She's Got Game

by Veronica Chambers

  “Exactly,” Carmen said. “Dom, meet our newest client, Binky Mortimer.”

  “Encantado,” Domingo said, shaking her hand.

  Binky flushed. “I love la vida loca!”

  Domingo looked confused.

  “Binky’s mother was Venezuelan, and she’s on a—how should I put it?—journey to explore her Latin roots,” Carmen explained.

  Domingo shrugged good-naturedly. “Got it. One more thing: virgin mojitos all around?”

  “You know how we roll,” Alicia said.

  “Thanks, sweetie,” Carmen said.

  “Claro,” Domingo said, walking away.

  “He’s cute,” Binky said to Carmen. “Speaking of cute, where’s Gaz?”

  Alicia sighed. “Where he always is—rehearsing with his band or working at the Gap.”

  Jamie narrowed her eyes. “You know he has to work to help his mother out. We don’t all have the luxury of rich parents.” Her tone was sharper than she intended, and Alicia took note.

  “You don’t have to tell me how hard he works,” Alicia said. “I just miss him sometimes, that’s all.”

  “Hey, are you guys coming to the Everglades–C. G. High game Wednesday?” Binky asked, changing the subject.

  The three friends exchanged glances. None of them was exactly the rah-rah football-game type.

  “Uh, we hadn’t planned on it,” Alicia replied for them all.

  “You’ve got to come; I’m a cheerleader, and our new routine is sick,” Binky pleaded. “Besides, it’ll be fun.”

  “Well,” Carmen said, “Domingo is actually a big football fan and had said something about wanting to go. And, like they say, the customer is always right.”

  “I’ll be there,” Alicia said.

  “I guess that means me, too,” Jamie said.

  Binky beamed. “You guys are going to love it.”

  She launched into something about routines and pyramids, giving Jamie a much-needed chance to zone. She looked off into the distance. Had she overreacted with Dash? It wasn’t like a boy had never unsnapped her bra before. There had been the guy at Fitzgibbons. He had had a bet with one of his prep-school pals that he could get to second base with her, and Jamie had found out and been heartbroken. But Dash was different. He wasn’t a boy, he was a young man, a gentleman, or so she had thought. And the evening had been so…so perfect. It just infuriated her that she didn’t have enough experience to tell whether the bad was in Dash’s court or hers.

  Again she wished she could talk to the girls. But even if Binky hadn’t been there, she wasn’t sure she would have felt comfortable telling Alicia and Carmen the truth. She felt a little like the boy who cried wolf. She’d spent so much time talking about the Bronx and how hard-core she was and how wack the rest of the world was that she’d somewhat lost the ability to talk about feeling vulnerable. And she wasn’t sure that if she took the chance and opened up to them her friends would really hear her when she said that she knew some guys thought girls from the hood were easy. She had never told them about her past. Was now the time to start?

  Jamie was pondering the matter so intensely that she didn’t realize that Alicia was trying to get her attention.

  “Hello, space cadet,” she said, waving a hand. “Talking business here. I met with Padre Hottie, and he’s totally cool with doing the quince ceremony on the boat. And Carmen had the best idea for the shoe change.”

  Jamie shook off her sad thoughts and focused.

  “After the priest blesses the quince, your dad changes your shoes from flats to heels to symbolize your transition to womanhood,” Carmen explained to Binky. “What I was thinking was that when you take off your flats, the captain of the yacht could run them up the flagpole. It could be really funny.”

  Binky shook her head. “Cute, but I haven’t worn flats off the tennis court since eighth grade, and I’m not going to start now.”

  “Are you serious?” Alicia asked. “The changing of the shoes is a critical part of the quinceañera ceremony. It’s an important part of the tradition.”

  “Symbolic,” Carmen added.

  “No can do, chicas,” Binky said, tossing her blond hair so it fell perfectly over her sequined one-shouldered top. “Mortimer women don’t do flats.”

  Typical, Jamie thought. Would Dash have been all handsy with a girl from the Mortimers’ exclusive West Side Country Club? She didn’t think so. Mortimer women didn’t do flats, and Mortimer guys didn’t have any manners.

