Wicked Jealous: A Love Story (24 page)

“I think they only say ‘stat’ on the hospital shows,” I said as I struggled to get my hair untangled from the hook on the back of the dress.

“Whatever. But don’t you think all of this is a little weird?” Nicola asked as she untangled me.

“What?”

“Hmm . . . I don’t know . . . trying to suffocate you with a dress,
for instance.”

“Oh, so this, like the apples and the almost running into me in the parking lot, is yet another attempt to kill me?” I asked.

She shrugged. “If the shoe fits. Or rather, if the dress
doesn’t
fit.”

“Well, seeing that there’s a good chance I might not live through my date, she might not have to worry about that,” I sighed.

While I definitely considered myself a feminist and had already decided that if and when I got married, my husband and I would definitely switch off when it came to taking out the garbage, my feeling about dates was that it was up to the date-asker to come up with a plan as to what he or she and the date-askee could do. Because when the date-askee has to call the date-asker at four o’clock on the day of the date to see what time and where said date will be taking place, and the date-askee says, “I don’t know. Got any ideas?” it’s a little . . . disappointing.

“Well, there’s always the movies,” I said to Jason as Nicola and the guys crowded around me and leaned in to try to listen. Except for Noob, who had gotten his arm stuck in the stairway railing again. I was all for activities where we wouldn’t have to talk all that much.

“Okay. You want to go see that new one about the FBI agent who goes up against the ex-CIA agent after he takes a group of elementary school kids hostage in a mall?” Jason asked.

“Actually, I heard that was really lame,” Narc said in a loud voice.

“Who was that?” Jason asked.

I turned my back to the group. “No one. Just the TV.”

“So does that sound okay?” he asked.

According to one of the articles I had read in last month’s
Cosmopolitan
(Hillary had a subscription), number five of the ten things on the How-to-Drive-Him-Wild-and-Make-Him-Yours-Forever checklist was “Even when your man suggests a really dumb idea that you have no interest in doing, just say yes!” (Those magazines were very big on the term “your man” and on exclamation points.) “Actually, it sounds . . . kind of dumb,” I admitted. So much for following that rule.

Thor ripped out a page from
L.A. Weekly
and thrust it toward me, I brightened. “Hey, they’re showing a marathon of Judd Apatow’s
Freaks and Geeks
at the New Beverly,” I said excitedly. “How about that?”

“What’s
Freaks and Geeks
?” Jason asked.

My heart sank. Sure, the series had been canceled after only twelve episodes, but that didn’t make it any less brilliant. In fact,
Time
magazine had called it one of the “100 Greatest Shows of All Time.” I had watched it so many times the DVDs skipped.

“This TV show on NBC that Judd Apatow did set in a high school?” I said.

“Who’s Judd Apatow?”

Did this guy live under a rock? “The director of
Knocked Up
?
Forty-Year-Old Virgin?
Produced
Superbad
and
Bridesmaids
? Our generation’s John Hughes?”

“Right. That guy. Now I know who he is. Just took me a second to put the name with the movie. So it’s a TV show set in high school?”

“Yeah.”

“And you want to watch something about school even though we’re on summer vacation?” he asked doubtfully.

“It’s really good. I promise.”

“Okay. So, uh, should I pick you up?” he asked.

“No, that’s okay,” I said quickly. “You don’t need to pick me up. I’ll just meet you there. At, like, seven fifteen, okay?”

“Okay, but I don’t mind—”

“No. It’s easier this way. Because I have to go pick up some . . . medication at the drugstore first.” Oh God. What was I doing?! Not only did I lie, but now he was going to think I had some sort of weird disease. I’m sure the sound of Nicola slapping her forehead could be heard across the phone waves. “Okay. So I’ll see you then. Bye,” I barely got out of my mouth before clicking the phone off.

Thor shook his head. “Ouch. That was
cold
. Here he was, taking the risk to show you his courteous, feelings-oriented feminine side, and you shut him down.”

“You really should’ve let him come pick you up,” Nicola agreed.

“Yeah. Why didn’t you let him come over? Are you, like, embarrassed of us or something?” Noob asked, all hurt.

“No. It’s—”

Noob dropped his voice. “I mean, without naming names or anything, I know that some of the people who live here can be a little . . . strange,” he said, motioning with his head toward Thor, “but it’s not like we’d embarrass you or anything like that.” He tried to yank his arm out from the banister but failed. “Uh-oh.”

“I’m not embarrassed by you guys,” I replied. “It’s just that I’ve never done this date thing before. I’m used to doing things for myself. I’m not used to letting people do things for me. But I’ll be more girl-like when I’m on the date. I swear.”

In movies, when a girl gets ready for a date, it usually takes so long they have to do a whole montage with little snippets of each part of the getting-ready thing: showering; blow-drying the hair; shaving the legs; putting on makeup; gazing at her very full, very neat closet. According to the movies, it would appear that getting ready takes around an hour, an hour fifteen minutes. As for me, from the time I got in the shower until I walked downstairs, a whopping seventeen minutes had passed. And that included having to start all over with my eye makeup after I poked myself in the eye with the mascara wand and my eye got all teary and ruined my eyeliner.

