Bad Idea

by Nicole French

  A woman with a lot of curves of her own, Mandy nods appreciatively. She twists a lock of her curly hair thoughtfully, perusing my form up and down while she thinks. She’s nice, like a grown-up version of Shirley Temple. After a moment, her eyes light up and she grins devilishly.

  “Got just the thing, hon,” she says. “Be right back.”

  I wait irritably in my polka-dotted trash bag. Even though a part of me—the part that was constantly berated by my mother not to eat too much—is slightly triumphant at being this thin, I’m almost as frustrated with that feeling as I am at the fact that none of my clothes fit. Having grown up in a town that was mostly full of anorexic blonde girls, it took a lot of work (with the help of our yearly visits to Brazil) to learn to accept my body—muscular and curvy as opposed to lithe and underweight—as pretty. This feels like just another loss. I liked my curves. I liked my ass. I want them back!

  Mandy’s brisk knock sounds again, and I open it to find her holding a dress out to me with a satisfied smirk on her face. It’s a light, undeniably sexy affair: bright crimson fabric sprinkled with a small flower print, sewn in a bias cut to cling to my breasts and my hips, with the tiniest of tiny spaghetti straps. She knows she’s done well—the dress is really cute and sexy as hell.

  “That’s going to be way too small,” I say, noting the size at the back of the hanger. “I’ve never been that small in my life. Maybe when I was ten or something.”

  “Just try it,” Mandy insists, thrusting the dress at me. “It’s meant to stretch, and if it’s a little tight, you know your man won’t mind. Now put it on and let’s see.”

  I shrug, but allow her to shut the door since she’s obviously not going anywhere until I’ve tried it on. I slip out of the baggy, polka-dotted embarrassment and pull the little red dress over my head. After I’ve tugged everything into place, I take a breath, turn around, and look at myself in the mirror.

  “Holy shit,” I breathe.

  “Good?” Mandy’s voice cuts through my shock.

  The dress doesn’t look good. It looks fucking amazing. Way better than anything at a five-dollars-or-less place should look. Stopping just before being indecently tight, it clings to every inch of me and gives the illusion of curves in exactly the right places. I turn around and want to jump with glee. Suddenly, I have an ass again—albeit a much smaller one than before, but it’s still there. I turn back; my boobs also look awesome. Bonus.

  “Oh yeah,” I finally answer. “You did really good.”

  “Let’s see, girl.”

  I slip into the espadrilles I brought to try on with dresses and open the door. I sashay down the hall of dressing rooms to examine myself in the tri-plated mirror at the end. Mandy lets out an encouraging whistle as I walk, causing me to smile back at her just as I walk past where Vinny is waiting in an armchair for me. He drops his magazine.

  “Hey!” he crows. “Look, you found your ass again!”

  I turn back at him from where I’m standing on the pedestal in front of the three-paned mirror.

  “Shut up,” I say, but it’s with a grin. I don’t remember the last time I felt this good, and he and I both know it.

  ~

  “Vinny!” I call from my chair in the waiting area of Zara. Vinny swears by their jeans, although I’m not convinced they look any different from Levi’s. He’s been trying on different cuts for the last hour, and I only have twenty minutes to grab lunch before I catch the subway up to work.

  I decided not to wear the dress, which is tucked safely into a shopping bag at my feet, opting instead to wear the clingy black skirt and red blouse Mandy hooked me up with. She found me two more skirts and three shirts that kept me within my fifty-dollar budget. They’re all totally cheap knockoffs that will fall apart within a month, but everything makes me look halfway normal again until I can eat enough ice cream to get my figure back.

  Vinny pops his head out of the dressing room and turns around to show me his butt. “What do you think?”

  I slide back into my chair. “They look exactly the same as the last four pairs you modeled for me. Your ass is bony no matter what.”

  Vinny turns to me and frowns. “Why are you so grumpy? I thought girls loved shopping.”

  I sit back up and roll my eyes. “You have got to learn to stop stereotyping, my friend.”

