The Sweetest Thing (6 page)

“Well, I guess the grass is always greener, right?” Bennett kissed me on the forehead. “Maybe I just like coming down here because I get to hang out with you.”

My heart melted as we walked along Bleecker Street, passing Cynthia Rowley and Intermix, and all the other little boutiques where they kind of know me. We passed a record store and Bennett stopped to look in the window.

“Have I ever played you those old Velvet Underground records of my dad's?” he asked. “They're kind of collectors' items, but he lets me borrow them. We should listen to them the next time you're at my apartment.”

“Sure. They sound really cool.” We kept walking and crossed Seventh Avenue. We had wanted to go to Cones, but when we got there the line went out the door, so we headed to Mary's Dairy on West Fourth
Street instead. I love ice cream—it's pretty much my favorite food in the world—and that place is one of my favorites because of all the wacky flavors they have, like cappuccino Kahlùa, pumpkin, Damson plum sorbet, vanilla Swiss almond, and, my all time personal favorite, hazelnut fudge. That particular night, though, I ordered cinnamon pecan with mini raspberry chocolate truffles. Bennett thought it sounded gross, but it looked delicious to me. He ordered plain vanilla, as usual. There wasn't really anyplace to sit down—Mary's Dairy is sort of small, with only a few little round tables, and NYU students had invaded here, too—so we decided to eat our ice cream outside. Bennett insisted on paying for everything, and even held the door for me on the way out.

“Hey, I was wondering if we could go to the comic book store,” he said as we walked out down the sidewalk, carrying our cups of ice cream. “Jules was in there the other day, and they have a copy of this old
Green Lantern
issue from the seventies that I want to check out.”

“Sure.” I said, but truthfully my heart sank a little. Superheroes are cool and everything, but I'd been to comic book stores with Bennett in the past, and I knew that once he found something he was interested in, he'd just stand there and read it cover to cover—
or, worse, start discussing it with the equally obsessed guy working behind the counter. They'd get into some argument about a minor detail and have to dig through a million old issues to find out who was right. “Or I can just wait outside for a second while you run in and get it.” A cab pulled to a stop next to us, and a man wearing a Burberry overcoat and carrying peach-colored tulips rushed into August, the French bistro on the corner.

“Oh, no, there's no way I can buy it. These old ones go for like a hundred bucks apiece. I just want to flip through it in the store. You'll probably find it really interesting—in the seventies, the series started to get socially relevant and kind of edgy.”

Bennett droned on about the
Green Lantern
series, explaining the various plotlines, but my mind started to wander almost immediately. I can never really keep all those characters straight in my head. They all sort of look the same in their masks and tights and capes. And for some reason, all of Bennett's talk about the Green Lantern got me thinking about the color green and a certain quarterback with chartreuse-green eyes. … I checked my watch. It was almost nine, and I wanted to get home to finish up my bio worksheets in case Adam needed help with them tomorrow in class. Whoa. Back up, Flan. Why was I thinking about Adam
when I was out on a date with Bennett? Before I had time to figure it out, Bennett forced me back to reality with a short tug on the ends of my hair.

I blinked. “What was that for?”

“I finally know why you look different!” He grinned as he threw his arm around my shoulders, clearly proud of himself. “Just now. You have bangs and your hair's kind of … fringier or something.”

“You got it.” I'd been wanting Bennett to notice, but now that he had, I actually felt kind of sad.

“Ha. I knew I'd figure it out eventually.” Bennett stopped walking and guided me across the street to a store front displaying brightly colored comic books and a cardboard cutout of Captain America with RIP written on a paper sign around his neck. “Damn!” he muttered.

“What? Captain America died?”

“Well, that too. But …” He pointed to another, much smaller, sign in the window: ON VACATION. KEVIN'S WORLD OF COMICS WILL RESUME NORMAL HOURS FRIDAY. Unbidden, I thought of Adam reading ahead in the English textbook, and a little part of me wondered why Bennett was only interested in books about radioactive spiders and disfigured villains who take over the world.

