Hard to Get (14 page)

Adam nodded. “Yeah, me too.”

I looked up. “Really?” My voice rose to a squeak.

“No! Are you serious?” He laughed. “What the heck is a Strawberry Princess?”

I slumped back in my seat. “Sorry. I'm just a little … on edge these days.”

“Want a root beer?”

“Sure.” I stared after him as he retrieved two bottles from a cooler against the wall, trying to figure out why Adam's Strawberry Princess comment would upset me for even a minute. The point of the GNBP was to get
away
from guys, so why should I care?

Before I could muse further, Adam returned. “We should have a toast,” he said, sliding one of the drinks over to me. “To Val, who's helping me out of my hole, so Sarah will permit me to go on living.” He raised his bottle in my direction. I grinned back and our eyes connected. A little tingle ran through me. We both looked away hurriedly.

I stared at a poster on the wall advertising a long-past Art Garfunkel concert. Adam hummed a little tune.
“Mr. Sandman,”
I thought, still staring at Art. I slid my eyes across, just as Adam was also sneaking a glance at me. I flicked my eyes back to Art. Silence descended.

“So!” Adam said after a long moment. “That dance lesson next week is going to be so hilarious, huh?”

I snorted. “Yeah, it's going to be awesome—learning
salsa
. Has Mr. Solis gone insane? I can't believe it's mandatory either, can you?”

“Like we're not in school enough hours of the day.” Adam tilted back in his chair. “Do you have a partner yet?”

“N—,” I automatically began to answer. Then I looked at him sharply. Something
in his voice made me look up sharply. He was nonchalantly tapping on the edge of the table. “Um …”

“I was thinking we could go together.” He must have seen the look on my face. “Oh, I mean, just as friends,” he quickly said.

“Right …” I hesitated. “Look, I don't think I can—”

Adam brought his chair down with a thump and abruptly stood up. “No big deal.” He swept all our lunch trash onto a plate in one swift, efficient movement and brought it over to the counter. “Thanks, Rob,” he said to the counter guy, who acknowledged him with a wave and a nod. He came back to the table. “Ready?” he said briefly, looking at a point somewhere over my shoulder.

“Yeah,” I said slowly, getting up from the table. “Look, Adam …”

“I have to get back,” he said over his shoulder, already walking toward the door.

I followed, feeling like I had swallowed a chunk of asphalt instead of a veggie Reuben. The tailpipe went into action as we drove down the street, covering our silence. As Adam pulled up to the coffeehouse, I placed my hand on the door handle, and then turned to him. “Adam,” I said, not knowing
what was going to come next. “About the dance lesson …”

This time he waved his hand airily. “It's no big deal.” He offered me his relaxed grin. “I'll see you there, okay?”

“Okay,” I said after a pause. I shoved hard on the door and it opened with a clank and a scrape. “See you there.”

Beeep!
I laid on the horn of the Saab and waited. The door to Aunt Beth's house remained stubbornly closed. I glanced at the dashboard clock. The dance lesson was supposed to start at seven and we still had to drive there. I blasted the horn again and waited for my dance partner—also known as my thirteen-year-old cousin Larry, also know as my brilliant solution. There was no way taking Larry could violate the rules of the GNBP. He was eighty pounds soaking wet, a foot shorter than me—and
my relative
. I thought of the earrings swinging from my ears on prom night. Or maybe I should let Becca have them and take the necklace. I'd need a dress with a low front for that, though …

The front door opened. Larry trudged down the steps, staring at the ground the entire way. Aunt Beth appeared in the doorway behind him, holding a glass of wine.

“Knock 'em dead, you two!” she called, waving. I waved back as Larry slumped in the passenger seat next to me. He folded his arms across his chest and stared darkly out the window as I pulled away from the curb.

