I decided that, while sitting next to him, I should probably just refrain from breathing because I could smell his perfect scent with every inhale. It wasn’t even a smell that I could describe. It was just perfect. It had the sharp dominance of cologne, with the soft undertones of a person’s natural aroma. No matter what I called it, it was wonderful. And it was definitely clouding my head and making my job much more difficult. This boy had to go. Steeling myself, I turned to face him, ignoring his brilliant green eyes.
“So Claire and I have been hanging out a lot lately and I think she—”
“Do you want to go out with me sometime?” His interruption was so sudden and so final that I had to actually sit there for a minute and think about what he’d just said.
“Maybe this weekend?” he went on. “We could go grab a bite to eat.” I furrowed my brow and tilted my head to the side in confusion, still not comprehending his words.
“What about Claire?” I asked, suddenly finding my voice again.
“Oh her? We broke up earlier today. It just wasn’t working out. So how about it? I mean, I’m sure it makes me seem like a pretty big jerk to ask you out right after I broke up with your friend but I think you’re really interesting.” His words were spoken in English and I was sure they were forming complete sentences, but I still couldn’t understand anything he was saying.
“You broke up with Claire?” was all I could manage.
“Yeah. I don’t know if she’s said anything to you but we haven’t been getting along very well lately.” I shook my head dumbly, not really sure what I was shaking it at.
“Yeah but you broke up with her?” He nodded more slowly this time, as if I wouldn’t understand what the gesture meant if he sped it up—which was probably true. But what I couldn’t understand was what this meant for me. Did I fail in my job? Would Claire be mad? Was this amazingly good-looking boy really asking me out? Would that be ethical to go somewhere with a job? All of these questions raced through my mind, muddling it so completely that I didn’t even notice when the bell rang for biology.
“I’ll just take that as a yes and see you at eight on Saturday.” And with that he was gone, and I was screwed.
Chapter Eight
The next day David was nowhere to be found at school. I didn’t spot him at his usual hangout and when I asked his friends they said he hadn’t come to school that day. Was it possible he was avoiding me so that I couldn’t call the date off, or was I just being paranoid? Either way, it was a very bad thing that I couldn’t get a hold of him. But then again, he couldn’t contact me either, could he? He didn’t have my phone number or address, so I should be fine. Letting this knowledge relax me a little, I went to my locker to find my history book, even though we probably wouldn’t need it for our promisingly boring lecture. At my locker stood a tall, skinny blonde girl in a cheerleading outfit. Her short hair was curled into tight ringlets and framed her face nicely. She leaned against my locker and tapped her foot impatiently as I approached. I obviously wasn’t walking fast enough for her.
She looked me up and down quickly, taking in my appearance and apparently gauging whether or not I could handle whatever she was about to throw at me. I smiled uneasily at her and stopped just short of my locker, hoping she’d either say what she had to say or get out of my way so I could get my stuff for class.
“Are you Amelia?” she asked, her voice appropriately haughty for someone of her high school social rank.
“Yeah, did you want to hire me for something?” To any normal passerby this probably would have sounded like an odd response to her question, but I had grown good at reading people and knowing when they were coming to me for a job—that, and there was the small fact that I had no friends and no one knew who I was. The cheerleader’s face lit up considerably at my words; she apparently hadn’t been convinced that I actually existed and was relieved to find that there really was someone who would save her from social awkwardness.
“Yeah, I need you to break up with my boyfriend Blane for me.” She handed over some information on the boy, and I dug my normal required fact sheet from my locker and gave it to her in turn.
“I need you to fill that out and give it to me tomorrow, along with a picture of the boy and your phone number so I can call you for any further information I need,” I said mechanically. The cheerleader gave me an odd look at this statement but didn’t say anything and simply took the paper.
“Um, Blane likes blondes . . . is that a problem?”
I laughed at this statement and shook my head.
“I’ll change it tonight. You do know I’m charging fifty, since it’s so close to prom, right?” She simply nodded and handed over a wad of cash. I counted it quickly and stuck out my hand. She shook it with a smile and the deal was made.
I didn’t spot David at all that day, which worried me beyond all belief. If I couldn’t find him by tomorrow, then there was actually a chance that this boy would somehow show up on my doorstep on Saturday. Even without knowing my address, I wouldn’t put it past him to mysteriously know exactly where I lived without having to ask anyone. This fact was unsettling and the burning blonde color stripper in my hair didn’t help to ease my discomfort. I always hated having to go from black to blonde overnight. It sometimes left my hair with an orange-ish tint that took a while to cover up. Tonight though, the fates smiled on me, and my hair turned a prissy platinum blonde without leaving me bald.
I removed the black nail polish and replaced it with bright pink, which meant I had to walk around my room with those uncomfortable foam toe separators on my feet while spreading my fingers like some sort of flying squirrel trying to take off. I skimmed through my extensive wardrobe and picked out a white pleated skirt that cut off several inches above my knee and a bubblegum pink tank top. I threw some hot pink stiletto heels into the mix and was done with my work assignment for that night.