“Oh, darn.”

Bennett shook his head. “Well, I guess we'll just have to come back later, then.”

I paused. “Um, right.” At least that gave me a couple more days to think up an excuse. Like maybe I'd be recovering from a radioactive spider bite.

After school on Tuesday, Meredith, Judith, and I decided to walk over to the Soda Shop to do homework and have a milk shake. I'd just taken a history unit test, and I was exhausted. The Mesopotamians were probably an interesting group of people back in the day, but trying to remember all that stuff about law codes and bas-reliefs was starting to give me a headache. I was really looking forward to spending a little time chilling out with my friends, which seemed in the realm of possibility because Judith and Meredith appeared to be getting along again. I hadn't even had to set the No Adam Rule, because, somewhat miraculously, neither of them had mentioned him since the pep rally.

We all met up at Judith's locker, then rode the escalator down together, laughing and joking about our classes that day. Apparently, Meredith's art history
teacher had cued up the wrong slides on the PowerPoint projector, so they'd spent half their class looking at pictures of her Hawaiian vacation instead of the Italian Renaissance paintings they were supposed to be studying.

We were pushing through the double doors on the first floor, laughing at Meredith's descriptions of Mrs. Billing's grass skirt, when someone jostled past us. I wasn't really paying attention, but Meredith and Judith both stopped in their tracks, mouths agape. It was Adam. He stopped and grinned at us in that friendly way of his.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn't see you guys there.”

“It's all right,” Judith managed weakly, looking like she was about to have a heart attack.

“Well, I've got to head to practice.” He raised the water bottle he had in his left hand, as if making a toast. “I'll catch you later.”

“Yeah,” Meredith whispered. “See you in class tomorrow.”

He took off, but my two friends didn't move. They just stood there, staring, until he went up the escalator and disappeared. Finally I couldn't take the silence anymore.

“Wow, you'd think he went to heaven. What about us? Are we still going to the Soda Shop?” I asked. No
response. “Hello? Guys? Earth to Judith and Meredith!” I snapped my fingers.

“Did you see that?” Judith breathed. “Did you see what just happened?”

“Yes!” Meredith's voice was full of wonder, and her eyes sparkled. “I can't believe it.”

I glanced in the direction of the escalator, then back toward the two of them. “What do you mean?”

“Adam likes me,” they both said at the same time.

And just like that, the Adam spell was cast again. They blinked, then spun to look at each other angrily.

“What are you talking about?” Judith demanded. “He looked right at me!”

“He told me he'd catch me later!” Meredith furrowed her brow. “Didn't you hear him? He said, ‘I'll catch you later.' And I said, ‘Yes, in English class.' And then he smiled—partly because he loves reading poetry, but mostly because he can't wait to see me again.”

“You're completely delusional!” Judith exploded. “He said, ‘Catch you later,' to all of us! You're just reading into everything because your imagination is out of control!”

“Well, then maybe he was
looking
at all of us too! And you just think he was looking at you because you always have to win at everything!”

“What is wrong with you two?” I yelled over them. All around us, clusters of happy Stuy students shouted friendly good-byes to one other, while here my friends were just plain shouting at each other. What would I do if Meredith and Judith and I weren't friends anymore? The school would be such a big, lonely place without them.

I grabbed their hands and pulled them outside. They followed me as I turned and started walking in the direction of the Soda Shop. “Have you two lost your minds? This is ridiculous. You've been best friends for years … and you've barely known Adam for a month.”

Taxis and buses rattled along Chambers Street, and a stretch Hummer pulled up to the curb next to us, its mirrored windows reflecting the image of three very crabby looking girls.

“There's a lot more to it than that,” said Meredith, switching her sage green woven purse to her left shoulder. “Between me and Adam, I mean. I really think he likes me. He talks to me in English practically all the time, and we have so much in common. The other day he asked me for a pencil, and you know artistic people prefer pencils to ballpoints, right? He might have even been using it to write poems for me during class.”

