In early 2009 Mel Berthier and I started kicking around the idea for Excerpt Monday. It became a monthly thing and keeps growing. To participate, I have a running story I post each month.
Check out Jenna’s adventures and watch as Ridiculousness Ensues!
CAMI’S FIRST KISS
ONE
The thick smoker-voice on the other end of the phone made demands I wanted to ignore. “It’s time for Cami’s first kiss.”
“What? It can’t be,” I replied, pushing back the panic. “She’s far too young to be involved with boys.”
“Honey, she’s sixteen. Almost seventeen if I remember correctly.”
“But, kissing? Boys?” I shook my head against the receiver, my glasses clinking the earpiece. “I don’t think she’s ready.”
“No, Jenna. You’re not ready. But that doesn’t mean a girl doesn’t reach that age without us.”
I glared at my Hello Kitty phone, tempted to hang-up and claim a bad connection.
“I think maybe a big school dance story line would be great,” Anne continued. “She’s co-captain of her soccer team and vice president of the junior class. Isn’t there anyone she’d be interested in?”
Anne Bucken, agent extraordinaire slash pushiest woman on the planet had never steered me wrong before. That didn’t mean I had to like it.
I collapsed back in my worn, leather office chair, tempted to spin until I was dizzy. “It’s time?”
“Sugar, it’s past time.”
“I’m not sure.” It’s too soon. “Maybe I could work a potential love interest into the next book.” If anyone good enough crosses my word-processing fingers. “And then we can fold it into senior year.” Or college. Or never.
“I know you want to protect her, sweetie.” Anne’s voice sounded muffled, the click-clack of a keyboard echoing in the background. Agent Extraordinaire was also Multitasking Empress.
The clatter from her phone hitting the ground told me I’d been right.
“Sorry about that,” Anne said. “You still there?”
“Mmhmm.”
“Ok, Jenna. Here’s the deal. Forest Oak won’t take another book unless Cami matures a little. Your fan mail is from girls who grew up with her and, while a lot of them are shy or nerdy or untrusting or whatever it is keeping them from kissing a boy, that doesn’t mean they don’t want Cami to. So the deal is, next book, out early fall, homecoming maybe. Cami gets a kiss.”
I pushed back and spun, the phone cord wrapping around my neck. A sign perhaps?
“All right. I’ll do my best.”
“You always do, my little overachiever.”
Without a goodbye, Anne had hung-up and gone on to her next seven multitasking events.
Untangling myself from Ms. Kitty’s tail, I opened the drawer where my writing notes were lovingly filed, alphabetized and color coordinated. The blue file was right where it was supposed to be, fourth back in the character notes, behind the pink girl folder but in front of the black folder of death — the place characters who didn’t work out went to die.
Marty O’Donnell — snob, dated best friend, dumped her for a cheerleader.
Mark Bedwin — smelled funny, mentioned in three books.
Tony Baccio — funny, smart, cute. Friends brother. Should be in college this fall.
Kevin Kline — currently dating best friend.
Slamming the blue folder closed, I considered transferring Cami to a girls boarding school run by nuns on an unchartered island. If I did that, I could add the blue folder to the black one and cut down on folders. It was economical. It made sense.
It would lose me a contract.
Grabbing Hello Kitty, I dialed Lisbeth Nardi’s number in desperation.
“Ciao.”
Lisbeth was the only person I knew who could get away with answering her phone like that. She was also the only person I knew who had kissed half the metro area.
“Lis, I need my character to get kissed. I need a guy and a kiss description.”
“Aren’t you supposed to write what you know?” I heard the laughter in her voice and knew she didn’t mean to be cruel. Unfortunately, she was also right.
“That’s why I need you. You can tell me how kissing a guy feels the first time.” Her earlier words still stung, so I added, “You’ve had plenty of first kisses.”
A sigh blasted my ear. One of those declare-yourself-a-martyr sighs.
“First off Jenna, I think what you need to do is just get out there. Get your own first kisses. Get your own life.”
I could almost hear her shrug over the phone.
“Second, your character isn’t you. Her boyfriend is imaginary. He’s not going to convince her to go to the same college, propose the middle of junior year, stand her up at the altar because his frat brothers called him an idiot at the bachelor party the night before, and then try to convince her they should still have sex on the side. That stuff only happens to you.”
“You’re no help.” If the queen of the pick-up couldn’t help me, I was out of luck.
“Oh, I’ll help all right,” she answered. “Actually, I wouldn’t miss this for the world. Meet me outside O’Leary’s at ten and I’ll be more help than you could have wished for.”
TWO
“What is that?” I asked as Lisbeth stepped from the cab.
“What is what?”
“That outfit.”
“Oh, this?” Lisbeth waved a hand in front of the sackcloth she was trying to pass off as a dress. “Cloak of invisibility.”
Sometimes her logic was so…um…different, I struggled with following it, let alone understanding it. “I don’t mean to start one of those conversations where we repeat everything the other person said, but, cloak of invisibility?”
She adjusted the loose fitting fabric on her shoulders. “Last night, Jeremy said he never would have asked me out if I didn’t have such a, and I quote, ‘hot little body only a bimbo could possess.’ I’m senior marketing consultant at a huge company and he dated me to get it on with my body.”
“And so you’re hiding it to date men who are only interested in your mind?”
