Being Friends With Boys (14 page)

“I’m going to need your help,” I gush. I know this is an intra-band relationship no-no I’d frown on with anyone else, but I don’t care this second. “I, apparently, have got a date on Saturday night.”

M
y excitement about going out with Fabian—fueled, in part, by Darby’s crazed enthusiasm and our little What Not to Wear exercise after dinner—dissipates the next morning as soon as I read the notebook from Trip.

The cartoons about Whitney doing all these awful things because Oliver broke up with her are hilarious, but the second part catches my laugh in my throat:
POTENTIAL SATURDAY-NIGHT PROJECTS
, the top of the next page reads.
BETWEEN ONE DEMPSEY “TRIP” BREWER AND ANOTHER CHARLOTTE ANNE AUGUSTINE.
Under that Trip has written out a list, some actual contenders (
Take MARTA to the airport and back,
documenting the crazy conversations overheard during the trip
), some ridiculous (
Don formal attire and gallivant around Little Five Points, documenting the number of times people ask if we’ve just gone to prom
). There are at least twenty ideas here. Maybe more.

Crap.

After lunch I still haven’t had the heart to write back to him. I don’t want, for one thing, my date with Fabian to be recorded yet. And even though I told Darby, it still feels like something that’s just mine. Secondly, I can’t make myself write it—can’t say,
I can’t do Saturday night because I’m going out. With a boy.
Though Trip is my friend, it still sucks for me to stand him up. I know too well how it feels to be replaced by someone else, even for only one weekend. Though I’ll make it up to him next Saturday for sure, it’s still depressing. And he would probably have a thing or two to say about me dating someone in the band.

But Trip can see something’s wrong as I head down the hall to meet him.

“You okay?”

“I can’t do Saturday night,” I tell him straight-out. Rip off the Band-Aid. That always feels better, right?

When his face falls, it doesn’t. Feel better. He tries to recover fast, though. “Everything okay?”

“Yes, it’s fine. I just . . . there’s something . . . with a guy . . . He asked me to—”

“Who? Benji?” he asks, sharp.

“What? No. God.” A solution occurs to me. Not a great one—and not one I really want—but one that might smooth things out. “Maybe you want to come? There’s this band at the Masquerade and I don’t know anything about them, but—”

“Um, no thanks.”

“Wait. I mean, why not?”

Behind the gold rims of his glasses, his eyes are steady, flat. “Are you forgetting that tricycles are the only things that function well with three wheels? And I’m a little tall for those now.” His fingers flute out to illustrate his complete height.

“It’s not like that. I mean—” But, of course, it is. I didn’t really want him to say yes, anyway. “Okay. You’re right. I’m sorry. I can cancel with him. Let me study this crazy awesome list a bit more and—”

“No, don’t cancel.” He backs away from me, getting ready to head down the hall to his class. “Do your thing. It sounds cool. And you should probably be out hearing new bands, anyway, now that you’re in one.”

He turns and disappears down the hall before I can say anything; before I can say, for example,
Well, tonight’s Friday—what about that?
And also before I can tell, really, if he’s being sincere and supportive, or if it’s supposed to sound as mean as it does.

When Trip isn’t waiting for me later—when he doesn’t show up after about two minutes of my just standing there, looking for him in the hallway—I guess I have my answer. I finally wrote him this long thing about how we could’ve done something tonight if he’d stuck around, how he completely, unfairly overreacted, and how friends are supposed to be
glad
for each other when they get asked out by people they like, even if it’s complicated, but that makes me stop writing, because, well, there’s the whole not-wanting-to-put-Fabian-in-writing-yet thing.

I end up ripping up my little rant and tossing it in the trash outside of class. I’m going to try to catch Trip in the parking lot before he takes off after school, ask him about tonight in person. But when I get there he’s nowhere to be seen. Since Benji and I aren’t studying together this week either, I head home with my stepsisters.

It’s not until eleven o’clock that Trip responds to my
Where did you go?
text.

With Chris
is all it says.

