Perfect Match

by J. Minter

  We plopped down on the hardwood floor. While we munched on pita chips that SBB pulled out of her massive Lancel tote bag, I told her the good, the bad, and the ugly details from last night’s date-a-thon.

  When I got to the part about Phil’s crush confession and Trevor’s overactive interest in painting a portrait of me with Noodles, SBB clapped her hands and laughed.

  “It’s just sooo fitting that all these silly little boys would fall in love with you, Flannie. Here you were trying to help out your friends and it all backfires. If I wrote screenplays, I would—”

  “SBB, this is my life. And it’s serious! How am I supposed to explain this to Amory?”

  “Listen, honey, one thing they don’t teach you in that dreadful high school of yours is that men are fickle, fickle, fickle. Not that you’re not lovely and amazing, but it won’t be hard to shift these pawns’ attention toward the proper queen by Valentine’s Day. Don’t even worry about it—I’ll be at the dance too and would love to help you keep their hands and eyes where they belong. You would think with how much time boy drama demands of you that your school would devote a class to actually educating you girls. This is the first assignment I’ve been excited about since I started high school.”

  “Okay,” I said, feeling better. SBB did have the magic touch when it came to getting guys to do what she wanted. “But what about Morgan and Bennett? Am I a terrible person for getting jealous of my friend and my ex-boyfriend?”

  “Oh, Flannie,” SBB said, braiding my hair while she talked. “I’d worry about you if you weren’t a little bit jealous. These are two people who you care about. It’s like, you want them to get along, but you also don’t want to lose your place with either one of them.”

  “You’re right,” I agreed. SBB might technically have been my craziest friend, but she could also be shockingly wise. “I guess I also feel so weird about the whole thing because I’m so crazy about Alex that I got confused last night by my feelings when I saw Bennett.”

  SBB stood up and walked over to the window. She looked deep in thought for a minute.

  “You know how many other actors I have to kiss for my career, right?” I nodded. “And you know that JR has to do the same thing with a variety of scantily clad idiot young actresses, right?” I nodded again. “Well, I thought I was used to it—until last month, when he got cast opposite Ashleigh-Ann Martin for an untitled romantic comedy set on the moon.”

  I gasped. Ashleigh-Ann Martin was SBB’s known nemesis. “Tell me there’s not a make-out scene!”

  SBB shuddered and nodded. “But this is our life,” she said finally. “I’ve realized that if I want to hold on to my man—which I do; he’s so hot—then I have to learn to combat my jealousy. And what works for me is a lot of good old-fashioned quality time.”

  “You mean you just hang out with JR?”

  “Why do you think we bought this giant palace in the land of Queens? I got jealous just last night—so we came out here and met with the real estate agent, and one thing led to another. … You don’t have to buy a loft with Alex,” she said, as if I were actually considering it. “Just give him a call, reconnect, put this weird Bennett thing out of your mind!”

  Could the solution to my weirdness be as simple as QT with Alex? It definitely beat moping around the house.

  “Thanks, SBB,” I said. “I owe you one. Actually, I owe you more than one—”

  “Promise to be the first patron at my palace when it opens, and I’ll consider us even,” she said.

  We air-kissed to seal the deal.

  Chapter 17

  PRESCRIPTION: THE EPIC DATE

  After journeying from Queens back into civilization again, I decided to follow SBB’s advice. Me asking Alex out on a date was somewhat new territory in our relationship, but I bit the bullet and texted him Sunday morning:

  HAVE A FUN IDEA FOR THIS AFTERNOON. MEET ME AT ELEVEN AT OUR SPOT IN THE PARK?

  Alex wrote back almost instantly:

  WEIRD—WAS JUST COMPOSING A NEARLY IDENTICAL TEXT TO YOU. I’LL BE THERE.

  When we met up at the top of our favorite grassy hill near the east entrance on Sixty-eighth Street, there were only a few other souls braving the cold outdoors.

  Alex greeted me with a kiss and an extralong hug to warm me up.

  “So, what’s your fun idea for the day?” I asked.

  “Uh-uh,” he said, “You first—your text beat mine to it.”

