Smart Girl (16 page)

My shoulder hits the doorframe as my sigh fills the too-small room.

“Are you going to be weird around me all of the time now?”

Her fingers still on the fabric, she finally turns around to face me.

“This whole situation makes me anxious.”

I straighten up in surprise. “Work makes you anxious? I know some of the clients are—”

“Your life makes me anxious,” she clarifies.

“Excuse me?”

She pushes her glasses up farther on her nose, and for all her claiming to be the opposite, she seems totally confident.

“I’m acting weird because I’m
feeling
weird. I know you want my help and I know it’s my job to assist you, but the whole thing makes me uncomfortable.”

Dramatica extravaganza.

“Well, I’m
feeling
that you’re being a little overdramatic, Cas. If you don’t want to help me, don’t help. But don’t act like this list is some huge thing hanging over your head. I asked for your help, but it’s not like I forced you to—”

Her sigh is interruption enough.

“No, you don’t understand.” She rubs the bridge of her nose underneath her glasses. “It’s not the list. Do you think that’s the weirdest thing you’ve asked me to do since I started working here? Or even the fifth weirdest?”

My head fills with the image of her trying to find a crown small enough to fit on a frog—a poorly conceived plan for a little girl’s birthday party—and the subsequent mad scramble when our frog prince bit the big one forty minutes before the party. So no, this isn’t the weirdest thing she’s worked on.

“Not even close,” I agree. “So what’s so bad about this time? I thought you were going to be my wingman, the supportive sidekick, because that’s what you’ve always been. What’s so different now?”

Her face turns solemn, like a doctor about to deliver terrible news. “Because this time, you’re the one who’s going to be hurt.”

She’s so sure of what she’s saying that I can see it in every line of her face. That assurance actually makes me pause, and my voice comes out strained. “You don’t know that for sure.”

“No,
you
don’t know.” She stands up from her seat, hands angrily fisted at her sides. “Life isn’t a fairy tale, Miko. It doesn’t end the way they show in books or movies. The hero isn’t always kind; he doesn’t always love you back, no matter how much you wish he would!”

For the first time I wonder whose life we’re talking about here. We stare at each other in tense silence. I’m supposed to be older and wiser, but I have no idea what to say to her.

“I don’t believe that’s true” is all I can manage.

She looks like my mom did when I was little and I did something bad; disappointment is written in every feature.

“I know you don’t, and that’s what makes me so anxious.”

The look on Casidee’s face haunts me for hours that night. So does the fact that I still haven’t figured out what to do about Liam.

Without anything better to help me figure it all out, I’ve only got my gut to go by. Regardless of whether or not we’re in touch right this moment, and regardless of what anyone else thinks, Liam has only ever been lovely to me. And when I imagine how much more incredible we’d be if this were official, if I were allowed to say all the things I feel about him, that makes up my mind for me. So I don’t let myself think about Landon, and I don’t let myself think about Casidee. I focus instead on what I can control in this situation: myself and my ever-expanding list of love stories.

I have a really good plan for this weekend, stolen out of one of the greatest love stories ever written down. Plus, I have to try to cram in some knowledge about college football before then so I can at least keep up with their conversations. So I’m not going to worry about whether or not he misses me too; I’m just going to focus on what I do best. I’m going to design myself some romance.

Chapter
ELEVEN

When I arrive at Barney’s Beanery midmorning on Saturday, I briefly reconsider my plan. Initially, I had no greater goal in mind than to do a little attention grabbing. I wanted to remind Liam that I’m different and special and not someone you can forget—even just while you’re away on business. This scene was the obvious choice because it is the quintessential
I’m totally confident in myself and I don’t need you
moment in literature or film—even if the opposite is true for both that heroine and myself. The problem is that since I’ve never been to a sports bar before, I didn’t really think about how casual and sloppy it is. Oh sure, I’m wearing an old T-shirt just like everyone else here. It’s just that I paired it with a voluminous skirt large enough for a princess or a mad game of parachute at the nearest preschool.

I look out into the sea of jeans and T-shirts until I find the table full of my friends on the other side of the room. They’re all staring at the flat-panel TVs that line the walls, engrossed in things that make them yell at the screens.

Hmm, I didn’t count on how truly laid back this bar really is. That makes a bold wardrobe choice all the more daring. Is it too bold? When Landon looks up from the table, wearing a vintage T-shirt and her UT cap, and spies me from across the room, she answers my question by managing to do a spit-take
and
choke on her beer simultaneously. Brody pounds her on the back while hurriedly asking her a question, but she’s clearly asphyxiating too hard on her drink to answer him.

Oh well, it’s not the first time I’ve been the only one in costume. And besides, I look super hot in this baby tee. I pick up the front of my skirt and make my way around tables surrounded by groups of guys yelling at various TVs. Almost every table I pass has a person or two who looks down long enough to eyeball my ensemble, but at the end of the day, this is Los Angeles and a full ball gown–style skirt isn’t the oddest thing they’ve seen this week by half.