I fling my phone down onto a pile of dirty laundry.

Saturday I can’t worry about Trip anymore, because we have rehearsal. Instead I’m thinking—maybe for the first time—about my clothes. Normally, I’d pull on jeans and a Salvation Army sweater—maybe put my hair in a ponytail, maybe not—and walk
over to Oliver’s, start helping Mrs. Drake with the snacks. But this Saturday is different. I want to try at least a little harder today.

But as I stand in front of my dresser, hating everything I own, it also occurs to me that Fabian’s already asked me out, even though he’s mostly seen me in costumes befitting a stay-at-home dad. Trying too hard today might be obvious, or silly. And anyway, I want to dress up tonight, and for him to notice, so maybe I should wear what I normally wear to rehearsal. I consider calling Darby in for consultation or, better, Gretchen, who’s actually
been
in a relationship, but then, that’s ridiculous because it’ll just bring even more attention to the whole thing.

It’s just rehearsal
, I tell myself. I put on my favorite jeans for comfort and a black turtleneck for the chic factor, pull my hair back, and throw in some earrings for good measure—call it a compromise.

Dressing normal for rehearsal doesn’t make me feel any more normal, though. Abe comes in, then Eli arrives, and finally Fabian.
You’re always last to rehearsal
, I want to say to him in some teasing way. But then it would seem like I was waiting. Which I was, but still. Instead I just smile, try to be aloof, and make sure I walk behind him down the stairs so he doesn’t see my flushed face.

“I gotta leave at four, man,” Eli says, jerking his thumb in the direction of the stairs. Immense relief and gratitude sweep
through me. Darby has some pre-date regimen she wants me to go through, and I’ve accepted mostly because it will help to have someone distracting me from being so nervous. Now we’ll actually have time for it.

“Let’s go over the new material again, then,” Oliver says. “And then if there’s time, a few of the old hits, just to keep ourselves limber. Spider?”

“Huh?” I think my mouth is open. “I mean, yes?”

Oliver’s eyes squinch a little. “You okay? With starting?”

“Oh, um. Sure? But maybe can we do ‘Foreign Tongue’ first? Since I’m just backup?” I clear my throat. “I haven’t warmed up or anything.”

Oliver nods. Abe nods. Eli nods. Fabian nods. Why my entire body is swimming with heat, I don’t know. I’ve sung in front of Fabian before. He thinks I’m excellent.

But that’s what makes it harder to sing now. He thinks I’m so excellent that he wants to spend more time with me. On our own. Together. Tonight. Only about six hours from now, he and I will be driving in his superclean car together to go listen to music that he wants me to hear and—

But I have to sing now. And I can’t let Oliver suspect a thing, anyway.

“Listen, listen, sssshhhhhhh . . .”
I half murmur behind Oliver’s line.

Everything comes out properly, though my “sshhhhh” is sloppy: surprised and wet. The next part,
“Tell me, tell me, sssshhhhhh,”
comes out better. I am not looking at Fabian. Or Oliver. I am trying to sing honest. Excellent.
“Tell me. Tell me.”

The rest of rehearsal, I force myself to focus on the music, to not wonder what we’ll talk about tonight in the car, what the club will be like, if we’ll go out on the floor to dance and if his hand will somehow come in contact with mine when we do. The end of the night—the potential kissing, even though we shouldn’t—makes me press my eyes closed and my thighs together at the same time.

At four on the dot, Eli slings his bass into his case and splits. Abe looks like he’s going to stick around, maybe play some video games with Oliver awhile, and I can’t tell what Fabian’s in the mood for because I’m trying not to look at him. I jerk my thumb in Eli’s wake, explain I should be heading off too.

“Oh,” Fabian says, surprised.

“Yeah.” I pause.
Does he want me to stay?
“Got some . . . cleaning up . . . I need to do at home. I mean, around the house, before we . . .”

Is it me? Or are Oliver and Abe suddenly paying careful attention?

