The Sweetest Thing (4 page)

“Can you believe that guy's only a freshman?”
asked Jules, trying to make conversation with Meredith. “He must be one hell of a player.”

“Yeah.” She and Judith sighed dreamily. From the love-struck expressions on their faces, it was clear their crushes weren't going away anytime soon. As the football team lined up and Adam flashed the crowd a smile that was charming, friendly, and totally at ease, I had to admit that I couldn't really blame them.

After school I walked home to my town house on Perry Street in Greenwich Village, and with each step I took I got more and more worried about the whole Adam situation. Even if I was starting to understand why Meredith and Judith liked him, their weird competitiveness at the pep rally was definitely a bad sign. Their fight over Tony had sounded so awful, and that was back in middle school when they barely even saw the guy. But now they both had classes with Adam and saw him on a daily basis. What would happen if one of them ended up going out with him? Would they really just throw away their friendship over some guy? Maybe I was jumping the gun a little with all my worries, but hanging out with Meredith and Judith had made my transition to Stuy so fun and easy. I didn't want anything to come between us, and I definitely didn't want to ever have to choose one of
them as a friend over the other. I had worked myself into a state of total anxiety by the time I reached my block, and I realized I really needed to talk to someone about it all. So instead of scaling the steps to my own house, I walked one house further and rang the buzzer. It was time to pay a visit to my best friend, Sara-Beth Benny.

Unless you've been living in a bomb shelter since the late '80s, you've heard of Sara-Beth Benny. She was the adorable star child of the hit show
Mike's Princesses
, and since then, she's been in a bunch of movies and on the covers of even more magazines. She's totally terrified of the paparazzi. Over the years, she's built up this whole collection of wigs and costumes and giant sunglasses to hide behind, and when we go out she's always ducking behind parked cars, furniture, and potted plants.

Back in September SBB moved out of her Upper East Side apartment because photographers kept ambushing her there and driving her even crazier. But before she finally moved into the enormous brown-stone right next to mine, she'd been living at my house, apartment-hunting and hiding from the paparazzi. SBB has been my best friend for a while now, but as much as I love her, I have to admit it was pretty stressful sharing a bedroom with her. It's so
much more fun to have her next door—now I can just pop on over whenever I want to chat or just catch up on the details of her too-fabulous, too-exciting life.

When SBB's door finally swung open, an exhausted-looking man in dirty coveralls greeted me gruffly. “You Flan?” I nodded. He gestured over one shoulder with a paintbrush whose bristles were stained a metallic gold. “Her Majesty's in there.”

“Thanks.” I hurried past him into the living room.

“Oh. My. God.” Ever since she moved in, Sara-Beth had been kind of neurotic about decorating her new town house, but she had taken it to an entirely new level. The downstairs looked more like a Lower East Side hookah bar at midnight than a home. The walls were covered with dark, almost black wood paneling, and huge crimson velvet festoons hung from the ceiling down over the windows. The couches that had been there just two days ago were gone, and instead large silk pillows with elaborate embroidery and enormous tassels were positioned at jaunty angles around the room. The trim around the windows and wainscoting at the top of the ceiling had been painted gold, and an enormous bronze statue of a jaguar stood in the far-left corner of the room, its fangs bared and its jeweled, ruby-red eyes flashing.

I coughed and squinted. A huge cone of incense
was burning on a hammered brass tray, and the smoke was curling through every inch of air in the room. The whole place made me think of the caterpillar's mushroom from Alice in Wonderland. What kind of crazy rabbit hole had I fallen through to get here?

“Sara-Beth?” I called weakly, trying to get some oxygen. “You in here?”

Somewhere upstairs a gong sounded, and I watched Sara-Beth slowly descend the circular staircase leading into the living room. She was wearing a dark blue silk robe stitched with golden starbursts, and matching silk pants. Little bells hung at the ends of her sleeves, jingling as she walked. Her plum-colored lipstick matched the pillow she chose to sit down on. I pulled over a dark green one and flopped down next to her.

“Flan, sweetie!! Your new haircut is amazing! It reminds me of a dream I just had,” Sara-Beth exclaimed.

“Thanks! But Sara-Beth,” I said, choking slightly on the thick, incense-laden air, “what on earth is going on? What happened to your furniture?”