As I get closer to my destination, Liam looks up from his phone and actually does a double take. He’s staring at me with the same confusion that Brody and Taylor have on their faces. Max, unsurprisingly, is the one who calls me out. “Did you get that skirt at Ikea?” she yells over the noise of the bar.

I smile down at my creation.

For good luck I actually made the skirt out of my old bedroom curtains, but in their original iteration, they did grace a rack at the Swedish big-box store.

Scarlett had Mammy’s help when she created a dress out of the living room drapes in order to make a bold statement for Captain Butler. I didn’t have help, but it’s amazing the things you can learn to construct with a sewing machine and a YouTube tutorial. Cas isn’t the only one who’s crafty with fabric.

“I’m actually totally impressed that you recognize this print,” I tell her happily.

“I’m pretty sure they can recognize that print from deep space,” she quips. “It’s louder than the TVs in here.”

The woman wearing a T-shirt that says
Bakers do it for the dough
is going to question my outfit?

I beam at her. “Do you like it?” I do a full spin to show off my skirt, and when a group of frat guys at the table next to us turn to watch, I wink at them.

“Can I buy you a drink?” the tallest one of the group asks me.

I feel like Glinda smiling benevolently at the munchkins. He’s barely old enough to legally be drinking in here, but his offer is flattering just the same.

“That’s so sweet—”

Liam’s voice cuts me off. “We just ordered a round of Bloody Marys. We’re all set, champ.”

Even though I’m annoyed with his high-handedness, his ignoring me all week, and his assumption that I even like Bloody Marys, I still fight a grin. That little interruption was downright possessive—just like an antebellum war hero! Never doubt the power of a large skirt.

Before I can retaliate, he stands up and pulls out the chair next to me. I stare at him for a moment, and he stares right back. It’s not like we’re going to have any kind of real discussion with everyone we know sitting three feet away. My skirt puffs out around me like a tuffet when I sit down.

“The skirt turned out just darling,” Landon tells me with a smile.

Brody looks from her to me in confusion and then startles.

“Oh—yes.” He appears to be rubbing his shin. “Excellent craftsmanship.”

“Thanks. The hemline isn’t exactly straight, and the hidden zipper is actually not even a little bit hidden, but I still feel pretty happy about how it turned out.”

Liam resumes his own seat across from me.

“You
made
that skirt?” he asks.

OK, so maybe I did a shot before the Uber driver picked me up. I was trying to calm myself down for our first interaction since he left town, but now that I have to look at him in his stupid vintage concert T-shirt and his stupid well-worn jeans, it just feels like a reminder of all the things I can’t have. So rather than calm, I actually feel sort of combative.

My voice comes out a little demanding. “Are you surprised?”

He crosses his arms. “I suppose I should be.”

“Hmm.” I pretend to consider it. “I suppose you
should
be a lot of things—”

“Oh look,” Landon chirps in an attempt to save me from myself. “The cocktails are here!”

I accept a Bloody Mary from the waiter and drink a huge spicy gulp while Landon slides the paper menu across the table to me.

“We were all just deciding what to order.” She delivers this pronouncement in an overly loud tone usually reserved for deaf senior citizens.

It’s like she’s trying to coerce her wily grandmother into taking her meds. I am only able to ignore her attempt to manage me because I see how many different kinds of breakfast skillets they have on this menu. Home fries are enough to distract any red-blooded woman. Besides, it’s probably not a bad idea to get a carb base going if I’m going to keep drinking today. I’m debating the merits of sausage crumbles over chorizo when my phone buzzes with a text message.

I’ve always wanted to watch football in formalwear. Good on you for starting the trend.

It shouldn’t surprise me that he’d lead with a joke. It also shouldn’t surprise me that even such a casual comment is playing out over text rather than in direct conversation. Heaven forbid anyone here knows we have even the friendliest of relationships. I keep my head down while I type my response.

So you haven’t lost the use of your opposable thumbs? Or the data plan on your cell phone? One would wonder.

I slide the phone back onto the table and surreptitiously watch him pick up his own to read my text. When my phone buzzes again, I take a sip of my cocktail before reaching for it. Wouldn’t want to appear too eager.

“One would wonder”? Are we having an argument from the 1940s and nobody told me?

He’s such a brat. I absolutely refuse to grin at him. Instead I stare down at my menu like it holds all the mysteries of the universe.

When the waiter comes to take everyone’s order, I make a spur-of-the-moment decision and splurge on a breakfast that easily includes two days’ worth of calories. A woman should be entitled to dairy-based comfort food in times of crisis.

