It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Chick Lit

by S. E. Babin

  “Ming!”

  Charlie practically skated to her side, skidding to a halt at her head and looking down from above. The streetlight made a halo of his curls. Perfect.

  “Are you okay?”

  He came around beside her as she started to get up and reached out a hand. She ignored it.

  “I am fine. I keep telling you I’m fi—” She buckled as she tried to put her weight on her left leg. She landed flat on her butt in the snow. Tears came. She didn’t try to stop them.

  “You’re not fine. You’re hurt.”

  “I’ll be okay.” Even she didn’t really believe her own choked-up voice. Could this day get any worse?

  “Okay, hold still,” he said. And before she realized what was happening, Charlie had scooped her up in his arms. It was actually pretty impressive how easily he’d done it. Had he been working out?

  Why did she care if he’d been working out?

  “Put me down!”

  He just laughed.

  He was walking back toward his car now. The way he was carrying her meant her head was pressed against his chest. His warm, surprisingly solid chest. Which really ran counter to the whole “Charlie Brown” dork/loser persona. She found it very irritating.

  “I said put me down.” She swung her legs wildly.

  He tightened his grip.

  “Are you trying to get more hurt?”

  “I wouldn’t get hurt if you would just set me down like I asked.”

  “If you try to walk on that ankle, you could injure it further.”

  “I’m willing to take that risk.”

  “What the hell is your problem, Ming?”

  Her problem?

  But he was still talking. “Believe it or not, I didn’t have some great design in running into you today. I wanted to get out of the house for a little while. I went to the movies. There you were.”

  Just her luck.

  “It’s not like I sought you out. Quite the opposite. I left you alone in L.A. because I knew it was what you wanted.”

  Oh, really?

  “How do you know what I want?”

  He stopped right there in the middle of the parking lot and stared at her. Then, without even acknowledging the question, he continued on.

  “I saw you today and I figured I would be polite. Maybe I was overcome by some crazy wave of nostalgia. Maybe I thought after all these years you would be over whatever this is.”

  “‘Whatever this is’?”

  “Yeah. You know. This insistence on tormenting me.”

  Now she laughed.

  He shook his head. “What did I ever do to you, Ming? First,” he somehow held a finger up without losing his grip on her, “you reject me, th—”

  Oh, no way.

  She wrenched herself forward and pushed away, forcing him to set her down to avoid dropping her. She stood on her good foot, wobbling as she struggled to balance in her agitation.

  “I rejected you?!”

  He blinked at her. A silent puff of frozen breath emerged from his mouth.

  She narrowed her eyes to slits.

  “Yes!” he said. “You rejected me.”

  “When did I reject you?”

  “Uh, freshman year?”

  “Freshman year.”

  “Freshman year!”

  The freshman dance? She scanned her memory, but there wasn’t anything else he could have meant. She rejected him when he asked her out at his parents’ instructions?

  “Well, if you were so upset about me not going to a dance with you, why did you turn down my invitation to the prom?”

  “Because I’m not a masochist?”

  “Noooo. You are definitely not a masochist. Masochists hurt themselves. You just wound other people.”

  His eyebrows shot up at that, then knit together, perplexed.

  “You were wounded? Because I turned down your casual, platonic invitation to the prom?”

  Oh, right. Because it was, after all, totally casual and platonic. “It’s still no fun to be rejected.”

  “You don’t say.”

  They seemed to have run out of steam, so for a moment, they just stood there staring at each other. What the hell was going on here? He was upset about the freshman dance? It didn’t make sense.

  “I still don’t get it, Ming,” he said, echoing her thoughts. “Why’d you do it, exactly?”

  “The freshman dance? I told you. I had to go to my cousins’ that weekend.” She actually had gone there after she told him she was going to, now that she thought about it, somehow wanting to make good on the white lie. She had felt bizarrely guilty about making up the excuse. Which was weird, considering he had to have been relieved she’d said no.

