The Trouble With Flirting (19 page)

How cozy.

I have to walk by them to get to Charles, and when I do, Harry doesn’t release Marie, just stays like that and says calmly, “Hey, Franny.”

“Hey,” I say stiffly. “I’m just here to talk to Charles.”

“He’s over there.” Harry nods in his direction, even though I’m already headed that way.

“Right.” I scuttle past them, bile burning suddenly in my throat.

Julia is onstage, listening to Charles’s direction. She notices me waiting there and gives a little wave, and Charles looks my way. “Franny?” he says, and glances at his watch. “I wasn’t expecting you this morning.”

I explain to him why Amelia sent me, and he nods. “Okay, we can do that.” He glances around and spots Harry and Marie. “You two—go back with Franny. Try on your cos
tumes quickly and come right back.”

Oh, great. He had to pick
them
.

“I know you, Harry,” he adds. “You’ll take any opportunity to loiter. So get your butt back here as soon as possible.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” Harry says with a comically exaggerated salute. He stands up, and pulls Marie to her feet. “Lead on, Franny.”

I head back out the door. They follow behind me, arms entwined. She’s whispering, loud enough for me to
know
she’s whispering in his ear but not loud enough for me to hear what she’s saying. Not that I want to.

I stop outside the Sweatshop entrance and gesture inside. Marie releases Harry and sweeps by me.

Harry hesitates halfway through the doorway, but as soon as I look at him, he evades my glance and moves on.

Amelia’s rising to her feet. “Remind me who you are,” she says.

“I’m Marie—”

“Not your names,” Amelia says irritably. “Your
roles
.” She only ever calls the actors by their stage names. It simplifies things for her.

Normally, this exchange would have amused me, but now, stumbling in behind the two of them, I feel too miserable to laugh at anything.

I hate myself for caring that Marie keeps shooting little glances at Harry and he keeps smiling at her the way he was smiling at me a day ago.

Alex
, I think.
It’ll be okay if things work out with Alex.

And then I think,
I hate girls who can only be happy if they have a boyfriend.

So then I think,
I hate myself
.

And that sounds about right at this particular moment.

Amelia is rustling through a rack on wheels that has a sign saying
Twelfth Night
taped to one end. “Here,” she says, pulling out a costume and handing it to Marie. “This is for you. And this one”—she rifles through some more hangers and finds it—“is for the duke. We only have one changing room—”

“I’m up for sharing if you are,” Marie says, giggling to Harry, who raises his eyebrows and says, “Sounds like fun to me.”

Amelia continues, her voice tighter: “—but one of you can change in the bathroom. Hurry now. None of us wants this to take forever.”

They disappear into the two separate rooms.

I sit down, grateful for the break.

Amelia is shaking her head. “Honestly. Sometimes . . .” It’s clearly a complaint, but not a very specific one.

Harry is out first. He’s now wearing a tuxedo that’s designed to look like it’s from the 1920s, which is when Charles is setting the production.

Harry looks incredible in it, like the hero in an old black-and-white movie, his shoulders exaggerated and broad, his legs slim and long. The only thing that’s missing
is a cigarette between his fingers—but, knowing him, he’ll probably have one there before too long, in character or out of it.

He hasn’t buttoned the top of the tuxedo shirt, and the bow tie is undone and dangling. His neck is bare. I’ve kissed him on the hollow right at the base there.

I look away. No point reminiscing—it’s not going to happen again.

Amelia studies him and gives a satisfied nod. “Not bad. We’ll find shoes with a bit of height, so we don’t have to hem. Open the jacket for me.” He does, and she circles around, then grabs the pants at the waistband. “We’ll need to take these in. The vest is huge, too, but there we can get away with just adjusting the tabs. Franny, hand me the—”

She’s interrupted by Marie, who calls out from the changing room, “I can’t figure out the buttons on this thing.”

Amelia spins around. “For God’s sake, don’t pull at anything!” she shouts toward the door. She grabs her wrist pincushion off her desk. “I’ll help her in there. Pin the duke’s waist, Franny. Looks like he needs to lose about an inch.” She knocks briskly on the changing-room door and enters without waiting for a response, shutting the door behind her.

Talk about awkward. Neither of us says anything for a moment.

