The Perfect Boy

by Hailey Abbott

  “Yeah, sorry,” AJ said. He stopped walking and turned to her, putting both hands on her shoulders and looking deep into her eyes. “Seriously, I feel bad about last night. I’m just confused about who I really want to be with.”

  A burst of mall traffic brushed past them, forcing them so close together that Ciara could feel his breath on her cheek. She felt dizzy and hot, like she’d been stuck in a car without AC on the freeway during rush-hour traffic. Did AJ mean he actually did want to be with her? And if so, did she still feel the same way? It seemed like there wasn’t enough oxygen in the air, and she found herself trying to breathe quietly to mask the fact that she was almost panting.

  “I think you’re really fly, Ciara,” he said, his face inches from hers. “You’re smart and cool and sexy. But—”

  “What the heck is going on here?!” a voice shrieked inches from Ciara’s face. She and AJ whirled to find Heidi in a Juicy tank top and cutoffs, carrying a jumbo-sized Berry Blast smoothie and wearing an expression that was very sad, very angry, and very confused all at the same time.

  “Oh, hey, Heidi,” Ciara said, quickly unwrapping her arm from AJ’s waist. Guilt throbbed through her veins and turned her face scarlet. Her voice sounded as fake enthusiastic as a camp counselor’s who’d just been assigned to clean up the puke in the dining hall. “Uh…what’s up?”

  “What’s up?!” Heidi shrieked as if it were the most ludicrous question in the world. “What do you mean, what’s up? I go to the mall for a little retail therapy after a rough night, and I find my friend practically sucking face with the guy who dumped me less than twenty-four hours ago. I don’t know, Ciara—maybe you better tell me what’s up.”

  “Hey, this isn’t what it looks like,” AJ began.

  “Well, what is it?” Heidi looked angrily from him to Ciara. “Because it looks to me like you guys were just getting cozy in the middle of the freakin’ mall.” Her chin quivered as she continued her tirade. “I thought we were friends, Ciara. I trusted you. Were you just after AJ this whole time? Because if you were, that is low.”

  Ciara was too stunned to come up with a good lie. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. She couldn’t look Heidi in the eye. Instead, she stared down at the dirt wedged in the cracks between the mall’s terra-cotta-tiled floor. “I just thought we’d be so perfect together. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “You sure screwed that up!” Heidi screamed. She turned and ran away from them, her flip-flops slapping against the floor. Groups of girls with their lips glossed slicker than the surface of a mirror swiveled their heads to watch her, then turned back to each other to speculate in loud whispers. The farther away Heidi got from them, the lower Ciara’s spirits sank. She really hadn’t meant to hurt Heidi, but the truth was, she hadn’t been thinking. She’d been so hell-bent on getting AJ as a boyfriend that she hadn’t considered anyone’s feelings but her own.

  And now not only was AJ not her boyfriend, but Heidi wasn’t her friend anymore, either. The funny thing was, she was almost more upset about the latter. She’d thought losing AJ had been a blow, but knowing that Heidi was mad at her hurt even more. She turned to AJ and sighed.

  “I feel awful,” she said bluntly.

  AJ looked at her, surprised. “Have you really been after me all summer?” he asked. His eyes were wide with curiosity, and Ciara felt a tiny twinge of resentment. She felt so bad about Heidi, and here AJ was turning the conversation back to himself.

  Ciara decided to ignore his question. “How long do you think she’ll stay mad at me?” she asked. “What can I do to make things better?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” AJ said. “I’m sure she’ll be fine. Maybe I’ll give her a call and let her know I still care about her as a friend.”

  “But it’s not about you and Heidi!” Ciara said. “It’s about Heidi and me! I’m the one who screwed up and hurt her feelings, and I’m the one who needs to make things better. It has nothing to do with you.”

  AJ looked confused. “But it was about me,” he said. “You guys were just fighting over me. I was standing right here. I saw you.”

  Ciara scanned his face for signs he was joking, but he seemed totally serious. He didn’t even seem to care that two of his friends were fighting. What mattered to him was that they were fighting over him.