  I do actually like shopping. Just not shopping for men’s jeans with the nineteen-year-old equivalent of Simon Doonan, apparently. For two hours straight.

  Vinny shrugs. “I only have three more pairs, and then we can go, I promise. We can stop for falafel for lunch. On me.”

  I perk up. Falafel sounds really good. With extra hummus. “All right, let me see them.”

  Vinny disappears back into his dressing room while my phone rings in my purse. I take it out and answer it tentatively. It’s my parents’ house line, which means it’s my mom. She doesn’t usually call me during the week, preferring to keep her communication to her standard Sunday time.

  “Mom? Everything okay?”

  “Y-yes. Everything’s fine. I just…well, I thought I would call to say hello.”

  I frown. This is weird. “Uh, okay. Hi.”

  “How are you doing today?”

  Vinny pops out in a pair of jeans that are almost as tight as mine. I shake my head furiously and mouth “NO” as overtly as possible. He droops and disappears again.

  “I’m fine, Mom,” I say. “Just out with a friend shopping right now. What are you up to?”

  “Oh, well…I just finished coffee with Catherine Kramer. You remember her, Lindsey’s mother?”

  I nod, even though she can’t see me. “Yeah, I remember Lindsey. How is she?”

  “Still at the University of Washington. Catherine says she likes it there.”

  I roll my eyes. Here we go again. “Dad must be jealous.”

  There’s a long pause, and I think I can hear the sound of Mom’s nails tapping on something—a counter, the top of her steering wheel, maybe the side of the telephone.

  “Mom?” I finally ask after she still says nothing.

  “Catherine and Mel are splitting up.”

  She says it quickly, like she’s taking some terrible medicine. It’s hard for Cheryl Bagley Barros to admit difficult truths, even when they’re not necessarily about her.

  Even so, the news isn’t unexpected. I have at least four friends whose parents split after they left for college.

  “I’m sorry for them. Poor Catherine. Poor Lindsey,” I say. Vinny pops out of the dressing room again, sees the look on my face, and turns right back around, clearly sensing that the fashion show is over.

  “Well, I don’t think you should transfer to UW unless you really want to,” Mom says, increasingly blustery, as if the words will cut her tongue if she says them too slowly. “NYU was your dream. You shouldn’t give it up, no matter what your father says.”

  I frown. She’s all over the place. But more importantly, she’s breaking with my dad’s line again, which is even stranger.

  “Layla, do you have enough money?”

  If I wasn’t already sitting, that question would have bowled me over. My mother, one half of the “earn what you get” Barros pair, is asking me about my financial situation? Is the world on fire or something?

  I don’t literally know how to answer. “Ah…”

  “I’m going to send you some money,” Mom hurries on. “I know how expensive that city is. You should be focusing on your grades, not working yourself to death.”

  “But, what about…Dad says…” I’m stumbling. What is going on here?

  “This is what family is for,” Mom says. “I’ll send you a check in the mail tomorrow. It should be there next week. Deposit it right away, understand?”

  I push my hand back into my hair. I cannot believe what I am hearing. “Um, yeah. Okay. No problem.”

  I want to ask how much. Is she talking twenty bucks here? A few hundred? A few thousand? I don’t want to get my hopes up, and I’m
afraid if I ask, she’ll back out of the whole thing. Because the truth is, I could really, really use the extra cash. A little bit more, and I won’t have any more debt to pay off. And then I could start saving for the summer.

  I’m just about to suggest as much when my mom interrupts me.

  “Layla?” There’s a little more strength in her voice, like now that she’s gotten out something she’d been holding onto for a while, she can speak with her normal, even cadence.

  “Yeah?”

  A deep breath. Okay, maybe not quite so much confidence as I’d originally thought.

  “Don’t tell your father,” she says quickly, and then with a hurried “I love you,” she hangs up.

  “Dude, did someone die?”

  I look up to find Vinny standing in front of me, two pairs of jeans draped over his forearm. He looks a little worried, which means the expression on my face must look way worse.

