How to Look Happy (13 page)

I chuckle out loud at his mention of “the old crowd,” considering he dumped me for a new, cooler crowd our junior year. I think I spoke to Tyler Kissett, captain of the football team, twice during all of high school. I happen to know that he
is
still in town, but I haven’t seen him since the day we donned our graduation gowns. I think he’s a hotshot lawyer now, or maybe he’s a doctor… I’m not completely sure. As for Chip, he was Brandon’s best friend practically from the time they were in diapers, and I’m surprised Brandon would be asking me about him. Doesn’t he talk to Chip on his own anymore?

As I’m mulling over these things, it suddenly begins to hit me that
Brandon just asked me out
. I mean, sure, he phrased it as a casual thing, but still. Why me? Why not one of his old homecoming-court or cheerleader-crowd friends? I mean, he barely spoke to me after we broke up, and it’s been more than a decade since I’ve even seen him at a distance.

Slow tingles start to shudder through me as I remember how I felt about him back then, back before he ditched me for greener pastures and broke my heart into a million bits. I cried over Brandon Royer for a full month and moped over him for six months after that, straight up until Ethan Frye asked me out in the fall of our senior year. I wound up dating Ethan until we both left for college, him to Penn State where his father had gone and me to South Georgia for SCAD.

Even though it was Ethan I lost my virginity to—in his basement one night after his parents had gone to bed, about a week before our senior prom—it was Brandon I never fully got over.
Maybe that’s why
, I realize now. Ethan and I broke up amicably, not wanting to tie ourselves down to a long-distance relationship in college, but Brandon broke my heart. And since Brandon and I never actually consummated our relationship, the sexual tension between us was never really resolved.

Is that why I’m tingling all over right now? My face grows warm, and I close Brandon’s message without answering it. This situation requires a serious BFF consultation. I text Carrie to see if she’s free for happy hour, then slip my phone into my purse to avoid further distraction. I’ve got a to-do list to complete.

*  *  *

“Let me read it again.” Carrie takes the phone out of my hands, where I’ve been reading and rereading the exchange between Brandon and me for longer than I care to admit. With Carrie’s input, I replied to Brandon’s message soon after we got here, and since then he and I have gone back and forth several times, planning a time to meet.

Carrie and I have been sitting at the bar at South of Beale for well over two hours, and we’ll be here probably at least that much longer because our friend Amelia just texted that she’s out of her meeting and on her way to join us, along with Carrie’s boss, Katie.

Before that happens I want to resolve this little…situation that’s brewing between me and my high school sweetheart-slash-heartbreaker. “What do you think? Is this a real date or a friend-zone kind of thing?”

I’ve already asked this question about fifteen times, phrasing it different ways each time. Thank God Carrie loves me so much. I chew on my cuticles as she scrolls down the message thread. I’m one step shy of texting my high school friend Allison to get her take on Brandon’s messages, but I’m afraid of starting up the high school gossip chain. Yes, it still exists, especially since I still live within a fifteen-minute drive of my high school.

And, of course, I’m on Facebook, which isn’t all that different from the high school cafeteria when you think about it.

“He’s definitely asking you out,” Carrie assures me for the fifteenth time. “It’s not a group thing, so in my book that makes it a bona fide date. Plus, he’s even turned it into
dinner
, which is way more serious than drinks or lunch.” She gives me a curious look. “Are you sure you
want
to go out with this guy? I mean, if he broke your heart once, who’s to say he—”

“I know, I know,” I interrupt her. “I don’t plan to date him for real, and I definitely don’t see myself falling for him again. Or anybody, for that matter. It’s too soon…” My voice trails off as my mind wanders to Jeremy and to the box of his stuff I still haven’t figured out how to get to him.

“But it’s not too soon to have a little fun.” Carrie waggles her eyebrows at me, and the expression is so exaggerated I can tell she’s just trying to get me to stop going down the thinking-about-Jeremy path.

“Ugh. Not with Brandon,” I say, dragging out his name a little bit, though my stomach takes a roller-coaster plunge just thinking about “having fun” with Brandon. “Been there, done that.”