  Ciara suddenly realized where all of Marlene’s comments about AJ’s ego had come from. He really was sort of self-centered. She’d just been too busy idolizing him to notice.

  “Whatever.” She sighed. She wondered if she should go after Heidi, but it already seemed too late. She’d have to work on figuring out the perfect way to win her back as a friend.

  AJ draped his arm over her shoulders again. Ciara waited for the tingle she always got when he touched her, but this time, it didn’t come. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Things will work out.” The words sounded less comforting and genuine coming from AJ than they had from Kevin earlier that day.

  “I hope so.” Ciara sighed again. “I really, really hope so.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Da girl looks good, da girl looks fine

  Gonna make her mine

  —The B-Dizzy Crew

  Hey, I have a text message!” AJ announced as they left the mall and walked through the parking lot toward his car. He dug in his low-slung jeans for his phone and flipped it open. “Oh, sweet, it’s D-John. He’s having people over to swim. Want to head over there?”

  “Sure.” Ciara shrugged. She didn’t want to go swim at D-John’s. At the same time, there was nothing else she wanted to do, either. Maybe being around people would keep her from moping. Or maybe someone would have the answer to all her problems and would help magically solve them all within a half hour like in a sitcom.

  Yeah, right. And maybe Paris Hilton would get her act together and settle down with someone who wasn’t a Greek millionaire and get a nine-to-five job.

  “I’ll go, but I won’t have my suit,” she said.

  “There’s always underwear,” AJ joked. Ciara just rolled her eyes.

  In the car on the way over, AJ put on the 50 Cent CD and turned the volume way up, swaying slightly to the beat.

  “Man, I would love to be as famous as this guy,” he said. “Can you imagine? Private jets, limos, designers fighting each other to give you top-dollar clothes for free. And everyone dressing like you, talking like you, rushing out to buy your album the moment it comes out. I want that.”

  “I thought you just wanted to make music,” Ciara said grumpily.

  AJ gave her a look that said, What crawled up your butt and died? But he kept his tone of voice light. “Well, of course I want that too,” he said. “But I don’t just want to make music. I want to make music that everyone loves.”

  By the time they got to D-John’s, Ciara’s guilt had settled into a full-on funk. All she could think about was the expression on Heidi’s face when she’d said, I thought we were friends.

  As if to mock her, the weather had turned beautiful while they were in the mall. The sun shone with renewed intensity, the sky gleamed a sapphire blue, and a fresh breeze wafted up from the ocean and into the hills, tempering the warmth of the sun. Birds chirped merrily in the trees around D-John’s compound, and she could already hear the bubbling laughter of people splashing around in the pool. The scene that awaited her when they turned the corner of the house was like something out of a soda commercial: girls in bikinis and guys in baggy swim shorts playing water volleyball, grilling burgers, drinking soda, and laughing at everything. The atmosphere was pure party—exactly the opposite of the static in her head.

  “Hey, man,” D-John said, slapping AJ five. “Glad you could make it. I have this sweet new mixer you gotta check out.”

  D-John led AJ into the house, and Ciara deliberately wandered away from them and over toward the tables and chairs clustered by the pool. She was surprised to see Kevin there, sitting on a bench…with Marlene.

  A weird little contraction pulsed in Ciara’s
stomach, and her mood dipped even lower than before. What was going on? Seeing Kevin should have made her happy, but instead she wanted to cry. She wanted to talk to Kevin more than ever—he would know what to do about Heidi. He always seemed to have the answer; it was one of the things she liked best about him. But of course, she couldn’t be open with him about the whole situation with Marlene there. Ciara started to turn away from them, but it was too late. Kevin and Marlene were already calling her name and waving her over.

  She approached reluctantly. She could probably fake a good mood with Marlene, but she knew Kevin would see right through her. What would he say if he knew what she was really feeling? She wasn’t sure she could handle being rejected again.

  Ciara arranged her mouth into what she knew must look like a ridiculous excuse for a smile and joined them at one of the wrought-iron tables.

  Sure enough, Kevin took one look at her and asked what was wrong.

  “Nothing,” Ciara said, dropping the stupid smile. “I’m just a little tired. That’s all.”

