The One That I Want (15 page)

He put his hand on my hand. “I miss you,” he said quietly. “I think up these jokes that nobody would get but you, and I don’t have anyone to tell them to.”

I looked into his big gray eyes. I missed him, too. I missed his jokes. He was funny—very funny. He was a lot like Max, except that Max was even quicker, and a whole lot cuter, and bore no malice.

Usually.

And Robert was right. Just because Carter and I had been on a date and had planned another did not mean we were dating exclusively. I could go out with Carter tonight and Robert tomorrow. Then the school would
really
talk about me. I would be That Majorette Who Dates a Lot. I took a breath to tell Robert yes.

But my stomach twisted at the thought of going out with Robert, just as it twisted at the thought of going out with Carter again. What was I doing, exactly? Aiming for quantity, not quality?

My cell phone vibrated with a text message. I started and pulled my hand away from Robert. The text was from Max. With a sidelong glance at Robert, I read it.

7:30 tonight? No more of my theories, promise.

I bit my lip to keep from laughing. Driving to the theater with Max sounded a lot more fun than a date with Robert and a date with Carter combined. I might not ever have Max, but I could do better than Robert.

I texted Max—
See u then
—and clicked my phone off. “Robert, you’ve told me before that you just wanted to be friends. I think that’s best for us.” I didn’t give him time for a bitter comeback. I plowed ahead, “But I miss you, too. We could go out as friends. I have a lot to tell you. I went to see the Dolly Paranoids last week.”

“You did?” Surprise and admiration overtook the defensiveness in his voice, at least for a moment.

The band director called through the megaphone, telling us to return to our places and run the drill again. I stood, pocketed my phone, and picked up my batons. I spent the rest of the period lost in twirling my batons and my own swirling thoughts, proud of myself for standing up to Robert and wishing seven thirty would come right now.

I was worried about what I would wear, though. I knew I had no chance with Max, but I still didn’t want him to see me in my
MARCHING WILDCATS
T-shirt again. Addison had thrown down the gauntlet with her boob-baring blouse last Friday. I wasn’t going down without a fight.

As the debutante ball approached, Addison had more meetings to attend after school. Lately my mom picked me up. I could ask her to take me to my favorite vintage clothing store, which I hadn’t visited since I’d started losing weight. She didn’t understand why I wanted to wear used clothes, but she didn’t want to argue with me about it either. She would sit in the car and wait for me, as usual.

As I made this plan, I felt a pang of loneliness. I wished I had a girlfriend to go shopping with. I longed for last year when Addison had been available to shop with me. But as the majorette line turned left for a high toss and I watched her drop her baton, I realized I didn’t miss her. She would turn up her nose at every top I picked out. I wished for company, but she was not the one that I wanted.

The majorette line faced right for another high toss, which Delilah caught expertly. I couldn’t see her face, but I knew her grin was confident while the stadium was almost empty. We saw each other every school day, but I hadn’t checked in with her lately about our first performance next week and her battle against stage fright. I would have loved to ask
her
to take me shopping that afternoon. We would get a chance to talk one-on-one. I couldn’t suggest it, though, because Addison would get jealous and act pissed off.

With one more turn to the left, gazing at Addison’s back, I decided I was not going to let her petty jealousies control me. As I’d told her at majorette tryouts, I could have more than one friend. On the way out of band practice, I would ask Delilah to go shopping with me.

My girlfriend life was going to get as complicated as my boyfriend life.

So be it.

“None of that is going to fit you,” Delilah advised me as I pushed through the curtain, into the fitting room, with an armload of clothes.

I had my doubts too. When we’d first arrived, the sales chicks had gawked and squealed over me because I looked so different. They had always set aside cool pieces for me in bigger sizes, but this time they’d warned me these would be too big for me. They’d said the store was full of clothes that would fit me better.

Obediently I’d browsed the regular racks and found the coolest pink bowling shirt with the name
GLADYS
embroidered in cursive on the pocket—exactly the top I’d been hoping to find. Max would laugh out loud when he saw it. It looked tiny, though. I’d put it back.

