Girls We Love (11 page)

“Everybody, everybody,” Sam said, waving his hands, “we all need to calm down. I'm calling an emergency family therapy session. Now.” They all went dutifully to the couches and sat down. “Does anyone need anything? Water? Coffee? No? Okay. David, you've clearly upset Sara-Beth. Would you like an opportunity to explain yourself?”

David closed his eyes and scratched the bare skin behind his ear. “I'm sorry,” he said slowly, “I didn't mean to upset you.”

“That's okay,” SBB whispered. “It's just that I don't know why you wouldn't want to go to Gda
ń
sk with me.”

“It's not that I don't want to go to Gda
ń
sk with
you.
I just… ” David looked up at his parents helplessly, like he was searching for an answer. They gave him hard stares. “Look, I just want to be a normal guy. I'm not sure running off to Gda
ń
sk is me, you know what I mean?”

SBB threw her face into her hands and whimpered. Hilary rubbed Sara-Beth's back and removed the pencil that had been holding up her pile of dark curls. She pointed it at David and said, “No, mister, I don't think I do know what you mean.”

“Um.” David shook his head, like he was trying to shake off a bad prophecy. “Okay, here's an example. There's this party on Friday night that I wouldn't be able to go to if I went to Gda
ń
sk. I mean, if I went early, like you're saying.”

“What party could possibly be more important than my first serious job as a real actress?” SBB gasped, turning toward Sam and Hilary for support. “Do you not believe in me?”

“She has a point,” Sam said.

“Well, I mean it's just an example. And of course I believe in you! But I think Flan is expecting you to go to this party, too. Her sweet sixteen? Remember, this Friday?”

“Oh… right,” SBB said, her features coming together unpleasantly. She looked like another tantrum was hovering, but after a moment she threw up her
hands and said, “Okay, I guess it's not the best idea to fly to Europe tonight.”

Sam made a show of sniffing the air. “Is that sweet compromise I smell?” he said.

“Dad,” David said sharply. He couldn't even bring himself to look at his father after that joke.

“Yeah,” said SBB, “it's fine. We can go on Saturday, just like before. I'm sorry, David, that I made such a big scene about my little anxieties.”

“Awww…,” Hilary said. She clasped her hands together and pressed them against her cheek. “So, we're all okay, then? And David, I want to say that we totally support your desire for … normalness.”

“That's right,” Sam said.

“Oh, me too!” Sara-Beth said. “David, not only do I support your normal side, I love you for it. Now come on, I want to see if this suit I bought you for Gda
ń
sk fits.” Sara-Beth slapped her forehead. “Silly me! I mean, if this suit I bought you for Flan's party fits.”

“Hey, it's Flan, I miss you already, so leave me a message!”
“Flan! It's Sara-Beth. Guess what. Liesel just called me and she said that she got Leland Brinker for Friday night. Leland's coming to your party! Are you psyched or what? Kiss!”

“Hey, it's Flan, I miss you already, so leave me a message!”
“Flan, it's Liesel. I hear Sara-Beth spilled the beans on a very special indie star who will be attending your party, but oh well. It's still exciting. Listen, would you call me when you can? We've got some details to iron out, cutie-pie. Ciao, ciao.”

Liv had taken to always wearing sunglasses, even indoors, just like her new pal Sara-Beth Benny. She was wearing them now as she strode through the aisles of Bloomingdale's, and it was actually really helping her do what she was trying to do. Which was pretend to look at clothes in the BCBG section for potential Friday night outfits, while in fact keeping an eye on Flan.

Because Flan was not only her best friend from elementary school, but also the little sister of Liv's secret lover, Patch. If Flan found out that Liv had kissed Patch's friend David, then her whole golden couple dream would be out the window like that.

So Liv watched as Flan had yet another phone conversation with Liesel about the big birthday bash, and tried to listen in. She was listening to hear any hint that maybe Flan knew more than she was letting on about the whole kissing David accident, or whether she knew any little thing about Patch's plan to take things slow.
After all, was it really possible that Patch had confessed nothing of these momentous events to his little sister, that he had asked her for no advice? She seemed so clueless about the whole Liv and Patch thing in general that it was hard to know what was an act and what wasn't.