  “Is it your mom?” Kevin asked.

  Ciara squirmed in her seat. She didn’t want to talk about it in front of Marlene. Besides, so much had happened since she’d left her mom sitting alone at that table in the French restaurant that it felt like a million years ago.

  “Never mind,” Kevin said. “We don’t have to talk about it. It’s a beautiful day today, huh?”

  It would be more beautiful if I could enjoy it alone with you. The thought entered Ciara’s mind with such force that she didn’t have time to push it out again. It gelled in her head, pushing out all the noise and static. She wanted Kevin! Images from the summer flashed in front of her like a slide show: Kevin sitting next to her at Six Flags, working the turntables on the party boat, looking into her eyes with his hand on her shoulder that very morning. He had been there all along, but she’d been too dumb to even realize it…and now it was probably too late.

  “Ciara?” He repeated her name gently.

  “Yeah,” she said lamely. “Nice day.”

  “So I noticed you showed up with AJ,” Kevin said. To anyone else, the question would have sounded merely conversational, but Ciara knew it was loaded with meaning.

  “Yeah, we were hanging out,” she said vaguely. If Kevin wanted to “hang out” with Marlene all day, why shouldn’t she “hang out” with AJ too?

  “Yeah?” Kevin asked, his eyes narrowed. “What were you guys doing before you came here?”

  “Jeez, Kevin—what is this, the Spanish Inquisition?” Marlene laughed. “They were hanging out, okay? I’m sure if they had been off robbing little old ladies, you’d be the first to know.”

  “You’re right.” Kevin’s eyes unslitted, but he still looked unsettled. “Sorry. It’s none of my business.”

  “No, that’s cool,” Ciara said breezily. It made her happy that Kevin cared even a little about what AJ had been up to. It almost eclipsed her mad jealousy of Marlene. “We were just buying CDs at the mall. We ran into Heidi there.”

  Kevin’s eyes practically bugged out of his head. Ciara could tell he was dying to know what had happened. It felt good not to tell him.

  “That’s weird—I called and invited her here earlier, and she said she didn’t feel up to it,” Marlene interjected. “I told her that you and AJ would probably drop by too. I can’t imagine why she didn’t want to come.”

  Ciara slid her eyes over to Kevin. He raised his eyebrow slightly at her. They could certainly imagine why Heidi wouldn’t have wanted to come!

  “She said she wasn’t feeling that great,” Ciara lied. “She was on her way home when I ran into her.”

  “Oh, maybe I should call her and make sure she’s okay,” Marlene volunteered. She began to dig in her purse for her phone. Ciara began to panic.

  “I think she said she was going to take a nap!” she said quickly.

  “Oh.” Marlene shrugged and returned her phone to her bag. “I don’t want to wake her up. Guess I’ll just call later.”

  AJ emerged from the house, rolling his shoulders so he looked even taller and stronger than usual and squinting in the bright afternoon sunlight. He put his hand over his eyes to shade them as he scanned the crowd, spotted her, and waved before heading over. As he approached, he noticed Kevin and Marlene and slowed down a bit, his movements suddenly uncertain.

  “Hey.” He nodded at Ciara and Kevin, keeping his gaze on Marlene as he sprawled out in a lounge chair. “I just checked out D-John’s new mixer. It’s pretty sweet.”

  “Yeah—I can’t believe his parents got him an eight channel,” Kevin agreed. “I’d have to work for months to afford one of those—and D-John barely ever even spins in public. He just messes around in his room.”

  “Not everyone’s as serious about achieving fame and fortune as we are.” AJ shrugged.

  Kevin looked pained. “It’s not fame and fortune I’m serious about,” he said. “It’s music.”

  “Well, duh, that too!” AJ said. He looked from Kevin to Ciara to Marlene. “Jeez, what is with you guys today? Did I forget to mark Attack AJ Day on my calendar or something?”

  Marlene shrugged and gave him an impish smile, which made AJ shift in his chair and look down at the flagstone tiles around the pool. “Anyway,” he continued. “Kevin, I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to talk about getting matching jerseys for the Coup show. Plus, I brought mock-ups of some of the ideas for the logos….”