I glanced across at him. His straight black hair swung against his cheeks, concealing his eyes. He heaved a deep sigh and slid further down in the seat, propping a giant pair of grubby white sneakers on the dashboard. “Listen, Larry, thanks for being my dance partner,” I said. “It's going to be really fast, I promise, okay?”
Darn right it is
.
Just get to the gym, prance around the room a few times, and get out.

Larry mumbled something.

“What?” I asked. “I can't hear you.”

He raised his voice. “I
said
Assassin's Creed II just came out and I'm going to a stupid dance lesson!”

I saw a break in the boulevard traffic and swung into the left lane. “Well, it's just a game, right? Can't you play it when you get back?”

He shot me a look of utter bitterness. “You know I'm only doing this because Mom said I couldn't go to Extreme Paintball this weekend if I didn't.”

When we reached the school, we found the gym packed with the entire junior and senior classes, everyone standing around the perimeter of the gym, talking or sitting on the bleachers. Their voices echoed off the high cinder-block walls. Already the air was steamy with accumulated bodies, and most people were shedding layers.

Up on a riser at one end, a trim dark-haired man in pleated gray slacks was bending over, fiddling with a laptop. An enormous pair of speakers was set up on the floor. Mr. Solis stood at the man's side, hands clasped over his paunch, his sweaty, red face beaming. Off to one side, a folding table held a dozen or so two-liter bottles of soda and several economy-size bags of chips.

With Larry slouching behind me, his hands in his pockets, I snared a cup of Diet Coke from the refreshment table, and then slipped behind the basketball post at one end, hoping to remain as inconspicuous as possible. I scanned the space. Kevin, Travis, and a few other guys were on the bleachers,
punching one another. Becca and Kelly were standing with Logan and Brent on the sidelines. Becca was wearing black leggings and a blousy green jersey top, and Kelly was in a baggy pair of warm-up pants and a white tank top pulled over her Speedo. She must have come right from practice. Brent was grabbing her around the waist and lifting her in the air while she yelled at him to stop.

They saw me and Becca started to wave, but then spotted Larry at my side. I watched her arm slowly wilt. Her face wrinkled with confusion. Brent set Kelly down and whispered something in her ear. Kelly turned around. Her eyes looked ready to fall right out of her head onto the gym floor at the sight of me with my five-foot “partner.”

I pushed through the crowd, feeling rather than seeing the faces turning in my direction. Larry lagged behind me like a reluctant appendage.

“Hi, guys,” I said with a ghastly attempt at breeziness. I sipped at my drink. Becca's eyes were very round and Kelly's mouth hung slightly open. “Stop freaking out,” I muttered out of the corner of my mouth.
“This is my cousin. See? It's perfect—doesn't violate the GNBP!”

Becca nodded, somewhat mechanically. “Yeah, brilliant,” she echoed. Her eyes were fixed on Larry's sneakers. Someone had closed the gym doors and the air was positively tropical now. A droplet of sweat trickled down my spine.

“Hey, Val,” Brent greeted me. “Hey …” I could see him realizing he didn't know Larry. “Hey,” he finished. He stuck out his hand toward Larry. “Brent.”

“Sorry,” I broke in. “Brent, this is my—”

“Date.” Larry stepped up too close to my side and shook Brent's hand with one of those double-clasp pumps, like he was some kind of politician. “Nice to meet you.”

I stared at my cousin, thunderstruck. Larry's voice seemed to have dropped an entire octave, and instead of the half-asleep look, he now wore a self-assured smile. He suddenly bore a strong resemblance to Al Gore. He slid his eyes in my direction and suddenly I understood. I was going to pay for the loss of Assassin's Creed. Oh, I was going to pay.

Kelly shook her head. “Val, I thought you said this was your cousin … ?”

“Actually, that's just one of Val's little jokes,” Larry broke in before I could respond. His voice carried over to the groups standing near us. People stopped talking and turned to look. I saw Willy standing on the edge of a group, his face stricken. Larry reached up and draped his arm manfully around my shoulders. “Val and I have been going out for a while now.”