  But Binky was a client. And Amigas Inc. was a serious business. Jamie was a part of that business, and she had to stay focused. She started to tap at her phone, then pulled up her Style.com app and showed the picture to Binky. “Not even Lanvin ballet flats?”

  Binky looked surprised. Then she smiled. “Those I could do.”

  Nice, Alicia mouthed to Jamie.

  Jamie smiled and, for a second, forgot how anxious and humiliated she felt about Dash.

  Alicia continued through her checklist. “Carmen. Binky’s dress—what are your thoughts?”

  Carmen pulled out her notebook. “I was thinking that we could do something really different for Binky. Something that would kind of harken back to another era. You have such a classic look, so sleek and stylish.”

  “I have always wished I’d grown up in the era of ball gowns and horse-drawn carriages,” Binky admitted.

  Carmen switched places with Alicia in the booth so that she could sit next to Binky. “Well, I wasn’t going back in time as far as horse-drawn carriages,” she said, “but every time I look at you, all I think of is pictures from the Jazz Age. The nineteen twenties. So, what I’ve designed is a twenty-first century take on something from that era. Take a look while I quickly get some measurements.”

  Binky stood up and took the sketchbook. She silently flipped through the sketches as Carmen moved around her with a measuring tape. The drawings made Binky even taller and thinner than she already was. And the dress: there must have been a dozen sketches of it, and it was to die for. Floor-length, with a fish-tail skirt. A ballerina neckline with ruffled details, princess seams. It was an Oscars show dress. It was a “Girl, you’re a woman now” dress. And the color, a perfect tangerine, with a pink lining, was bright but elegant at the same time. Binky, who had turned shopping into an Olympic sport and had easily owned hundreds of dresses in her lifetime, was speechless.

  “You don’t like it?” Carmen said, panicking. “I thought orange was your favorite, but it’s easy for me to sketch it in another color if you want.”

  “No, that’s not it,” Binky said.

  “It’s too long,” Carmen said. “You don’t do long, I’ve noticed. I’m so sorry.”

  Binky shook her head. “No, I love it. I love it.”

  She gave Carmen a huge hug, and then, still holding on to her tightly, she burst into tears.

  “I’m flattered, really,” Carmen said, embracing the sobbing girl and shooting the others a worried glance. “But it’s just a dress. Exquisitely designed. Project Runway–worthy. Someday I’ll rule the fashion-world frock. But really, it’s just a dress.”

  “For real,” Jamie muttered.

  Binky sniffed. For the first time since they’d met her, she looked less like a debutante and more like a regular teen. “It’s not just the quality of the dress. I never told you guys why orange was my favorite color,” she said, reaching into her purse to withdraw a photo.

  “This is my favorite picture of my mom,” Binky explained, holding it close to her heart. “She was Miss Venezuela; then she went to Montreal for the Miss Universe competition, and that’s where she met my dad.” She held up the photo. “Look at what she wore for the evening gown competition.”

  The dress was dated, but there was no way to deny that it was a distant relative of the dress that Carmen had envisioned. Binky’s mother was the picture of belleza in a strapless tangerine gown with a big navy bow and a fish-tail hem.

  “That’s just spooky,” Alicia said after a moment of
hushed silence.

  “And pretty amazing,” Binky added. “My mom won’t be there, really, but I don’t know—somehow, this dress is a sign. Like I’m doing what she would have wanted and she’s smiling down on me.”

  “Sometimes, things are just meant to be,” Carmen said softly. “I’m happy you’re happy. I just hope that I can make it as beautiful as the sketch, and as beautiful as your mother’s picture. I’ll buy the fabric today. Can you come to my house on Wednesday before the game for another fitting?”

  “You live in one of those little bitty houses on the canal, right?” Binky said, snapping back to her usual chipper self. “I’ve always wanted to see what they were like inside. It must be like living in a gingerbread house. So tiny!”

  Alicia and Jamie worried that Carmen would bristle at Binky’s comment, but their friend held it together.

  “Here’s the address.” Carmen calmly handed Binky a slip of paper.

