“So Cassilyn talks about Spencer?” I asked. It was the only piece of Gabe’s monologue that stuck in my brain.
“All the time.” Gabe smirked at Spencer. “She thinks she’s your inspiration. Hey! It’s like you have your own manic pixie dream model.”
“She is not my inspiration,” Spencer said through gritted teeth.
This topic was growing increasingly irritating. I shot to my feet, suddenly desperate to move around the room again. “Women are not on this planet exclusively to inspire men and make them happy. We have our own dreams and needs, our own shit to get done. We run companies, countries, international organizations. We’re not props, and we’re certainly not here to cater to men’s egos.”
“Fight the power!” Gabe said.
“Okay, calm down.” Spencer tugged on my hand, pulling me back onto the bed. “You’re preaching to the choir here.”
I sat stiffly at his side, breathing heavily. “Manic pixie dream girl.” I spit out each word with a considerable amount of disdain. I needed to learn more about her, about Toile. “Gabe, can you hand me my laptop?”
He lifted the thin metal clamshell off my desk, eyebrows raised. “Are you about to go down a research rabbit hole?”
“Yep,” Spencer said, answering for me.
Gabe sighed. “Then that’s my cue to exit.” He pulled the strap of his messenger bag over his head. “I’ve got a shift at Hidey Hole till six.”
I waved at him with one hand while I typed “manic pixie dream girl” into the Google search box with the other. “Sure, sure.”
“I bet it’ll be nice to drop zoopa Gabe for a few hours,” Spencer said.
“You have no idea.”
Spencer laughed. “I have some.”
Gabe paused at the door. “Spence, you coming?”
Spencer didn’t move. “I’ll hang for a bit. Make sure she doesn’t go full stalker mode.”
I paused and glanced at him sidelong. “Thanks, Mom.”
“Bye, you two,” Gabe cooed. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Spencer lounged on my bed flipping through a book while I combed the internet. I couldn’t believe how many results came up in my search. Films dating back to the thirties, foreign and domestic. Television shows. Even books. This manic pixie dream girl phenomenon had legs, deeply entrenched roots in our society, and yet somehow I’d never heard of it. I grabbed pen and paper and started jotting down a list of films.
“How did I not know about this?”
“You don’t go to movies, read books with plots, or have the TV on after eight o’clock,” he said without looking up.
“I see movies.”
He closed the book. “Oh yeah? Name one.”
I looked at him pointedly. “We saw that new Will Ferrell comedy together before you left for Europe, remember?”
“I remember.” He paused while I returned to my list. “So you didn’t see any movies with Jesse?”
I winced at his name.
“Sorry,” Spencer said. The bed rocked as he shifted position. “I brought you something.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He dropped a red plastic thumb drive onto my laptop.
“What’s this?” I pushed it aside and began to cross-reference my film list against accessible online streaming sources.
He cleared his throat. “Plug it in. You’ll see.”
Probably more YouTube videos to cheer me up. But I didn’t have time for cats dressed as sharks riding around on Roombas. I had work to do. “Thanks, Spence. I’ll watch it later, okay?”
“Oh.” He sounded disappointed.
“I need your help with this,” I began, glancing up at him. “If I were to watch a movie with one of these manic pixie dream girl characters, where should I start?”
Spencer blinked several times, his eyes shifting to the thumb drive I’d placed next to me on the bed, then he sighed. “What’s on your list?”
“How did you know I had a list?”
Spencer snorted. “You make a list for everything. Pros and cons, pluses and minuses, ranking probable outcomes from their least to most likely occurrence.”
I hated the fact that he could read me so easily. “Fine. I’ve got Betty Blue, Garden State, (500) Days of Summer, Sweet November, Ruby Sparks, Almost Famous, Elizabethtown, Bringing Up Baby, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and Annie Hall.”
Spencer whistled. “Well, Elizabethtown is the movie that inspired the term. Maybe we should start there.”
“We?”
He leaned his long body back on his elbows. “Your boyfriend just dumped you and now you’re on a crusade to figure out why. Do you really think I’m going to let you endure that death spiral alone?”