“But you didn’t buy the T-shirt,” she adds, winking at me, and I swat her on the shoulder.

“There’s probably a reason,” I say. “If the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t wear it.”

“Did his shoe not fit? Is there something you’re not telling me?” She’s giving me a speculating look that makes me think the question isn’t rhetorical.

“O-M-G,” I say, laughing. “Third base, with a little extra something for him,” I add. “That’s as far as it went. And as far as I can remember, his shoe was a standard size.” I give her a fake scowl. “And now enough with the innuendos.” My cheeks are burning and would be even without the strawberry basil martini I just consumed. Carrie’s laughing so hard that her face is as red as mine.

“What’s so funny?”

Carrie and I jump at the same moment. We’ve been so wrapped up in our conversation that neither of us noticed Amelia and Katie come through the door, even though we’re sitting just inside the doorway at the long, wooden bar. We all squeal at the same moment, eliciting a wry smile from Nathaniel, our favorite bartender. He puts his hands in the air and waggles his fingers in cheerleader spirit-hands fashion, his mouth open in a silent, mocking scream. I wink at him just as Amelia leans in for a hug.

“Oh my God,” I say, my voice intentionally an octave too high. “Amelia Wright, live and in the flesh. Hold on…” I pull my purse from the back of my barstool and fish around in it until I find my phone. I pull it out and pretend to hold it up. “Can I get a picture?”

She sticks her tongue out at me as she pulls out the barstool next to Carrie. “Hush, you bee-atch,” she says, her eyes sparkling good-naturedly. All of us are ogling her protruding belly, which hits the bar once she’s sitting in her chair.

“Wow, you’ve really popped out in the last three weeks,” I say. “Has it really only been that long?”

Amelia is rubbing her stomach with one hand, and she smiles a little dreamily. “I swear it did this overnight,” she says. “Like, I went to bed on a Tuesday, and I woke up Wednesday morning five inches thicker in the waist. None of my clothes fit.”

She’s officially the cutest pregnant woman I’ve ever seen, and I’m trying really, really hard not to feel jealous. Amelia is an easy person to feel jealousy toward though. A few years ago she wrote a series of bestselling novels that are still being made into movies. For a while she was dating the leading man of her own movies—who also happens to be one of the most famous men in Hollywood—and cameras followed her everywhere. Then she jilted him for her high school sweetheart and became even more of a fixture in the tabloids.

Now that she’s married to said high school sweetheart, Noah Bradley, her face is not quite as prevalent in celebrity gossip magazines—meaning that instead of being in every issue, she’s only in every third issue or so. It drives her crazy.

I imagine that the cuteness of her baby bump is giving her a resurgence, hence the “bee-atch” comment. She absolutely hates it when people stare at her or make a big deal over her in public, though she’d never let them know it.

I grin at her. “When’s your due date again?”

“September twelfth,” she says. “Which means we have roughly one month to find a house and sign a contract to be sure we have time to close before the baby comes.”

“I’m so excited you’re moving back,” Carrie says, and Katie, who’s sitting on the other side of me, nods her head in agreement.

“Well, part time, anyway,” Amelia says, sheepishly, and I figure it’s because she’s embarrassed to highlight the fact that she and Noah can easily afford to maintain homes in two cities. From what I understand, she’s now overseeing the brand new Dallas office of Anderson Public Relations, but I’m guessing, based on the amount of time she spends traveling to promote her books and movies, that she’s fairly hands-off. “I want to have the baby here though,” she continues. “It’s closer for Reese and my mom to come down—within driving distance.”

Her mother and her best friend live in Illinois, where Amelia and Noah grew up.

“Ooh, how is Reese?” Carrie asks. “I miss her!”

“I miss her too,” Amelia says, sticking out her lower lip a little. “She’s doing great. Ainsley’s…um, four months now, I think.” She shakes her head. “I haven’t seen her since she was less than a week old. I wish I could get back home more often.”