But as I reached up to hang the clothes on the hook, I found the bowling shirt, like it was following me. There was also a top I hadn’t seen before: white, one-shouldered, printed with 1960s satellites, and sewn with sequins. It was the weirdest thing I had ever seen. I loved it. I would never have chosen it for myself because it looked too small. Also, my boobs were too big for a strapless bra to corral—at least, they
had
been.

“Did you pick out this bowling shirt and this one-shouldered white blouse?” I called over the wall to Delilah in the next fitting room. “Did you mean to put them in your pile?” This didn’t seem likely. Delilah was a flowery type, like the gorgeous trapeze dress I’d found for her. She was not a satellite type or a bowling shirt type.

“Of course I meant them for you,” came her voice through the wall. “They look
just like you
. Did you try them on? They’re my size, and I think we’re about the same.”

Considering her petite frame, I found this hard to believe. But out of curiosity, I slipped the one-shouldered top over my head. It was silky against my skin. And it fit. It pooled at my neckline, showing just a hint of cleavage. And then, of course, there were the satellites. If any shirt was going to catch Max’s attention, this would be it.

As I examined myself in the mirror and turned a little to let the sequins reflect the light, I felt a wave of déjà vu. I’d been in this dressing room a million times. I’d slipped into shirts and gazed at myself critically in the mirror. I’d gone for loud retro fashions because they told the world I wasn’t afraid to be noticed. I was big, I was comfortable with my body, and I did not care what people thought of me. That wasn’t true, of course—I
wasn’t
comfortable and I
did
care—but I didn’t want to admit it.

Suddenly depressed, I collapsed on the velvet settee in the corner, inhaling the slightly mildewed scent of the shop. In a much smaller retro top printed with satellites, I still cared what people thought of me. And it was still important to me to tell them I didn’t. Robert had asked me out, my dream come true, and I had moved on to fantasizing about a new guy I couldn’t have. I might have lost weight and made majorette, but nothing else had changed. I was back where I started.

“Are you ready for the big reveal?” Delilah called.

“Sure.” I hopped up from the velvet seat and raked open the lacy curtain. “Wow!” I exclaimed. “You look so classic!” I turned her around so we both looked down the hall at the three-way mirror. “And for something different, you could belt this.” I put my hands on either side of her waist in the flowered dress. “You could wear a scarf around your neck. I hope you’re buying it! Was I right or was I right?”

“You were right,” she acknowledged. “But wow yourself! That top is so you, and you look
hot
. Is this for your date tonight?”

“Definitely,” I said, grinning into the mirror.

“I can tell you really like him,” she said.

I watched my grin fade and my bare shoulder sag. “Sometimes two people are meant to be together,” I said. “We’re not.”

“Really?” she asked, peering at me with her brow knitted. “I could have sworn, the way you were acting—”

I interrupted her before she could draw out my feelings for Max. She thought we were talking about Carter. I didn’t mind talking about him at all. “Every date doesn’t have to be with The One, right? I can still go out with him and have fun.” Fun with Max, that is.

“Sure you can,” she said, but the perplexed expression stayed in her eyes. She knew I was leaving something out.

I changed the subject. “What about you? Are you dating? You never talk about it.”

“Oh, no.” She shook her head. “You know how I get so worked up about baton performances? I act the same way around guys.”

“Guys make you faint?” I joked. Then I wished I hadn’t made the joke. It seemed that was exactly what she was saying.

“No!” She waved one hand as if this idea was ridiculous. “I never get that far. I just stay away from them.”

“I talked to Robert during band practice. He said you really laid into him about sending me that sympathy card before tryouts last April.”

She put her hand over her mouth. “Are you mad?”

“Of course I’m not mad! Just surprised. And it doesn’t sound like guys make you nervous.”

“When he sent you that card, it pissed me off!” she squeaked. “I’d watched the two of you laughing together. You lit up when you were around him, and he was so cute, doing that thing with his hair.” She jerked her head in her perfect imitation of Robert tossing the hair out of his eyes. “I was a little jealous, honestly, that you could talk to each other for hours like that. But he was always going out with some other girl he didn’t talk to! I thought it was a matter of time until you got together as a couple. I couldn’t
believe
he sent you that card, like he was
trying
to ruin your friendship.”

