The Sweetest Thing (13 page)

I dropped Adam's hand the second we stepped outside and crossed my arms in front of my chest. Adam followed me to the corner of Eighty-third and Amsterdam, and then nudged my foot with his. “Impressive you made it through the whole game in those. Aren't your feet cold?”

I looked down at my strappy sandals, and then made a face at him. “Hey, I wasn't the one hanging out in my swimsuit on the roof in October.” Although I had to admit that Chloé heels
were
a little dressy for a high school football game.

Adam held his hands up in surrender. “Point taken. But don't blame me if you can't feel your toes on Monday in bio.”

“My toes feel just fine, thank you.” I wriggled my toes (which I had painted metallic red for the occasion) and hit him lightly on the arm. Okay, so maybe
harmless
wasn't the right word to describe our conversation—after all, why would any two people talk about toes in the middle of the street at night if there wasn't something else going on? If I were being honest with myself, I'd say we were flirting and just, well, accept it. But I shook off that reality and decided to strengthen my resolve and list all the reasons for the No Adam Rule.

I'd only gotten to reason number one (Bennett)
when Adam took a step toward me. He was so close I could smell his minty aftershave and see a tiny snag near the collar of his button-down shirt. And that was
it
. All thoughts of Bennett, Meredith, and Judith flew out of my mind, and I shut my eyes to kiss him. But as I heard a car brake behind me, I realized with searing embarrassment that Adam had stepped toward me—toward the curb—not to kiss me, but to flag down a passing cab.

“Um, thanks,” I mumbled, praying he hadn't noticed me assume a pre-kiss pose.

My heart beating violently, I clumsily climbed in the back of the car and rested my head against the cracked leather of the seat. With one hand on the open cab door, Adam leaned across me so he could tell the cabdriver I was headed downtown. Before he stood up, his sea-green eyes found mine. In one quick motion, he brushed his lips against mine and whispered, “I'm really glad you came,” before slamming the door shut.

As the cab rolled away to join the sea of red tail-lights driving along the avenue, I was left with only one thought: Whoa.
I am in trou-ble
.

“Where you headed exactly?” the cabdriver asked.

“Give me a moment,” I said. “I'm not exactly sure.”

After what happened, I could barely think straight, so when the cab reached Perry Street, I did the only thing that made sense: I raced to Sara-Beth Benny's house and rang her bell. I heard the first few notes of “Frère Jacques” chime inside the house before she opened the door.

“Oh my God, Flan, I'm so glad to see you!” she exclaimed, yanking me inside by the arm. “Quick! The paparazzi have eyes on this place at all hours!”

I blinked, looking around. Once again, her apartment was unrecognizable. All traces of the opium den disaster had disappeared. Instead, I felt as though I had accidentally walked into one of those sections at the Metropolitan Museum that displays how Europeans decorated their houses in the 1700s, only without those velvet cords that prevent museumgoers from touching anything. Flowery pastel paper lined
the walls, and delicate side chairs that looked like they'd come straight from Versailles itself stood in the corners of the room. On an antique end table sat a bunch of little painted ceramic figurines: a waltzing couple, a woman selling flowers, a little mime in whiteface holding a mandolin. An ornate, gilded mirror hung on one wall, and a large Impressionist-style painting of Sara-Beth Benny hung between two windows on another. In it, she wore a white powdered wig and smiled coyly behind an elaborately painted fan.

The real-life Sara-Beth, though, was skipping around all the antiques in her new living room, looking like she'd just escaped from the modern-art wing. She was wearing pajamas with silk-screened Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroes patterned all over them in crazy Day-Glo colors, and she had streaks of bright blue moisturizer under her eyes.

“What do you think?” she asked, flopping down on a pale pink satin settee positioned below a window. It looked pretty uncomfortable—overstuffed, with buttons pushing up through the upholstery. “Isn't it just so … rococo?”