Lexi Monroe, which turned out to be the cheerleader’s name (though I would have been just fine calling her cheerleader), had managed to send a picture of her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend from her phone to my email address. I hadn’t given her my email address, but since it was simply my full name, I guess it wasn’t that hard to figure it out. Her resourcefulness did surprise me, though. So, with her picture and fact sheet to guide me, I figured I could start this project tomorrow, even though I usually avoided working on a Friday, since it could sometimes run over into my uneventful weekends. This was my exception. I had to get back on my game or I was doomed. All right, so maybe I wasn’t doomed, but I was definitely in danger of losing my self-confidence.
I glanced at the fact sheet before me and tried to think of my plan of attack.
Name—Blane
Age—18
POI—Football, Parties, Cars
Deadline—Tuesday
Though the deadline was slightly shocking, his POIs were almost laughably predictable. It was like a jock stereotype straight out of a movie. I looked them over one more time to make sure I hadn’t invented them simply by expecting them to be there, and sure enough, there they were in all of their unsubstantial glory. Then again, I suppose someone without an original thought in her head doesn’t have much room to make fun of the interests of others.
I shook my head, figuring I could lure this one away simply by bending over in front of him in my less-than-modest skirt. It was definitely the easy way out, but Lexi never specified how I had to get rid of him, just that it had to be done so that his best friend could ask her to prom.
I checked the number on the fact sheet so that I could confirm tomorrow’s breakup with Lexi. There’s nothing worse than trying to break up with a boy and having their girlfriend show up halfway through. I dialed the number on my now pink cell phone.
“This is Lex,” said a chipper voice. I wondered why on earth she’d need to shorten Lexi. After all, wasn’t Lexi the shortened version of Alexis or something? Perhaps the four letters were still too strenuous for her, and she needed the three letters to keep
it simple.
“Hey Lexi, it’s Amelia,” I said professionally. “I was just calling to confirm that you won’t be in school tomorrow so that I can get rid of Blane for you.”
“What? No you can’t do it tomorrow! He’s throwing a party this weekend and I want to be able to say good-bye properly.”
This news shocked me slightly, and I didn’t even want to think about what her last statement entailed, so I simply said, “Really? Well, if you need it done by Tuesday I should start working on it.”
“I don’t care. I thought you did this stuff in one day anyway? Why can’t you just do it Monday?” I sighed deeply and tried to control my temper. Some people really thought I was a miracle worker—they never took into account illness, or the fact that not all breakups take one neat little forty-minute lunch break.
“If you want me to start on Monday then I’m going to have to ask you to move the deadline to Wednesday as a precaution.” There was some audible grumbling on the other line, which annoyed me, but she finally gave in.
“Fine. Do whatever you need to do.” Then the line went dead. She had hung up on me. My annoyance wasn’t at the fact that she was being ungrateful and unrealistic, but rather the fact that she didn’t seem to think that I could possibly lure her boyfriend away from a catch as great as her. I rolled my eyes at the cheerleader’s unjustified confidence and tossed my phone into the big white leather purse I’d been planning to use for school tomorrow.
It then instantly struck me that I didn’t have a job tomorrow. David had broken up with Claire, so I didn’t have to worry about him, and I couldn’t start work on Blane until Monday. I could wear whatever I wanted tomorrow. But what on earth did I want to wear? I rarely dressed for myself. The only time I wasn’t working was usually weekends and then I’d just stay in sweats and paint for two days straight. With this exciting new prospect of dressing myself in mind, I opened up my closet and looked through the many different styles.
I finally settled for nondescript blue jeans, a gray fitted T-shirt, some black and white tennis shoes, and a long, thin, white muslin scarf. I completed this outfit with a knitted white beret to stuff my newly dyed blonde hair into. Tomorrow I was definitely going for invisible, and maybe that way David wouldn’t find me and he’d forget about our “date.”
The next day at school I was met with a very unwelcome sight at my locker, which looked like it was turning into a meeting spot for my clients. Claire stood, arms crossed over her chest, eyes burning a hole through my head. I approached cautiously, not quite sure what I’d done to merit this less-than-congenial greeting.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked in a furious whisper. I threw her an honestly puzzled look while I tried to make sure no one was listening to us.
“What are you talking about?”
“David!” she said simply. Her statement was so sudden that I thought perhaps he was standing behind me. I looked over my shoulder to see the normal procession of students passing through the hallway.
“Not behind you, you idiot. What did you do? I paid you fifty dollars to break up with him for me!”
“You guys are broken up,” I said shakily, finding that this confrontation was taking a lot of the fight out of me. I suspected that it had something to do with the fact that I didn’t have an identity that day. I wasn’t Lia the super cheerleader, or Mari the independent punk chick. I was Amelia Marie Bedford, sixteen-year-old breakup artist and personality-less high school student.
