The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (12 page)

“Girls are definitely more beautiful,” interrupted Dean.

“Thank you, sweetie.” This from Star.

“Maybe in some species, but not in peafowl. That’s my point,” said Frankie. “In peafowl, it’s the boys that are more beautiful, and then we call it testosterone. Manliness instead of prettiness. Do you see what I’m saying?”

“I get your point,” said Elizabeth snidely. “We all get your point. But what I’m saying is that these guys ragging on each other is the same as a pair of peacocks fanning out their tails, each one going, ‘Hey, dogs, check out my tail, aren’t I a man’s man?’ The way that some guys flash their wallets. And girls don’t do that.”

“Aren’t you two doing it now?” asked Alpha.

Frankie ignored him. “I’m saying, once you start saying women are all about sisterhood and community, then you start underestimating people who might easily, I don’t know, take over the world.”

“Ooh, very Oprah.”

“Same with men,” said Frankie. “Once you say they’re all about testosterone, even if that’s partway true, you make them think they’ve all
got
to be about testosterone. Then the untestosteroney guys, the . . . what is that fish? Which fish is it that the man one carries the babies?”

“Sea horse,” said Matthew, still looking down at his plate.

“Yes, so then the sea horses of the world feel like they have to be the moose of the world, and no one gives respect to the sea horses, and you have misery. Don’t you?”

Alpha finished eating and pushed his plate to the center of the table. “I would like to assert,” he said solemnly, “that if Matthew were an animal he would be a sea horse.”

“Dog,” said Matthew, shaking his head. “I am not a sea horse.”

“Aren’t you? Because you act like a sea horse.”

“What’s wrong with a sea horse?” asked Frankie. “I know a lot of girls who would love a sea horse.”

“See?” Alpha waved his hand toward Frankie. “That’s precisely my point.”

“What?” asked Frankie.

“Alpha,” Matthew’s voice was stern. “Didn’t I say we’d go over this later?”

(What were they going over? Something to do with her. With Alpha’s objections to her.)

“Fine,” said Alpha, standing. He looked for a moment as if he were going to depart in a huff. But then he seemed to change his mind, and walked around to where Elizabeth was sitting and whispered loudly: “Eat up your raisins and let’s discuss my testosterone situation alone, what do you say?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “I’m doing college essays with Hannah and Rosemary after dinner. You have to deal with your testosterone by yourself, mister.”

“Harsh,” muttered Dean.

“Oh, she tries to whip me,” laughed Alpha. “She tries with all her evil machinations. But I’m unwhippable.”

“Hardly,” Elizabeth said.

“It’s true,” said Alpha, waving over his shoulder as he left the caf. “Immune to the whip, that’s me.”

Elizabeth stayed for only a minute after Alpha disappeared. Then she collected her many saucers onto her tray and took off.

“You think she’s following him?” Frankie asked Matthew. She had heard Alpha talk about sex like that before, like he was having it, he’d always had it, like he’d never been a virgin and sex was no big thing. But it disconcerted her every time he did it.

“They always follow Alpha,” smirked Dean. “No matter how loud they talk, how much they squawk, the she-wolf always follows in the end.”

* * *

When they walked out together, Matthew betrayed no reaction to Frankie having sat alone at a senior table. And no reaction either to the debate with Elizabeth or Alpha’s sea horse comment. Except—he didn’t mention them. Now that Frankie thought of it, Matthew had pretty much stayed out of the conversation when it happened—quite unusual for a guy whose idea of a friendly mealtime chat was to argue abortion politics or Middle East policy.

He had never asked about her lunch date with Porter, either.

As they strolled toward the dorms, Matthew babbled about his college applications (Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Brown, etc.), questioned Frankie about her ultimate game on Saturday, told a funny story about having been a fried egg for Halloween and getting chased by a big kid who was a fork.

“What did you mean when you said to Alpha that you’d go over something later?” Frankie asked, gently interrupting him.

“Oh, nothing.”

“’Cause it sounded like it was about me. Like Alpha has some problem with
me
.”

“Are you kidding?” Matthew said, his smile spreading tightly across his face. “Alpha thinks you’re great. He’s just spouting off. Don’t be so sensitive, okay?” Then he announced he had a calculus study session, kissed her in front of her dorm, and headed off into the evening. Something was wrong. Frankie could feel it. Maybe she was going to be punished for sitting at that table, after all.

STAR

The next morning, Star grabbed Frankie’s shoulder, coming out of history. “Can I talk to you?” “Um, sure.” Frankie waved good-bye to Trish and walked with Star to a bench, where they sat down. “Dean and I broke up,” Star blurted, her face contorting. “I mean, it happened last night after dinner. I thought everything was going great, we were going out, la-la-la, it was all fine, and then he breaks up with me.” Frankie said the only thing one can say in such situations: “Shocker. You seemed so happy together.” But she wondered, Why is Star telling
me
? Why doesn’t she cry to Claudia, or Ash, or Catherine, one of her real friends who actually likes her?