  “Awesome,” Binky said, getting up and giving them all hugs. “I’d better go. My driver will be waiting, but I’m excited. I can’t believe you designed a dress that’s so much like my mother. I love you for that, Carmen.”

  After she left, the amigas exchanged perplexed glances.

  “She’s so hard to figure out,” Alicia said.

  “One minute, she’s completamente stuck-up…” Jamie said.

  “And the next, she’s as sweet as can be,” Carmen said, completing her thought.

  Their business done, Alicia asked Domingo for the check. He shook his head. “Today’s lunch is on me.”

  “But we can take it out of the budget,” Alicia said. “And believe me, the budget on this particular quince is really generous.”

  Domingo smiled, and Carmen nearly melted. He was no Padre Alfonso—he was better.

  “I may not have the Mortimer cash, but I can treat my girlfriend and her friends to lunch every once in a while,” Domingo said, leaning over to kiss Carmen on the forehead. “I’ll see you later, right? You’re coming to my house for dinner.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” Carmen said. “Gracias.”

  Alicia and Carmen called out their thanks, and Domingo returned to waiting on his tables. Even at three in the afternoon, the Bongos lunch crowd was hopping.

  “Hey, on the topic of cute, nice guys,” Alicia said, turning to look at Jamie, “you seemed to be having a really nice time with Dash.”

  “It wasn’t that nice a time, really. More of a bust,” Jamie mumbled, slurping her watered-down Coke.

  “Why?” Carmen asked. “He’s a great dancer, supercharming, and, most importantly, really into you.”

  Jamie took a deep breath. She had to say something. And the truth seemed the best option. “Yeah,” she said. “He was so into me that when he drove me home, after he kissed me good night, he tried to take my bra off.”

  She could feel the tears coming, the ones she’d been fighting back all day. “The best date of my entire life ruined by the fact that Mr. Moneybags thinks he can go extra far with the girl from the South Bronx.”

  Carmen, always the voice of reason, rested a hand on Jamie’s arm. “I don’t want to discount what you’re feeling, sweetie, but are you sure that’s what Dash was thinking? Sometimes in the heat of the moment, guys push the limit.…”

  Jamie’s tears vanished instantly. Her eyes flashed, and her voice trembled with rage. “So, if a guy gets all hot and bothered, that’s my problem? Something I’ve got to deal with?”

  Carmen shook her head. “No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying that he seems like a nice guy. Maybe the two of you should talk about it before you completely write it off.”

  Jamie stood up. “You know what? I don’t want to talk about it. I never wanted to talk about it. In fact, I’m done talking about it. Let’s pretend it never happened, okay?”

  Then, grabbing her things, she ran out of the restaurant, leaving her very confused friends behind.

  • • •

  Hoping to get her mind off Dash, Jamie decided to work on her own quinceañera checklist. But after a run to the party supply store to get bottles and then a quick stop at the craft shop to pick up mini seashells for Binky’s message-in-a-bottle quince invitations, Jamie went home still thinking of him. Her father was sitting at the kitchen table when she walked in.

  “Hola, Papá,” she said, kissing him on the cheek.

  It was rare for Davide Sosa to be home. Jamie’s father worked so many long hours at the car service she sometimes felt as though he lived in a different city and that he just came back to be with Jamie and her mother on the weekends.

  “Anything you want to tell me?” her father asked, looking up from the paper he was reading. He raised an eyebrow, attempting to be subtle. It didn’t work.

  Jamie cocked her head to one side and observed her father. He still looked much younger than his 50-some years. When she had been at Fitzgibbons Academy, the girls there had said that he looked like Antonio Banderas, and while there was much about which she wouldn’t have agreed with them, on this she did.

  “Papa, what do you mean?” she asked, growing concerned. “Where’s Mom? What would I have to tell you?”

  “Your mother is fine. She went out for coffee with her friend Tasha.”

  “So, if she’s okay and you’re okay, what’s up?” Jamie asked.

  “You should go to your room,” her father replied.

  Now Jamie was really confused. “Am I grounded? What did I do? I was out last night, but I texted Mom and she said it was okay.”

  “Go to your room, Jamie,” her father repeated.

