Wicked Jealous: A Love Story

by Palmer, Robin

  Hillary turned to my dad. “Jeffrey, are you going to let him talk to me like this?”

  My dad looked up from his iPhone. “Sorry—what was that?”

  Stan turned to me. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Simone. Good luck with everything. One day you should come by the house. I’ll screen Jules et Jim for you and tell you about the lunch I had with him in Paris when I was just starting out.”

  That was my second favorite Truffaut movie. It was about a woman who is torn between two best friends. (“What French movie isn’t?” Nicola liked to say when I brought it up.) I smiled. “That would be amazing.”

  I looked over at Jason to see if the idea of his father inviting me over completely mortified him, but he was too busy still looking like a turtle.

  Cheryl hugged me. “Good to see you, sweetie. You look beautiful. I’ll see you at class on Tuesday.” She turned to my dad. “Very nice to meet you. Your daughter is wonderful.” Then she turned to Hillary. “Hmmph,” was all she said before she pulled herself up to her full height—all five-feet-one of her—and walked out the door.

  Hillary turned to me, this time not even trying to hide how much she hated me. “I can’t believe you would embarrass me like this in public. After all I’ve done for you!” she hissed through gritted teeth.

  “Me?! I didn’t even open my mouth!”

  “I . . . I . . . took you shopping!” she cried.

  My dad came over and grabbed her arm. “Hillary, I think we should go now.”

  “Fine.” She scanned the crowd. “It’s not like there’s anyone high level to talk to anyway. They’re all gone,” she announced as she grabbed his arm and began to lead him toward the door.

  “Nice meeting you, Jason,” he called over his shoulder. “Have her home by midnight. It’s not like I’ll be there to check, but her brother will, and he’s very protective!”

  I covered my face. “Tell me all that didn’t just happen,” I moaned.

  “What part?” Jason asked.

  I peeked between two of my fingers. “Any of it.”

  He pulled my hands down. “It wasn’t that bad,” he said. “Compared to . . . stepping on a land mine and having your leg blown off. Or being in solitary confinement and being driven crazy by the slow dripping of water right next to your ear. Or . . .”

  I cringed. “Okay. Duly noted. But still, it was awful.”

  “You want to get out of here and go get something to eat?”

  I nodded.

  As we walked toward the door, I looked around for Blush. Seeing that there weren’t a lot of tall African American guys in the crowd, he would have been hard to miss, but he seemed to be already gone.

  eleven

  I wondered if I’d ever get good enough at dating so that I didn’t spend the entire date worrying about what would happen at the end. Because to have to go through life saying “Really?” and “Mm” every minute and a half so that the guy thought I was listening to him when, in fact, what I was really doing was thinking about how to position myself in the passenger seat so that if we did end up making out, I wouldn’t end up with a gear shift in my stomach would be pretty sad.

  The good news about being so preoccupied was that when Jason turned on the ignition of his car and “One Less Lonely Girl” blared out of the speakers, I didn’t throw up. And when he took me to In-N-Out for dinner and spent the whole time talking about Lady Gaga, I wasn’t bored out of my mind. Instead, I just hmm’d and mm’d and really’d while I wondered whether fries gave you bad breath and how I could have been so dumb as not to remember to buy Altoids.

  When we had been done eating for a while and had received more than a few dirty looks from the assistant manager because there were a bunch of people waiting for tables, he smiled at me. “You ready to go?”

  “Oh. I guess. But I was just going to get another refill on my Dr Pepper,” I said nervously. So what if I had already had three in an attempt to keep my hands busy with the straw so that I didn’t do the thing I did when I was nervous, which was scrape at my cuticles? So what if I’d have a full bladder and totally have to pee while we were kissing, and instead of saying, “Hey, Jason? Do you think we could stop kissing for a second and find a bathroom?” because I wouldn’t want to break the mood, I’d just hold it for so long that it would turn into a bladder infection.

  “Okay,” he shrugged.

