Perfect Couple

by Jennifer Echols

  “You can come over tomorrow,” I muttered. “But if you ever pull something like this again, you won’t get another chance with me.”

  He said, “I won’t need one. I promise.”

  * * *

  My alarm went off at six a.m. I got up, showered, helped Mom serve breakfast, got quietly scolded for dropping a basket of orange rolls in a guest’s lap, stomped back to my house, and crawled into bed. The talk at breakfast was that the hurricane had petered out into a tropical storm and was headed farther west into the Gulf, so we wouldn’t get a lot of straight-line wind damage or flooding from the tidal surge—only a lot of rain, and possibly tornadoes on Tuesday, when my parents were scheduled to get divorced. I closed my eyes, listened to the light rain from a band of showers far in advance of the storm, and wished I could go back to sleep. I knew it would never happen with my mind spinning about Brody.

  At eleven a.m. I woke again, smelling cinnamon. Something was very wrong. Mom seldom cooked for me, and she was never in the house on weekends. She spent all day every day cleaning and repairing the B & B. Taking the precaution of putting on a bra first in case criminals had broken into my house to fix me cinnamon toast, I wandered into the kitchen and saw it was Brody.

  “Sorry,” he said, looking around from the stove. “Your mom said it was okay. Have a seat.” He slid a plate in front of me at the table: the best kind of cinnamon toast, with a buttery, sugary glaze baked to a crisp on top. Eggs. Bacon. Sliced banana. He put another plate with twice as much food down at Mom’s place and dug in.

  I tasted the toast. Heaven, but I didn’t want to admit this. I asked coldly, “Is this a postgame phenomenon, or do you always eat this much for breakfast?”

  He said between bites, “I already had breakfast.”

  “This is lunch, then?”

  “No.”

  We ate in silence for a while. When his plate was clean and mine was still half-full, he said, “Tonight some of us are going to a movie and then the Crab Lab. Will and Tia, and Kaye and Aidan, and Noah and Quinn. Would you go with me?”

  I took a bite of bacon.

  “You’re still mad at me.” He sighed. “I don’t know what else to do, Harper.”

  “Maybe there isn’t anything else to do,” I said. “Maybe, as you so eloquently put it last week, the school is on crack. They never should have paired us up.”

  He cocked his head to one side and considered me. “If you believe that, I’ll leave you alone from now on. But I don’t think you believe that. I sure don’t.”

  I took a bite of egg. This boy could cook an egg, that was for sure.

  “When we go back to school on Monday and everybody hears we’ve broken up,” he said, “fourteen guys are going to ask you out, and probably two or three girls. But I’m thinking you don’t have anything else on the horizon for tonight. And I’m better looking than Kennedy. I’m less weird than Quinn, and probably eighty percent less gay than Noah.”

  I laughed. “When you get all romantic on me, how can I refuse?”

  “Good. What are you doing until then?”

  I gazed toward the front windows. “Has it stopped raining?”

  He nodded.

  “I’ll walk around town and take photos. The light’s great and the colors are bright after a rain. When I had to stay up Thursday night, I thought I’d never want to take another photo again, but I’ve gotten over it.”

  “I’ll come with,” he said.

  “No, that’s okay.”

  “I want to,” he insisted.

  “I’m not just playing around, Brody. I had something specific in mind. Sites online post photos from freelance photographers for people to use in their newsletters and websites. I thought I might try to get in on that gig, but I need a bigger portfolio first.”

  “I can help you,” he said.

  “I don’t want your help.” When his face fell, I said quickly, “It’s nothing against you. I prefer to work alone.”

  “How do you know?”

  He had me there.

  “Ah-ha,” he said. “See? You don’t know. You think you prefer to work alone because you’ve never had a good-looking guy to carry your camera equipment.”

  “It’s a tripod and one small bag,” I said. “You just want to grovel to me all afternoon and talk me out of being mad.”

  He lifted his chin. “I want to spend time with you,” he said self-righteously. “And I could help you. I could model for you.”