“It’s like he changed his mind all of a sudden, and I don’t know why. And I thought I was okay last night, I did, but then there I was at breakfast this morning, and none of them talked to me, Frankie. I mean, not even Elizabeth. She didn’t even say one thing to me and I was right next to her, you know at the table where you can toast your English muffins?”

“What did she do?”

“I said hello and she didn’t answer. Then I said I guess she heard about me and Dean, but not to worry, it was a mutual decision. She just nodded like she already knew that wasn’t true, and walked away.” Star sniffed. “Then Claudia picked this table—she acts so smart but inside she’s so dumb sometimes, you know?—Claudia picked this table that meant I had to walk by them all to get to her, and so I thought, Okay Star, you have to have dignity, you’ve gotta do it. And I went by—after sitting at that table every morning since the start of school—I went by and nobody spoke. Dean wasn’t even there, but nobody said a word, not even hello, good morning. Nothing.”

“Wow.”

“It was like I’d never been their friend, like they didn’t even see me.”

“So cold.”

“I mean, how can you hang out with people every day for like two months and then one morning they don’t know you exist? I mean,
really
don’t know you, Frankie. It’s not like they had decided to ignore me. You know how it feels when someone is ignoring you. You can feel they know you’re there. This was like they didn’t register me as a person they had ever known.”

“Do you want me to talk to them?”

Star shook her head. “I just thought maybe Dean or someone had spoken to you about why he broke up with me? Or did he ever complain about me when I wasn’t there?”

“No.”

“You seem much more in with them than me. Matthew respects you. And Alpha does, too.”

No, they don’t, Frankie thought. But instead she said: “I didn’t see Dean or any of those guys this morning. I ate breakfast with Trish.”

“Matthew didn’t say anything to you last night?”

“I don’t think guys talk to each other about stuff like that. Not right after it happens. Not in detail. Dean probably didn’t even tell him.”

Star wiped her eyes. “Maybe not. But will you let me know if you hear anything?”

Frankie nodded, but she wasn’t thinking about Star.

She was thinking how easy it would be for the same thing to happen to her.

A BROKEN DATE

That Friday, after an early dinner, Frankie and Trish put mud packs on their faces and painted their nails. They put girlie pop music on the portable CD player and took turns fanning each other’s toes with a copy of Trish’s
Horse Illustrated
magazine. “You can still apologize to Porter if you feel bad about what happened,” Trish said, admiring her toenails. “But I don’t think he’s mad at you, anyhow.” “Oh, he’s mad at me, all right,” said Frankie. “I think he’s mad at Matthew for being better than he is. He doesn’t like how small he feels when he compares himself to your new boyfriend.” (In addition to
Horse Illustrated
, Trish subscribed to
Psychology Today
.)

“Whatever. It’s not like Porter likes me anymore, anyway.”

“Maybe he does.” Trish wrinkled her brow. “I mean, why wouldn’t he? He never stopped liking you. He just cheated on you.”

“Same thing.”

“No, not the same thing at all. If Porter liked Bess, he would have started going out with her. But he didn’t. And now he’s sending you e-mails and XO-ing you and buying you cheese fries.”

“So?”

“So if that’s not flirting, I don’t know what is.”

“I’m not apologizing to him,” said Frankie. “The guy is completely maculate.”

“I’m not even going to ask you what that means.” Trish rolled her eyes.

“A little flirting doesn’t make up for what he did.”

“I’m not saying you should apologize,” Trish answered. “I’m just pointing out that more is going on here than meets the eye. There are layers and layers.”

“Okay.” Frankie was sarcastic.

“I think the question is
not
whether Porter is mad at you,” Trish continued. “The question is, what made you so mad at Porter? Was it the cheating thing from last year, or the Big Man Protector thing he did at lunch, or the fact that he was flirting with you when you have a boyfriend, and that made you all confused?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t stand his superior attitude.”

“He was always that way.” Trish tucked the bottle of sparkly green polish into her bureau drawer and threw her cotton balls in the trash.

“Was he? I don’t remember.”

“I mean, Porter’s not a bad guy, except for the cheating,” said Trish, “but he does have that James Bond thing going with women.”

“What do you mean, Bond?”

Trish shook her head. “Give me a goofball like Artie any day. I don’t need all that macho-rescue stuff. I just like someone funny who treats me nice.”

Artie was a sweetheart, but Frankie found him completely devoid of sexual appeal. “He’s a good boyfriend,” she told Trish. “You’re lucky.”

“Did I tell you he wants to be a girl for Halloween?” said Trish, combing her hair in the mirror.