She nodded. I doubted she was unaware of her beautiful face with flawless hair and make up. Below the short, loose dress stuck out perfectly shaped legs leading down to —
“What the hell are those?” I waved at her clunker-shod feet.
Lisbeth shrugged. “They match the cloak of invisibility.”
“Where did you get them?” There’s no way she paid money for those. Well, maybe if they had a brand name I couldn’t pronounce and a three-digit price.
She pointed a toe, still looking dainty in the female club version of steel toe boots. “I think you left them at my house.”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes before I realized it might be true. “You can’t really expect to go out wearing that?”
“Oh, like you’re one to talk Miss I’m-dressed-like-our-waiter.”
“What?” I glanced down at myself, somehow not surprised I’d ended up not even knowing what I’d put on. “Darn it.”
“My dress doesn’t look so bad now, does it?” There was that smug thing again.
“I put on the black capris and a pink top, but the pink top needed to be ironed. So I put on the white top with a navy skirt, but it was too snug. Then I tried that grey dress, but it looked too ‘librarians gone bad’ for a bar. So I just put on the two most comfortable things and left the house.”
Lisbeth smirked as only a gorgeous woman could. Slightly arrogant yet still gorgeous. “Nothing screams ‘can I take your order’ quite like a white button-down short sleeve shirt and black pants.”
“Can we just do this?” I pushed, not that I wanted to head into one of those underlit-overheated holes, but getting it over with was a plus. Glancing at her outfit, I added, “We should stop at an ATM. You might have to pay a cover and buy your own drinks.”
Lisbeth got that look you’d give a child who said something stupid but is still adorable.
“No sweetie. I’ll leave that up to you.” She grinned and I knew, even dressed like that, she’d be surrounded by men all night. Most of them drooling.
The doorman waved me along, but stopped Lisbeth. “ID, miss?”
“Are you kidding me?” I craned my neck to look past the bald, oversized bouncer’s head. “Do you really think she could possibly be under twenty-one? She’s four years older than I am.”
The giant peered over his shoulder. “Do we have a problem, ma’am?”
Cringing at the word ma’am, I snapped, “No. I’m used to it. Go on, Lisbeth. Giggle for the nice man.”
Lisbeth shot a look of pure venom my way, making her appear ever minute the four years she had on me. I hovered between the door and bar area, waiting for her to finish her flirt-for-entry routine. Eventually, several men turned and stared, the drool almost visible from across the room.
“I chose this place very carefully.” Lisbeth took my arm and steered me toward the bar at its center. “The men are older, no frat boys. All nice, successful businessmen, rolling up their sleeves at the end of a hard day’s work. Even you should be able to handle this.”
I placed my notebook on the bar as I climbed atop my stool. “Thanks,” I mumbled.
“No problem.” Lisbeth beamed, oblivious to the sarcasm.
The bartenders were obviously hired by appearance, not ability. The upside was that Bran could have graced the seven-foot tall poster outside Abercrombie and Fitch.
“What can I get you ladies?” I liked him immediately. He may have looked only at Lisbeth, but he included me in the question. Very impressive skills at noticing shadows.
“Green Apple Martinis.”
“And a Diet Coke,” I added.
“I don’t think so.” Lisbeth turned her smile on the bartender. “Two Green Apple Martinis”
“Green. Apple. Martini.” I jotted in my notebook.
“What are you doing?”
“Noting our drinks.”
“You write YA. You can’t even get your heroine her first kiss. What do you need to know about adult beverages for?”
“Someday I may want to write about this. You know, going out on the town with my friend dressed as Raggedy Anne. Having a couple of drinks. Scoping out guys to hit on in a not-hitting-on-them type of way.”
“Who would read that?” Lisbeth squinted at my notebook, the consultant in her running through possible business strategies.
“How would I know? I write YA.”
The bartender returned with the order: two Green Apple Martinis and killer a smile for Lisbeth.
“You might try slouching a little.” I honestly was trying to help. If she didn’t want attention, I was the girl to show her how to not get it. “Looks lazy and hides those boobs.”
Not only did she not slouch, I swear her shoulders went back. “Sweetheart, nothing can hide these girls.”
She was right. Or perhaps comparison made hers look so big. Next to my not-quite-B cups, anything needing support was impressive.
Studying the room over her martini, Lisbeth jumped right in. “Scoping the guys is a big part of any night out. Start with looks. There are three categories of guys.”
Finally. Something I could answer. “Blond, brunet, redhead.”
Her look questioned my almost perfect SAT scores.
“No. Jeep, Civic, Yugo. Obviously you want to avoid Yugos at all cost.”
“Obviously.” Note sarcasm.
“The Jeep is the hot guy. The one that always looks good. And just like his namesake, looks even better with his top off.”
“Are you serious?” If this is what I was going to learn out in ‘the real world,’ no wonder I stayed home so often.
“The Honda,” Lisbeth steamrolled my question. She motioned to my notebook with a pointed look until I raised my pen to capture her brilliance. “Is a nice run of the mill guy. Depending on the year and model, he could be close to a Jeep or, you know more like a rust heap. The Yugo, well, that’s self-explanatory.”
“And probably what I’ll end up with.”
“Jenna, you’re a solid, one-to-three year off the lot Civic. I’d say you’re silver. If you put makeup on, you might even be red. Don’t sell yourself short.”