  “Now there’s an idea,” I admitted, mind suddenly racing. “I would pay you if I sold any of those shots, of course. But you wouldn’t have any control over who bought your picture and what it was used for. Your face could end up as an advertisement for a porn site.”

  “That could make me very popular next year, in college.” When I just blinked at him, he hurried on, “No, I’m kidding. You’re right. You can’t use shots that show my face. My mom makes me keep my online accounts super private, even though my picture has been in all the newspapers. She thinks I’m going to get kidnapped.”

  “If people tried to kidnap you, wouldn’t you just break their heads?”

  “My mom still thinks I’m twelve,” he said, “but I try not to argue with her. My dad wasn’t very nice to her. My stepdad wasn’t either. Her new boyfriend is okay so far, but I don’t know. I feel bad for her. If I can, I do what she wants.”

  I was taken aback. I hadn’t realized Brody was this mature.

  “I mean,” he went on, “for a case like this, where she’d find out.”

  Never mind about the maturity.

  “So we can’t use my face,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t use the rest of me. Have you seen this?”

  Afraid of what he was about to show me, I glanced toward the door, sure Mom would choose that moment to appear. But he only pulled back the sleeve of his T-shirt to show me his biceps.

  “That’s a great idea,” I said. “You can flex your arm with the ocean in the background. I’ll type ‘The View from Florida’ across the photo and have it printed as a postcard to sell in the gift shops around town. Every lady over sixty will want to mail one to her friends back home.”

  “Only ladies over sixty?”

  “Well . . .” Jumping up from the table, I slid the TV remote to him. “Here, you can watch whatever game is on. I’ll be ready in a sec.”

  I dashed back to my room to change clothes and brush my hair, excited about this new project. Afterward, I would need to update my website to read HARPER DAVIS, PORTRAITS, EVENT PHOTOGRAPHY, GRATUITOUS BICEPS.

  * * *

  I was all too familiar with going out with a group of friends and being one half of the Couple That Wasn’t Getting Along. I’d spent the last six weeks that way with Kennedy. It was strange to arrive at the movie theater with Brody as half of a brand-new couple who’d spent the entire afternoon together having so much fun that we couldn’t stop grinning. Tonight the Couple That Wasn’t Getting Along was the one that had been dating for three years, Kaye and Aidan. Kaye made Tia trade places with her so she could sit by me, with Tia and Will between her and Aidan.

  “Oooh, I love your hair!” I exclaimed as she sat down.

  “Thanks,” she said flatly. “Aidan said it looks like I have an afro.”

  Not the thing to say to Kaye. “An afro would be cute on you, but that’s more fashion forward than you usually go.”

  She glowered at me. I wasn’t making her feel better.

  “It’s not really an afro, the way you have it styled in front. I think of a real 1970s afro as being round all over. Anyway, calling it an afro is not an insult.”

  “He meant it as an insult,” she said.

  “If he did, he must have meant you looked retro. He wasn’t being racist. Aidan isn’t like that.” He had many qualities I didn’t like, but that wasn’t one of them. “I’ll bet he was just surprised. You’ve worn it in twists for a long time.”

  Her mouth flattened into a line, and flattened again whenever Aida
n leaned around Tia and Will, whispering her name to get her attention. She wouldn’t turn in his direction.

  They were still fighting when we filed around a big table in the center of the room at the Crab Lab.

  “Sorry,” I heard Tia tell Sawyer in his Crab Lab T-shirt and waiter’s apron as we sat down. “I didn’t think you’d be working this late tonight, or I would have convinced everybody to go somewhere else.”

  “I took a longer shift. I have nothing better to do since I quit drinking.” He smiled wryly. “It’s okay.” He moved toward the kitchen.

  “What was that about?” I asked Tia across the table.

  “He has a little problem with one of us,” she said quietly.

  “Oh. With Brody or me, because of last night?”

  “Gosh, no,” she said. “Believe it or not, it’s more fucked up than that.”

  I figured he must dread having to serve Kaye and her boyfriend. Lucky for Sawyer, Kaye and Aidan were still three seats from each other. Anyway, I’d hardly had time to ponder this before Sawyer marched back with a tray full of drinks balanced precariously high on one hand. He set a soda in front of me and an iced tea in front of Brody.