I wanted to be pissy at the implication that I needed to be protected from myself, but deep down, I knew he was right, and I really appreciated his company. “Fine,” I said, suppressing a smile while I tossed him the Roku remote. “But be prepared to take notes. There’ll be a quiz at the end.”
FIFTEEN
SOMEWHERE BETWEEN THE lobster scene from Annie Hall and when the goob from Garden State told Natalie Portman that she’d literally changed his life in four days (seriously?), I had a revelation.
The wacky outfits.
The unexpected actions.
The positive feedback loop.
The relentlessly sunny dispositions.
Manic pixie dream girl was a formula.
“Spence.”
“Mmhm.” He was curled up on his side next to me in bed, head cradled in the crook of his arm, half-asleep. Apparently, the manic pixie marathon hadn’t circumvented his need for a weekend nap.
“Wake up, princess,” I said, patting his cheek.
“Did you open my thumb drive?” he muttered.
“Not yet. I’ve got some science to lay down on you.”
He yawned. “Already laying down.”
I pushed myself off the bed and planted both hands on the mattress, then shook it violently. “It’s the big one! Duck and cover!”
Spencer jolted awake, flailing his arms as he rolled off the edge of the mattress, collapsing in a heap on the floor.
“Oh shit!” I leaped across the bed and peered down on him, a tangle of limbs. “Are you okay?”
Spencer sat up and ran his fingers through his hair. “Not funny.”
“I don’t know. It was, kinda.”
He pushed his palm against my forehead and rolled me back onto the bed. “Oh yeah? How do you like it?” Then he pounced on top of the mattress and jumped up and down in his bare feet. The headboard banged against the wall and the metal legs groaned in protest.
“Stop!” I shrieked through my laughter. “You’ll bust through the floor.”
“It’s the big one!” he cried, mimicking me. “Duck and cover!”
“Cut it out!” I grabbed Spencer’s leg while he was midjump and yanked it toward me. He lost his balance and came crashing down on top of me; his elbow barely missed knocking out a couple of my teeth.
“You wanna play rough?” Spencer asked, trying to sound mean but coming off more like a Disney villain. Then he went for my weak spot: my feet. He grabbed my legs together, flipping me onto my stomach, then wiggled his fingers lightly on the soles of my feet. “Vee have vays uf making you talk,” he said, using a fake German accent.
“Stop!” I was laughing so hard tears were welling up in my eyes.
“Oh!” Spencer said, feigning surprise. “You want me to stop?” He tickled my feet again, and I let out a howl. “Are you sure?” Then he leaned back so he could see my face.
I took advantage of his lapse in concentration and twisted my torso, ripping my legs from his grip, then I went for his ticklish weak spot: the side of his stomach. “Payback’s a bitch.”
I heard a creak on the stairs. “Anak?” my mom called up. “Is everything okay?”
We froze, limbs tangled. “Fine, Mom!”
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped from the other s
ide of my bedroom door.
I looked up at Spencer, who pressed his lips together to silence his snickering, then composed myself. “I’m fine, Flordeliza.”
“Good.” Then the stairs creaked again as she retreated.
I lay there panting, Spencer hovering over me. His goofy, toothy grin reminded me of the younger, smaller version of the guy I’d known for so many years. As I stared up at him, the smile faded. His breaths slowed and deepened, and the muscles around his eyes softened. I thought maybe he’d roll to the other side of the mattress, but he stayed put, balancing over me with stiff, outstretched arms, his blue eyes locked onto mine.
I felt my face grow hot, and for the second time that week, I felt embarrassed with my best friend.
“Bea . . .”
I didn’t even give him a chance to finish. Something in my stomach gurgled and tightened, like I’d eaten raw eggs. Whatever I thought Spencer was about to say, it instilled an instantaneous panicked reaction, and I needed to do something—anything—to cut him off.
“I have a plan to get Jesse back,” I blurted out.