  “No. The prom. Why did you ask me? Were you just bored? Were you mad at me for scoring ten points higher on the English subject test?”

  What? She stifled a laugh. He had been fixated on that English test since they took it. Probably because she kicked his ass on the Math Level 2 one.

  She smiled. “You know, that test…” she started, but then stopped cold when she looked at him. He was deadly serious. What was going on here?

  She shifted uncomfortably, momentarily forgetting her hurt ankle.

  “Ow!” She winced. “Dammit!”

  Charlie swooped in beside her, wrapping an arm around her to support her as she steadied herself back on the one foot. She looked up into his eyes.

  He spoke softly, but with an edge she didn’t recognize. “What the hell would you have done if I had called your bluff and said yes?”

  “It wasn’t a… bluff… I…”

  “Of course it was. Take a cheap shot at the kid who asked you out years before. Hilarious. I know when I’m being made fun of, Ming. I just thought we’d gotten past that. I thought we were friends.”

  “I did, too. We were. I didn’t…” She stopped as it sank in. He thought she asked him to the prom to be mean? “I would never do that.”

  He squinted at her, considering.

  Crap. She couldn’t believe she was about to admit this, but…

  “I just asked because I thought you would say yes. I didn’t even go to the prom because I was so humiliated.”

  “You were humiliated?”

  “I told you. It’s no fun to be rejected.”

  He shook his head and chuckled. “Yeah, well. You think I had fun hanging out with Brian and Marcel all night?”

  “Sure. I’m sure you had tons of fun laughing at me.”

  “I would never laugh at you, Ming.”

  He looked so sincere. Suddenly, she was conscious of how close they were standing. He was still holding her up. There was nothing else for her to lean on, there in the middle of the snowy parking lot, flakes still fluttering down around them.

  “Then,” she heard her own, tiny voice saying, “why didn’t you go with me? Like you said, we were friends, right?”

  “Yeah. Sure.” He grinned. “Despite our rocky start.”

  “The freshman dance?”

  He nodded.

  He was nuts. She had to ask.

  “Why would you be upset about that anyway?”

  He laughed. “Uh, let’s see. I ask a girl out for the first time and she says, and I quote, ‘I have to go help my cousin clean out her rat cage.’”

  She snorted. “Wow. I said that?” She had not recalled that part. He nodded.

  “Okay, okay. I admit that’s not the most eloquent of refusals, but come on! It worked out for both of us. I mean, you didn’t want to go to that dance any more than I did.”

  He blinked. “Why would you say that?” he asked. He took a step back, leaving her to balance on her own.

  “Because!”

  He stared blankly at her.

  “Charlie, Brian told me.”

  Nothing.

  “You know, about your parents worrying about your social life and insisting you ask someone, regardless of whether you actually wanted… Oh, God.”

  When she said it out lou
d, she could hear how ludicrous it sounded.

  Charlie gave her a lopsided smile. “I’m sure Brian had my best interests at heart. Defending a fourteen-year-old’s manhood is a tough gig.”

  She was almost afraid to ask, but…

  “So you asked me…”

  “Because I wanted to go to the dance with you.”

  Oh, God.

  “Charlie, I’m so sorry. You know, I was a kid. I’d never been on a date. It freaked me out when you asked me. Plus, I barely knew you. We had only met a couple months before, and I thought you were kind of…”

  “A dork?”

  She hung her head. “I’m sorry.”

  He offered her his arm again. “It was a long time ago. Come on, let’s get back to my car.”

  He helped her limp along in what felt like amicable silence. But she couldn’t leave it like that.

  “That was then, though,” she said. “After that, I got to know you and I realized—”

  “How cool I actually was?” He grinned.

  She laughed.

  “That you were a total dork.”

  “Ah.” He smiled.

  They’d reached the car and she rested against the side. He leaned past her to open the passenger door. His ridiculously long scarf dangled in front of her. She lifted a hand to touch the soft knit.

