The Smart One and the Pretty One (18 page)

“I can’t wait to meet her again.”

“Keep your expectations low.” He examined his plate of food, fork hovering expectantly.

Ava wondered if his mother was really as bad as he made out or whether his little barbed comments about her were simply a reflection of his general negativity toward all women. That uncertainty made her eager to meet Lana Markowitz and form an opinion of her own: it would give her some insight into Russell.

The restaurant told them it would be a fifteen-minute wait for a table, and Daniel said he was in too much of a hurry to stick it out. He suggested they grab a quick bite instead at the Wahoo’s Fish Taco restaurant that they had passed on the way there. Lauren looked down at her dressed-to-kill outfit with a good-natured sigh and let him take her to Wahoo’s. They ordered burritos and Coronas and settled down in a corner booth with their drinks.

Lauren looked around the room. “I feel unusually old,” she said.

Daniel scanned the room, taking in the teenagers who were spread out around the entire restaurant, halloing to one another and touching fists and running from table to table. “Yeah. Me too.”

“Would you want to be a teenager again?” Lauren said. “Hang out with friends, do homework, hate your parents, resent your teachers . . . the whole thing?”

“Are you kidding?” he said. “No one wants to be a teenager. That’s the suckiest part of life.”

A server came up to the table and presented them with two comically enormous burritos. They thanked him and he saluted them before rushing back behind the counter.

“I
liked
high school,” Lauren said, studying her burrito, trying to figure out the best way to tackle it without making a huge mess. “I had great friends and played on a lot of sports teams and was totally happy.”

“There’s something deeply wrong with you.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Yeah, probably. But at least I didn’t enjoy being a teenager.”

Lauren picked up a plastic knife and cut a long slit into the burrito. “So what made those years so sucky for you?”

Daniel cut his own burrito in half, neatly, right across the middle. “Well, my father up and died, for one thing. Which, oddly enough, wasn’t the worst part of those years. I mean, it was awful, but in a big, overwhelmingly tragic, everyone-feels-sorry-for-you-and-you-get-out-of-doing-any-work kind of way. It wasn’t the soul-draining mind-suck of boredom and pettiness that the rest of high school was.”

“Good times, good times,” Lauren said jovially.

“Yeah, right.”

She flicked through the burrito contents with her fork, seeking out the rare narrow strips of red pepper. “What did your father die of?”

“It was a stroke. Quick and painless. For him at least. Nothing like the shit my mother’s going through now.”

She raised her head to look at him. “It must be awful.”

“It’s fine,” he said. He picked up a burrito half and took a big bite out of it, hunching his body forward over the table to get his mouth to it instead of raising the burrito higher.

“Come on,” Lauren said. “You know it’s not fine.”

“What do you know about it? Miss Happy Cheerleader with the perfect intact family?” He put the burrito down, wiped his mouth roughly with the napkin, and raised the beer bottle to his lips. “How could you possibly know what this is like for me?” He put the bottle down with a dull clunk on the hard table.

“I wasn’t a cheerleader,” Lauren said. “And my mother has cancer too, you know.” She regretted the words the instant they left her mouth.

“Right,” he said. “It’s exactly the same. My mother’s dying in front of my eyes, and your mother—it’s awful, isn’t it? She has to go to the hospital a whole bunch of times, right? And then it might be a few days before she feels okay again. And maybe even a couple of weeks before things are back to normal and she can take you shopping for new clothes again.”

“You’re right, it’s different,” Lauren said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to compare what our mothers are going through. I just meant I know what it’s like to be worried about someone you love.”

“Don’t try to make us even in the bad luck department. I’ll beat you every time.”

“Want me to run out in the street and get hit by a truck?” she said.

“Aw, you’d do that for me?”

“No.”

“Didn’t think so.” They ate in silence a moment. It was companionable at first but went on a little too long.

Lauren was just starting to say something about the song that was playing when Daniel shifted suddenly in his seat and leaned forward. She thought he wanted to get closer to her, maybe confide something personal, and moved forward to meet him halfway. Then she realized he was just extracting his cell phone from his back pants pocket. She quickly settled back in her seat. The cell phone was quietly vibrating. “I should take this,” Daniel said, pursing his lips as he peered down at the screen. “Do you mind?”