  Good, I’d been hoping I’d get to go first. I grabbed Alex by the hand and led him out toward Fifth Avenue. Just walking next to him made me instantly feel better about the whole Morgan/Bennett situation. Every time I glanced over at his stylish Bally’s ski cap and killer smile, I knew that when it came to matches, Alex was the one for me.

  When we got to Eighty-ninth Street, I stopped in front of the swirling modern exterior of the Guggenheim Museum.

  “Aha,” he said, holding open the door for me. “So she’s beautiful and cultural.”

  “I was reading online about this really amazing photographer who’s exhibiting her prints on the top floor of the museum. We’ve studied some of her techniques in my photography class. It’s only on display this week.”

  The museum was crowded with buzzing New Yorkers, trying to keep warm with indoor activities. Since the date had been my idea, I stood in line to buy our tickets while Alex checked our coats. He held my hand as we wound our way up through the permanent collection toward the Guggenheim’s top floor.

  “I haven’t been here in years,” Alex said. “It was always my favorite museum as a kid because—”

  “Because of the wacky winding ramp?” I said, and he nodded. “Me too! And my favorite painting in the whole city is right over—”

  “Here?” Alex said. We paused in front of this tiny painting of a wave by an obscure Spanish artist from the eighteen hundreds. “I can’t believe it. I’ve always loved this painting—how it captures the exact moment before the wave crashes.”

  I bobbed my head in agreement. “I think that’s why I’m so fascinated by photography. I like the idea of searching for that one perfect instant to freeze in time.”

  Alex squeezed my hand. By then, we’d arrived at the top floor where the photographer, Anise Mapplethorpe, had her sleek sepia prints on display. I couldn’t help taking mental notes about some prints that might be the exact style we were looking to use for our decorations at the dance. There were lots of shots of food and even more dramatic cityscape images. I was enjoying the exhibit so much that I almost forgot to see what Alex thought, but when I looked over at him, his eyes were wide.

  “I can see why you wanted to come here,” he said when we came to the end of the exhibit. “Now, since I’m going to drag you back out into the cold for my portion of the date, I figure I should sweeten the deal with hot chocolate.”

  Carrying our two giant Guggenheim café hot chocolates with extra whipped cream, Alex and I braved the cold again as he led me back into Central Park. We stopped in front of the duck pond at one of those telescope machines you pay a quarter to look into. I looked up at Alex, trying to guess what he had in mind.

  “There’s something I’ve wanted to show you ever since we started dating. Most people I know would laugh, but this is secretly my favorite place in the city.” He slipped a quarter into the viewfinder, wheeled it to a stop, and gestured for me to look through it.

  I pressed my nose against the frozen metal ledge and peered through. It was fixed on the top of a high-rise apartment building, and when I adjusted the focus, I could make out a mass of twigs near the edge of the roof.

  “It’s a nest,” I said. “It’s huge.”

  “It belongs to the only known red-tailed hawk in Manhattan,” Alex said. “Usually they like warmer climates, but this one’s been living there for years.”

  I looked up at him. A smile spread across my face. “You’re an undercover bird-watcher.”

  “Guilty,” he said. “It’s pretty hard to be a bird fanatic in the
city, especially without binoculars.” He shrugged and looked through the viewfinder. “But I’ll take what I can get.”

  “It’s amazing,” I said. “I wish I had my camera to take a picture.”

  “It’ll be here tomorrow,” Alex said. “What won’t be here tomorrow is the reservation that a friend of a friend got us for dinner at Nobu tonight.”

  “Seriously?” I asked. Nobu Fifty-Seven was this ridiculously amazing sushi place in Midtown. I’d been there once and the tuna belly sashimi literally melted in your mouth. I loved that place, but it usually took months to get a reservation.

  “Seriously,” he said. “I guess the look on your face means you like the idea.”

  As we started to walk toward the restaurant, I couldn’t believe the sun was already setting. Throughout this entire epic date, I felt like Alex and I had gotten to know each other better and better. It was cool to discover new things we had in common even while showing off our separate interests.

  At the edge of the park, we paused in front of a hot dog stand to take in the view of the horse-drawn carriages outside the old Plaza Hotel at dusk.

