Wicked Sweet

by Merrell, Mar'ce

  “Um … the weather station says the warm front is going to be with us for a few days. I sort of saw it coming, you know the stratiform clouds the day before yesterday, but we didn’t get any rain, usually you get rain before a warm front. But … no rain. Not a drop. Dry as a …” My voice trails off. Clearly my dad’s advice—you can always talk about the weather when you don’t know what to say—is making this whole thing worse.

  “Do you watch the Weather Channel?” Will asks.

  “Not much,” I say.

  “Great memory,” Jillian says. “Nearly photographic. One of her many gifts.”

  “Really?” Will unrolls his towel. “So you’ll never forget my face, even when you’re ancient.”

  I shake my head. And now, because I’m still in panic mode, I speak without thinking through the consequences. “That would be a disadvantage of having a great memory.”

  Parker laughs first and Jillian joins in. Even Will halfway laughs along. I laugh last, when I realize it might be safe.

  “You’re funny,” Will says.

  I pull my towel from my backpack, lay it out, and sit. I smile. And I feel good, more than good. Great. I’m funny. I am. Funny. I notice that our rectangle towels are laid in a circle. Through long breaths in and out, the panic begins to subside.

  Will

  Stoked on the Bridge.

  It’s like we’re two punks and two folkies trying to write a song. Me, I’m stoked on the bridge, that long instrumental solo that’s like an explosion of complicated sound that kicks you right in the gut. I want the big show. Parker, he’s playing the transitions. Dude, I want to shout at him, just ’cause Jillian’s your girlfriend, doesn’t mean you need to freakin’ lose your mind and stop being you. First the rug rats, now he can’t make a decision? Jillian’s all about the chorus, let’s all get on the same page, let’s all sing together. And Chantal, oh my freakin’ boxer shorts, her mind noise volume is maxed out.

  Jillian looks up from her spiral notebook. “Okay, so we know we want something that will benefit the community, something that’s fun, something that involves everyone’s skill set, a big show of some sort, a way to keep the boys interested, and we want to make some money for charity.”

  “That’s closer,” Chantal says. I watch her spread sunscreen along her arms for the third time. I consider grabbing the tube and firing it into the lake.

  “Can we move on? Forty-five minutes on goals and objectives?” I lie back on my towel. “The summer will be over before we finish planning.” Maybe working at a job I hate would be killer over this.

  “Hey, stay with the brain trust, man.” Parker grabs a can from the cooler and tosses it to me.

  “Now, we’re ready for popcorn.” Chantal slathers her lips with some SPF 75 lip balm.

  “Popcorn? What the hell?”

  “You throw out ideas, whatever pops in your brain.”

  “What have we been doing for the last hour?”

  “Well … this is like popcorn extreme. Badass, if you will. Kernels straight up, no chaser.” She laughs at her joke and everyone else laughs along with her. What the hell?

  “Funny.” I say. “Funny.” Who is this girl? Until yesterday, I’d pretty much only witnessed her spewing factual information at any given point—even Cranium is about showing off what you know—and now she wants to be funny? What gives? Is she trying to impress me? I tune out of their conversation and I watch. Chantal.

  In a plain T-shirt and long shorts, her dark hair pulled back by a stretchy hair band, she is the sort of girl a guy marries, not the kind he dates. The girl I’m going to marry has to be more hipster than mess of the moment. I don’t want a girl I have to rescue every other day or call every hour while I’m out with my friends. And I want a girl who can think on her own. And she should like my kind of music. And it would be cool if she played kick-ass Halo. Chantal laughs with her mouth wide open, like a chimp. I don’t know if I can get used to that. I wonder what she’d say to one of my favorite lines—if you could get a tattoo what would it be and where? She’d probably say the chemicals in the ink haven’t been approved for use in the body. Does she know the awesomeness of Dinosaur Jr.’s lyrics? Could she learn to love them?

  Now, she’s furiously writing on her clipboard, focused and sort of, I almost hate to say it, looking fine. She’ll be someone’s girlfriend one day. Married. With a couple kids. A top corporate something. A lawyer. An ambassador. Living anywhere but in this small town with its limited jobs and/or small-minded failure to appreciate most things hip and cool. Maybe we’re sort of the same in a weird way, at two ends of the same spectrum, running parallel. In some other dimension, we might be the perfect couple. I think Dinosaur Jr. has a song about people like us.