  I stood up and smoothed my dress. What was I so afraid of? So we were going to make out. Well, maybe we were. It was wrong to take these things for granted. It wasn’t like I hadn’t done it before. I totally had. Well, once. And who cared if that time had been on the street in public under a streetlight while this time would be alone in a dark car? It wasn’t so different. I sat back down.

  “I thought you were getting more soda.”

  “I changed my mind.” I might as well have gotten it over with. Or gotten to it.

  “So you want to go?”

  I nodded. “Wait!” I panicked as he started to get up. “I . . . I changed my mind. I do want more soda. But I’m not going to get a full one. Just . . . a little.” But instead of getting more soda, I went to the bathroom where I did a head-to-toe inspection of anything that could be considered offensive if Jason and I found ourselves within a two-inch radius of each other. Nothing in between teeth. No offensive smell coming from armpits. (But I smacked some water and liquid soap on them anyway and used the scratchy brown paper towels to pat them dry anyway.) Decent breath. (Shoving five pieces of Eclipse peppermint and chomping for a while before spitting them out helped.) Makeup still intact. (Most girls probably would’ve taken the time to touch it up, but most girls didn’t have shaky hands, which could result in permanent blindness.) Hair not completely flat nor overly sticky from product (thanks to a little wash and dry with hand dryer). Red lips made kissable with the addition of a little (at first too much) gloss.

  Angry customer pounding on the door because I was taking so much time.

  “Okay, okay,” I said as I did one more spin in front of the mirror for a last look. Which, because the mirror showed me only from my head to my boobs, meant I had to step up on the toilet. Not—I realized as I almost fell in—one of my better ideas.

  I unlocked the door to find an angry woman who looked like an extra in Jersey Shore covered with ketchup stains holding the hands of two equally messy little kids. “Finally. What’d ya do? Fall in?”

  “Almost,” I muttered as I tried to make my way past them.

  “Ya see what I gotta deal with here?” she asked, pointing at the kids. “Maybe next time you can do the rest of us a favor and practice being a supermodel at home.”

  “I wasn’t. I just—see, the thing is—I’monmysecond dateeverandthisreallycuteboyisabouttodrivemehomeandI’veneverbeeninthatpositionbeforeandI’mnotsurewhatI’msupposedtodo,” I blurted out.

  Her face softened. “Ohhh. Now that’s a whole other story.” She patted my arm with her sticky fingers. “Don’t worry, honey. You look hot. And if he, you know, tries anything you’re not comfortable with, you just tell him that your father knows people.”

  “Huh?”

  “You know, like Tony Soprano kinda people?” Her left eyebrow arched. “Capiche?”

  She wanted me to tell him my dad was in the Mafia? “Sure. Capoosh,” I replied. I studied French rather than Italian, but that seemed like the likely past tense.

  She looked confused. “Huh?”

  “Nothing. Thanks for the advice,” I said, as I darted around her and made my way back to Jason.

  “You okay?” he asked when I got back to the table.

  “Oh yeah. Fine. Long line at the soda thing. Decided to drink it there.” I gave him a smile. “All ready to go if you are!”

  The drive back to Venice was filled with more small talk. I tried not to compare Jason to Blush�
�how Blush, when he asked me a question, let me get my entire answer out and really seemed to think about what I said before he responded. Or how when I was with Blush, we talked about movies and music and TV, like Jason and I did, but then we also talked about other things. Like our families. Or our most embarrassing moments. Or how when I was with Blush, I felt comfortable blurting. Not in an awkward, fueled-by-nerves way, like I sometimes did with Jason, but because I felt relaxed and comfortable and didn’t feel the need to rewrite and revise everything in my head before saying it.

  But Blush was busy listening to Aleka blurt.

  The ride was also filled with more Bieber. Which didn’t help.

  “Oh, I love this one,” Jason said, turning up the volume as we turned onto my street. “It’s called ‘U Smile.’”

