The Ex Games (26 page)

“You should’ve seen your gurl acting all crazy, speeding through customers so Fly Guy could slide over to my faster line,” I confessed. “I still don’t know what got into me. It was like I
had
to meet him.”

“What’s his name?” she asked the minute we claimed an unoccupied bistro table outside our favorite sandwich shop.

I couldn’t conjure a juicy response if I’d wanted to. My involuntary facial expressions—primarily acted out by my dark, thick eyebrows—always snitch my true feelings. My eyebrows twitched and rose, then in the next millisecond, lowered. This reflex babbled to Pam that this was the end of my crush story. Nothing else to say.

“Well, at least you now know there’s
crush life after Rick,” she said before I could answer. “I’ll go in and grab our lunch.”

“Let me know if you need help carrying it out,” I offered.

It had been only two weeks, but this was getting to be our Saturday afternoon ritual. And what made this ritual extra nice was finding a sweet lunch spot where we could people watch. For November it was a relatively warm day. Sitting in the sun would help us stay warm after we downed our cold soft drinks.

It was a great day for people watching. Lots of modely types were walking the Ave for some reason. The skater dudes hanging out near Starbucks were happy about that. Their jumps got riskier and more helter-skelter every time a group of girls walked by.

“It’s mad busy out here,” I commented as Pam and I ate. “I wonder what’s going on today.”

Sometimes, if the new bookstore was hosting an author signing, or if a performance at the arts center around the corner was poppin’ off, there would be more foot traffic than usual. Pam shrugged and spotted someone interesting.

“He stays for
ever
framed out,” she said
of the guy walking by in white-rimmed shades. For the many times we’d run into him, we’d never seen his eyes—rain or shine. “Lookin’ like Kanye West in that ole ‘Stronger’ video,” Pam continued.

“I’m sayin’,” I agreed.

“Ooooh, come with me to Cynthea Bey’s store,” Pam pleaded, as if in response to something she told herself in her mind. She checked the time on her cell phone. “I wanna see what she came up with for the winter season.”

Cynthea Bey had opened Chic Boutique—a cool warehouse space showcasing local and popular designer labels—a little over two months ago. Pam, the Cynthea groupie, had visited almost every week. I think she was stalking so she could one day cross paths with the supermodel. Despite her unlucky timing, Pam continued to have hope.

“We’ve got twenty-five minutes before I have to be back,” I warned Pam. She’s an overscheduling freak if you don’t rein her in.

She hadn’t even swallowed all of her food, but she stood up and threw away the rest of her sandwich and baby carrots. If I wasn’t such a fast eater and hadn’t already
been done with my turkey baguette, there’s no way I would have been leaving with her.

By the time we turned the corner toward Chic Boutique, the sight of a long line snaking from the store to the sidewalk twisted our faces into WTF grimaces.

“Are they giving away free clothes or something? What’s with that crazy long line?” I asked out loud, but more to myself than to Pam. The last thing I felt like doing was dealing with a bunch of maniacal girls all vying for the same size-four jeans.

Pam and I stood staring in a paralyzed pause, reading the large pink storefront sign’s swirly letters:
CASTING CALL TODAY: 15 JERSEY GIRLS WILL BE SELECTED TO COMPETE FOR THE CHANCE TO BECOME
THE
CHIC BOUTIQUE MODEL IN OUR IN-STORE PRINT ADS!

It was clear that Cynthea Bey was out to prove that New Jersey could bleed style like New York.
Good for her,
I thought.

“I’ve seen enough.” I tried to snap Pam out of her daze. I could tell she was excited. Nothing this huge had happened in Teawood since the year before when Jay-Z and Beyoncé were spotted buying iced coffees at the corner café. “Let’s get out of here. I’m starting to catch a Rachel Zoe–clone contact high.”
Pam didn’t respond. “Quick, before I break out in an ‘ohmygod’ attack—or worse, break out in song.” Still no response. “My humps. My humps. My lovely lady lumps.”

Pam finally blinked; then she laughed at my rendition. “I’m sorry, this must be torture for you. I’ll come back when this all blows over.”

That’s when I saw him. The hottie customer from Art Attack was just a few yards from me. He was talking to girls in the outdoor casting line. Even though most guys would love to have been in his position, it didn’t seem like he was trying to hit on anyone. Instead, he looked professional—snapping digital shots of each contestant, then attaching printed photos onto forms he collected from every girl.

“That’s him, that’s him!” I whisper-screamed. Pam knew right away what and whom I was talking about. She followed the direction of my gaze to the object of my obsess—, er, affection.

He was as tall and calm as an oak tree. I wondered if that made me a pesky squirrel foraging for an acorn of his attention. It was nice to see him looking more relaxed than he had looked in Art Attack, where he’d
gotten all bashful about coming up short. His former pocket-digging hands were now carrying a clipboard and a tiny camera. He pulled one of those cool portable photo printers from his back pocket.

The official-looking lanyard hanging around his neck confirmed that he wasn’t loitering here to check out the girls. It also nicely topped off his intrepid reporter look. The only thing missing was a newsboy cap.

“What’s he doing?” Pam asked.

Loverboy was holding his finger in the air, counting the heads of every girl in line outside. As he counted his way down and got closer to Pam and me, I was able to make out what was written in all caps on his lanyard:
BRENT ST. JOHN,
WWW.FACEMAG.COM
, PHOTOGRAPHY INTERN
.

That was when he reached us. He was mumbling numbers under his breath as he pointed at me and then finally Pam. “Twenty, twenty-one” I heard him say before he turned around and headed back to the first girl he had counted at the entrance of Chic Boutique. It seemed that there were also people standing inside the store who were being grouped in a separate head count.

“He thinks we’re in line for this casting,”
I complained to Pam.
How did this happen?
I blamed it on the mesmerizing fuchsia storefront sign. We’d gotten caught up when we stood there frozen to read it. Now our absentmindedness had made Fly Guy confused.

“This is a sign.” A sudden gust of autumn wind blew Pam’s flyaway strands into the sides of her mouth as she spoke excitedly. “You have to give him your number or something. Who knows if you’ll ever meet him again? Much less twice in one day!”

He was about ten girls away from where we stood at the end of the line. I had to think fast. I had messed up the first time he and I were face-to-face. There had to be some way to strike up a conversation with him.

My inner scheming led me to the stack of applications jammed into a plastic brochure holder standing outside the door.

I grabbed one.

Pam knew where I was headed with this so she dug deep into her purse and furnished a pen. In the next hot minute, I was filling out the application as fast as I could.