  “You know,” I say as I stand up. “I’m not quite sure.”

  ~

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Nico

  It’s close to noon when I roll up to Layla’s dorm on Saturday. I’ve been looking forward to this for the last two weeks. Layla’s the brightest spot in my life right now, and I need more of that brightness. After telling K.C. that I wasn’t going to be coming out to LA after all, I had to listen to him badger me for close to an hour, and almost every day since.

  “I can’t believe you,” he kept saying. “You’re finally free. Gabe’s almost out of school. No more kids to watch over, no more field trips to sign. What are you doing?”

  He threatened to tell Jessie and all of our other friends on me, and after that, started listing all the reasons why I had wanted to leave New York in the first place.

  Shitty job.

  Shitty family.

  Shitty apartment.

  Shitty everything.

  Except her. In the middle of the slog, there’s Layla, sitting at her desk every day waiting for me. But I need more than a kiss or two behind the desk and the occasional lunch break. I need to know that I’m making the right decision staying here for her.

  I wait outside her dorm, ignoring the curious looks from her classmates as they check me out. I know what I look like: older dude creeping outside the dorm. In my faded t-shirt and old Yankees cap, my tattoos sticking out of the sleeves and the St. Christopher medallion hanging on a chain, I don’t exactly look like the nice Connecticut kids who go to this school. A few of the girls scan me up and down––there’s that familiar look, half scared, half curious. Nothing like the kind, open way Layla looks at me. The way I hope she’ll never stop looking at me.

  “Hey,” she says when I call up to her dorm. “You downstairs?”

  Just the sound of her voice makes my chest tight. One day I’m going to get up the guts to tell her how I really feel. Maybe today.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Do you want to sign me in, or are you ready?”

  Part of me hopes she’ll say no, even though I know if I get her alone right now, we won’t leave her room for the rest of the day. And that’s not what I have planned.

  “No, I’m ready. Be down in a few.”

  I see her before she sees me, and for a second, I can’t breathe. She’s wearing this red thing that’s hugging her body like a second skin. I’d march her upstairs to change if I could say anything at all––that’s how hot she looks. It doesn’t look like she’s wearing much makeup or anything. Instead, she’s simple, with her hair in a braid over her shoulder, pulled back so her blue eyes shine, a little too big in her face these days. My heart practically stops. That’s the thing about Layla. She has no fucking clue how beautiful she really is.

  She finds me, and her wide-eyed features move to a smirk. She can see my reaction––I’m doing nothing to hide it. I suck on my bottom lip. I shift my weight onto one leg and actually stumble backward, almost missing the lamppost before finally I manage to step toward her. Then she laughs, the sound of it filling the street and my whole body, and bounds down the last few steps from the building and into my waiting arms.

  “Damn,” I mutter as I push up the brim of my hat so I can see her better.

  I slip a hand around her tiny waist and pull her close while still taking her in. God, how does she always smell this good? “That is some dress, baby. You look smokin’.”

  She grins, and my heart swells.

  “Thanks.”

  “What’s the occasion? I thought we were just going to the park.” I gesture toward the backpack I have over my shoulder. “I brought a lunch.”

  “You packed a picnic?” she practically squeals. Damn, she’s cute when she’s excited. “No one has ever packed me a picnic before!”

  “It’s nothing big,” I mumble. “Just some bagels and stuff. I thought you might be hungry.”

  And right then, I blush. I doubt she can see it––I’m a little too dark for that––but I can feel my face get hot just the same. Who knew packing some food could make her so freaking happy? I grin again. I can’t help it. She’s so damn adorable, and when she smiles at me like that, all the other shit in my life melts away.

  Layla tips up onto her toes to kiss my cheek, but I turn at the last second and capture her lips, pulling her even closer. I savor her, enjoying her mouth, the way it makes the rest of the world disappear. Unfortunately, the taste of her also shoots straight to my cock, and I’m already regretting not asking her just to sign me in. It’s obvious I’m not the only one feeling hard up. My hand slips down and lightly squeezes her ass before I groan and force myself to stop. She doesn’t need me mauling her in the middle of the street.