So where did that leave me? I was dependable, flat-chested, shopped at the Gap, and you could get me drunk off one drink. Yup, I was a mid-level Honda all right.
I looked at my friend, the Jeep, and counted all the blessings of being a Civic. Low cost, reliable, compact, inexpensive maintenance, low gas mileage.
“So, I need a Civic, right?”
Lisbeth scanned the room, weeding out guys in her head like Florida weeds out valid votes.
“Him.”
Almost directly across the bar sat The Target.
Plusses:
- Good looking, but not too good looking
- Not wearing a t-shirt or ten year old fraternity paraphernalia
- Alone. No buddies to face as I made my notations
Lisbeth adjusted herself on the barstool to block the man trying to get her attention. “You can do this. Just be yourse–” Her gaze dropped to my notebook. “Just relax, and smile.”
“I can do this.” I nodded my head in self-affirmation.
I pictured myself walking around the bar without tripping. I pictured myself approaching him and no one stepping in front of me. I pictured him turning and smiling at me as I set my drink down without spilling it on him. I pictured him being sweet and understanding and agreeing that, of course it’s necessary to research a fictional seventeen-year-old’s first kiss in a downtown bar.
“Maybe you should leave that here.” Lisbeth took my drink. “You can’t even keep milk in a sealed carton.”
Every part of me wished she wasn’t right, but I left the drink where she laid it. I rounded the bar, no tripping, no bumping, no spilling. First mental picture, completed.
I reached Target Guy’s side. My hands shook like a coatless club girl’s in a January bar line. Second mental picture, completed.
“Hi.” That was easier than expected. Guys complain about having to cross the room all the time.
“I’ve already got a drink, thanks.” Target Guy turned back to the bar.
“I’m not actually a waitress. I’m a writer.” I waved my pen and notebook in front of him like a B-movie cop with his badge. “I write YA, ah, young adult. And I’m doing some research.”
“In a bar?” While it wasn’t an encouraging question, it did give me my in.
“You see, Cami, my main character, just turned seventeen. Now, the publishing house says it’s time for her to get a boyfriend. They’ve told Anne, my agent, the next book has to have a boy and a kiss. I disagree, but if I want to continue being paid, it’s boyfriend time for Cami.” I laughed, trying to fill the awkward silence before storming forward again. “Which, of course, I worry about. I mean, I know she’s imaginary, but I feel very protective of her.”
I glanced across the bar at Lisbeth and the man sitting in my vacated seat. She gave me the keep going look.
“So, anyway,” I continued. “It’s been a long time since my first kiss. I’m not sure I could imagine it. I mean, can you even remember your first kiss? I don’t mean like who it was with, but like, what was it like, how did it feel. That kind of stuff. So I was wondering if, maybe, you would consider, perhaps, kissing me and I could think about what it would be like being a first kiss of sorts and, if you don’t mind, make some notes.”
Target Guy looked dumbstruck. It’s a common expression, but this was the first time I’d seen it in action. Or, as the case may be, inaction
“Make some notes?”
Encouraged, I nodded and waved my handy notebook again to reassure him. “Yeah. I’m not some crazy pick-up girl. I just need to make some notes.”
I kept expecting the dumbstruck look to go away.
“Are you ordering another drink?”
The dumbstruck look stayed on his face as the head it was attached to turned toward the new voice.
“I’m not a waitress,” I explained to the petite woman who appeared at my side.
“Sorry. Are you a friend from work? I’m Jamie, Mike’s girlfriend.”
“Oh.” I could feel the heat creeping toward my cheeks, starting at the edge of my waitress-wannabe-white shirt, past my neck and up to my ears. “Girlfriend. I’m so sorry. I wasn’t hitting on him. I’m just doing research for a book.”
“Wow, a book. What do you write?” Cheryl asked.
“Young adult. I write about a teenage girl name Cami.”
Cheryl pulled her stool out to sit as she asked, “What kind of research are you doing here?”
“Ok. I think we have to go.” Mike jumped off his stool. “It was very, ah. . .nice, to meet you. We have a reservation. I’m sure we don’t want to miss our table.”
He had Jamie by the arm and was pulling her away under protest. “But, our reservation isn’t for forty minutes.”
By the time Mike responded, the couple was safely at the door. He glanced over his shoulder, still slightly dumbstruck, as he pushed his girlfriend out into the street.
Men are supposed to be easy. They aren’t supposed to get embarrassed by a woman wanting to kiss them.
NOTE: Although prone to stating embarrassing things in public, men seem to be easily embarrassed by forward-thinking women.
EXAMPLE: Mike at the bar who was too embarrassed to tell his girlfriend about being asked to be kissed. This statement would not have reflected poorly on him, so why be embarrassed?
I set my notebook on the bar and contemplated the fact I may not be the type of girl to pick up a guy in a bar – or even to not really pick him up.
Beyond the chair Mike had sat in, pair of broad shoulders hunched over the bar pulled at my awareness. It wasn’t the broadness of said shoulders that demanded attention, but their shaking. Dark hair with threads of auburn flopped over his forehead. The man hid his face in his hands, elbows propped up on the bar.
Poor thing. To be weeping so openly in public. Some girl must have really ripped his heart out and carted it out the door with her. Pushing Mike’s chair out of the way, I slid over to the stranger. I laid a hand on his arm and softened my voice so no one else would hear.