  “Wait,” Brody said. “Did we order drinks?”

  Ten minutes later, it was the same thing: “Wait. Sawyer. Did we order food?”

  “Y’all, save it,” Tia warned. “He’s in a bad mood.”

  “When was he ever in a good mood?” Kaye asked.

  Tia glared at her.

  Kaye spread her hands. “If you know he’s in a bad mood, don’t you need a good mood for comparison? I’ve never seen it.”

  “You’re picking on him.”

  “We’re not picking on him,” Will clarified. “At least, I’m not. I’m eating grouper when I wanted shrimp.”

  Sawyer came back from the kitchen again and bent over the table between Noah and Quinn. “I didn’t put in an order yet for you two. Sometimes you want one thing, and sometimes you want another.”

  A spontaneous snicker burst from two or three people, then instantly hushed. After a moment of silence, Quinn said, “You know what’s consistent? You’re a complete jerk-off,” at the same time Noah stood.

  Before I even registered what I was doing, I jumped up and put a hand between Noah and Sawyer. Just as quickly, I was pulled backward. Brody had his arm around my waist, wrestling me back down into my chair. He said in my ear, “Don’t.”

  Sawyer stared defiantly up into Noah’s dark eyes, pen to his pad. “Cheeseburger or patty melt?” he asked.

  “Cheeseburger,” Noah said grudgingly.

  Sawyer leaned around him to ask Quinn, “Fried or broiled shrimp?”

  “Broiled,” Quinn said.

  Sawyer made a show of jotting the orders on his pad with a flourish. “Mm-hm,” he said as he turned for the kitchen. The way he intoned it made it sound like a “So there.”

  Noah sank back down into his seat and told Quinn, “I won’t miss him when he goes to jail.”

  Sawyer came back out with another laden tray. Working his way around the table, he set a plate of shrimp and fries in front of Kaye. The food had been arranged in a smiley face. The fries were the mouth, and two cherry tomatoes were the eyes. The shrimp had been spaced in a semicircle across the arc of the head, like Kaye’s beautiful new pouf of hair.

  “Sawyer, dammit,” she said. “What is this supposed to be?”

  “It doesn’t look quite right, does it? Here.” He took one of her shrimp from the picture and tossed it onto Tia’s plate.

  “We didn’t even order,” Aidan complained from down the table.

  “Kids’ grilled cheese?” Sawyer asked. “That’s what you always order when you come here with your mommy and daddy, Aidan.”

  Kaye burst into laughter.

  “Kaye,” Aidan barked around Tia and Will. When he got her attention, he pointed at her, then firmly pointed to the empty seat beside him.

  She set her jaw and shook her head.

  He raked back his chair. Everyone in the restaurant turned to stare. He blustered out of the restaurant, hitting the swinging front door so hard that it took several moments to close behind him. Kaye looked sick.

  Without missing a beat, Sawyer swept up Aidan’s untouched plate and set it in front of Brody, above his usual dish of fish sandwich and vegetables.

  “Thanks, buddy,” Brody said.

  “You’re welcome, buddy.” Sawyer rounded the table and bent close to Kaye’s ear. He said, so quietly I could hardly hear him, “I love your hair like that. You look very pretty.”

  She blinked in surprise, then stared across the restaurant at him as he headed toward the kitchen. After the kitchen door had already closed behind him, she mouthed the words “Thank you.”

  Even though I didn’t believe Aidan had meant to hurt Kaye’s feelings so deeply, I did think he was being insensitive to her. He should have known better after dating her so long. Or cared more. And I wasn’t too surprised when Tia leaned over and whispered to me that we should both spend the night at Kaye’s house. When Kaye and Tia and I needed each other, boys came second. Whatever adventure Brody and I might have had after dinner, it would need to wait.

  Brody drove me home to pack. As we got back on the road again, headed across town to Kaye’s house, I asked, “Did it freak you out when Noah and Quinn were holding hands in the movie?”

  He was silent for a few seconds. “Was I acting weird?”

  “You kept looking over at them.”