  “Aah,” I moan lightly against her lips. “Maybe we just need to go back up to your room instead. Fuck the park. I need you more than bagels.”

  But Layla just groans back with humor and frustration and pushes her head into my chest.

  “My roommates,” she mumbles against my collarbone. “They’re all there right now. No go.”

  I close my eyes. “Damn. Of course they are.” Because that’s just the kind of luck I have.

  Checking to make sure curious students aren’t watching us anymore, I adjusted the front of my pants. The Mets. My counselor at Tryon. My mother’s plumbing problems. Okay, that about did the trick.

  “All right, beautiful,” I say. “The park it is. And then mi casa for sure.”

  ~

  Two hours later, we’re lying in the middle of Sheep Meadow on the threadbare blanket I brought, our bellies full of bagels. We’re surrounded by at least a few hundred other New Yorkers taking advantage of the warmer-than-average April weather. This goddamn city. If you’re not living in some tiny box, you can’t get away from fucking people. All I want is to be alone with Layla, and other than my shitty apartment, there’s literally nowhere else for us to go.

  Layla’s shucked her sweater and lies with her head on my thigh, clearly enjoying the sunshine. She’s nearly asleep, but I’m just entranced, watching my girl all blissed out. The sun bounces off her soft skin, and her lips are curved into a small, sweet smile. I’ve started drawing her from time to time, usually like this, when she’s asleep or almost there. She doesn’t know it––the drawings are just for me, reminders of why I’m staying.

  I toy with the thin straps of her dress, pulling them over her shoulders, then putting them back, running the backs of my fingernails over the delicate bones of her clavicle, up the long line of her neck. It’s meditative, even though I can tell by the way her nipples perk through her dress that she’s turned on. I am too...but now I’m not in as much of a hurry to get her alone. I don’t get a lot of moments like this––moments where everything is perfect.

  Layla open her eyes, lazy, contented, the same bluebird color as the sky. Then she registers the touch of my fingers grazing across her sternum, and a spark in her eyes reappears.

  I quirk a black brow. “You keep lookin’ at me like that, NYU, and you’re asking for some trouble.”

  Her lips curve
into a smirk. “Promise?”

  So it’s like that, huh? I know from past conversations that Layla can be kind of competitive. I’m not normally so much, but she’s fun to play with. This is how we ended up doing it like rabbits on the balcony of her dorm––I bet her she wouldn’t have the guts.

  Glancing around to make sure no one is looking at us, I slip my fingers, the ones toying with her dress, down a little farther to tickle the swell of her breast over the fabric. My thumb drops and brushes lightly over her nipple, once, twice. Her mouth falls open in surprise. I raise one eyebrow.

  “Too much for you, NYU?” I ask.

  Her surprise flattens, and she rises to the challenge, just like I knew she would.

  “Bring it,” she mouths.

  Before I know it, I’ve flipped her onto her back, one arm braced behind her head. I don’t know what it is about Layla, but she turns me into a predator in the space of a second. My shoulders block the sunlight over her, but she doesn’t care as she stares up at me with naked desire. Then she closes her eyes, clearly ready to be kissed.

  And I can’t...move. It’s like every nerve in me is stalled, unable to move. I’m...paralyzed. Layla brings out so much in me––awe, lust, fear, adoration. Love. The word echoes through my head, just like it did when Flaco said it. And suddenly I feel like I can’t breathe.

  So instead of kissing her, which is all I really want to do, I sit up and pull my hat down over my face.

  Layla opens her eyes. “Hey. What just happened?”

  “Nothing.”

  I squint into the sunlight. Layla props up onto her elbows, not bothering to hide her disappointment.

  “What are you talking about?” she asks. “What happened to bringing it?”

  Fuck. I swipe my hat off my head, then put it right back on. “Well, you seemed short of breath. We’ve been out a while. I don’t want to overwhelm you, you know. You have been sick.”