“Rococo?” I repeated, sitting down on a weird little ottoman with claw-footed legs. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“I think it's divine,” said Sara-Beth, idly plucking at
the watered silk drapes hanging from the window behind her. They were a pretty powder blue color, but I wasn't sure they'd been worth a trip to Europe. “Yvette is absolutely inspired. Yesterday she found me a genuine cherrywood mantelpiece from an estate in the north of Spain!”

“But you don't have a fireplace,” I pointed out. Looking around the cluttered room, I wondered where she could even put a mantel.

“Well, not yet. Oh, I haven't told you the big news!” Sara-Beth straightened up, clapping her hands together. “Do you remember that sublime director, Ric Roderickson? Well, he's thinking of filming an adaptation of some book called
Justine
in the south of France—a period piece, you know, an art movie—and there might be a part in it for me! Several parts, actually! Of course, if I were going to Europe, I'd have to send trunks and trunks on ahead, and of course you'd help me pack, wouldn't you? In fact, you could come along with me and we could go antiquing and find all kinds of amazing trinkets to put on my cherrywood mantel!” SBB stopped short and trained her electric-blue-ringed eyes on me. “Flanny, what's going on? You look … well, not very Flan-like!”

At that point, I burst into tears, and the whole story came pouring out—how Judith and Meredith were
still fighting, how Feb and Patch were driving me nuts, how I cared about Bennett but couldn't stop thinking about Adam, who'd just kissed me.

“And the thing is,” I concluded, still sniffling, “I just don't know what to do. I know people are going to get hurt no matter what I do, and I don't want to be the kind of person who hurts her friends. …” I trailed off, hugging a somewhat hard satin pillow to my chest.

“Oh, Flanny,” SBB finally said. “Let me make you some tea.”

She disappeared into the kitchen, and after about ten minutes of crashing around, she came back out with a slightly tarnished antique silver tea set on a platter. In place of cookies, she had a package of these weird wasabi rice crisps she's always eating.

“Now, drink this. You'll feel better,” she said, pouring me a cup. I gratefully took it from her. Little men and women in shepherd costumes frolicked on the outside of my engraved silver cup.

“But what do you think I should do?” The tea was raspberry-lemon flavored, my favorite.

“I guess it all depends on who you like better,” said Sara-Beth, putting a needlepoint throw pillow behind her head.

“But I don't know. I mean, Bennett's great. He's
cute, he's funny, he's really, really nice. He's totally the kind of boyfriend I always thought I'd have. I have way more in common with him than I do with … just about any other guy. Well, minus his comic book obsession.”

“But …?”

“But … I don't know. I'm like Meredith and Judith, I guess. I just have a stupid crush on Adam.” I stared down at the rug. Sarah-Beth's decorator must have gotten it from some old royal family or something, because it was woven with gold threads and patterned all over with a coat of arms. “I really should just forget tonight ever happened.”

Sara-Beth pursed her lips. “Really? Because honestly, Flan, when you got here tonight, you were glowing.”

“I was?”

“Now, don't let me tell you what to do. But my personal philosophy is, if you see something you want, take it!” She gestured wildly with her cup, sloshing black raspberry tea onto the carpet.

“But what about the thing you said before? About how, if two friends want the same thing—like a guy or a part in a movie—they should agree not to go after it?”

Sara-Beth waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, Flan, that never works. It's absolutely impossible.”

“Wait a minute. Didn't you and Ashleigh-Ann Martin keep the promise you made to stop auditioning for the same things? I thought you said that saved your friendship.”

Sara-Beth laughed uproariously. “Saved our friendship?”

“Sure.”

“Flanny, Flanny, Flanny—I haven't spoken to that Las Vegas trash in years!”

“What? But I thought—”

She tossed the needlepoint pillow on the floor and hugged herself, rocking back and forth with giggles. “Oh, sometimes you really are too cute!” She caught her breath and looked me square in the eye. “Flan, the reason that I'm a success and Ashleigh-Ann Martin is doing knife commercials at two in the morning is—well, there are a lot of reasons, actually, and let's just say that Tan in a Can isn't a good look for anyone. But
another
reason is that I knew what I wanted and I wasn't going to let someone else stand in the way of me getting it. And because my agent forced me—I mean,
forced
me, though of course I run my own life, you know that—to audition for
Paris in the Springtime
even though there was a teensy little possibility that Ashleigh-Ann might possibly think that meant I was breaking my promise.”