As I nodded, I glanced at myself in the mirror again. I was surprised at how grim I looked, lips pressed into a straight line. “He asked me out today.”

Delilah lit up. “He did?” she exclaimed. “Finally, Gemma! That is so great! Did you say yes?”

I shook my head.

She bit her lip. “Because of the card?”

“The card, and a lot of things,” I said. “Too much water has gone under that bridge.”

“He should have known better than to treat you that way. Maybe he learned his lesson.” She wrapped her arm around my waist. We gazed at ourselves in our decades-old clothes that fit us so well. “You look gorgeous, Gemma. You’re going to have so much fun on your date tonight. Go ahead and tell me this guy isn’t right for you. Maybe you even believe that yourself. But your heart is showing on your sleeve.” She rubbed my bare arm. “I don’t believe it for a second.”

“Cool shirt,” Max said.

“Thanks!” I exclaimed.

I had started getting ready for the date in plenty of time, I’d thought. But the top was so figure-flattering that I’d felt self-conscious about how the rest of me looked. I’d put my hair up, then down, and up, then down again. By the time I’d finally settled on a look, it was seven thirty. I wasn’t waiting outside when Max arrived, so he’d rung the gong doorbell.

I wasn’t sure whether he’d complimented my shirt to put me at ease while the stupid gong echoed in the marble entryway, or because he actually thought the shirt was cool. I was grateful to him regardless.

“It’s like the space race meets Studio 54,” he said.

“I thought you’d like it.” I hadn’t meant to say that out loud. I felt my face turn red.

I must have embarrassed him, too, because he asked quickly, “Do I look foreign in this?”

“Hmm.” I considered him. The goatee was gone. His chin and cheeks were smooth again. It was
so weird
to think about him as much as I did all week, but to have no idea what he looked like from day to day. He was out living his life, and I was missing the whole thing.

I forced my eyes away from his face and examined him from head to toe, concluding, “Yes, you look foreign.”

“But it’s not the shirt, right? My shirt is in English.”

“It’s the necklace,” I said.

He fingered the round gold charm on a red cord. The cord was too tight for him to see the charm well. He tried to peer down at it with one eye closed. He looked adorable when he did this, and I wanted to kick myself for thinking so.

“And the shoes,” I said.

He held out a foot and looked at his sneaker. “What’s wrong with my shoes?”

“I’ve never seen that brand before. They don’t necessarily look Japanese. They might be German. Definitely foreign.”

“I bought them in New York.”

“In Atlanta, that’s foreign.”

“Touché.” He grinned at me.

I wondered whether he was making a joke about Addison’s comment from our dinner at the Varsity:
Tissue? Tush?
I didn’t ask because I had promised myself I wouldn’t dis Addison in front of him. He had promised not to present me with any more of his theories about my subconscious. With our usual subject matter off-limits, we laughed and talked about local bands all the way to the Fox without really saying a thing.

He was able to find a parking space pretty close to the theater. Bruce Lee was not a big draw at the Fox, apparently. Carter and Addison were waiting for us out front. Addison was wearing a minidress that was so tight I doubted she could breathe. My space-race-meets-Studio-54 top could not compete with her minidress. I had lost again. But this hardly registered, because I was so nervous about greeting Carter.

“Hey, Gemma,” he said, putting one hand on my waist and the other behind my bare shoulder, pulling me close. Before I could back away or yell,
Fire!
he kissed me on the mouth. He deepened the kiss, and I froze. I didn’t like being stared at on the busy sidewalk.

He finally broke away. The blinking neon lights of the theater facade flickered green across his face. He didn’t look apologetic or embarrassed. He looked triumphant, like he’d just won a game. Then he glanced over at Max.

Max stood at the ticket window, with Addison beside him. Their backs were toward us.

Nope, I wasn’t going to worry about it. I was through puzzling these boys out. Carter wanted to date me or he wouldn’t have asked. When he didn’t want to date me anymore, he would stop asking. I was just glad to be on a date with a handsome boy, at this beautiful theater, seeing an offbeat movie. And I was glad the show would start soon. Carter and I would have almost no dead space to fill with awkward conversation.