When I came downstairs, Blush was on the couch watching a documentary on PBS about the Harlem Renaissance. Even though they were all artists, the only way that the other guys in the house would’ve known what PBS was, was because of
Sesame Street.
But
Blush watched it all the time. Which made him really good at
Jeopardy!
, a fact I had discovered a few nights earlier when we were hanging out and he trounced me in Double Jeopardy.

“You look nice,” he said.

I looked down at my
READING IS SEXY
T-shirt that I had paired with a denim miniskirt and red Worishofer slides. Nicola voted for the black sundress that I had bought that first day of Operation Robin Red Breast, or whatever, but when I greased Noob’s arm up with Crisco to free him from the banister, he said that I should go a little more casual. For once I thought he was onto something. Mostly because if I wore the sundress, I would have to wear a strapless bra, which I found very uncomfortable.

“Thanks. It turns out that I’m not very high maintenance when it comes to getting ready.”

He laughed. “You’re not high maintenance at all.”

“Thanks. Wait—that’s a good thing, right?”

He laughed again. “Yeah. That’s a very good thing.”

I plopped down next to him on the couch, and I heard Nicola’s voice in my head, saying, “Legs! Legs!” I slammed mine together. I was still getting the hang of this skirt thing.

Blush pointed to my feet. “Cool shoes.”

“Thanks. They’re actually orthopedic shoes,” I said. “Like for old German women. But they’re super comfortable. Nicola tried to get me not to buy them, but I did anyway. And then we saw in an article that M.I.A. and Michelle Williams wear them, too. That’s the first time I’ve ever been cool without trying,” I babbled. I probably shouldn’t have chugged a Red Bull during the getting-ready part. “So can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, well, I noticed that during that whole date-tutorial thing, you didn’t really say anything.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, I just think that whole thing was kind of stupid.”

“What part?” I asked. “I mean, personally, I think that
all
of it is stupid, but I’d be interested in knowing what part
you
think is stupid.”

“It’s just that you throw two people who are both probably nervous together, and instead of one of them or both of them just saying that, which would break the ice, they both sit there trying to play by some rules.”

I nodded. “Yeah. I know what you mean.” I sighed. “And unfortunately for me, I’m really bad with the rules things. When I was in elementary school I always got ‘needs improvement’ in following directions.”

“So are you excited about going out with this guy?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Sure.”

“Huh.”

“Huh what?”

He shrugged. “I guess I got the sense from your reaction to his taste in movies and music and stuff that he’s not really your type.”

I sighed. How could I explain to a guy—let alone a guy like Blush, who really couldn’t have cared less about these things—that when you spend your life on the outside of everything, you can’t turn down the chance to go out with someone who’s on the center of the inside. Jason Frank was like that part of a candy bar commercial when they show the creamy nougat center, and not taking that when offered is just wrong. “Because he’s the only guy who’s ever asked me out,” I blurted. I kind of hated that when it came to Blush I was so comfortable around him that my edit button was constantly broken. Wow. That was even more embarrassing than if I had tried to explain the first thing. I stood up. “And, now, I . . . I have to . . . go be a little more high maintenance,” I said as I stomped off.

I had every intention of letting Jason buy the tickets, since he was the asker and I was the askee. But because I got there early, and because I didn’t have anything else to do other than try not to sweat through the armpits of my T-shirt, I just did it myself. And because I was hungry and got some popcorn, I bought him one as well. And a Coke. And an assortment of candy.

“You didn’t have to get all this,” he said when he got there at seven twenty.

“Oh, it’s okay.”

He took out his wallet. “Let me give you—”

“No! It’s fine,” I said quickly. “We should go in. I already got us seats.”

He shrugged. When we got to the door, he opened it and stepped aside.

“What?” I asked as I stood there.

“I’m holding the door open for you,” he explained as he gave me an odd look.

“Oh. Thanks,” I said as I walked in. Only five minutes into the date and I had already screwed it up.

Luckily, for the two hours that followed I didn’t have to worry about making conversation. All I had to do was sit back and relax and laugh. And keep an ear open to see if he laughed at the right places. (He did. Well, at least a few times.) By the time we walked out I was a lot more relaxed. Like to the point where I let him open not just one door for me but two.

“So . . . there’s that place Milk down the street,” Jason said as we got outside as a sea of Seth Rogen-esque guys walked by us. “Their blue velvet cake is awesome.”

I waved to Josh Rosen, the guy who had hit me on the head that day in study hall when Jason first talked to me. “Blue velvet cake? I don’t know,” I said doubtfully. “I’m sort of an expert on the dessert front, and I’ve never heard of that in my life.”

“I’m telling you, not only does it exist, but it’s incredible.” He smiled. “Trust me.”