“It’s ok. I’m sure whatever she said to you it couldn’t be half as bad as it sounded.”
The shoulders shook harder and then slowly, so slowly, the dark head rose. Pink rimmed from crying, his chocolate eyes studied me a moment before the sound burst forth from his mouth.
The jerk! He wasn’t crying. He was laughing. At me.
THREE
Rejected and ridiculed I pivoted to leave the heckler alone at the bar where I’d found him, where he deserved to be. In typical Jenna Form, my sleeve caught on the arm of the empty stool, tipping it over and tripping me up. An annoyingly strong arm caught me around the waist and lifted me away from the wreckage before I joined it on the beer-soaked floor.
“Whoa there,” a voice rumbled behind me, his chest reverberating against my back as he held in the laughter.
He was taller than he looked slumped over the bar. My head brushed under his chin as he lifted me over the stool and set me down. His hands slid around to rest on my hips as if he were afraid I’d spontaneously fall over if he let go.
I probably would have.
“Now,” the voice re-rumbled. “Why don’t you explain to me what you and your little notebook are doing in this bar.”
The hands fell away and I turned, my nose almost brushing the crisp, button-down shirt.
It was truly unfortunate. If Lisbeth had said, describe your dream man, I would have – without a doubt – described Mocking Guy having never even seen him before.
Tall enough to wear heels with. Dark hair flopping over wire rimmed glasses. White button-down, sleeves rolled and tucked into jeans tight enough to look good and loose enough to, well, to look good.
I glanced at the barstool lying on the floor and considered picking it up, but bending over in a bar seemed like a bad idea unless I was looking to get my butt smacked.
“Okay. Well, thanks.” I stepped over the stool, making sure each foot cleared by at least a clean inch when a warm hand clamped around my wrist.
“I don’t think so, Sunshine.” Mocking Guy pulled my notebook from my hand and settled back onto his stool. “This is the closest thing to fun I’ve had since my friend dragged me in here.”
I gaped at him. I mean, I’d written that description before. Teenagers seem to gape a lot, but now, doing it, I felt just plain stupid. Where were all my snappy comebacks? Obviously I needed someone to follow me and do instant re-writes on my personal scenes.
In horror, I watched him flip the notebook open and page through to tonight.
“NOTE: Although prone to stating embarrassing things in public, men seem to be easily embarrassed by forward-thinking women.” Mocking Guy cocked an eyebrow at me. “Forward-thinking women? Is that what you are?”
Rounding the stool, I came at him from the other side and snatched at my notebook. “Yes. You probably wouldn’t understand the concept, but not all women believe they need to do exactly what’s expected.”
“And yet, I have a feeling that you always do.” He smirked and leaned back, crossing his arms over a chest that matched the aforementioned broad shoulders.
“Please give that back.” I was horrified at the squeak my voice made and hoped he couldn’t hear it over the man warming up with his tin whistle.
“Just a minute.” Mocking Guy reached over the bar and snagged a pen. Flipping to the next blank page, he began scribbling, his left hand held out to keep me at bay. Then, with a nod to himself, he flipped the book closed and said. “Okay.”
“Okay what? Okay you’ve violated my privacy enough? Okay you wrote something sufficiently mocking? Okay I can chalk this experience up to ‘what not to do in public’?”
“So.” His hand wrapped around my wrist and pulled me toward the bar. “Can I buy you that drink now?”
A good-looking guy wanted to buy me a drink at a popular nightspot. There were so many things wrong with that statement I couldn’t keep track of them all.
Glancing across the bar, I signaled Lisbeth to rescue me. I expected her to sweep down in all her gorgeousness, distract the arrogant man and allow me to regain my notebook. Instead, the traitor shook her head and motioned for me to do something – probably flirt – with him.
“Listen,” he said, forcing my attention back to him. “One drink and you can have your little scratchpad back.”
Before I could reach for it, he stood, shoved it in his back pocket and sat back down. How was I ever supposed to write in it again now that it had been rubbing against those jeans I had so admired a few minutes ago?
“Listen,” I tried to mimic his tone. “Give it back to me and I’ll introduce you to Lisbeth. All you had to do was ask nice.”
His whole face went all smirky-smirky and he glanced across the bar where Lisbeth was surrounded by a bevy of male model wannabes and a couple of geeky but successful-looking CEO types.
“So, if I asked nice, you’d cut me through that herd of followers to introduce me to your friend just to get this notebook back?”
“In a heartbeat.” That heartbeat stopped. He was going to ask me to introduce him to Lisbeth. The only guy who’d looked twice at me in six years, even if it was to laugh at me, and he was going to ask what every other guy did.
He eased his back against the bar, his hand still warm around my wrist, and leaned in to whisper over the growing noise of the crowd. “Not a chance, Sunshine.”
FOUR
“Not a chance, Sunshine.” Arg. Mocking Guy and his Mocking Words.
“Stop calling me that.” Dear God, the man took control of everything starting with my humiliation and continuing with my name. “I am not your sunshine.”
This is the thing I hated most about being Lisbeth’s friend. It wasn’t the horde that surrounded her.
It was that one-in-a-billion man who got my attention and, even if he was arrogant and overbearing, held it when I knew all he’d want was to walk that beautiful Levi’s-covered butt around the bar and see if she’d give him the time of day.