I hacked on my swallow of Diet Coke, snorting some up my nose in the process. I began coughing. Larry pounded me on the back helpfully. “Okay there, sweetheart?” he asked. “She's a little shy about the whole situation,” he explained to the crowd of interested onlookers, including Kevin, who had now gathered around us.

I spluttered again violently, still trying to rid my lungs of Diet Coke droplets, and flapped one hand in the air, trying to communicate “Larry's a giant liar” with little success.

“You'll have to speak up, sweetheart,” Larry said, extending his Al Gore smile to everyone around us. “Yes, we met at Burger King.”

“Burger King?”
Becca squeaked, her voice reaching an operatic level. I heard a
few snickers from our attentive audience.

“Larry!” I finally cleared my throat enough to talk. I surreptitiously pinched his arm as hard as I could. “Shut up if you want to live to see fourteen,” I whispered ferociously. He didn't even flinch.

“Yes, Val just loves Burger King, did you all know that? She can eat six Whoppers in a row.” Larry waved an arm above his head as if to illustrate my imaginary fast-food appetite. With a sudden wave of nausea, I saw Dave step over to the crowd, a Prada-clad Taylor on his arm. Larry generously raised his voice to include them too. “Val's
so
in love with Burger King that she's actually thinking of working there, which I think would be a great choice for my little snookums.” Larry wrapped his skinny arm a little tighter around my shoulders.

My voice seemed to have fled the scene. All I could do was open and close my mouth like a brain-damaged goldfish. Then I spotted a couple standing at the edge of the crowd. It was Adam, his eyes wide. He'd obviously heard everything Larry had said. Next to him, standing very close, was a tall blond girl wearing a white peasant blouse over a long green skirt.

“Larry, you're a liar,” Kelly said. “You're Val's cousin, so stop saying you're her date.” I threw Kelly an appreciative glance, but it was too late. Her words were drowned out in the sudden thump of salsa from behind me. I turned around. The dance teacher was now standing in front of the table, clapping his hands in rhythm. “All right, everybooody!” he called. “I'm Rick and this is just the start of our great night of daaancing!” He held his arms out at his sides and wiggled his hips.

“Oh, my dear God,” Becca muttered next to me. Rick climbed off the stage and began circulating in the crowd of juniors and seniors, grabbing couples and spacing them out on the dance floor like so many chess pieces. I tried to hide behind Kelly as he came nearer to us, but before I could even blink, I was standing on a patch of empty gym floor, one hand on Larry's bony shoulder, the other clasping his hand. The top of his head came approximately to my chin.

“Larry, I'm going to scalp you,” I whispered fiercely as Rick, now back on the stage, turned up the volume on the speakers. Conga drums resonated around us. “What were you doing?”

He grinned. “What, you're not a fan of Burger King?”

“No, I'm not! Just keep your mouth shut—”

“Now, everyone, listen up,” Rick called, clapping his hands. “The first move we're going to do is called the box step. Very simple. Just step forward, gentlemen; ladies follow, now side, now back, now side …”

The couples around us began shuffling around decorously. I took a step forward but was suddenly jerked off balance as Larry, still flush with the success of his earlier joke, tightened his arm around my waist and tilted me backward in a low, dramatic dip. I found myself staring upside down at the lights hanging from the gym ceiling. “Ack,” I just managed to gasp before Larry, snickering madly, was apparently overcome by his own sadism and dropped me with a crash.

I yelped as my tailbone made contact with the shiny, waxed floor. The couple nearest us glanced over in alarm. I smiled at them weakly as I picked myself and the shreds of my dignity off the floor. “You are scum, Larry,” I hissed. I was happy to see he did look ever so slightly abashed.

“Ah, no, no, no.” Rick had spotted the
debacle and was rushing over, waving his hands. “Very nice, young man, but yes, dips, we're not quite ready for dips. I'm glad you're enjoying yourself, though.”

“Oh, we
are
, sir,” Larry said loudly. “Very much.”