“Well, I guess I'm going to have to think about this,” I said, getting up. “Thanks, SBB. I'll call you tomorrow.”

“
Au revoir!
” Sara-Beth called after me as I let myself out.

I took my keys out as I walked next door to my house, still thinking about everything that had gone wrong. Talking to Sara-Beth helped—she always knew how to cheer me up—but I still felt sick about what had happened. What kind of a friend was I? I didn't even trust myself, or my own feelings, anymore.

It was almost one in the morning, but I figured if I was quiet I could sneak up to my room without Patch or Feb hearing me—if they were even home. But as the door squeaked in on its hinges, Feb and Patch were standing right inside. And they did
not
look too happy to see me.

“
Y
ou are beyond grounded,” Feb said, folding her arms.

I let the door slam shut behind me. After my whirlwind evening, this was so not what I needed, especially from my siblings. About a million times in the past, I'd come home the morning after a sleepover to find the house completely deserted; Patch would roll in an hour later, flop down on the couch, and fall asleep halfway through a DVD of
The Sopranos
, and Feb might not come home at all. I'd never complained, though—I was glad they had their own cool lives. Now they were mad because I'd stayed out past midnight?

“Where have you been?” Feb demanded. “We were worried sick.”

“None of your business,” I told her, scooping up Noodles. I glanced over at Patch, but he just stared at
the floor. “If you guys were so worried, why didn't you just call my cell?”

“We did. I left you two voice mails.”

“Oh. It must've been ringing when I left my purse in the club.” Damn, damn, damn. Why couldn't I keep my big mouth shut? Noodles squirmed in my arms and whimpered. I set him down, and he ran away at top speed.

“After I told you no clubs?” Feb looked a little bit hurt, but she quickly snapped back to full-on anger mode. “I can't believe how irresponsible you're being!”

“Me, irresponsible? What planet are you living on? Patch, tell her she's insane!”

Patch studied his fingernails and mumbled, “I don't know, Flan. I think you should listen to your sister.”

I looked at him speechlessly for moment, and then ran past them, up the stairs to my bedroom, where I slammed the door and flipped on the TV. I turned the volume way up, so Feb would be sure to hear it downstairs, before I turned it off again and thunked down in front of my desk. I switched on my laptop and opened up my instant messenger, but none of my friends were online. I was just about to check my e-mail when I heard someone tapping at my door.

“Flan?” It was Patch. I glared at him. He came in
and sat down on this pink suede beanbag chair I've had since forever. Patch isn't a little guy, and he looked pretty awkward sitting on it. It was hard to keep scowling at him, but I was still really mad.

“What is it?” I asked. “Did you come up here to confiscate my remote control?”

He looked embarrassed. “Nah, nothing like that.”

“So …?”

“I just think you should listen to Feb, Flan. I mean …” The bag crunched beneath him as he struggled to find the right words. “Look, it's just, she's never really cared this much about anybody before. You've given her, like, a purpose. We've got to support her, even if right now it seems like she's screwing up your life. You know what I mean?”

“No, Patch, I don't.” Suddenly I just wanted him out of my room. I remembered the time in fifth grade, during my elephant phase, when he got back from one of his weeklong adventures and gave me a tiny silver elephant with jeweled eyes and a hooked trunk that I could keep my rings on. And I asked him where he got it and he couldn't remember. But that Patch felt a million miles away. “That makes no sense at all. My life is not just some
project
for Feb. It's
my life
.” I turned back toward my computer. “Do me a favor, okay? Leave me alone. I don't want to talk about this anymore.”

“Okay.” I heard him get up and leave, but I didn't turn around until I heard the door click shut behind him. It was so weird—Patch is so laid-back and agreeable that I'd never really gotten mad at him before, but right then I was almost angrier at him than at Feb. How could he just sit back and let her do this to me?