Fabian holds up his hand. A wave? A dismissal? A stop-before-you-say-too-much-because-this-is-a-secret? “I’ll see you then.”

Um. Okay. “Okay. I’ll see you.”

I give as normal a good-bye to Oliver and Abe as I can, and then get myself up the stairs and out the door as fast as humanly possible.

“You’re so late!” Darby hisses when I make it safely to my house. She is halfway down the staircase, holding a plastic tray loaded with nail polish and cotton balls and several small, silver, plucky-looking tools.

I shut the door, hang up my jacket, and head upstairs, knowing she’ll follow. I’m still jittery from trying to act normal around the guys, and Darby’s pressure doesn’t help. “He’s not going to be here until, like, eight.”

“Which means we need to hurry. You need to shower
and
shampoo”—her eyes narrow—“so that your hair can air dry completely before we fix it. And then lotion, and we’ll do your nails, and I guess you’ll have to eat before you get dressed so you don’t spill anything. But you’re not going to be that hungry, right? We could skip dinner. You could do some sit-ups instead.”

“I am not going out on an empty stomach. And you’re not doing my nails, either.”

“Gah, Charlotte. I’m trying to help you, you know. You said you wanted.”

“I know. And I do appreciate it. I do. But I think it’ll be a little suspicious if I look like Powder Puff Princess all of a sudden.”

“True.” She assesses me. “But you do still need to shower.”

“Agreed.”

“Here.” Darby hands me a glittery bottle.

“What is this?” I try to read the girly cursive label.

“Exfoliating wash. Scrub it over everywhere, especially your feet, elbows, and knees, before you do your regular soap-up.”

“This doesn’t smell like baby powder or anything, does it?” I pop open the cap, take a whiff.

“No, creep. It’s Shalimar shea. You’ll smell like a sexy queen.”

“Sexy queen, huh?” I reach for my bathrobe, hanging on the back of my door.

“And don’t forget to shave, for god’s sake!” she screams after me down the hall.

Seven thirty, and Fabian’s texted twice, letting me know when he’s left his place and when he should arrive at mine. It’s reassuring that he seems as anxious about tonight as I am. Getting ready so early has given me way too much time to think about it, though. For one thing, I’ve realized that going to hear a band at a club isn’t exactly the same intimacy as going to dinner and a movie. It’s not like we’ll be able to talk much. Which makes me think, maybe he doesn’t
want
to talk much, and instead just wants me along—like Lish used to do sometimes—so he doesn’t have to go somewhere alone. But, then again, he doesn’t seem like the kind
of guy who would mind going somewhere alone. He probably has friends he’d meet up with, anyway, right? I mean, he’s been there before, so this isn’t some new experience for him. Maybe he
does
want my company.

But this could just be about wanting to get to know the members of the band more, right?
So then why didn’t he invite Oliver and Abe, too?
I snap back in my head. I almost want to ask Darby about all of this—really, I want to ask
Trip
, but he’s obviously not interested in discussing my plans this evening. Or anything, for that matter, since he’s neither called nor texted all day. Jerk.

At 7:54, I’m letting Darby fuss with my hair some more, just to give us both something to look at until Fabian gets here. She won’t let me go downstairs and hang out in front of the TV.

“You have to come down the stairs, duh. And you have to make him wait a little.”

“But then Dad will try to—”

“Risk you have to take,” she says, her eyebrows and lips patronizing as hell. “Besides, if he’s going to be doing this often, he better be comfortable with your dad, right?”

If he’s going to be doing this often.
I am still not even sure if this is really a date. I mean, it has most of the essential first-date ingredients, including my breath-catching interest in him. It’s his interest in me that I’m not so overwhelmingly sure about.

I look at myself in the mirror. Darby and I went back and
forth quite a lot on the outfit. She wanted me to wear tighter-fitting jeans and a purple minidress of hers over them with a big giant belt across my middle, topped off with a yellow-and-white-striped cardigan and these giant dangling sparkly earrings. “See if Gretchen will let you borrow her slouchy boots, too,” she said. But I just glared at her.