“Go ahead.”

Daniel got up and crossed the restaurant to a quiet corner where no one was sitting. He turned his back to the room so he was facing the wall and stayed like that for a while, hunching forward with the phone at his ear.

Lauren sipped her beer and pushed her barely touched plate away. She looked at her watch. Nine thirty-seven.

A sudden shout from another table got her attention. A teenage boy was leaping to his feet, his pant leg covered with a big wet spot. He shouted, “Fuck you, asshole! That totally drenched me!”

“Sorry, man,” his friend said. Like the first boy, he was wearing a hugely oversized zip-up sweatshirt over exaggeratedly skinny-legged black jeans and colorful basketball sneakers. The sincerity of his contrition was questionable, given the fact he was doubled over with laughter. The two long-haired girls at their table also seemed to find the whole thing wildly amusing. “It was an accident.”

“So’s this,” said the standing teenager and swatted the other guy’s soda right into his lap. The girls hooted with laughter as their friend now leapt to
his
feet, swearing loudly. He swung his head around and noticed Lauren watching them. “Take a picture,” he growled at her. “It’ll last longer.”

“All right,” she said, and took her cell phone out of her purse, but the guys were now scuffling, grabbing at each other’s arms, and the joke was lost on them. She stuck the phone back in her purse. She could have just taken her regular big handbag and saved herself the trouble of switching, she thought, snapping the fancy one closed with a sigh. The pretty little glittery clutch was completely out of place at Wahoo’s Fish Taco.

Daniel came back to the table but didn’t sit down. “I should go,” he said, with a flick of his hand toward the exit.

Lauren stood up. “Is your mom all right?”

“I don’t know—that wasn’t her, and I’m worried if I call I’ll wake her up. Her sleep’s gotten pretty erratic lately. But I should get back and check on her.” He reached for her plate and hesitated. “Are you done?”

“Yeah. But are you?” He still had more than half a burrito left.

“Done enough,” he said and picked up both their plates. He dumped them in the trash can on their way out the door.

Daniel surprised Lauren by saying the last thing she expected him to say as he pulled up in front of her apartment building: an amiable and somewhat clichéd “Thanks. This was fun.”

“No offense,” Lauren said, “but you didn’t actually look like you were having fun.”

“Really? I was enjoying myself.”

“Enjoyment looks different on you than it does on most people.”

“I’m not a big smiler these days,” he said.

“That’s putting it mildly.”

“So are you saying
you
didn’t have fun?”

She considered for a moment. “No, it was okay,” she said. “You’re not bad company.” She hadn’t been bored, she realized, and not just because the evening was short. There was a challenge in Daniel’s company that intrigued her. Usually, men were so easy to please. “You could open up a little more, though. It’s like pulling teeth getting you to talk about anything personal.”

Daniel considered. “That’s fair.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I try to be fair.” She let her hand drop and turned back toward him, ducking her head slightly to the side so she could look at him through her eyelashes. “I guess it’s good night then,” she said, letting him know by her posture that she was in no rush.

He swiveled in his seat and leaned back against his door. The meaning of
his
posture was a lot less clear than hers: he was now facing her but had actually distanced himself an extra few inches. “Should we try this again another night?” he said.

“Do you
want
to?” she said. “Because I can’t tell.”

“Yes.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “I’m sorry if I’m—” He let out a deep breath. “Look, I know I’ve been a little weird. It’s just—this isn’t my life. This is a break from my life. And the reason I’m here in L.A. in the first place is because I’m worried about my mother, so I can’t just stop worrying about her because I’m going out to dinner. If I were back home and my life were back in place and my mother was healthy, then I’d—” He stopped again.

“You’d what?”

He sighed, his shoulders sagging. “I don’t know. It’s just a different life here for me and I don’t always know what to make of it.”

“It’s not like you’re from another
planet
,” Lauren said. “Our dating customs in L.A. are fairly similar to those in New York. Except there’s a lot less swearing at cabdrivers.”