  Sighing, Jamie turned and left the kitchen. She walked down the hall with a nervous feeling in her stomach.

  Opening the door to her room, she smelled them before she saw them. Dozens upon dozens of roses. All different colors: lavender, red, orange, hot pink. All in different vases. Each with the same note: Discúlpame, discúlpame, discúlpame, discúlpame, discúlpame—Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me—Dash.

  After she got over the shock, she took a picture with her phone. Quickly, she typed a message: Can you believe this guy?

  Then she hit send. She couldn’t imagine what Alicia would say when she saw that Jamie’s bedroom had been transformed into a flower shop.

  A few minutes later, there was a reply: Hard to tell from the pix. Romantic, over the top, or stalkerish?

  Jamie smiled and typed back: Borderline OTT, but still pretty romantic.

  Ten seconds later, there was a new message: He seems sorry. I think he really likes you. So…do you like him?

  Jamie sat back on her bed. She traced the pattern of her Giant Robot sheets, special edition from Japan. Did she like Dash? Yes. Was she still mad at him for acting like a hyperactive jock? Yes. She typed back: Can you like someone and be mad at them at the same time?

  The answer came quickly: Happens.

  Jamie kicked off her sneakers and crossed her legs. She looked around and took in the dozens of bouquets. She’d never seen anything more beautiful, or been in a room that smelled sweeter. Did the rooms at the Mortimer house, scented by such expensive roses, smell this sweet all the time? And if she said, “Okay, I forgive you,” after Dash sent her so many flowers, would it mean she was being swayed by him—or by his money? She took out her phone and typed another message to her best friend: Do you think he’s trying to buy me off with such an expensive gift? Or is he really sorry?

  Not even one minute later, the reply came: I think he’s really sorry.

  Just then the land line rang, startling Jamie. For a moment, she allowed herself to think that it was Dash—although, in the great game of Whose Turn Is It? the ball was now most definitely in her court. She’d stomped off, furious. He’d sent her a truckload of roses. Now it was on her to call him and let him know whether or not she accepted his apology.

  She could hear her father answer the phone in the cheesy way he always did when one of her girlfriends called. It was probably Carmen, with some quince b
usiness. She ran out of her room and opened the door to the living room just as her father said the punchline of his favorite joke.

  “The doctor was a woman!” he bellowed into the phone.

  “Hey, Papa,” Jamie said, interrupting him before he could start a new one. “Is it for me?”

  “Is it a day that ends with a Y?” her father asked, handing her the phone. “It’s Alicia.”

  Jamie smiled. “Thanks. Can I have a minute?”

  “So, Lici, do you think I should forgive him?” she said, when her dad had left the room.

  “Dash?” Alicia asked.

  “Who else?” Jamie said. “I’m glad you called. You have to come over. Photos do not do these flowers justice, and the smell, niña. These roses put even the fanciest perfume to shame.”

  “Dash sent you flowers?” Alicia asked. “Qué caballero. Very sweet.”

  Jamie suddenly had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Lici, we’ve been texting about this for the past twenty minutes.”

  Alicia sounded confused. “But I was in the pool. I just came in.”

  The sinking feeling got worse. This didn’t make any sense.

  Jamie didn’t get it. Alicia was many things, but absent-minded was most definitely not one of them. Nor cruel. She would never have played a practical joke. Would she?

  “I texted you a picture of the gajillion roses that Dash sent me as soon as I got home,” Jamie said.

  “I never got any picture.”

  Jamie gulped. “Let me call you back.”

  She hung up and scrolled back through her text messages. Suddenly, she let out a squeak. How could she have made such a junior high school texting mistake?

  Alicia and Dash’s phone numbers had the same first six digits. At a quick glance, she’d mistaken Dash’s number for her friend’s. She’d sent him a picture of the flowers that he’d sent her. She’d told him how much she liked him and asked him whether he thought that the expensive gift was in poor taste.

  What was she going to do? Jamie weighed her options: Lose her phone? Not such a good idea, because phones were expensive. Pretend to have lost her phone and when she saw Dash again, if he mentioned the text messages, say, “Oh, I lost my phone weeks ago”?