Flan flipped her phone shut and came bounding back over toward Liv. “One word,” she said, pulling her hair up to ponytail height and opening her blue eyes wide. “Elephants.”

Liv scrunched her nose. “Elephants? Isn't that sort of… inhumane?”

Flan rolled her eyes and let her hair fall down. “Noooo. It's a baby elephant. The most spoiled baby elephant in all the world, probably. And Liesel said DeeDee Rakoff is paying an arm and a leg, so I'm sure it's well taken care of.”

“DeeDee Rakoff is paying for it?”

“Well the firm, whatever… ” Flan shrugged. “Anyway, did you find anything?”

“Not really,” Liv said, pushing her sunglasses up her nose and taking a long strand of artificially sun-touched hair and twirling it. “But I'm sure the dress for you is here. Somewhere.”

“It's gotta be,” Flan said, exhaling and then wondering how to bring up her Jonathan suspicions. They both started moving down the aisle, pushing hangers back rapid-fire. After a few minutes without finding
anything, Flan looked up, fixed Liv in her stare, and said, “So, I talked to Jonathan yesterday night … ”

“Oh, goodie,” Liv said without thinking. She paused to look at a turquoise dress with a belted waist. Then she thought of something. “Wait, he called to talk to you, right?”

Liv looked up, and she and Flan appraised each other awkwardly. Flan took a breath and then said, “No, actually. He was looking for you. I was supposed to tell you last night, but I guess I forgot somehow. Maybe 'cuz it seemed so… strange.”

“Well, what did he say he wanted?” Liv's mind was racing with all the things Jonathan and she might have discussed, who they might have told, and what the consequences of all these combinations were.

“He didn't,” Flan said sharply. They advanced down the row of dresses.

“Huh, that's funny…” Liv studied Flan's face, which didn't look like it could conceal anything, and then decided that Jonathan really hadn't told her anything unusual. She nodded in agreement with herself. “You know what I bet? I bet he wanted to talk to you, and then when he heard your voice he got all bashful-like and then he made up something about wanting to talk to me.”

“You think?” Flan looked dubious, but she didn't look suspicious anymore, which was good.

“Definitely. I've never talked to Jonathan in my life. What else could it be?”

“Maybe…,” Flan said, narrowing her eyes like she was trying to see a kernel of truth out on the horizon. Liv didn't seem to be involved with Jonathan, but then she certainly seemed to be trying to throw Flan off
some
trail. That whole bashful thing was total and utter BS.

Liv twisted her hair and moved forward. “So… Jonathan didn't say anything about David?”

“David?!”
Flan almost jumped, so surprised was she to hear his name in this conversation. He was the only one of her brother's friends who had a real girlfriend, not to mention a girlfriend who was in a whole different league. She wondered if David could possibly be the older guy in question, and then decided there was just no way. “No … Why in the world would he mention David?”

Flan watched Liv smile broadly, and knew immediately that she was concealing something. And it pretty much had to have something to do with Jonathan.

“Oh, I don't know. Maybe he was calling about SBB, and because of the whole David thing, and well, you know … ” Liv shrugged and felt free and happy, because now she knew for sure that Flan, and thus Patch, knew nothing about that treacherous kiss.

“Know what? That doesn't make any sense,” Flan said. “If he was calling to find out something about
SBB, then why didn't he just ask to talk to her? Are you…
lying
to me?”

“What? I couldn't hear you… . Oh, hold on. Maybe this would look nice on you!” Liv tossed a brown halter dress with seashells sewn all over it across the aisle at Flan. She smiled brightly and innocently, and hoped that Flan would be distracted by her pick. Then she went back to combing the dresses on the racks, and waited for the whole unpleasant conversation to be over. She had gotten what she needed out of it, after all, and she didn't know what Flan was making a fuss about.