He glanced across the bar, his perusal slow. I could see him take in Lisbeth and knew what he saw. His eyes scanned the crowd around her, the men bantering for her attention, the women shooting her envious looks, the bartender keeping her well-liquefied.
Once, just once, I’d like to have been the object of that type of study. The kind that takes in everything, weighs the odds and then ignores them to pursue regardless.
“I don’t want to deal with dolts vying for attention when I’m wooing a woman.” The right side of his mouth quirked up in a lopsided smirk. “It isn’t the competition. I just don’t like to share.”
“So, what exactly do I need to do to get my notebook back.” I eyed his bottom wondering if I could just reach in his pocket and retrieve it. He really did have a nice butt. Maybe that’s what distracted me from grabbing my notebook and gave him time to swing around, that lopsided smirked aimed at me again.
“Here’s what I’m thinking.” He leaned in as if to tell me the best kept secret outside Julia Robert’s anti-wrinkle treatment. “I’ll grab my friend. You grab your friend. We’ll get out of here before she starts a riot and he starts a bar fight over someone else’s girlfriend.”
I turned to look at the guy he’d jerked his head toward. If I thought Mocking Guy was hot, his friend was Adonis. Attitude and all.
“And?” It was a good excuse as excuses went to end this public torture. I had to leave the bar to get back the notebook I needed in order to write my story. Even Lisbeth couldn’t argue with that.
The left side of his mouth quirked up to join the right in a full-ray smile.
“And then we go have some fun.” Mocking Guy stood up, patted me on the bottom and said, “Go get your girl. We’ll meet you out front.”
My rear tingled. Seriously, like shimmery little tingles. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had dared to touch any part of me that wasn’t a polite handshake. Not that it mattered since he was just warming up his moves for Lisbeth.
Mr. Guy (we should be on first name basis after that bottom-pat, but I like to keep clear boundaries) cut his way through the crowd, beelining for Adonis.
I watched him go. Couldn’t help myself. I also watched the girls he passed watch him go. One reached for him as he squeezed between her and a table, her hand resting on his arm as if to test its withheld power. Mr. Guy bent toward her, his hair flopping forward over his glasses. She, tiny little annoying-perfect thing that she was, went up on tiptoes to whisper in his ear. Mr. Guy threw back his head and laughed.
Must be nice to make him laugh with you, not directly at you.
Mr. Guy shook his head and kept moving, inching closer toward Adonis through the crowd. The faery girl turned and scanned the crowd, her gazing landing on me, hardening before she shrugged in a disgusted kind of way.
Yeah. I knew that look. It said “As if.” And I knew the answer too: Never. Of course, she sighted me, not Lisbeth. If she knew his real target, she’d back down, claws retracted, without another glance. Instead, I got the death-ray vision look.
Didn’t she know sidekicks were benign?
FIVE
Swallowing a sigh, I tripped my way back around to Lisbeth, pushing through the circle of men to the epicenter of beauty.
I reached between the remaining men between me and the bar. “Lis. We’re leaving.”
Grabbing my hand she brought me through the crowd to her side. “Gentlemen, this is my friend Jenna. She’s a world famous writer.”
The men all made the polite-humor-the-friend noises, their eyes never straying from Lisbeth.
I leaned in, desperate to get her out of there and trade her for my notebook. Mocking Guy was hot, funny (at my expense) and intelligent. She wouldn’t mind meeting him. I mean, who wo
“Lisbeth, seriously. We have to go. That guy took my notebook and he’ll give it back if we go hang out with him and his friend.” I struggled not to roll my eyes. “He wants to meet you. He committed theft to do it.”
Lisbeth had a serious bad boy addiction and the idea of someone stealing to meet her had her eyes lighting up like a night game at Fenway. My stomach turned over. She was going to like him. She’d seen me talking to him and was already running her flirt-calculations behind those lit up eyes.
Lisbeth nudged bald-bouncer guy on the way out and we slipped past the line.
“So?” She pulled out a tiny mirror and did a quadrant by quadrant check of her hair and make-up.
“So what?” I watched the door to make sure he hadn’t convinced me to leave, and then left me trapped outside without my notebook. I glanced at Lisbeth.
He’d show.
“So, this guy. He’s obviously hot.” Lisbeth grinned. “I noticed him sliding glances over the bar at me. Hopefully he’s worth more than just getting your notebook back. I’d hate for you to go home without your security blanket.”
Sometimes I hated her. It was bad enough she got the guy without even talking to him, but referring to the handy-dandy as a security blanket – well, that was about the end of the night for me.
Sucking in a breath, I did the dance. The one we did every time we went out. Only, I didn’t typically feel nauseous as I did it.
“Well, you can see he’s hot. He seems smart. He has a sense of humor if you count laughing at me.” I ran through our conversation. “Strong. He picked me up with one arm around my waist. Arrogant. He kept thinking if he said something, it must be so. Like buying me a drink and calling me Sunshine like I’m five or something.”
“What does he do?” she asked, shrugging her shoulders so the sackcloth-dress casually fell off one. Dear God, how did she do that?
“For work?” Or for fun. Because that would apparently be torture me. “I don’t know.”
“Does he live in town?”
Had we discussed that? “I’m not sure where he lives.”
“Well, what’s his name at least?”
My gaze flashed back to the door, hoping he’d just walk out and answer the questions for himself. “Mocking Guy. But you can call him Mock.”