  He laughed uncomfortably. “A little. But Noah is so happy. I mean, if the guys on the team would leave him alone about it, he’d be happy. This town is full of people who are out, but they’re not seventeen, you know? It took cojones to do what he and Quinn did. They stood up for themselves. If they can do that, they can get through anything.”

  As we drove on in silence, I thought about the couples who’d sat at the table. Other than Will and Tia, Quinn and Noah seemed the most stable. Kaye and Aidan were starting to act like Kennedy and me. I could only imagine Kaye must feel lost, especially after spending all of high school together with Aidan.

  “Are you mad I’m going over to Kaye’s?” I asked Brody.

  “No.” Pulling to a stop at a traffic light in a quiet intersection, he glanced over at me and smiled. “Disappointed.” He accelerated as the light changed. “How about we meet up tomorrow? Would you like to go surfing? Can you surf?”

  “Yes. Badly.” Surfing was something most of my friends knew how to do. We’d learned when we were too young to know that the small waves on the Gulf Coast weren’t worth the trouble. Canadians probably felt this way about swimming in frigid water. But the downgraded hurricane way offshore might produce good waves tomorrow.

  I snapped my fingers. “I don’t have a surfboard.”

  “I’ll bring Sabrina’s for you.”

  “Will surfing still be safe as the storm gets closer?”

  “Define safe.”

  Right. To take advantage of the thrill, we’d have to swim in waters that were far from calm. Kind of like dating Brody. But some thrills were worth the trouble. I’d enjoyed my day with him enough that I was willing to take on the next challenge.

  15

  KAYE LAY TUMMY DOWN ON her bed, her bare feet swinging behind her in the air, while Tia slipped on one of my A-line dresses and I pinned the side seam to fit her slender body. There wasn’t enough material in the bottom to let the hem out. What had been a minidress on me would be a micromini on Tia. She didn’t mind.

  I’d brought a few other dresses I would tailor for Kaye. She and Tia kept trying to talk me out of it. “I worked hard on all my clothes,” I said, “and I don’t want them to go to waste. I’m really attached to some of the dresses, but they do seem kind of stuffy now. I might keep a few for myself and alter them with a shorter hem or a lower neckline. But if I wear them again, do you think people will say I’m not being consistent? They can’t figure out anymore whether I’m supposed to be Old Harper or Ne
w Harper?” I’d told them what Kennedy had said about me trying to dress like Grace, which still bothered me.

  “Consistency is overrated,” Tia said over her shoulder as I pinned her other side. “Some days I look cute, if I do say so myself. Some days I oversleep and don’t bathe. I like to keep people guessing.”

  Straightening, I sniffed her hair and didn’t smell anything. Mostly she bathed.

  “Brody told me he wants me to wear my glasses sometimes because they’re sexy and he likes surprises.”

  “I would be wearing my glasses, then,” Tia said at the same time Kaye said, “Oooh, that sounds like an invitation. So, you guys made up? You seemed really happy tonight.”

  I nodded, smiling as I thought about our day together, and my new collection of gratuitous biceps photos. “I have fun with him. He’s hard for me to get used to, though.”

  “Because he’s talking about football the whole time,” Kaye asked, “and you don’t understand?”

  “No, he doesn’t talk much about football. I guess I’ve always dated guys who constantly make fun of stuff and show off how smart they are. Brody doesn’t do that. Sometimes he says things that aren’t even sarcastic.”

  “It sounds to me like you’ve never dated a guy who wasn’t an asshole,” Tia said.

  “Ha,” I said. “Tia, take that off. Switch.” Carefully we pulled the dress over her head without dislodging the pins. I would have plenty of free time to sew it for her at home now that I wasn’t the yearbook photographer, I thought ruefully. Kaye slipped on the next dress, which only needed to be altered to fit her athletic A-cup.

  “I don’t know,” I said, carefully pinning the bust seam. “I had so much fun with Brody today, but I still have misgivings about what happened last night.”

  “Why does it have to be perfect?” Tia asked. “Why can’t you just enjoy him while he lasts? It’s not like you’re going to marry him.”