Then: “Alone at last,” Harry says, which is a typical Harry thing to say, but there’s a flatness to his tone that’s never been there before—at least not with me.

“You’ll need to take off the jacket and vest,” I say.

He silently complies, while I find a box of pins. I come over to him. He’s holding the jacket and vest in his arms. I take them and put them over the back of a chair and then turn back to him. His shirt is hanging out. “We have to tuck this in first,” I say, and together we stuff the shirttails into the waistband.

“If you’re going to put your hand down my pants, you could at least pretend to enjoy it,” he says. Again, Harry’s words, but in an unfamiliar voice.

I don’t respond, just circle around behind him and gather some of the fabric at the waist to see how much I need to take in. I’m honestly not trying to give him the silent treatment or anything like that—it’s just hard for me to talk right now. My eyes are stinging and my throat is swelling.

I know that feeling: I’m close to tears. What I don’t know is
why
. Everything’s fine. Harry has proven he’s the inconstant flirt I always thought he was. That should be comforting. All’s right with the world.

Except I hate Marie. Have I mentioned that? She’s a repulsive pig.

“You look good in the tux,” I manage to croak out, because the silence is going on too long. The worse I feel, the more I don’t want him to know how bad I feel. My voice sounds really weird, so I swallow hard and force myself to speak more clearly. “You’re lucky. The
Winter’s Tale
cast has to wear these ugly ski pants and down jackets. They’ll
boil onstage.”

“Franny . . .” He twists around, like he’s trying to look at me.

“Don’t do that, or I’ll stick a pin in you.” I give a shaky little laugh. “It might even be by accident.”

“Franny,” he says again, and then the door to the changing room bangs open.

“—can’t even breathe in there!” Marie bursts out, followed closely by Amelia. “How do I look, Harry?” She’s wearing a man’s suit: it’s a little boxy, but she looks cute in it.

“Fabulous.” Since when does Harry use words like
fabulous
?

She accepts the compliment with a broad smile. “Oh, my God, you’re gorgeous!” she says. “You should wear that every day!” She comes closer to him and strokes her hand down the front of his tuxedo shirt. I can see Amelia’s face darken behind her. Probably because Marie didn’t wash her hands first.

“You should see it with the jacket on,” Harry says.

“I like you half-dressed.” She rubs her cheek against his arm and makes a purring sound.

I want to say to him,
Really? You like this? This is the kind of thing you like? Really?
But of course I don’t. Anyway, he
looks
like he likes it. He has a half smile on his face, and his bedroom eyes look even bedroomier than usual.

“She’ll have to bind her chest when she’s wearing this,” Amelia says brusquely. “Turn around. Let me see the jacket
buttoned.”

“It’s too big on me,” Marie says, looking down at herself, pulling the jacket tight behind her to show off her little waist. “That always happens to me with costumes. I’m very narrow.”

“It’s made for a man,” Amelia says, jerking the fabric out of Marie’s grip and smoothing the jacket back into place. “Of course it’s too big—it’s not supposed to fit perfectly. Your director wants it to look like you bought it off a rack in a hurry to disguise yourself as a man.”

“So much for looking good onstage,” Marie says with a dramatic sigh.

“Are you kidding me?” Harry says. “You look fantastic, babe.”

“Babe”?
Who is this guy?

I stick another pin in his waistband, and I guess his shirt still isn’t tucked in correctly because my fingers brush briefly against his warm back. I feel him stiffen under my touch, like he wants to move away. I quickly ram in the last pin and stand up straight.

“I’m done,” I tell Amelia.

She glances over. She’s still fiddling with Marie’s jacket.

“Okay, Duke,” she says to Harry. “Get changed and go back to rehearsal. Watch out for the pins as you take the pants off.”

“You bet I will,” he says, and disappears into the bathroom.

“Let me know if you need any help in there,” Marie calls after him gaily.

Amelia says, “Franny, are you responsible for the way that jacket is just tossed over the back of the chair?”

“I guess so.” I hastily pick it up and smooth it out.

She shakes her head, tsking. “I expect you to take better care of the costumes than that. You’ll have to press it now.”

“Oh, poor Franny,” Marie says with barely repressed mirth. “As if it’s not hot enough in here already. Now you have to iron! I feel so bad for you.”