Lisbeth raised her eyes and studied me. Her words came out slowly, as if she were talking to a very small child. “You don’t know his name? You dragged me out here to meet a guy and you don’t know all the important stuff?”
“I told you, he’s smart, funny and relatively nice.”
“Jenna,” she sighed my name. “You know better than that. You’ve never let a guy through without checking his stats for me.”
And there it was, laid out in vivid HD. The basis of our friendship. I was her gatekeeper. If Mr. Guy hadn’t had my notebook, I would have walked away right then.
Lucky for me, Mocking Guy and Adonis chose that moment to exit the bar or I may have said something to kill my chance for handy-dandy retrieval. Even with them nearing I was weighing the odds of being able to recreate the plot points I’d outlined that I’d recorded in the notebook.
Mr. Guy’s gaze flowed over Lisbeth. I imagined him taking in every inch of well-honed girliness only emphasized by my plain waitress-looking self. His gaze turned my direction. His lips did that right-sided, quirky smirk thing and my stomach dropped like coming over the top of a roller coaster.
This guy was too hot, too interested in Lisbeth and too likely to laugh at me but here I was blushing and on the verge of stuttering. I was even stupider than I thought.
So, I’d do the introductions, get them all hooked up, get my notebook and take off. If I ignored Lisbeth’s calls for three, maybe four, days she’d have moved on to the next post-Jeremy guy and I’d be rethinking my life, my friends and the universe.
Mr. Guy’s smirk morphed into that full-ray smile as he turned back to Lisbeth and stuck his hand out.
“Ladies.” Mr. Guy nodded one of those if this were two-hundred years ago it would have been a bow nods. “I’m Ben. This,” he tipped his head to signify Adonis. “Is Dane.”
Dane took my hand, shaking it lightly in an offhanded way. “And you are?”
The man was gorgeous. Like blindingly, stunningly, overwhelmingly gorgeous. The entire group was in the majors and I was in however many A’s signified ‘can’t catch the ball.’
Lisbeth held her hand out in that half-turned way that left a person wondering if she expected him to shake it or kiss it. Ben went one better. He took her hand, sparking that smile again, and tucked it in the crook of his elbow.
Lisbeth looked from Ben – the guy who stole to meet her – to Dane – the guy who made George Clooney look dowdy. Before Dane could move away, she wrapped her other hand around his polo-clad bicep. Nudging each away from the club, not to mention me, she asked oh-so-innocently, “So, where’s this fun place we’re going?”
Ben’s head angled toward her, his profile lit by the neon bar lights behind us. His expression wasn’t quite as innocent. “You’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you?”
With a tug, he pulled the little party down the street in front of me, my notebook sticking out of his pocket. Glancing over his shoulder, he winked at me.
The only thought that flashed through my mind was, I could seriously learn to hate this man.
Two blocks from the bar, Ben stopped and slid Lisbeth’s reluctant hand off his arm. Leaning around her, he jerked his head at Dane, indicating the CVS we’d stopped in front of.
Lisbeth gave them her best pout as the two men asked us to wait outside and strode into the drugstore. Once the doors fell shut behind them, she turned a smirk toward me.
“He’s a little too sure of himself, don’t you think?” She pulled out the little mirror and reapplied her lipstick.
I wondered who was the too-sure person, as I watched her primp for a man she’d just met. Of course, she’d never been wrong before.
“What happened to wanting a guy to want you for more than your body?” I asked.
“Of course he does. I mean, he couldn’t want me dressed like this?” She waved at the dress again.
“Lis, you haven’t even talked to him. He saw you surrounded by all your admirers and that’s that.”
Lisbeth tucked her mirror back in her purse. “Just because you don’t have men wanting you from across a crowded room, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen to the rest of us.”
Ok, so now it wasn’t just her, it was all womenkind I was less attractive than. Lovely.
The guys came through the automatic doors and Ben’s eyes narrowed. Did he catch the way Lisbeth’s eyes grew round and sultry instead of narrow as they swung from me to him? He shook the bag in his hand and lead us away. I couldn’t help the little, internal grin I got from his not offering Lisbeth his arm again.
The music drifting from open club doorways faded as we crossed the street toward the college area. At a dark corner, Ben stopped and faced us.
Giving the CVS bag in his hand a little shake, he said, “We’re there.”
Lisbeth’s nose squished up before she caught herself. “We’re where exactly?”
“Disco Ball Bowling Alley.”
Pushing open the dark brown door, Ben grinned as the music rushed out over us.
“This is the something fun?” Lisbeth asked.
“This is the something more than fun.”
Lisbeth peeked through the door, her hand wrapping around Ben’s bicep as she leaned past him. After a moment, she pulled back and cocked an over-arched eyebrow at him.
Seeing she wasn’t moving, I took the lead and marched past him through the graffiti covered door. Inside, colors flashed by me off the disco balls scattered about the room, the music rivaled a dance club.
“I’m not going in there,” Lisbeth shouted through the door at us. “If you think I’m sticking my bare feet in used, public shoes, you’re not exactly more than a pretty face.”
“I’d never expect you to. These made me think of you.” Ben dug around in the CVS bag. With a ridiculously over showy sweep of his arm, he brought out a little pair of black socks with hearts on them and handed them to her. “And these made me think of you.”
The next pair pulled out were Peanut M&M yellow.
“No.” I shook my head. “Why does she get little hearts and I get blind-the-crowd yellow?”
