not that I much liked the perfect sense it made.

“Earth to Quigley,” David said.

“David! I didn’t see you.”

“I know. I’ve been chasing you for the last ten minutes.”

“I’m so sorry.”

David smiled his crooked smile, which was a hundred times nicer than the cocky Art King smirk. “S’okay. You didn’t even see me.”

I picked at the frayed edge of my chem cover. “No. I mean, sorry about everything. At the museum—” I decided not to
bring up the barrage of insults I sent his way in the cafeteria. Maybe he’d forgotten.

“It’s okay. Us ‘pompous jerks’ can handle a few blows to the ego.”

Okay, maybe not. At least he was smiling about it.

“But seriously,” David went on, “I was the one who told you to go. I’m just glad you didn’t miss it. What did you think about those different speed techniques?”