  I tried to smile back. The last time Blush and I had hung out, he played this song “In a Sentimental Mood” by Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, which, up until then, I had never heard but quickly decided was my new favorite song.

  Suddenly, Jason pulled over to the side of the road.

  “Um, my house is farther up the block,” I said.

  He smiled. As if listening to the Biebs go on about how the girl’s lips were his biggest weakness, and how he was all in, with his cards on the table, wasn’t bad enough, suddenly, I had to listen to Jason sing it with him. In a voice so off-key it would have frightened small children.

  How could someone so cute be so tone-deaf? I thought to myself as I nodded along and tapped my hand on the armrest. What was wrong with me? A cute boy was serenading me. Not just a cute boy—a cute popular boy who sat on the Ramp. I should have been thrilled. As a girl, I was supposed to love this kind of stuff. At least that’s what books and movies said. But all I could think about was whether it was possible for ears to get bruised from certain noises and if so, how long it took for them to heal.

  “So what do you think?” he asked when he was done.

  “That was great,” I lied.

  He smiled. “Thanks. My mom’s always saying it’s too bad I’m such a jock because I’d be great in chorus.”

  That had to be the unconditional-love stuff that you always heard about between mothers and kids, because Cheryl was not that clueless.

  “So you still hate the Biebs?” he asked.

  “I—uh—”

  He laughed. “I saw you getting into it. I think you might just be a Belieber now.”

  As if.

  He looked at his watch. “It’s only eleven. Want to take a ride down to the beach?”

  “Okay.” Maybe the sounds of the waves would wash away the sound of his singing that was still ringing in my ears.

  Once we parked, he turned the music down so that it was only slightly rather than completely annoying. In all the times I had thought about my first real makeout session, this was not the sound track I had thought would accompany it. “You’re pretty cool, Simone, you know that?” he asked as he moved toward me.

  “Thanks. So are you,” Other than your taste in music, I thought as his face moved in toward mine.

  But once his lips hit mine, all thoughts of Justin Bieber, Blush, and Hillary disappeared. Instead, I thought about . . . actually, the longer we kissed (which felt like hours, or maybe seconds, I couldn’t decide) the more I was unable to think about anything other than the fact that I was going to be totally screwed the next day when the oxytocin/obsession thing took full effect.

  And then Jason took his hand and tried to snake it down the neck of my dress. Then I snapped back into thinking.

  Despite my lack of experience, I was pretty sure that saying, “What do you think you’re doing?” would probably kill the moment, which is why I decided to gently grab his forearm and yank his hand out of there. Which worked . . . for about two minutes, until he tried it again.

  Luckily, I cut him off at the pass. As difficult as it was to separate my lips from his, I did. “Look, Jason, I really like kissing you. And I’d really like to keep doing it. But do you think we could just, you know, keep it at that for now?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, just as breathlessly.

  Really? He was going to make me spell it out for him? “I mean . . . do you think you could stop putting your hand down my dress?” That wasn’t so hard. In fact, it felt really empowering.

  “Sure,” he said as he pulled me toward him and started kissing me again.

  Wow. That was easy.

  Or at least I thought so, until he took his hand and, instead of putting it down my dress, decided to attempt to put it up it.

  “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?!” I yelped as I pushed his hand—and him—away. “I just told you I wanted to slow things down!”

  “No you didn’t. All you said was not to put my hand down your dress!”

  I glared at him.

  “Oh, Simone, come on,” he said as he leaned toward me again. “I like you. And it seems like you like me. It’s not like I’m going to post about this on Facebook.”

  My eyes widened. I hadn’t even thought about that. “I like you, too,” I replied as I pushed him back. “But I want to go slow.”

  He leaned over again. “But you have such an awesome body. I know a lot of guys like those anorexic types with no boobs, but I think a girl with meat on her is hot.”

  “Meat”? That was so not hot.

  I pushed him away again. “I said I don’t want to.” I may have felt shaky inside, but my voice was surprisingly strong.