  He began digging in his pants pockets for the colored slips of paper, and Ciara stopped listening. She looked over at Marlene, who rolled her eyes and mouthed, “Here we go again.” Ciara cracked a sympathetic smile in response. No wonder Marlene had broken up with AJ—he really was obsessed with polishing the B-Dizzy Crew’s image so they could get famous. It was good to be goal-oriented, but not to the exclusion of everything else. AJ was so bent on fame and fortune, he seemed to have forgotten all about his friends.

  As AJ talked on and on about the visual picture he wanted them to create onstage, Ciara tried to catch Kevin’s eye. If only the two of them could talk in private, she bet they would be able to come up with some brilliant scheme for her to win Heidi back as a friend. But Kevin’s attention seemed equally divided between listening to AJ and sharing knowing looks with Marlene. In the meantime, AJ seemed distracted. He kept trailing off in the middle of sentences, glancing uneasily at Kevin and Marlene sitting on the bench together and then launching back into the conversation with twice the energy, talking a mile a minute. Ciara wondered if it bothered him that Kevin was maybe-kinda-probably hooking up with Marlene. After all, they hadn’t broken up that long ago. Even Marlene, who always seemed comfortable in every situation, kept looking up at the sky as if she wished she were somewhere else.

  Ciara gave up trying to get Kevin’s attention. The whole scene was just really awkward. With everyone in the same group of two guys and three girls always crushing on each other and hitting on each other and dating and scheming and hooking up and breaking up, her life was starting to seem like the 24/7 Drama Channel: All Drama, All the Time. And she hated it. She wished they could all just be friends like they had been back in the beach club days when they were thirteen, when Kevin and AJ were still Star Wars nerds and she, Heidi, and Marlene were more concerned with who could do the most underwater somersaults than who could get the hottest guy.

  Ciara stood up, stretched her arms over her head, and made her way to the diving board at the deep end of the pool. She could feel AJ, Kevin, and Marlene staring at her back, but she didn’t turn around. She stepped out onto the diving board, bounced lightly up and down, and then dove in.

  Cool blue water enveloped her head, and she opened her eyes to the sting of chlorine. Down at the shallow end, she could see legs waving, the flickering reds and oranges of bathing suit bottoms darting back and forth. She turned around and swam in the other direction with long, forceful strokes.

  Everything began to fall into place. She’d spent the whole summer chasing a dream
that was just that: a dream. The AJ she’d wanted wasn’t AJ the person; it was AJ the image of the ideal boyfriend. Marlene knew what AJ the person was like, and she’d dumped him when he got too self-centered. But if AJ the person was so goal-oriented that he forgot his friends, then she was twice as bad. Look what she’d done to Heidi, who had been nothing but nice to her ever since she arrived, who had gotten her a job, invited her out, confided in her, and made sure she felt included in the group. All summer long, Ciara had thought that making AJ her boyfriend was the only way to get out of the rut she’d created for herself back in LA—but maybe she needed to change more than just her single-girl status to become the person she really wanted to be.

  Ciara knew what she had to do. She had to make everything right again, and she had to do it now, before the chance slipped away from her forever. She had wasted nearly the whole summer going after the wrong guy—she didn’t have another moment to spare. She had to make things right with Heidi. Even if it was too late for her to win Kevin over, she could still fight to get Heidi back as a friend.

  She climbed out of the water, grabbed a towel from the back of a chair next to her group of friends, and began drying off.

  “Where are you going?” Kevin asked.

  “I have to find Heidi,” Ciara said, pulling her broomstick skirt on over her still-wet bikini bottom. “We have a lot of talking to do.”

  “I thought you said she was sick,” Marlene said.

  “I lied,” Ciara said flatly. “She’s mad at me, and I didn’t want her telling you about it. I’m sorry.”

  “Oh.” Marlene looked stricken. “Well, jeez. I hope you can work it out.”

  “I hope so too,” Ciara said for the second time that day. “That’s why I need to talk to her right away. Not being honest has gotten me into a lot of trouble this summer—it’s time for me to come clean.”