He laughed briefly and then there was a pause. He shifted and she thought,
He’s going to kiss me now
.

But he didn’t. Instead he faced forward in his seat again and gripped the steering wheel. “We’ll be at the hospital on Tuesday afternoon. Any chance you’ll be there too, so we can play some more cards? Maybe place bets on whose mother’s IV bag empties first?”

“Sounds like fun. I’ll try to be there around the usual time.” Her hand found its way to the door handle. “I hope your mother has an okay night tonight,” she said as she opened the door.

“Thanks,” he said. “Good-bye.”

She had stepped out of the car when she heard him say, “Lauren?”

She leaned back in hopefully. “What?”

He seemed to be about to say something, but then he stopped and shook his head again. “Nothing. Just . . . thanks for having dinner with me. Good night.”

“Good night,” she said. She stood another moment, waiting, but he didn’t say anything else, so she pushed the door and it swung shut.

He drove off quickly, not waiting to make sure she got in safely. Lauren unlocked the front door to the building, biting her lip as she tried to figure out what exactly the story was with the guy. There was mutual attraction—that much she knew instinctively. And a fair amount of mutual wariness as well, which, she had learned from past experience, not only didn’t dampen attraction, but often had a perverse way of increasing it. So why did she have the distinct sense that Daniel was pulling back, holding himself in check? She certainly wasn’t asking anything more from him than a good time, but even that he seemed to begrudge her. And himself.

She strode briskly across the lobby. But then he had told her what the problem was, hadn’t he? He was too worried about his mother to let himself have fun. Which was probably counterproductive: if his mother was anything like her own, she probably just wanted Daniel to be happy and would actually feel better knowing he had a reason to go out now and then, something fun in his life to balance out all the sick care. Hadn’t he said she
wanted
him to go out tonight?

Lauren decided she would just have to work a little harder to help Daniel overcome the guilt and responsibility that were weighing him down and keeping him from pursuing anything more serious with her.

And that made her wonder.

If she had bought that beautiful silk turquoise top the other day . . . Daniel had been right on the edge of giving in to her tonight—she could
feel
it—and maybe that top would have made the difference. Maybe, if she had bought and worn it and shone with the confidence of knowing she looked as good as she could look—which was pretty damn good—well, maybe she wouldn’t be going up to the apartment alone right now.

The next date she had with Daniel—assuming there was one—she had to at least give that top a chance, see if that gave her an edge that pushed him over
his
edge. Otherwise, she would never know for sure whether or not it might have made a difference, and a thought like that could plague you for the rest of your life.

Some things, Lauren thought as she punched at the elevator button with more force than was warranted, were more important than stupid homemade contracts forced on you by interfering sisters with no fashion sense.

Chapter 11

R
ussell insisted on paying for dinner. He said he owed her a meal since her family had had him over to brunch, and even though Ava pressed her charge card on him, he wouldn’t take it. She tucked her card away again in her wallet, thinking of Lauren and her “the guy always pays for dinner,” but she reminded herself again that this wasn’t a date and that Russell had given her a logical reason why he should pay.

They walked out into the mall and headed toward the escalator that would take them back up to the cinema.

“Hey, wait,” Ava said, touching Russell’s arm. She pointed. “Isn’t that your company’s store?” She had passed it a million times without thinking about it, but suddenly the sign that said “Evoque Knits” had meaning.

“One of them, yeah.” They drifted over to stand in front. “We mostly sell through department stores, but we have a few shops, more to increase visibility and name recognition than anything else. They don’t turn a profit.” He studied the window. “What do you think of the display?”

“Nice,” she said with a shrug. She didn’t really know what she thought of it. There were four headless mannequins arranged in various outfits all in the same brown and green color scheme. “I like that dress on the right,” she added, feeling like she should sound more enthusiastic.

“Yeah, it’s nice, isn’t it?” he said. “Part of the more youthful trend—see how the neckline’s low and the skirt’s fairly short? That’s all new.” He glanced sideways at her, then back at the mannequin. “It would look good on you.”