“Ah, the life of an international celebrity,” Katie deadpans, and Amelia sticks her tongue out again. “I feel so sorry for you.”

We all laugh, and just then a very tall, very thin girl with long, straight brown hair that emphasizes her plethora of vertical lines approaches us shyly. “Um,” she says, moving her neck forward in a way that resembles a swan swimming, or a pigeon walking. “Um, do you mind if I, um, get a picture with you?” she asks Amelia, and I struggle to hold in a snicker, placing my fingers over my lips. Beside me, Carrie has the same expression on her face.

“Sure.” Amelia puts on her public smile, slides out of her seat, and moves to stand next to the girl, who hands her phone to me. I jump up and snap two shots on the count of three.

“Thank you!” The girl, who’s pretty despite her gawky demeanor, is beaming at us. “It’s
so
nice to meet you.” This she directs to Amelia, even though the meeting was one-sided. Amelia smiles back again and quickly slides back onto her chair.

A few seconds later, Nathaniel comes over to us and plops a pair of oversized Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses and a frayed St. Louis Cardinals cap on the bar in front of Amelia. “Collected from the staff,” he says. “To help you hold your fans at bay.” He’s leaning on the bar as he says this, a lazy grin on his face. Nathaniel has this way of making you feel like you’re the only customers in his bar, even when the place is busy as hell.

“You guys are such smart-asses,” Amelia says, laughing. She pushes the items back toward him, wrinkling her nose. “As if I’d
ever
wear a Cardinals hat.” Amelia and Noah are legendary Cubs fans.

“Just trying to help.” He shoots us another sexy grin, swipes the sunglasses and hat off the bar, and saunters off.

“I swear, if it wouldn’t make me a cougar…” I mutter, watching him walk away, and Carrie bursts out laughing. We’ve spent many an hour at the bar discussing Nathaniel’s adorableness. But I happen to know he’s twenty-three, which makes him eight years younger than me. That might not be a problem on my end, but it does put him clearly out of my league.

“This is weird,” Katie says, and we all look at her. “Non-Jeremy Jen, that is. How’s the dating thing going? Are you back in the saddle yet?”

I make a face. “No, not yet. I’ve got a sour taste in my mouth still.” I smack my lips a couple of times. “Yep. Tastes like bitterness.” We’re all silent for a couple of seconds.

“She’s got a date though,” Carrie says, and I glower at her.

“It’s not really a date. It’s dinner with an old friend.”

“An old
boyfriend
. And I’m not convinced that’s all it is. You should see this guy,” she adds, looking at Amelia and Katie in turn.

“Looks aren’t everything,” I say.

Amelia nods in agreement. “That’s definitely true.”

“Says the girl who had
two
extremely hot men groveling at her feet in front of the entire country,” adds Katie, laughing. “What was it? Two marriage proposals in one night? Isn’t that what happened?”

A cloud crosses Amelia’s features at those words, and I remember how that story came out—in a tabloid report that turned out to be true. One of her mother’s friends apparently made a boatload of cash selling the story to the press.

Katie must remember this at the same time because her expression looks as if she’s just stepped in a steaming pile on the sidewalk.

Ever the diplomatist, Carrie promptly changes the subject. “So, have you started house hunting yet?” she asks, and Amelia launches into a discussion of real estate agents and open houses. All three of us bought our first houses around the same time and in the same area, a reaction to historically low interest rates and federal first-time buyer incentives. Like me, Carrie still has her original bungalow, but Amelia sold hers after she moved to Texas to live with Noah.

Carrie and David have been talking about moving in together, and she’s mentioned to me that she’s thinking about selling her house and looking with him for something bigger. I can’t believe we’re at the stage of our lives where we’re moving up into real, grown-up houses. As if homeownership itself isn’t enough to make us grown-ups.

I don’t feel like a grown-up though. More like a too-tall kid who’s magically filled out my mother’s high heels.

I feel myself starting to wallow again, so to keep from visualizing Jeremy setting up house with Brianna in a way he never did with me, I zone back in on the conversation taking place around me.