“Yeah, I wanted you to break up with him for me. Not the other way around! What am I supposed to do now? It looks like he dumped me!” she screeched. We were now attracting some attention, which was something I strictly avoided doing when I was off the clock.
“Why does that matter? You got what you wanted. You and David are broken up and you can get what’s-his-name to ask you to the prom.”
“It’s my reputation, Amelia,” she spat. “I know you don’t have one, but I can’t go around having people break up with me. It doesn’t sit well with my image. You need to fix this.”
“Fix this?” I repeated incredulously. “How am I supposed to do that?”
“Make it look like I broke up with him,” she answered simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Why don’t you do that yourself? Just tell your friends that’s what happened.” I had no idea where any of this was going, but I knew I didn’t like it.
“I paid you to save my reputation!”
“No, you paid me to avoid an awkward situation for yourself,” I quickly corrected her. I may have suddenly turned spineless, but I wasn’t about to give back the fifty dollars she’d given me just because she had a bruised ego.
“Whatever. You need to get David to go out with me again so I can break up with him properly and publicly, or I’m taking my money back.” Her threat was loud and clear, and all I could do was nod silently. She turned to walk away but called over her shoulder, “And you should fix whatever you did to your hair. You look like Lexi Monroe.”
That school day went by in a haze of commotion. My mind was completely wrapped around my current problem and I didn’t pay attention to a single word out of my teachers’ mouths. My stomach was all tied up in knots over the prospect of A) getting David to ask Claire back out, B) getting her to break up with him publicly so I wouldn’t have to give the money back, and C) possibly sabotaging any chance I had with David. Though, all things considered, I’d say that would be the best part of this whole plan. I couldn’t risk having a crush on a boy. Besides, what boy would ever be okay with his girlfriend flirting with a new guy every day?
I wasn’t at all surprised to find that my mother was having another “client dinner” this Friday, so I ate some cold macaroni and cheese straight out of the fridge without even heating it up. I finished up my homework for the weekend and tried to watch reruns of old black-and-white TV shows until I fell asleep. As it turned out, however, even Lucy’s antics couldn’t soothe me, so I ended up going online to try to cyber stalk David. I needed some information on this boy, and I already had his name, which meant I should be able to find some sort of online profile for him. Everyone seems to have their own website now, which makes things infinitely easier for me when a client doesn’t give me enough information about their dear boyfriends.
I went to a search engine and typed in “David Fields” in an attempt to locate my burden’s website. I found many photography websites and even an interesting blog or two, but nothing from this boy at school. Now things were really getting weird. As I’ve previously stated, everyone has a website. Everyone. To find someone without some sort of online profile is like finding someone who doesn’t exist . . . at least in high school.
I considered calling Claire up just to confirm that I had the right last name, but I had a violent flashback to our last conversation and decided against it. Now all that was left to do was go to bed, hope I could get through the weekend without this boy single-handedly ruining my career, and paint a picture or two. Should be easy enough.
Chapter Nine
Saturday morning I let myself sleep in until eleven. I had tossed and turned all night, so waking up at eleven felt more like waking up at three in the morning. I stumbled out of bed, rubbing my eyes and yawning. Then I tripped over the big square fan that I had aimed at my bed the night before. I glared at the inanimate object and went into the bathroom to get ready for my Saturday in the way I always did. I pulled my short hair back into a now-blonde ponytail, washed my face, and brushed my teeth. I didn’t bother changing out of my sweats, even though I had a slight nagging feeling that David might actually appear at my house. I refused to let myself believe that this typical high school boy would be resourceful enough to find me. And so, stubborn resolve firmly set, I went downstairs to have an early lunch.
“Someone slept in late,” my mother said as I thumped down the stairs.
“Someone stayed out late,” I countered, throwing her a suspicious glance.
“I brought some fettuccine Alfredo back from the restaurant last night. You’re welcome to eat it. I have to work this weekend, but I’ll see you tonight,” my mother called from the front door.
“I might not be home tonight,” I said suddenly. I hadn’t meant to say it, just like I didn’t mean to say every word that came out of my mouth when I was sitting with David. Things seemed to pour from my mouth lately in some relentless deluge.
“Oh?” my mom responded, as a way of being inquisitive.
“Date,” I went on, still unsure of why I was spewing lies at my mother, who had been kind enough to bring me fettuccini Alfredo.
“Oh,” she said again, this time in a slightly deflated manner, which didn’t make any sense. “Job related?” she pried.
“No,” I answered. We both seemed to be suddenly incapable of constructing any sentence longer than two words. There was a long pause, and I knew by instinct that my mom was probably looking down at her watch to gauge how much time she had to pull some more information out of me.
“Have fun at work,” I finally called, cutting off the conversation before she could ask any more questions about my fictitious date—or at least what I hoped was a fictitious date. The door clicked closed, and I heard my mother’s car pulling away from the house. I breathed a sigh of relief for having escaped the exchange relatively unharmed and then proceeded to reheat the pasta my mom had brought me.
The Breakup Artist Page 5