  Just as I’m trying to remember the song that could be our song, I’m stunned.

  It’s Annelise. The bikini that’s two strings away from illegal catches my attention first. And I’m not alone. Heads swivel and stay with her as she passes them; everything sways in the right proportion; her long hair is the harmony. As she gets closer I see her model-wide smile, notice how she doesn’t look around to see who is looking at her. No, she is marching almost directly at me. I sit up straight. Glance over at Chantal who is writing something on her clipboard, oblivious to what is about to happen. This is a different Annelise from the one who always makes it clear that we will only ever be friends. And I’m not sure. I swallow, like I’m eleven and on the playground and the girls have just told me they want me to play CCK—chase them, catch them, and kiss them. This new Annelise could be after me. And … she’s carrying a cake. The song in my head crashes to an end. The cake is all pink and swirly. A final bass beat sounds, out of time. What the hell?

  Jillian

  A Complicated Morning.

  So I’m at the lake suffering from attention deficit disorder caused by incredible kissing flashbacks and the ex-girlfriend shows up. She hoofs up the hill as if she’s Tyra Banks on the Victoria’s Secret runway. But she’s got a cake in her hands. The way she’s carrying it, you’d think she’d made it herself. Long legs, tanning-bed-even-skin tone, and all the confidence of a supermodel, she’s at the edge of my towel, her right butt cheek planted in my general direction. I shift closer to Parker.

  “Will,” she says.

  “Annelise.” He nearly chokes on her name, his eyes undecided on the view above or below the cake.

  “I’m the delivery girl.” She giggles.

  Her butt cheek shakes. Why does she have to be here, with her so … perfect body? I look over at Chantal. She’s furiously writing something on her clipboard. I’m not going to get any help from her.

  “Will’s birthday is in November,” Parker says. “I don’t understand why you’re here.” Did he read my mind?

  “Oh … you think it’s for Will?” She turns and tilts her head at Parker. Ugh. She’s such an obvious flirt. I thought guys hated obvious.

  I answer before Parker can, “You’re standing right in front of him.”

  She startles at my voice, but recovers quickly. “Yeah, yeah. Okay. It’s for Will. From a secret admirer.”

  “A secret admirer?” Parker and I ask at the same time. Chantal looks up as if her geek nerves are buzzing. It’s the same expression she had when I reeled off the first ten digits of pi in the eighth grade. (Even though she was impressed, she’d already memorized the first twenty-five.) But it’s Will’s reaction that grabs me.

  “And the secret admirer’s name begins with an A?” Will smiles his foxy smile. Now it’s his turn to be obvious. He must think Annelise is in love with him now. “Oh … let me have a lick.” He slides closer to her long, waxed leg and tiny triangle bottoms and sticks out his tongue. I can’t watch. Instead, I see Chantal’s face has gone white. We both know disgusting when we see it. It’s like witnessing one of my mother’s dating games. No wonder I feel sick to my stomach.

  “It says ‘from your secret admirer’ on the card. No first initial.” Now Annelise sets the ca
ke down and reaches into her bathing suit top. Will’s eyes stay with her hand, and her cleavage. She removes a folded piece of paper. Ew. “Here’s the note.” She tosses it at Will. “It was at my front door this morning. I’m just the delivery girl. Not that I mind that, Will.” She zeroes in on Parker as she says that last part, adding the giggle and the butt cheek. Ugh.

  I look around for the lifeguard who sometimes has to tell the European tourists that this is a family-oriented beach and we don’t do the topless bathing thing. Annelise is as close to topless as I’ve ever seen her. Chantal’s whole form-follows-function speech would be well placed, but Chantal is obviously so flustered by Annelise and her lack of clothing that her eyes are on clipboard lockdown.

  “Some girl left a cake for me on your doorstep and asked you to deliver it.” Will holds out the secret admirer note. It’s retro—cutout letters from a magazine. “It’s not poison, is it?”