  “And that dorks are seriously underrated.”

  He stopped and looked at her, hand resting motionless on the door handle.

  “Charlie, I didn’t ask you to the prom to make a joke out of you. I asked you because I wanted to put on a fancy dress and drink spiked punch and dance… with you.”

  They stood there frozen, her leaning against the car, him leaning over her, breath and words hanging in the air, staring at each other. She could see him doing the math. Charlie was always very good at math.

  “But that was a long time ago,” he said at last.

  She smiled. “Feels like yesterday.”

  A slow grin spread across his face, his eyes held hers for a long moment, then slipped down to her mouth. He moved closer, closer, and—

  “Hey, one of you call about a dead battery?”

  They turned simultaneously to see a burly, bald guy leaning out the window of his tow truck. He had managed to drive right up to them without either of them noticing. They must’ve been distracted, somehow…

  Ming sheepishly raised her hand.

  “You still need assistance or is your friend here gonna jump you?”

  She felt the color rise to her cheeks.

  Charlie raised an uncharacteristically suggestive eyebrow. “I’m working on it.”

  She blushed more. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. He was so close, staring at her with such intensity. She closed her eyes as his lips brushed hers and—

  “Okay, then! You kids stay safe on the roads tonight!”

  Aaaa! Ming came to her senses just in time.

  “Wait! Sir!” She tried to chase the truck as it pulled away, but her ankle gave again. Charlie caught her as she fell.

  Fortunately, the tow truck stopped. The driver leaned out again.

  “Yeah?”

  Charlie propped her back against the car and went over to talk to the guy. She saw him point over to the Accord.

  “Thanks, we’ll be right there.” He waved as the truck started across the lot.

  He came back and helped her into the car.

  “We’d better get over there,” he said as he dropped into the driver’s seat beside her. “He’ll need your keys.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “And you must be frozen,” he said with concern.

  He turned the key, the engine caught and rumbled as it idled. Charlie reached for the heat control. She put her hand over his, leaned across the small car, and kissed him. It was 7:26 at night, and more than a little late, but it felt like Christmas morning.

  About the Author

  Laurie Baxter has degrees in both puppetry and screenwriting because let’s face it, majoring in English would have been no more useful and way less fun. She loves chocolate, ice cream, chocolate ice cream, dogs, New York City, old movies, modern architecture, all kinds of theater, and music from before she was born. Her eighth grade English teacher told her to become a writer, so she did.

  @LBaxWrites

  LaurieBaxterAuthor

  lauriebaxter.com

  Also by Laurie Baxter

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  A Cute Pair of Shorts

  All I Want For Christmas is…?

  Monique McDonell

  All I want for Christmas is…?

  I was staring at myself in the three-way mirror. Since I was standing on a podium I could really take in the full picture. I looked like I had run away from the set of Gone With the Wind. That is if all the costumes in the movie had been made of nylon and tulle and were also an iridescent shade of lavender. Oh yes, and if the run-away in question had dark circles under her eyes and hair in a messy brown bun on top of her head.

  This was the bridesmaid’s dress my cousin has chosen for me and she had managed to pull off the holy trinity of bridesmaid dress rules. Ugly, itchy and unflattering. Tick. Tick. Tick. I pulled at where the synthetic lace scratched the side of my neck.

  “So what do you think?” Anne asked, her face full of expectation. “It’s a classic style isn’t it?”

  I needed to find a polite response and fast. Anne was forty and marrying for the first time. She’d been planning her wedding since she was ten, which explained why every detail looked like it came from the eighties.

  “It is certainly striking.” That was all I could manage.

  I had to take some responsibility for this disaster. Anne had been calling and emailing me for six months asking for my thoughts on dresses and I had been a hopeless bridesmaid. I’d barely responded, I’d been detached and now I was being punished.

  I handed her my phone and asked her to grab a photo. “Cassie will want to see this.”