  “This is my favorite hot dog stand in the city,” Alex and I both said at exactly the same time.

  “What??” we both laughed. “Jinx!”

  “I can’t believe you just said that,” Alex said, shaking his head.

  “I can’t believe you just said that. I think it’s the relish—there’s just something about it.”

  “Exactly,” Alex said, and we both started laughing. “Of all the hot dog stands in the city,” he said. “This feels too remarkable to me to go uncelebrated.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I mean, who needs Nobu when we have this coincidental love for the same random hot dog stand. I vote we ditch that stuffy reservation and take two of these hot dogs, extra relish, on a carriage ride around the park.”

  I didn’t know any Manhattanite who would skip out on a reservation at Nobu on a whim, but then again, I didn’t know anyone else in the world like Alex.

  “Sounds perfect,” I said. And it was.

  I was in such a haze of hot dogs and happiness that I didn’t even think to check my phone until I got home at ten o’clock that night.

  To my surprise, I had seven missed calls from SBB and fourteen text messages.

  11:30 a.m.: NEED YOU.

  11:43 a.m.: STILL NEED YOU.

  12:12 p.m.: DID YOU FALL INTO A SAMPLE SALE RABBIT HOLE OF SOME SORT AND NOT TELL ME ABOUT IT?

  And so on.

  Whoops—I felt bad that I had missed her, but I knew it was already too late to call her back. SBB required a lot of extra beauty sleep and was always in bed by the time Desperate Housewives ended on Sundays. Well, at least it had been her idea for me to put the Bennett weirdness out of my mind by spending the whole day with Alex. She’d understand if we just caught up tomorrow, right?

  Chapter 18

  CLUB FOF LOSES A FOUNDING MEMBER

  Fully rejuvenated by my fantastic date with Alex, I arrived at school Monday morning feeling more committed than ever to solidifying my crew’s Valentine’s Dance matches.

  Standing outside of Thoney, I braced the winds to make a quick call to Feb, who’d emerged from couplesville to text me a few pictures of her dancing at some purple-lit nightclub in Shanghai.

  “I can’t hear anything,” she shouted when she picked up. “Hold on, I’m going outside.”

  “I’m fine, thanks for asking,” I said back, holding the phone out at arm’s length to preserve my eardrums from the techno music drowning out my sister’s voice.

  Then there was a slight drop in decibel as Feb found a space outside to say, “Good timing. It’s way too hot in there to dance to another eleven-minute techno song. Chinese ravers have insane energy. Insane. What’s up?”

  “Can you hear me well enough now to give some boy advice?” I shouted, becoming aware of what I might sound like to the other Thoney girls filing past me into school. But I needed a second opinion on the Phil fiasco, and I knew Feb had gotten her share of love notes from the wrong guy before. She’d know better than anyone how concerned I needed to be.

  “This reeks of further drama,” she said, when I’d finished. “For Amory’s sake, I’d cut your losses and move on. She seems cool and there are way too many other, worthier fish in the sea. Look, Kelly’s got some cute friends in the city. Why don’t I text you some headshots and you can take your pick for a replacement, okay? But I gotta dash—I love this song!”

  With that, the phone cut out. As Feb headed back into her nightclub, I sighed and headed back into the doldrums of high school. It was times like this when I felt far away from my sister’s life, but I knew she’d always come through with some words of wisdom and/or headshots.

  “Omigod, Flan,” my friend Veronica said when I passed her in the foyer. “Hot trench.”

  “Thanks.” I beamed, realizing with a grin that, even continents away, Feb was a lifesaver in more ways than one. Sometimes, when I missed her most, I did a little retail therapy in her raid-worthy closet full of unworn clothes. Like this morning’s choice of the goat-suede Dior trench I’d dug up, rationalizing that since she and Kelly had sworn off animal products, somebody ought to wear it.

  I opened my locker to hang up my coat and found a CD and, taped to it, a note scrawled in Morgan’s hand.

  A LOVEly mix to get us in the mood for Girl Valentine’s Night tomorrow. Enjoy the tunes and don’t forget—no dishing about Friday’s dates until we’re all together!