  “Nope. I had a little piece, on the side here.” She points to a chunk of missing cake. “It’s too pretty to be poison.”

  I don’t point out that Snow White ate the poison apple because it looked delicious.

  “Maybe you should sit down,” I say. Your butt is making me nauseous. “Next to Will. I’ll get a picture of you two.”

  “Oh sure.” Annelise bends over to sit down and I turn my head. She settles next to Will. I don’t get it; I know she’s pretending something but I’m not sure what it is. Is she trying to make Parker jealous by throwing herself at Will? If she’s doing that why wouldn’t she say the cake was from her? Does she really like Will and she’s making up the secret admirer thing? Or, maybe she’s trying to add herself to our group. Anything’s possible with Annelise, especially the things that don’t make sense.

  When she poses, she flashes her white teeth, and half of her right boob, but the cake steals the photo. It really is something amazing, two circled tiers of pink swirls (minus a chunk from one side) and a dash of sprinkles that flash in the sunlight. No way Annelise made that cake, or bought it at a bakery in town; that sort of cake is homemade, by a mom who’s been baking for years. It wasn’t Will’s mother, was it? She used to send the best chocolate chip cookies. Would she think Will was so hard up she’s pretending to be his secret admirer?

  Chantal

  Secret Keeping.

  No one suspects. No one has looked my way, except Jillian, once, but I tried to act mildly interested and I think she bought it.

  Annelise hands the first slice to Parker. Light yellow vanilla love sweetened by delicate pink air kisses. Parker lifts the cake to his open mouth. As the frosting and fine textured crumb touch his tongue, he smiles. Moans his delight. Maybe he’s an okay guy.

  Annelise serves Will, and he holds his cake uneasily, perhaps waiting to see if Parker’s going to drop dead first. I’m the next person and I wait, too, because watching them taste my cake is most thrilling. Annelise shaves a sliver for herself and holds it up to her mouth.

  “What about Jillian?” I ask.

  “I’ll take care of Jillian.” Parker holds his cake wedge near her lips. She hesitates, looks at me. I can’t help but smile, even though my uncertainty about Parker should be getting the best of me right now. This is about the cake. “You’re gonna love it,” Parker says. Jillian accepts the cake love. Her eyes close, I’m guessing involuntarily, at the complexity of delicious tastes. If I was all panic before, I am all glowing now from a bright ball of happy light that spins inside me. Nigella was right. Cake is magic.

  “Oh it’s so good.” She takes three more bites, each bigger than the last. Jillian is back to her old self, laughing, knowing that Parker has chosen her over Annelise.

  “Jeez, Jillian, if I ate like that, I’d never fit into this bikini.” Annelise smoothes her hands over her impossibly flat stomach.

  Quiet descends. In my brain I’m composing things to say: if you ate like that, you’d have more to love than your body. You’d understand the difference between real and fake. You’d …

  “About that bikini.” Parker clears his throat. “Did you bring a shirt? Will’s probably got an extra one. Jillian’s little brothers are too young for the Sports Illustrated version of you. Uh, no offense.”

  Jillian and I stare open-mouthed at each other. We might both be thinking the same thing, that it’s likely Parker has seen much more than her fabric covered parts and he’s turning it down, publicly. Ouch.

  “No offense taken, Parker.” Annelise grins. Grins. I guess her primary goal was to be noticed. “Will. Darling. Please hand me your shirt.”

  Parker rubs Jillian’s shoulder. For the first time I think that maybe they make a cute couple. Maybe he’s a good guy with a friend who is a bad influence.

  After Annelise pulls Will’s band T-shirt over her head, she cuts another tiny sliver of cake, while we are all on our second “real” slice. She can’t take more than a bite though, before she’s looking uneasy. Her smile falters for the first time since she came prancing up the hill. She’s watching Parker and Jillian, their shoulders touching, his index finger tracing a pattern on the inside of Jillian’s wrist. Annelise must feel my eyes on her because she catches my gaze and clenches her jaw. Puts on a happy face again. Is she, like me, wondering if a guy will ever want her like that?