  My best friend Cassie was no doubt back in Sydney having amazing sex with her new boyfriend, a very hot firefighter. Meanwhile I was here in Chameleon Bay, dressed in tulle in the middle of a heatwave. Anne’s wedding was the day before Christmas Eve and it looked like we were in for a scorching summer this year.

  “I’m so glad you’re here now, Miranda,” she said. “The truth is my mum is pretty useless with this wedding stuff and Dave isn’t all that interested in details. You and I are going to have such fun!”

  Anne was a kindergarten teacher who had waited a long time for love. She was one of the sweetest people I’d ever known and she deserved the wedding of her dreams. I might be ten years younger than her, extremely cynical about love and just a little bit world weary, as any emergency room doctor on the planet, but I still wanted her to get what she wanted.

  “I’m sorry I was not more help up until now. I guess my hours make me somewhat anti-social.”

  She looped her arm through mine as I stepped off the podium in the one and only bridal shop for a hundred miles. The one I knew she had spent countless hours standing in front of, staring through the window. They’d opened the shop for us early so we could try on the dress before Anne went off to work. “None of that matters now. You’re here and we’re planning my wedding.”

  An hour later, I was walking alone down the main street of town. Behind the row of shops to my right was the river, and if I walked for five minutes to my left I’d reach the beach and my grandmother’s house. Right then I needed coffee. Even when it was hot as hades I needed my caffeine fix.

  I’d been told the old boatshed on the river was now a new café and had the best coffee in town. I knew this town like the back of my hand. I’d spent all my summers here growing up and then every break I’d gotten while in boarding school. My grandmother’s house and this town were as close to a home as I got. My father was a soap opera star who managed to crack it big in the United States when I was a teenager. My parents had moved for a life of fame and my grandm
other had stepped in to take care of me.

  It did feel a little cooler as I got closer to the river. I spotted the boatshed. It was decorated in a shabby chic style with old surfboards, crab pots and an eclectic mix of seaside memorabilia. Inside, a few people sat at tables made from old crates, and a tall man stood behind the coffee machine.

  He caught my eye and gave me a smile. His eyes were blue. He had a few days of stubble on his chin and sandy hair with that ‘just surfed in’ look. I used to be a sucker for guys like this when I was young. Not anymore. These days I liked a man who wore a suit, had a regular job and owned a car that was manufactured this century.

  My phone beeped and it was Cassie.

  “That dress” was her entire message. What more can one say?

  I smiled at the barista. “Extra-large cappuccino with a double shot, please.”

  “To have here?” I nodded. “I’ll bring it over.”

  I took a seat at one of the tables and looked around. It was nine-thirty on a Monday. Didn’t these people have jobs? Every one of them had a lazy, mellow look about them, including the handsome barista who carried over my coffee.

  “There you go.”

  “Ah, thank you.”

  “Are you new in town or visiting?’ He asked me as he collected some cups from a nearby table and wiped it down.

  “Visiting. In town for a wedding.” I took a large sip of my coffee and sighed.

  “Anne and Dave’s wedding?” I nodded, taking another sip.

  “You wouldn’t perhaps be ‘my granddaughter, Miranda the doctor’ by any chance.”

  I sometimes forget that small towns are like that. Everyone shares everyone else’s business. “You know my grandmother then?”

  He gave me a cheeky lop-sided grin. “Is there anyone around here who doesn’t?”

  “I doubt it.” I answered with a smile. My grandmother was a former vaudeville actress. She was raised in a travelling theatre and had quite a name for herself in the early days of Australian television. These days she dresses like Endora from Bewitched in long flowing kaftans and when the mood strikes she adds a turban. To say that she is a character is an understatement. Like Madonna or Beyoncé she is known only by her first name, Elspeth. Even growing up, my father had to call her that. She’s a crazy over-the top character and yet the very thought of her brings a smile to my face.