Liv was distracted from this series of thoughts by an incoming text message from her mom that read
where are you young lady!?
so she didn't even notice Flan running toward the dressing room and slamming the door behind her.

Maybe it was the party pressure, maybe it was the thought of Leland Brinker blowing out candles on my birthday cake, maybe it was that I'd skipped lunch … who knows. But as soon as I hit the dressing room at Bloomie's, I was a falling down mess.

And then I looked at this ugly brown seashell thing that Liv had given me, and I realized that I was having trouble trusting my best friend from elementary school. And that's just never a good moment in an almost-fourteen-year-old-girl-on-the-verge-of-having-her-sweet-sixteen-party's life. Know what I mean?

So I sat there, crying, tears running down my face, making it all pielike and ugly, and I looked at this dress and I thought: (A) That dress is ugly; (B) Liv picked it for me, so she must want me to
look ugly; thus (C) Liv must be having a secret something with Jonathan.

Because suddenly I didn't want to meet Leland Brinker. All I wanted was Jonathan. Is that strange?

I mean, you would do the same thing I did, right? Which was that I curled up on the floor of the dressing room and I called my brother. It took him too many rings to answer, and when he picked up, he said, “Hey Flannie.”

“Hiiiii … ” I knew I sounded like a baby, but I couldn't help it. Patch always had the magic ability to calm me down, just by being him, and I was waiting for the magic to hit. “Patch, are you coming to my party tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” he said in that baked-on-the-beach voice of his, “of course I am. Why? You thinking of bailing?”

“No—how can I?” I tucked my legs up against my chest and tried not to look at my reflection in the, like, twenty-five dressing room mirrors that were facing me down ominously. “Patch, I don't know if I'm ready for this.”

“You mean a big party at a New York City club, with celebrities, and energy drinks, in your honor? Nah, you'll love it.”

“I don't think so,” I said in a small voice.

Patch sighed. “Listen, Flannie Bug, I'm out skating with Mickey and his new girlfriend and his old girlfriend.”

“You mean Philippa?” For a moment, I put my self-pity on hold, because that was too weird. Philippa had been Mickey's girlfriend for as long as I can remember, and her identity has always kind of been defined by the outsized personality of her boyfriend. Then she turned lesbian or something, which was so obviously just her trying to get a life. “That's weird.”

“Yeah, she's really good, too. Or at least, she's trying to be good. I think she hates Mickey's new girlfriend, and doesn't want to be shown up by her.”

“Oh,” I said.

“So … are you okay? Sounds like you're being kind of a baby.”

I decided to ignore that little bit of brotherly judgment. “Whatever, I'm fine,” I said. The Patch magic was starting to work.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” I said, straightening up and forcing myself to think if anything could be done about my pudgy crying face. “There's just one thing I want you to do for me.”

“Name it.”

“Make sure Jonathan is at my party, okay?”

There was a pause on the other line, and then Patch said, “Okay, you got it.”

“Is he still going out with little miss freckle face, by the way?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Oh, no reason, just curious.”

“Yeah, well, I think he broke it off. That raw-food-soup-at-nine-a.m. thing was a deal breaker.”

“And has he said anything about any other girls?”

“Um … I guess he muttered something about having a crush on somebody, but … ”

I gave myself a look in the closest dressing room mirror, which was pleasantly flattering, and decided that it really didn't matter whether there was something maybe going to happen between Jonathan and Liv, or if he was mumbling about having a crush on her. It hadn't mattered that the tree-hugger girl liked him, either—she happened, and now she was gone. I looked in that mirror and I decided that I was going to stop acting like a little girl and get myself together for this party. I was going to be glamorous and exciting, and I was going to get Jonathan back.

I told myself, Look at yourself! You are so the kind of girl one of the Insiders would love. I was just going to have to start putting it out there.

“Are you there?” Patch said.

“Yeah, sorry. So you'll definitely make sure that Jonathan comes to the party?”

“Sure.”

“Great,” I said. “You're the best! Okay, back to dress shopping!”

When I emerged from the dressing room, I saw Liv standing there with a big pile of dresses in her arms and a face full of regret.