“What’d you think you were going to get, Sunshine?”
“A headache.” I snatched the socks and marched to the counter hoping everyone was following me.
“Eight,” I said to the teenager behind the counter before I had a chance to change my mind. Reaching in my wristlet, I pulled out the money that should have been paying my cab fare away from this mess.
A large hand covered mine before the bills cleared the leather.
“There’s four of us. One lane.” Ben handed the kid some cash and scooted my shoes toward me. “Go warm up, Sunshine. I don’t want any excuses about how badly you’re going to lose.”
Lose! He’d already stolen my notebook and used me to pick-up my friend, there was no way I was letting him beat me at bowling.
I mean, how hard could it be?
I glanced at the little desks in front of each alley. All you have to do is roll a ball and knock down sticks. I could knock down stuff without trying. Heck, I’d taken out that bar stool like it was a straw hut and I was the Big Bad Wolf.
Klutziness was finally going to be my friend. Roar.
SIX
So, yeah. Bowling.
I stood there, not really sure what to do with my super-Lysoled patchwork shoes as Ben slid another pair toward Lisbeth. I’ve never seen anyone accept rented footwear like they were some overpriced designer I wouldn’t own. I guess there really is a first time for everything.
“Lane eleven, ladies.” Ben cocked his head toward the alleys and gave me a little shove. As I turned to go, his size twelves swatted my bottom with a dull thud. “That’s the lightest part of the butt kicking I’m going to give you tonight.”
I really didn’t like him. I mean, good-looking and cocky go together so frequently it’s basically a cliché, but he brought it to a whole new level.
At lane eleven – which just happened to be my lucky number so I was feeling hopeful – I dropped onto the bench-seat thing next to Lisbeth. She was already pulling that little metal clasp thing off her socks.
“He isn’t subtle, is he?” Lisbeth purred…yeah, she purrs. “Little hearts. Very cute in a junior high-check-yes-or-no kind of way, don’t you think?”
I would have answered her, I probably would have even told her what she wanted to hear, but my socks weren’t as easily parted. They were fastened together with one of those plastic things that looks like a question mark. Ripping them apart didn’t work, so I’d resorted to gnawing through the plastic stem.
“But,” she continued, smirking at the fuzzy yellow socks hanging from my lips, their ankle pompoms bouncing about my chin. “What’s up with the bright yellow? Is he colorblind or something?”
The stem snapped and my teeth slammed together with an inner-ear shattering clank. He had literally driven me to gnashing my teeth. What did this say about him? Nothing good. He’d probably be the perfect match for Lisbeth.
I glanced over my shoulder, wondering what had happened to Ben and Dane. They were still at the counter talking to a guy in a white t-shirt with greased back hair. I had a little John Travolta flash but then the music hit me. Okay, actually the hem of the poodle skirt of the girl who was roller skating by hit me. Either way, I glanced around suddenly afraid that we had been sucked into a fate even worse than Disco Bowling.
50’s Themed Disco Bowling.
Which, let’s stop and just consider the oddity of anything that has “50’s” and “Disco” in the same phrase…
Not needing any more mocking than strictly necessary, I covered my new yellow socks with those foot-slut shoes.
As the guys joined us, the music ended with a staticy click and the gates at the end of all the lanes dropped. Before I could look for the red emergency exit lights, Elvis’s I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You filled the silence and a spot light lit the end of our alley. The greased-back hair guy stood there, multi-color poodle skirt girls surrounding him with a swish of over starched crinoline.
Bowling Theater. Who would have guessed.
As I sat back to enjoy the show, Greaser Guy raised the mic and belted out the first bars of the song, little 50’s girls swooning about him until he strolled down the alley in our direction. There was no way this could go well for me. With a spotlight and a mic heading my way, I figured I’d probably accidentally maim someone or bring the building down around us.
When the group got to the end of the lane, Greaser Guy gave each girl a good looking over before brushing them off one-by-one. Then, with frightening precision, he turned our way, his grin widening as he studied our group.
Lisbeth perked up, doing that shoulder roll thing again to drop her dress down one arm before flipping her hair back in a move I swear she was considering patenting. I tried to slide my feet under the bench, praying I wouldn’t trip him as he threw himself at Lisbeth’s feet.
Greaser guy slid around the little score-keeping desk and moved our way, the song still flowing as every eye in the house followed him into our safely-out-of-the-spotlight area.
And then, everything happened in slow motion.
Greaser guy passed the mic to his other hand and reached our way. Lisbeth, her glossy lips slipping into a pouty smile, lifted her own to allow him to take it…or kiss it…or something. Only, he reached right past her. To me.
He swept my hand from my lap and, with a gentle tug, pulled me to my feet and toward the spotlight. With an over-dramatized sigh, he collapsed to his knees, singing for my eternal love, if not my eternal mortification. And then, as he crooned the last promise of love, the lights went dead.
SEVEN
As the music ended and the light dimmed, I headed toward our group. Before I made it more than two steps, the singer’s hand wrapped around my upper arm and tugged me back into the lane and the center of attention.
“Not so fast miss.” He raised the mic and spoke to the crowd. “I may look like a flashback to a kinder, gentler time, but I believe women should be as giving with their gifts as men. And so, I’m going to hand the microphone over to my lovely partner for the next song.”