I reach for another sip of my drink just as Liam places an order for Belgian waffles. When he adds in a request for extra whipped cream, I almost swallow my tongue instead of my beverage. He grins at me like a lecher, and I have to look away to keep from laughing. OK, so ordering whipped cream was hilarious, and I can’t help but love the inside joke. It’s funny that no one called him on it either; he doesn’t even like whipped cream, and he just ordered a sidecar of it. Those were his exact words.

Then it hits me. Nobody called him on it because nobody here actually knows him well, not even his siblings. Not that knowing how he eats his waffles is vital one way or another, but it’s symptomatic of a much bigger problem. I know that Landon hates dill pickles and wants to be embalmed in a vat of sweet tea when she dies. I know that Max doesn’t like oatmeal cookies but does like oatmeal cookies with raisins. Landon is genuinely afraid of Bigfoot, and Max is genuinely afraid of ever being trapped in a room with Landon while she explains that fear to us for the fiftieth time. I know that Taylor found his cat in a Dumpster the first week he moved to LA and that Brody won’t drive his car down La Cienega because he once saw a really bad car accident on that street and the memory still freaks him out. I look at the table of them laughing and talking and showing each other things on their phones. I know a million different little things about all of my friends, so how is it possible that nobody knows even the smallest detail about Liam?

Because in order to know him, they’d have to have a deeper relationship, and Liam only does surface level. I suppose it should make me feel better that it’s not just the way he is with me but the way he is with everybody, but the truth of it makes me sad. My anger deflates like the makeshift petticoat under my skirt. Once again my grand scheme turns obsolete. Once again I find myself wanting to hug him when I should want to punch him for ignoring me all week long.

A foot taps the top of mine under the table. When I glance up at him, he seems genuinely confused. His blue-gray eyes look lost, and that golden hair nearly shields his face when he bends his head forward. He mouths the words at me before anyone else can see him do it.

Why am I mad?

I sigh. I’m not mad at him. I’m frustrated and worried; I might even go so far as to say I’m obsessed. I want to make his life better. I want to make him happy. I want to make him realize that he wants those things too. I’ve lost all my anger, and in its place is a need to comfort him so fierce that I feel desperate with it. I walked in today righteous in my indignation. Twenty minutes in his presence and I’m right back where I started.

Malin asked me to meet her for coffee to discuss web design—apparently she has some idea for starting a blog—which is how I find myself trudging into Culver City and the most hipster coffee shop the world has ever known. Seriously, I love me some organic cold brew as much as the next caffeine addict, but this place is out of control.

Every single person behind the counter has a beard, gauge earrings, and a look of disgusted ennui generally reserved for titled royalty or spoiled socialites. The specialty iced teas are stored on the countertop, ladled out of small wooden buckets that might have been used with a mop in another life. And the featured house-made snack is a full menu of various kinds of toast. As in, an entire blackboard full of options for eating pieces of warm bread with various toppings. On second thought, goat cheese and honey sounds kind of delicious; maybe I do need to try one of those.

“Miko!” I turn and see Malin sitting in the corner and head over to join her.

A drink is already waiting for me, and I take a sip as soon as I’m seated.

“That is an Americano with organic cocoa, coconut milk from a local farm, and a hint of crushed almond,” she tells me.

“So it’s an Almond Joy?”

She nods her pretty blonde head. “I knew you’d understand.”

I settle myself in. “You had some questions for me?”

She grabs a notebook out of her purse with a beaming smile. “I do,” she says, flipping through the pages. “I have an idea, and I know you’ve designed websites before.”

“I’ve designed them, but you’d still need a developer to code everything.”

Her face falls a little. “Oh? Cripes. Is that difficult to find? Is it expensive?” She bites her lip nervously.

“Mali, this is Los Angeles. Half the nerds in this room could probably code for you. Don’t worry.”

Her face clears. “Oh, great then. OK, so I have this idea, and I think it could be a really cool website and—I don’t know—maybe even a business, but you should totally tell me if it’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard of, OK?” She looks down at the notes on her page. “I’m actually kind of an expert at that.”

Malin is always so alive and full of energy. I’ve never actually seen her unsure of herself before. I lean closer across the table.

“Hey, I’m sure it’s a great idea. Tell me about it.”

She grins happily. “So, I was thinking about becoming a fashion blogger.”

I don’t hide my wince very well.

She holds her hands up in surrender. “I know, OK? I get that there are a hundred thousand people trying to be fashion bloggers and that the vast majority of them live within a twenty-mile radius.”

I open my mouth, but she cuts me off. “And before you mention it, yes, I also know that I got my degree in education—but that was really just a last resort, because my parents were freaking out about me not picking a major.” She shudders. “Can you imagine me trying to mold America’s youth?”

I grimace. “Good gods, no.”

“Exactly.” She takes a sip of iced tea that presumably came from one of the wooden buckets on the countertop. “So I know the competition is fierce, but I think I have a pretty unique idea.”

“Which is?”

“Terrible fashion!” she announces joyfully.