“Oh, furniture is so constrictive.” Sara-Beth swatted at the incense smoke billowing toward her. “When I was out looking for a new sofa, I met Nada. She showed me a better way.”

“Nada?” As in, Nada ounce of taste? This was getting stranger all the time. Next Sara-Beth would be telling me this lady had a dog named Zilch.

“Isn't that a pretty name? She told me it means ‘drinker of the moon.'” Sara-Beth smiled. “Anyway, she's my new designer. They've still got a lot of work to do, but this house is going to be a home in no time.”

I glanced around and nodded slowly. I didn't want to say it, but her place looked more like an opium den than anything I'd want for a house. Before I had time to come up with a compliment about the new decorations, a woman in a purple velvet kimono came in, pushing a clothes rack hung with all kinds of heavy, fringey fabrics.

“Oh, Nada! There you are. We were just talking about you.”

Nada smiled, her sleeves jingling like Sara-Beth's. She was about my mom's age, with long, frizzy brown and gray hair that almost reached her waist. Her shiny gray satin slippers tapered to a point at the toes and then curved up, like elf shoes.

“These are for the wall hangings and pillows,” said Nada, pointing at the fabrics at the front of the rack. “The rest are for your tailor.”

“Your tailor?” I asked.

Sara-Beth turned to me eagerly. “Isn't it wonderful, Flan! I'm going to match the house. It'll be really good for my chi.”

“Um … like in the
Sound of Music
, when the kids wear outfits made out of curtains?” I hoped I sounded supportive.

Sara-Beth clapped her hands. “Yes, exactly! Oh, Flan, I knew you'd understand. Isn't Nada a genius?”

Nada smiled and smoothed her hair back. I noticed she had a New Age pyramid tattooed on her wrist. “I like to share my energies with others however I can. The home should be an extension of your aura, and anything that obstructs the vibrations—”

Sara-Beth smiled vaguely and waved her away. Nada looked somewhat downcast as she wheeled the rack back out of the room, jingling as she went. The minute she was gone, Sara-Beth collapsed backward onto two more pillows.

“All this remodeling is making me
insane
,” she moaned. “You have no idea what it's like, having people in your house all the time, moving your stuff around. It reminds me of
Mike's Princesses
, when those horrible, horrible soundmen would string up microphones all over my kitchen and spy on my conversations.”

“You mean the kitchen on the
Mike's Princesses
set?”

“Well, yes, but it was the only kitchen I'd ever
known
.” Sara-Beth's eyes filled with tears. “Couldn't they allow a girl a little privacy?”

I blinked, but fortunately Sara-Beth recovered before I had time to respond.” Anyway, I'm just so relieved to see you. Tell me,” she begged, grabbing my arm, “what's happening out there in the real world? How's … everything? How's … school?”

“School's okay.” I stretched my legs out onto a dusty pink pillow. “I actually wanted to talk to you about Meredith and Judith, though.”

“Oh, Meredith and Judith!” Sara-Beth wriggled with delight. “They're so adorable. The happy one and the smart one. Like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Let's all hang out soon!!”

“Definitely.” I nodded. “But yesterday when we were at the salon, Meredith was talking about this guy she likes, Adam—but then it turned out that Judith likes him, too. They're pretending it's okay, but I'm just worried the whole thing will spiral out of control, that they'll get into a huge fight and none of us will be friends any more,” I said in a rush.

Sara-Beth slapped her hands to her face in mock horror, and I couldn't help but start cracking up. The situation did sound pretty ridiculous and overblown when I said it out loud.

“I guess I'm worrying about it too much,” I admitted. “It's just that they're my only real friends at Stuy. Plus, something like this happened to them before, where they fought over the same guy and practically killed each other. So I guess I'm just scared that history will repeat itself.”

Sara-Beth nodded sagely, her dangly gold earrings swinging around her face. “Oh, Flan, girls can be so silly. When I was your age, I was always getting into fights with my friends.”

“Really?”

“Of course! My friend Ashleigh-Ann Martin and I were always trying to get the same parts in movies and TV. If I went in to try out for a new pilot, she'd be there too, flirting with the casting assistant. If my agent was talking to some up-and-coming director, then her agent was on the other line. For a while there, we got really competitive. It almost ruined our friendship when I got the lead in
Blennophobia
and they accidentally assigned her to the catering crew.” Sara-Beth giggled at the memory.