“You’re kidding.”

“Yeah, he and John and Charles Deckler are already borrowing people’s panty hose.”

Frankie murmured something in response, but she was no longer paying attention. Talking about Porter had reminded her that she was nervous about her date.

Matthew had been so atypically silent when Frankie had debated Elizabeth.

Had she embarrassed him?

Or turned him off?

Or annoyed him by sitting at the senior table, though he was much too polite to ever say so?

Alpha had been calling Matthew a sea horse. Implying he was whipped.

Frankie put on perfume, which she almost never wore.

She changed her shirt.

A pebble pinged at their window. “Matthew’s out there,” Trish said, looking down.

“Geek it up tonight,” Frankie told Trish, grabbing her coat.

“I will.”

Matthew was standing at the foot of the steps with his hands behind his back. “I have to talk to you,” he said.

“What?”

“Come here. Walk with me.”

“Okay.”

They strolled across the quad, and he took her hand. “I can’t take you to the movie tonight, Frankie.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry, I should have told you earlier.”

“What’s happened?”

“It’s not a big deal. I just can’t go; I’ve got something else I have to do.”

“Something with Alpha?” she asked.

Matthew nodded.

“He’s making you change plans?”

“Not making me, exactly. He reminded me of an obligation. There’s somewhere I gotta be.”

And Alpha doesn’t want me there, Frankie thought. But I don’t want to let Alpha make the rules. “Can’t you take me with you?” she asked.

“No.”

“How come? Is someone sick?” She knew no one was sick.

“It’s—it’s a guy thing, Frankie. You know I’d love to bring you, but Alpha—No, I shouldn’t blame him. I agreed to it being a guy thing myself.”

Frankie’s heart felt cold. She thought, He’s angry at me and this is a repercussion. For sitting alone at the senior table, for disagreeing with the she-wolf, for demanding that Alpha be nice to me, or for liking the way sea horse daddies carried their babies—it doesn’t matter which, even. When I act the way I acted, Matthew doesn’t like me as much as he does when I fall off my bicycle.

Is he breaking up with me?

What can I do? Frankie thought. What can I say?

Is there anything I can say that will make him change his mind?

Don’t sound whiny. Don’t sound defensive. Don’t sound pitiful. Don’t sound angry.

I can’t say any of the things I feel, because none of them are any good.

Can’t say, “But you promised.”

Can’t say, “I put on makeup. I did my nails, I looked forward to it all day.”

Can’t say, “Are you breaking up with me?”

I can’t lose him.

I can’t lose
them
, either.

What will get me what I want?

If she were not a strategist, Frankie would have reacted like most girls do in the same situation: with tears, with anger, with pouting and sulking and petulant responses like “What is it that’s so much more important than hanging out with me, huh?” or “Fine, if that’s how you’re going to be about it, don’t talk to me again!” or “You’re acting like your time is more valuable than mine.” But she was—and is—a strategist, and therefore she considered her options.

Quick analysis revealed she had two goals. First, keep her boyfriend. Second, stop him from putting her in her place, which is what she felt he was trying to do. He was prioritizing something else, and didn’t want her to ask, complain, or wonder about it.

Frankie touched the soft skin underneath Matthew’s ear, then kissed him gently on the mouth, outlining his lower lip with her tongue. “S’okay. I can go to that Conglomerate party with Trish and Porter and those guys.”

It was a mean move, mentioning Porter, and Frankie knew it. “What party?” asked Matthew.

“It’s an annual thing,” she said, choosing not to explain the geek element. “I went last year. Porter arranged a DJ and Trish helped with the catering.”

Matthew looked at her. Was he surprised she had something else to do? Was he jealous of Porter? Had she regained the power?

Frankie leaned in and kissed him again, harder, running her hand up his sweater and across his warm stomach. “I wanted to kiss you in the cold air,” she said. “Doesn’t it smell like Halloween?”

He nodded.

“I was thinking about kissing you during English class today,” she whispered, bringing her lips against his ear. “I was thinking how you look with your shirt off.”

Matthew pressed his body against hers and backed her against a tree, looking at her.

He’s not breaking up with me, she suddenly knew. She’d gained some ground. She could tell by the way he put his arms around her that he wanted to hold her tight, keep her from the party and her ex-boyfriend.

Frankie looked at Matthew’s beautiful face. “Have fun,” she told him. “I’ll go to that party with Trish.”

She didn’t mention Porter again. She didn’t need to. She’d reversed the power dynamics of the situation to the best of her ability: Matthew now wanted to be with her instead of wherever he was going—and he was insecure about what she’d get up to when he was gone.

Matthew kissed her, pressing his entire body hard against hers in a way he hadn’t done before, then ran off into the night.

Frankie waited until Matthew was twenty yards away—and then she followed him.