  Sweet. Morgan always made the best mixes—and more importantly, I’d forgotten the girls and I had made that promise. This bought me a little more time to work on Phil 2.0—and to get used to the idea of hearing Morgan talk about Bennett. Things were looking up!

  At my locker, I heard Dara’s voice call out, “Supercute look, lady!”

  I turned around to accept my second compliment of the morning, but before I could speak too soon, I realized Dara wasn’t talking about my Dior trench at all. She was looking at another girl walking down the hall in a charcoal Balenciaga rubber dress that SBB and I had eyed on the runway at last month’s fashion week.

  Were my eyes playing tricks on me—or was that SBB underneath the black wig?

  “Hey!” I whispered, when I was close enough to get SBB’s attention. “I can’t believe you got the dress. It looks amazing on you!”

  SBB’s eyes flicked over my trench coat, then looked past me down the hall. She said nothing, just kept walking toward her locker.

  I followed her and put my hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off.

  “SBB,” I said, feeling my nose wrinkle up in confusion.

  “Don’t call me that,” she huffed.

  “Sorry,” I corrected myself. “Simone—”

  “Actually, it’s Sally now,” she said coldly. “Things have changed.”

  “Huh? Look, I’m sorry about yesterday. I saw your messages, but it was too late to call you back. The good news is that Alex and I—”

  “Zip it, Flan.” She slammed her locker shut. “Do you have any idea what happened to me yesterday? I’ll tell you. I ran into your favorite enemy, Willa, on the street—and she seized me. I was literally captive in her French-manicured claws. Thank God I had my wig tucked inside my Birkin for just such emergencies. Anyway, I could have sworn she was about to out me on that little Chicago fib. But instead, because she hates you so much, she spent all day giving me a makeover—so I could be ‘cool’ like her and not an ‘FOF loser.’ Sorry,” SBB said, not sounding very apologetic. “Willa’s words, not mine.”

  “An FOF loser?” I said. I was reeling from all this talk of Willa’s seething hatred for me, but something about SBB’s behavior was throwing me even more. “What does that even mean?”

  “Friend of Flan,” she said, looking around like she was making sure no one could see her talking to me in her new cool state. “After Willa put out tracers to all her bitchy cousins in Chicago,
I had to scramble to come up with a story that I was just a normal girl from Hoboken. Like how I lied because you told me to, so I could seem more intriguing. I tried to call you all day, but you blew me off—and not for the first time since I’ve been at this school!”

  “SBB, look, I’m sorry.” I didn’t like the idea of my friend spending all day with Willa, but I was trying to stay rational. Maybe instead of getting jealous again, what I needed was to schedule some QT with SBB, the way I’d done with Alex. “Let me make it up to you. Let’s have lunch, just the two of us, okay?”

  She shook her head. “It’s just too little, too late. The thing is, after I started to go along with Willa’s makeover yesterday, it was … fun. There, I said it. I had fun, with your enemy.”

  I sucked in my breath. That was harsh.

  “I can’t have lunch with you today.” She paused dramatically. “Because I’m having lunch with Willa and Kennedy. They want to include me in their life—not keep me on the fringes of it. You never let me hang out with your friends.”

  “That’s not true,” I said, racking my brain. “You had lunch with us on the steps on Friday.”

  SBB rolled her eyes. “If you call wearing a virtual muzzle ‘having lunch.’ And that was only because I tracked you down. Because of you, I haven’t had the high school experience I wanted at all. Do you know that six out of ten people at this school prefer a guy who shaves his chest? See, I’m learning things from Willa that will really help my career. When were you planning to teach me anything about being in high school?”

  I didn’t see what that statistic had to do with anything. And I definitely didn’t see Willa as being all that in touch with the pulse of the student body here. But I could also see where SBB was coming from. Maybe I had been a bit preoccupied with my own pursuits during the past week.

  “I’ll fix this, SBB,” I said. “Just promise me you won’t let Willa suck you any further over to the underworld before I can make it up to you, okay?”

  “Unlike some people,” SBB said pointedly, “I don’t feel comfortable making promises I can’t keep.”