Grace bit her lip. “Maybe, but that just means someone else gets screwed.”
“It might not be as bad as you think,” Terri said. “That person may not care about playing less. They may just like being on the team.”
Grace looked skeptical.
“She’s right,” I told her. “That’s why I liked it. Hell, if I’d known Coach was taking on a team manager, I’d have done it. Another extracurricular right there. Think I can fight Maddy for the job?”
Grace laughed. “You fight?”
“Yeah,” Terri added, “my money is on Maddy. You’d be covering your head screaming, ‘Not the face, not the face!’”
“Fair,” I acknowledged, “although I’m a pretty good tackler.” Jemma had learned her remote-control tackling skills from the best. On several occasions, I’d had to use my expertise to stop my sister or my friends from changing my movie choice. I didn’t play around when it came to my rom-coms.
Grace laughed. “Yeah, I once thought I was going to have rug burn for life.”
“Hey, that’s what you get for trying to change To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before right at the best part.”
“We saw that one like a hundred times,” Terri protested. “Which means you’ve seen it a trillion.”
“You can never get enough of a good thing.”
Grace laughed. “I love you guys. Thank you.”
I looked at her. “For what?”
She shrugged. “Taking my mind off things, making me feel better about the whole Lissi volleyball stuff. At least I don’t feel like a total fraud in my college essay. I did not want to rewrite it. I’m done looking at it.”
“Fraud, come on. Even if you decided to quit,” I told her, “you wouldn’t be a fraud. You’re incred—wait! Did you finish?”
“Yeah, last night. The whole thing. Application is done and just needs to be submitted.”
“No way!” I squealed. “You’re a rock star—I can’t believe you didn’t say anything sooner. That’s amazing! Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey”—I blew a straw wrapper at Terri—“you’re going to be her neighbor. I see you at RISD. I haven’t forgotten my promise.”
“And I haven’t forgotten mine,” she said, standing up. “Now let’s go find you a guy.”
Chapter 18
Terri, shopping bags in hands, threw her arms up. “What was wrong with that guy? He was hot! We’ve been walking around for an hour, and you haven’t found anyone you wanted to talk to.”
Grace took a bite of her pretzel. “I was right before. This is all too soon. You need some time to grieve Marc.”
“No.” I stopped and leaned against the wall. “That’s not it. I’m done with him now. Seeing him last night brought me to my senses. I’m pretending he doesn’t even exist. I’m over it. He doesn’t mean anything to me.”
I didn’t need Grace’s side-eye to tell me she didn’t believe me. “Then what’s the problem?” she asked.
I cringed. “I don’t know how to do this.”
Terri joined me against the wall. “Do what?”
I filled my cheeks with air and blew it out slowly. “Meet new guys, flirt, date. Last night was a mess, and you saw my texts with Brandon. I was with Marc forever, and before that we were lab partners, so we got to know each other; it was organic. This … trying to pick up somebody in the mall … feels fake.”
“It’s not,” Terri tried to reassure me. “It’s fun.”
“It’s terrifying.” I’d thought coming here was a good idea, but it wasn’t giving me the rush I’d imagined. If anything, it was just making me feel anxious. I looked around at the people near us. There was an old couple doing laps around the mall, a group of girls a little younger than us hanging out on a bench, a couple of cute guys headed to Jordan’s, the electronics store. They definitely had potential, but I couldn’t just go up to them and start talking. Who did that? I’d seem like a creeper. This was not like anything I’d ever seen in a rom-com. This felt scary. “What would I even say to someone?”
I should have thought of some lines ahead of time. What had made me think I could do this? I should have just had Terri set me up.
I clunked my head back against the wall.
“Just be yourself,” Grace said.
Terri shook her head. “Nooooo, bad advice. She’s panicking right now. She can be herself when she’s on the date. Right now…” Terri turned her focus back to me. “I need you to be me. First, no slouching. Second, loosen up. Third, when you see someone you like, make eye contact, hold it for a few seconds, give a flirty smile, look away and then back to see if he noticed, then look away again.”
“What?” I asked. She might as well have been speaking French.
“Don’t be all Miss Innocent,” she said. “You’ve read and watched how many rom-coms? And you’re acting like this is a foreign concept to you?”
“Yeah,” Grace said after finishing the last of her pretzel, “this should be easy. Just think of your favorite rom-com and emulate the lead.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” I informed them. “Most of the stories you see me salivating over usually have a meet-cute or something; they definitely don’t have the lead stalking a random guy in the mall.”
It looked like Terri was fighting a massive eye roll. “Since we don’t have a history paper for you and a stranger to team up on, or a sudden freak storm where you and Mr. Meet-Cute get to share an awning, how about we try what works in the real world? Seeing someone you like and starting a conversation. Last time I checked, that’s not stalking.”
I knew she was right, but it didn’t make this easier.
“What if they don’t want to talk to me?” I blurted out.
“Why wouldn’t they?” Terri asked. She genuinely looked like she had no clue why I’d even think that, but my concern was warranted. Marc was the only guy who’d ever asked me out, and he’d dumped me for someone else. What if no one else would be interested?