I cringed a little at this confession, but Judith did something way meaner. She laughed out loud.

“You're crazy. Did it ever occur to you that he probably just needed a pencil?” Judith demanded, flipping her blond hair over her shoulder.

“Oh yeah?” Meredith stopped short in front of Yoga Connection, whose exercise rooms, according to Feb, are as hot as Death Valley. Through the window a whole class full of women were sweating and bending themselves into pretzel-like shapes. While I couldn't totally see the appeal, I wished I were in there sweating like crazy instead of listening to my friends fight about Adam.

“Well, if I'm so crazy,” Meredith challenged, “then why do you think he likes you so much? Did he propose to you or something? Send you flowers?”

“No.” Judith smiled proudly. “But he did tell me the weather's been great for football lately.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Meredith asked.

“That he wants me to come to his game on Saturday, obviously.” She stared at us meaningfully. Meredith looked at me, and I shrugged. “Because he has a secret crush on me,” Judith explained. She brushed her hands together like the case was closed.

Meredith and I didn't say anything for a long time. Somewhere in the distance, a siren howled. Two
pigeons cooed on a windowsill high above our heads. Finally, I spoke. If there was ever going to be a perfect moment to bring up SBB's idea, it was now.

“Listen, I've got a suggestion, okay? Since both of you like Adam, but neither of you really knows him that well yet—”

“Hey!” both my friends exclaimed in unison. I held up one finger.

“I said yet. Anyway, how about you just agree to an official No Adam Rule, where neither of you go after him? That way you'll know neither of you will be flirting with him, so you can stop fighting about it. Maybe you'll even meet some other cute guys who you like just as much.” I smiled hopefully.

Meredith and Judith stared at me like I'd just suggested they play ukuleles while wearing swimsuits made of clamshells and seaweed at Stuy's next pep rally.

“Um, thanks for the advice, Flan,” Judith said, a little snarkily, “but I think we can work this out ourselves. No offense, but it's not really any of your business.”

That kind of made me mad, but I tried not to show it. “How can you say it's not my business? I care about you guys. If you're acting like you're about to kill each other, it's obviously going to bother me.” I stared down
at the sidewalk. Someone had drawn a heart in the concrete when it was still wet. I traced its curve with my toe. “If you really want to duke it out over this guy, be my guest. I just think it's a shame, you know?”

Meredith looked down, like she felt bad about it, and Judith didn't look too happy either. I knew I was making them feel guilty, but what else could I say? It was true.

“I guess that's fair,” Meredith said in a little voice. “Since we can't both have him, then neither of us should get to.”

Judith eyed her suspiciously for a moment, then seemed to relax. She stuck out her pinky finger. “No Adam Rule?”

“No Adam Rule,” Meredith agreed, looping her little finger around Judith's and shaking it.

“Yay!” I threw my arms around both of them. “Now can we go to the Soda Shop? I'm dying for a strawberry malt.”

I took out my cell phone as we started walking again and flipped it open. Eleven missed calls. I scrolled to my missed-calls list, my heart beating quickly. Two calls was one thing but
eleven
? And all from …
Feb
? I pressed the SEND button and waited while it rang. We were just at the Soda Shop but I stopped before going in.

“Hang on a sec,” I said. The Soda Shop really is one of the cutest little places in New York and I was kind of excited to be going in. It looks just like something out of one of those old Norman Rockwell paintings: it has gum-ball jars, a marble counter, and even an old-fashioned soda fountain. Going there is like stepping back to a time where all the girls wore pony-tails and saddle shoes. …

“Hey, what's going on?” I asked Feb as a dog walker with a herd of Dalmatians and Chows passed us. “Is everything okay?”

“Flan, where are you?”

“I'm going to the Soda Shop with Meredith and Judith. Why?”

“You're hanging out with friends again? And on a school afternoon? You know, I think it was pretty nice of me to let you go out last night with Bennett, even though you failed your English quiz. But I think you should come home right now and study. I don't want your grades to drop. Besides, it's getting late.”