With a thud, the mic ended up in my hand, the cord twisting between my feet as he gave me a gentle shove toward the center of the spotlight. My gaze rose, shooting though the light and into the darkness beyond to lock onto Ben, the forever Mocking Guy. His lips curled in a slight grin, a challenge issued with the mere cocking of his eyebrow.
Beside him, Lisbeth laid a hand on his arm and leaned in to whisper who knows what in his ear. His light grin grew, his brow dropping as he turned toward her and said nothing. Probably stunned anew by her shabby-chic beauty. Without replying he settled back on his plastic chair-bench seat and crossed his arms over his chest.
He was really looking forward to watching me fail.
My gaze slid back toward Lis, looking for support, looking for my friend. Only I looked too soon. Well, too soon for what I wanted to see.
You know those moments in life when you’re walking down the street and you glance up and see someone you haven’t run into in ages and their expression before their polite-person mask falls into place is not so welcoming? Well, that’s what I got. I got that moment. And I saw the ugly side of friendship.
I saw dislike and a hope that I’d fail.
There I was, dragged out of my nice little apartment to pretend to hit on men I had no interest in for her sad version of “research” and now at this warehouse of a bowling alley in a horrible neighborhood that smelled of over boiled hot dogs and stale beer. Trapped in this place because of yet another guy who wanted her and would do stupid things to have her. And because not only would she let him, but she’d love every minute of it. And there was no way she’d share the spotlight in a good way… no way unless it was to watch me fail.
I don’t think so.
We all have a past, things we’ve put away. And not all of those things are bad. Some are wonderful, wonderful things that just aren’t the core that moves our heart as strongly as something else.
But that doesn’t mean they aren’t part of you any more.
College had robbed me of something. It had robbed me of part of myself. Okay, that isn’t fair. I had given part of myself away to be the girl my high-school-slash-college sweetheart wanted me to be.
As he pledged his fraternity and became one of the Big-Man-On-Campus-In-Trainings, the idea of me being the nerdy girl I’d been in high school was unacceptable. He never said I was unacceptable, but I was more acceptable not being in choir. Or drama club. Or Latin debate. Yeah, I debated in Latin, you have a problem with that?
And so, those things got put away for the boy who eventually threw me away. But that doesn’t mean my heart didn’t remember them, didn’t long for them, didn’t long to sing.
My gaze slid back to Ben, looking to see that smirk of his so I could watch it fall from his face when the words slid from my lips in a clear, perfectly pitched melody. The music started –a perky oldies tune – and that’s when my confidence slid away instead. Ok, it landslided away, but who’s really counting. All I could thing was, It figured.
I didn’t know the song.
It was vaguely familiar in the way that kid who moved away in kindergarten is when you run into him as an adult. But, tune? Not really. Words? Not at all.
I must have shown the panic on my face, because Lisbeth’s hand came up to hide what I could only presume was a smirk and Ben leaned forward for what I could only presume was a better view of my humiliation.
The singer must have also seen my panic, because he stepped back into the sphere of shame – I mean the spotlight – and gently turned me toward the place where the scores were typically projected. Now, the words were there in all their glorious 50’s-ness. Throwing an arm around me, he whispered in my ear.
“Almost there. 3…2…1…”
And then it all came together. It was like getting halfway through a book and realizing you’d read it before.
The words and the tune were so simple, so easy to grasp, that I was belting it out before I knew what I was saying. What the words were saying. There was no way he could have done this to me, but the coincidence was too great to discount him being in league with Lucifer. I didn’t even see it coming until the moment before the chorus flashed on the screen. By then, my memory had caught up with the words. The very ironic words.
“If you want to know
If he loves you so
It’s in his kiss.”
At this rate, I was going to have a justifiable reason to kill him. Even his mother wouldn’t be able to blame me for this very public mocking.
There was no way after making me sing about kisses that he was going to keep me from writing about them. As soon as the crowd stopped clapping – ok, they were cheering. So I hammed it up a bit – I was going to demand my notebook back and storm out of this bowling alley like a modern day Scarlett O’Hara. Never to be mocked again.
Handing the mic back to the guy, I stepped off the brightly lacquered wood. As my eyes adjusted, I saw Lisbeth had put her happy face back on, clapping along with the rest of the group. Smiling as if there hadn’t been that moment where she wanted me to fail. I couldn’t help but wonder if it had been more than a moment.
Ben stepped forward, his grin a little wider than before, but he was brushed aside as Lisbeth rushed toward me.
“That was awesome,” she gushed. “I didn’t know you could sing. Why didn’t you ever tell me. You… you… hidden talents girl. I never know what you’re going to come out with next, JJ.”
The last word, the initials, were said in that sly way someone says something when they want people to ask about it. When they know the answer and can’t wait to share it. When they have bad news or gossip.
“Nice job.” Dane reached past Ben to high five me. “What’s the JJ stand for?”
I knew it was coming, knew I couldn’t escape it, so I figured I might as well just get it over with. The smaller the production made of something, the smaller the deal people thought it was. Usually. I kept my gaze on Dane, not wanting to see the mocking attack coming when I spit it out.
“Jenna Jameson.”
Dane’s eyes rounded, but he had the good grace not to say anything. My gaze slid toward Lisbeth and there it was again. That pre-mask look of triumph.
But it was Ben who couldn’t keep his mouth shout.
“You’re named after a porn star?”