“Hey,” Grace said, reading my mind as usual, “they’re going to be fighting over you. You’re stunning, smart, funny, and an amazing friend who knows what she wants.”
She could have been describing herself, but her Jedi mind trick worked. I finally budged from my spot on the wall. “Let’s do this,” I said.
Terri clapped her hands together. “Yes! Let’s go to Jordan’s first. It’s like a haven for hot guys.”
I followed them, the iced coffee I’d had earlier surging through my veins. There’s no reason to be nervous. There’s no reason to be nervous. I was still terrified, but I tried to hide it from them and from myself. How did Terri do this all the time?
“Them,” she said, pointing out the guys I saw earlier.
“But there’s two of them,” I said, stating the obvious.
“Yeah, and three of us,” Grace said. “We have them outnumbered. This will be easy.”
“Just do what I said.” Terri ran through her instructions again. “Good posture, eye contact, smile, look away, look back, and onward.” She demonstrated on me and made it look so easy.
“Fine.”
The guys were over by the video games, reading the backs of a couple of them. The three of us walked by; I tried making eye contact with the shorter one, but he didn’t even look my way. Neither one did. We kept going and regrouped near the cash registers.
I picked at a bowl full of USB drives shaped like Popsicles. “How are you supposed to give them googly eyes if they’re not even looking in the right direction?”
Grace smirked. “Maybe it’s good they weren’t looking. Instead of googly eyes you might want to go for friendly or sexy, anything that doesn’t scream Cookie Monster.”
“I’m thinking Cookie Monster might have had better luck,” Terri said. “He’d at least have asked the guys if they had any cookies. That’s what you need to do.”
“Ask them if they have cookies?”
Terri didn’t need to speak; her look said it all—I
didn’t get it.
“If they’re not looking,” she explained, “you alter the plan and take the initiative. Say hi. Ask about the game they’re holding. Anything!”
“You could have done it,” I told her. “You could have gotten the conversation rolling.”
“Teach a man to fish…,” Terri started.
I groaned. My father was always using that saying. Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. It was what he’d spouted when he made me and my friends learn how to change a tire and check for oil, even though he barely let me use the car.
“I just need one fish!” I reminded her. “I’m not looking for a whole school.”
She tossed me a heart-shaped stress ball from a container near her. “You’ll thank me later. You need to learn how to do this. Talking to people is a skill.” Ugh. Dropping that persuasive-speaking class was definitely a mistake.
Terri paused, stared at me, and then nodded. “It might be easier if you’re alone. We’ll wait in the next row. Just go walk up to them and start up a conversation.”
I bugged my eyes out at her.
“Literally, all you have to do is say hi,” she said.
“And what if they say hi back!?”
“Then you have a conversation.” Terri spoke each word slowly, as if she were talking to a toddler.
“When did you get so shy?” Grace asked. “You gave those soccer boys hell for the past three years. They’re like the hottest guys in school and you were always joking around with them, putting them in their place, and having fun.”
“That was different.” They were my friends; they were Marc’s friends. I was one of the group, one of the guys. They welcomed me.
“It’s really not any different,” she said. “Just pretend the two over there are old friends, too, or, even better, people you don’t care about. You can do this.”
I squeezed the stress-ball heart and walked toward the guys. I could do this. It was for my future, and I was not going to be a wuss—not when it came to finding love.
I slowed down when I approached them.
“Hi.”
The word came out of my mouth. It was me who had spoken it, yet this particular hi was a sound I’d never heard before; a frightening, high-pitched squeak that somehow got stuck in my throat, causing a sort of hiccup. I wasn’t quite sure it was human. I had a feeling the guys didn’t, either. They both turned and looked at me. I didn’t stick around and wait for their reactions. I made a beeline for my friends, who were waiting for me in the next aisle.
“What are you doing here? Go back and talk to them,” Terri whispered.
“Are you kidding me? Did you not hear what happened?”
Grace mimicked my squeal: “What do you mean?”
She and Terri laughed as I covered my face with my hands.
Terri pulled my arms down. “This is how you learn. Go back and start a conversation.”
“I sounded like a mouse high on helium who also got stuck in a trap. I’m not going back there.”
“You have to.”
“Do it, do it, do it,” Grace started softly chanting.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said.
“I dare you,” Terri challenged.
Grace let out a whistle. “Ooooohhhhhh.”
They knew I couldn’t resist a good dare. Still … this was asking for humiliation.
“You can’t give up now,” Grace said. “What would Bridget Jones do?”
I groaned. It was not fair to use Bridget on me. Bridget Jones’s Diary, while an oldie, was one of my very favorites. I loved Bridget and the ridiculous situations she got herself in, but that didn’t mean I wanted to re-create them.
Grace pointed her finger at me and donned a serious expression. “Do you want to be a disgrace to rom-com lovers everywhere? I don’t think so. Now go back and finish what you started.”
“Hear, hear,” Terri said in agreement.