“So what did you do?” I asked, running my fingers over the rough gold braiding that lined the seams of my pillow.

“Well, we finally made a deal. If there was a project we both really, really wanted”—Sara-Beth leaned
forward conspiratorially—”then neither of us would try to get it.”

“Really? Neither of you?”

“Nope. Because if one of us got it, then we couldn't be friends anymore, and neither of us would be happy.”

“Wow.” I pushed my hair behind my ear. “I mean, Meredith and Judith said they wouldn't let a boy come between them again, but they just seemed so upset … and into him.”

“You can borrow my solution if you want. Set an official rule like I did with Ashleigh-Ann and then really make them stick to that promise.”

“Do you think they'd agree to it?”

“Probably. How do you feel about facing west? Are we facing west right now? Nada says we all think most clearly when we're facing west.”

I grinned and leaned over to give her an impulsive hug. “You're such a good friend, Sara-Beth. You're definitely facing west.”

“Well, I try.” She crossed her arms, making the bells at the ends of her sleeves jingle, and nodded once, like a genie granting a wish. “Now it's your turn to give me some advice.”

“Shoot.”

She poked me in the shoulder with one bony
finger. “What do you think of the new decorations? I mean really?”

I glanced around. “Well …”

“Please,
please
be honest.” Sara-Beth's breath picked up, which was always a good hint that if I wasn't careful, she might start to cry.

“Okay.” I plucked at the tassel attached to my pillow. “It's nice and everything, but I guess it's just not—”

“Not what?”

“Well, it's not really you.”

Sara-Beth's eyes got wide, and for a second I thought it was time for the waterworks. But instead she just sighed.

“I
know
.” She flopped down onto her elbows and balanced her chin in her hands. For a minute, she looked totally mournful, but then a new thought occurred to her and she brightened up again. “Oh well. I guess I'll know me when I see it, right?”

“Oh,
definitely
,” I said. But I don't think either of us knew that we might not see the real her for
quite
some time.

When I left Sara-Beth's place around five thirty, I was expecting to go home, run up the stairs to my bedroom, and stay holed up there till dinnertime, working on homework until I got so bored I had no choice but to go on IM and talk to all my friends about how much stuff I still had to do. But the minute I swung the front door in on its hinges, I knew something was wrong. For one thing, all the lights were on, and at my house, the only time all the lights are on is at four o'clock in the morning when one of my brother's parties has just ended and he wants to survey the damage. I could also hear the sounds of pots and pans clattering on the stove in the kitchen, which didn't really make any sense, since most of our meals go directly from delivery containers onto china plates. But the weirdest thing of all was how clean it was.

Our house isn't usually that dirty—we have a
cleaning lady, Sveta, who comes in once a week to beat the couch cushions with a stick and curse our filthy ways in Russian—but even after she leaves it's hardly spotless. There's always a splash of red wine on the carpet (usually courtesy of my sister, Feb), or a pile of dirty laundry, or tire marks on the furniture (which tends to happen when Patch's friend Mickey rides his Vespa through our living room). But that day, it was spotless. I could still see the tracks from the vacuum cleaner all across the tan woven rug my parents had brought back from their last trip to Malaysia.

“Mom?” I called hesitantly. “Dad?”

“Flanny! You're home!” Feb sang out, appearing in the doorway to the kitchen. I was so surprised I dropped my schoolbag. It landed with a loud
thunk
on the floor. Feb's sense of style is pretty much the opposite of conservative—she has short black hair, a fondness for clumpy mascara, and a whole closetful of sequined sheath dresses. I'm more likely to see her dancing in a pair of four-inch Roger Vivier stilettos than padding around our apartment in Kate Spade flats. But that day her transformation was even more shocking than that of Sara-Beth Benny's apartment. Here stood my wild big sister in a cute little blue-checked apron. A matching checked headband held
back her hair, which she had flipped out at the ends. Her nails were painted powder pink, and in her left hand was a large wooden spoon stained with something red. Looking back, I guess it was probably tomato sauce, but at the time, I thought it must be blood from when she'd beaned the
real
February over the head, because there was no way my real big sister was actually cooking dinner.