  He fell back against his seat. “Whatever.”

  “We can still kiss.”

  He didn’t even look at me. “Actually, I think I should get you home.”

  “Okay,” I said quietly, pinching my thigh through my dress so I wouldn’t cry. This wasn’t fair. Why did I feel like the bad guy here?

  He drove me home in silence, which was even worse than Justin Bieber. Then, as he pulled up in front of my house, he didn’t even put the car in park. He just stared straight ahead.

  “Well, thanks for dinner,” I said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Hey, did you know that In-N-Out uses cottonseed oil to make their fries?” I asked. “I read that somewhere. Apparently, it makes them healthier. I meant to bring that up earlier. You know, when we were actually at the restaurant.” I know it sounded like more of my nervous babbling, but it really wasn’t. I was trying to come up with ways to stay there just a little longer so that Jason would have the opportunity to realize what a complete jerk he was being and apologize. Otherwise, I would be left with the fact that, unless I was willing to do more than kiss, he wasn’t interested in hanging out with me.

  “Fascinating,” he replied, still staring ahead.

  I waited. Nothing.

  “I guess I should go,” I finally said.

  He couldn’t even be bothered to nod.

  I got out of the car. I didn’t have a lot of experience with guys, but I knew I’d never hear from Jason again. When school started again, if we passed each other in the hall, I knew he’d conveniently manage to look away. Which was why before I walked away, I needed to take this opportunity to be really honest and tell him what was on my mind, so that I wouldn’t turn into one of those girls who filled notebook after notebook with angsty poems and song lyrics about the experience.

  “Jason?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I just need to tell you one thing.”

  “What?”

  I dipped my head into the car so he’d be sure to hear me. “I will never, ever be a Belieber. And to be honest, the fact that you are?” I shrugged. “It’s a little creepy.”

  I didn’t even wait to see the look on his face before I started walking toward the door. I didn’t need to. Because there was no way it could’ve matched up to how proud I was of m
yself for coming up with that comeback in the moment rather than three weeks later.

  twelve

  Most people, when they’re really bummed out—because they didn’t get accepted to their top college; or their dog died; or, in my case, the guy they were hanging out with turned out to be a total wiener—might decide to drown their sorrows with a second scoop of ice cream. Perhaps, if they feel really horrible, an entire sundae. But for someone like me, dipping into the junk food is a very slippery slope.

  Luckily, I had a great best friend. Not just to listen to me say “I just can’t believe Jason Frank turned out to be such a jerk” about every fifteen minutes either by text, phone, or in person, but to pick me up and take me to Whole Foods and point me to the deli section and say, “Get as many pounds of grilled veggies as you want. My treat.”

  Which is how I ended up pigging out on red peppers and squash and portobello mushrooms and dripping balsamic vinegar and olive oil on my too-big Old Navy khakis and stretched-out Joy Division T-shirt. (Because of my fragile state, Nicola had let up on her “You now have all these nice new clothes and this is what you wear? Think of all the girls in third-world countries who are starving for the kind of dresses you now own!” song.) Nicola, on the other hand, was pigging out on Uncle Eddie’s vegan chocolate chip cookies (an old favorite of mine, but obviously dangerous to go near at that moment) in a sort of sympathy binge. I felt so crappy that I had even let her convince me to spend the afternoon watching romantic comedies starring Jennifer Aniston and Katherine Heigl—two actresses I couldn’t stand—on cable.

  “Tell me again why we’re doing this?” I asked miserably as Katherine Heigl sparred with Gerard Butler in The Ugly Truth.

  “Because we need to restore your faith in guys,” Nicola replied. “And these movies always get tied up neatly in the last ten minutes with some dumb pop song and a ridiculously happy ending.” She reached for another cookie. “Ooh—maybe He’s Just Not That into You is on somewhere in cable land. That one will definitely help, because it’s got, like, seven ridiculously happy endings.”