It shouldn’t have worked. As far as motivational speeches went, Grace’s was not the best, yet I found myself heading back to the row with the games—and the guys.
They hadn’t moved; they were in the same spot I left them in.
“I love that one,” I said, pointing to the game the shorter guy was holding, even though his body was totally blocking it from my view. I managed to speak like a human this time, although a slightly loud one.
He raised an eyebrow and waved the case at me. “This?”
It was one of those shoot-’em-up type of games. I’d tried similar ones a few times at Terri’s house but always lost interest. I wasn’t much of a gamer. Books, Netflix, Hulu, and the sort were my obsessions of choice.
“Yeah, it’s great. I play it all the time,” I lied.
The taller guy huffed, “It just came out the other day—there’s no way you played it.” Then he turned his back to me like I didn’t exist. They both did.
“Whatever,” the other one mumbled.
The tone, the move, and the dismissal made me fume. “Actually,” I snapped, my mouth moving faster than my brain, “my mom is a 3-D animator, and when her company needs people to test new games, guess who gets to do it? And to think I was actually trying to help her find some fans to check out her next project. I should have just stuck with my friends.”
Now it was my turn: I spun on my heels, giving them nothing but my back.
“Wait,” one of them called after me.
I waved my hand back at them. “Too late.”
I walked straight for the door, tossing the squished heart in the container by the cash register on my way, and left, my head held high. Terri and Grace got into formation behind me. We looked like the popular girls straight out of a teen movie.
“That was badass,” Terri said when we were a safe distance from the store.
“Yeah,” Grace agreed. “See, you can do this!”
They apparently needed to take some lying lessons from me. I had clearly upped my game. They, on the other hand, were not at all convincing. “Okaaayy,” I said, complete with eye roll. “Not only did I not get the guy, I made a fool of myself.”
“What?” Terri objected. “No you didn’t. They were ready to chase you out of there. But who cares about them? They aren’t the guys you want, anyway. This is about confidence and being able to talk to people. Yeah, you blundered. Since you’re not a gamer, you may have wanted to go with ‘is this game any good?’ versus ‘I play it all the time,’ but it doesn’t matter. You did something that scared you, and you didn’t let them crap all over you. It was a win, a big one.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“Well, I am,” she said.
“Come on.” Grace put her arm around me. “It wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“Yes,” I told her. “It was tragic.”
Terri put her hands on her hips. “Does that mean you’re giving up?”
I shook my head, a smile forming on my lips.
“Oh no, I’m just getting started.”
Chapter 19
“Next stop,” I told Terri and Grace, “Orange Julius.”
“Ahh,” Grace said, “time for a pick-me-up? I could go for a DQ cone. Ooh, or a Blizzard. Or a Dilly Bar. Or all of them.”
Just the idea of all that made me ill. “Your stomach never ceases to amaze me.”
“Hey, you try practicing under Coach for almost three hours straight most days and see the appetite you build up.”
She had a point. While I was moving a cursor around on a mouse pad, editing yearbook photos after school, she was doing drills and practice games. “You’re right. You earn all the snacks you want. Hey,” I said, getting another brainstorm. “I know we were joking earlier, but since Coach is being so welcoming all of a sudden, think he’ll let me on the team so I can pad my résumé? I’ll do anything. Assistant manager—I can help Maddy with whatever needs to be done. Towel picker-upper. Water pourer. Scorekeeper?”
Grace’s face contorte
d. “Maybe.” Her maybe didn’t sound very convincing. “Coach doesn’t like extra people around during practice,” she explained. “He says it’s a distraction, but you can try. It can’t hurt.”
I’d check in with him—there had to be something I could do for the team—but that was next week’s problem. Right now was about meeting my future boyfriend.
“Come on,” I said, ushering them toward the Orange Julius-Dairy Queen at the other end of the mall. “I need my drink.”
“Since when do you like Orange Julius?” Terri asked.
“Since I realized they had a very cute guy working the counter.”
Terri’s eyes grew bigger. “What? How did I not see this boy? Don’t tell me my radar is on the fritz.”
“You were too busy ogling the display at the art store,” I told her. The stores were right across from each other.
“And you didn’t think to tell me? To call my attention to Mr. Orange Julius?”
I had thought of telling her after she came out of the art store, but I knew she’d have made me go talk to him. “I wasn’t ready then.”
“But you are now?” Grace asked.
I nodded. “Figure it can’t go much worse than what happened at Jordan’s.”
A huge smirk crossed Terri’s face. “I wouldn’t count on that.”
“Yeah.” Grace elbowed me playfully. “Don’t underestimate yourself.”
“Ya know,” I said, feigning mock outrage, “with friends like you—”
“You’re going to wind up with amazing stories and a hot date,” Terri finished for me. She jutted her chin toward the Orange Julius counter. “You weren’t kidding. He’s…” She didn’t say anything else; she just fanned herself with her hand.
“Should we come with you in line?” Grace asked. “Or do you want to order for us, too, so you have extra one-on-one time?”
Finding Mr. Better-Than-You Page 10