  “Will,” she says. She holds up her piece and he takes all of it in one bite. He growls. He considers the cake he’s holding, and turns toward me, lifts the cake to my mouth.

  I open my mouth, close my eyes, and bite. I imagine that it’s not Will who is holding the cake, but the mystery guy. Someone who is more like me.

  Parker

  Acoustic.

  Annelise is whispering in Will’s ear and, now, he turns to her, grinning. She bites her bottom lip. I can imagine what she said.

  You’re the hottest guy here. You know that, right? And you’re with the hottest girl.

  Annelise’s game is to always make you feel like being with her is something special. She tells you her secrets. She wants to know yours. And she likes contact. You know what I mean? Lots of contact. Will, man, he’s eating it up. I thought he and Chantal had declared a truce (he fed her cake!), and now he’s playing ear tag with Annelise. Chantal is so busy writing bullet points on her clipboard, she doesn’t even notice. Not that Annelise is competing with Chantal; no, her target is Jillian. Annelise was my girlfriend for long enough that I know (a) that she has no interest in Will, and (b) that she wants me back.

  She’s whispering, or tonguing, his ear again.

  Jillian’s got her own clipboard and she’s writing, too. I rub Jillian’s shoulder. She leans in to me, her smooth skin against my chest. I close my eyes and breathe; I get morning shampoo and French toast with a touch of sunscreen, not “musky woods with distinct notes of apple martini,” the scent of Annelise’s perfume. I run my thumb along Jillian’s jaw, the skin here is damp from the heat, not powdery. When she speaks her voice resonates in my chest, a deeper, more even tone, devoid of whine. Jillian is, I decide, an acoustic girl, an echo of sweet melodies around a campfire. Annelise is electric, always igniting the fuse. As she reaches for Will’s ear again, she drags her fingers down his arm.

  I thought her whispering was “our” thing. And if Will wanted her you’d think he’d have cleared it with me first. And he’s got Chantal on the line, too. That’s not cool. I want to get up and leave. Clear my head. Hit some pucks.

  “Parker. Dude.” It’s Will. “So what do you think we should do?”

  “Do?”

  “The project. You know charity-slash-fun for all?” He actually takes in my disgusted stare and he understands that I am peeved. He moves away from Annelise and closer to Chantal, scoping out her notes.

  “Hockey.” I don’t even care at this point about the summer project. I’ve got enough going on with Jillian and her brothers, but hockey is my primary sport, and I like to do things I’m good at.

  “But it’s the summer,” Annelise says.

  I frown. If I told her that he
r split ends were showing she might leave.

  “Street hockey.” Jillian’s wit clearly outweighs the ex-girlfriend’s.

  “It’s, like, too hot.” Annelise picks a stray leaf from Will’s hair, hoping that he’ll take her side on this one.

  I look Will square in the eyes. “Hockey should be our summer project.”

  “Dude, I’m with you.” Will holds up his fist.

  I celebrate my victory, Annelise turns to her phone for comfort, and Chantal screws it all up.

  “Wait a minute,” she says. “The objective here is not to reach consensus on the first idea and I don’t think we have that, anyway, because two people haven’t voted.”

  I argue my point as long as I have to that Jillian’s brothers have to be included and hockey is their favorite sport. What if we run a two-week hockey camp for all the little kids at the lake? I can see that I’m winning Will and Jillian over and I keep throwing out more details; I love the chase of getting what I want, especially when it’s so close.

  When Chantal protests that hockey is a guys’ thing, Jillian reminds her that the boys were left out of synchronized swimming, except for the final performance. That must be an inside joke because the two of them melt into a private laugh fest. I watch them: heads down, hands over their mouths, ponytails shaking. Did they become blood sisters when they were in elementary? Did they have challenges? Are Will and me just part of their plan? Annelise sighs and thumb types on her phone.

  Who is in control of what, I wonder.

  “Okay, if we’ve got to compete with synchronized swimming or whatev, let’s do a final performance for the hockey camp.” Will, trying to one-up me as a man-with-a-plan, forces the girls to give up their giggling. “We can have mixed-age teams, sell tickets, and donate the proceeds to a charity.” He begs a high-five from Chantal and she gives in.