I want to kill her.

Harry comes out of the bathroom, once again in jeans and a T-shirt and holding the rest of his costume. “Who do I give this to?”

“Franny will take it,” Amelia says, adding to me, “and please be more careful than you were the last time.”

Harry hands the costume to me. I accept it silently.

“Oh, Harry, I almost forgot to tell you,” Marie says. “Someone’s organizing a trip to a bar—” She stops, and glances at Amelia, then giggles again and says, “I mean, to a
restaurant
tonight for anyone who’s not rehearsing. I said we’d go. You don’t mind, do you, babe?”

We
? They’re a
we
? That happened awfully fast.

I suddenly find myself very involved with folding the pants. I have to smooth every inch out just right. Staring fixedly down at them the entire time.

“Sounds good to me,” Harry says. “You know how much I
love going to ‘bars, uh, restaurants.’”

“Oh, sorry, Franny!” She spins around, her hand to her mouth, like she
just
remembered I’m there. “I didn’t mean to leave you out. I’m sure you can go too, if you want to.”

“I probably have to work tonight,” I say.

“Too bad.” She paints a sympathetic look onto her face.

Amelia tells her to go change into the dress she’ll be wearing in her first scene. Marie touches Harry on the hand. “See you soon,” she says, and tickles his wrist before going back into the changing room.

“You need me for anything else?” Harry asks Amelia. “I can try on other people’s costumes too, you know. I’m able to alter my height and weight at will. It’s my superpower.”

“We’re done with you for now,” my aunt says, not amused. “Send one of the other actors in.”

“Okay,” he says, and then, “Bye,” sort of in my direction but not exactly in my direction.

I raise my hand silently.

While Marie is changing, Amelia excuses herself to go to the bathroom and is still in there when Marie comes back out, now wearing a dark red flapper dress that’s been distressed to look like she swam in it. “Here,” she says, handing me her suit. “Make sure you hang it up carefully, will you, Franny? It’s really important to me that my costume not get all crushed and wrinkled, since I’m the one who has to wear it onstage.” She rotates in front of the mirror on the changing-room door, admiring the fringe on the dress. “Wish Harry had
seen me in
this
. It’s so much more flattering than that stupid suit.” She looks over her shoulder. “Oh, sorry, Franny. Is it awkward for me to talk about him in front of you? You two sort of had something going on for a little while, didn’t you?”

“Did we?” I say, and thread the pants onto the hanger.

I
’m nervous as I walk into lunch that day. I don’t know where I should sit. Not with Harry, obviously—and that’s been my place for days.

Julia finds me while I’m still getting my food. “What the hell happened last night?” she asks. “I go off alone with Manny for like two hours, and come back to find you and Harry split up and Marie sitting on his lap?”

“We weren’t ever really together,” I say, but I’m thinking,
Marie was on his lap last night?
Then:
Why am I surprised?

Julia raises her eyebrows. “Could have fooled me. But you were the one who kept warning
me
about what a flirt he was,
and we all know how available Marie’s made herself to him, and even though she’s the biggest rat I’ve ever met, a lot of the guys think she’s cute.” She smiles suddenly. “Although, BTW, and just between us, Manny told me he doesn’t think she’s nearly as pretty as
she
thinks she is, but he’s, you know, one of the good guys. And I think sometimes he says things like that to me because he thinks they’re what I want to hear. I hope he doesn’t think I’m high maintenance.” She pauses. “Are you upset or anything?”

I shake my head, and that’s enough for her. She goes on. “Marie’s been bragging all about how she and Harry totally hooked up last night, but it’s such a lie: we all went into town and then when we got back, he went off with Isabella and they disappeared for ages, and Marie was in our room before it was even curfew.”

“Really?” I find this very interesting. “So you think she was lying about hooking up with him?”

“Marie’s not exactly known for her integrity. Oops, there’s Manny—he’s waiting for me—got to go.” She races off and throws her arms around Manny Yates, who smiles fondly down at her even though she made him spill some of his soda.

By the time I’m done getting my food, Vanessa and Lawrence are at a table together, which means I have people to sit with.

“Look who’s here,” Lawrence says as I put my tray down next to him. “The girl who’s always too busy for us.”