Every muscle in Spencer’s neck tensed up at once, giving him the wide, veiny look of a pro wrestler posing for the camera. His eyes darted away from my face as he pushed himself off me. “Oh yeah?”
I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry, a sensation that happened only when I was overwhelmed by nerves. “Yeah.” The playful mood was completely shattered and the air in my bedroom hung heavy between us. “This manic-pixie-dream-girl thing is a formula.”
Spencer swung his legs over the side of the bed and bent down to put on his shoes. “Uh-oh.”
I grabbed my notebook, happy to have a prop. “I made a list of all the attributes these characters have in common. Unique fashion sense, unorthodox approach to social boundaries, absence of a filtering mechanism between the brain and the mouth, lack of self-awareness, and a rejection of class structure. I mean, I can do that. I can make myself into one of these girls and win Jesse back.”
Spencer turned around and folded his hands in his lap, looking very much like my mother when she was attempting to lay down some parental knowledge. “Answer me one question, Bea. Why do you want him?”
I pulled my chin back, confused. “He’s my boyfriend.”
“He was your boyfriend.”
“Still would be,” I said, mocking his tone, “if it weren’t for Toile.”
“That’s my point.” Spencer shook his head. “Do you really want to be with a guy who would dump you the moment someone else is interested him?”
I bit the inside of my lower lip, rolling the dimply bit of skin back and forth between my teeth. Spencer was right. How important had our relationship been to Jesse that he’d dump me within days of meeting Toile? I could make excuses until the end of time: Jesse was susceptible to outside influences, Toile had taken advantage of his kindness, I’d been dealing with my friends and hadn’t been there for him, he’d been seduced by her popularity. They were weak rationales, and I knew it.
And yet I remembered the good times. The way Jesse made me feel when he asked me out on that first date. Like I was special. He saw me in a way no one else at school ever had, like I was funny and interesting and desirable. Spencer certainly didn’t think of me that way. I was just good old Beatrice to him. But to Jesse, I was a girlfriend, and I didn’t want to lose that feeling.
“Is it about winning?” Spencer said before I could explain what I was feeling. “About beating Toile? I know how competitive you get.”
The cheeky little smile on Spencer’s face made me bristle.
“I love Jesse,” I snapped, annoyed both at Spencer and by my own irrational anger. “That’s why I want him back.” See? A logical rationale.
He blinked twice in rapid succession. Then stood up. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Are you meeting Cassilyn?” I said. I hadn’t meant them to, but the words sounded bitter. For some reason, this whole conversation had gotten me riled up—defensive and raw.
Instead of answering, Spencer just opened the bedroom door. “I’ll talk to you later, Bea.”
And then he was gone.
SIXTEEN
I STOOD IN my room long after Spencer left, breathing heavily. I was upset, that much I could self-diagnose, but I wasn’t sure exactly why. Upset by the realization that Jesse had dumped me for a manic pixie dream girl? Upset that Spencer had suggested I only wanted Jesse back so that I could “win”? Upset that he was possibly going to meet Cassilyn?
Cassilyn? No, definitely not that. I wanted Spencer to infiltrate the A-list. That was all part of the Formula.
I recalled the way she touched his arm in the cafeteria. Well, maybe I didn’t want him to infiltrate that deeply.
But before I could ponder my mood any further, my mom poked her head into my room. “Was that Spencer?”
“Yeah.”
“Has he been in your room all day?”
“Um . . .” Why did I pause? Spencer was just a friend, and it shouldn’t have been any more scandalous to be alone in my room with him than with Gabe. “Yeah.”
Now, a normal mother would have either freaked out or taken the opportunity to engage in a calm discussion of male-female relations, safe sex, or No means no. Flordeliza? Not exactly normal. She pumped her eyebrows and smiled knowingly. “Were you having fun?”
“I have a boyfriend.” I couldn’t look at her as I said it, so I turned to my bed and started straightening up the bedsheets.
“Mmhm.”
Had she been listening? Did she know Jesse had broken up with me or did she just suspect it?
I leaned across the bed to fluff the pillows when I felt the weight on the mattress shift. “Anak,” my mom said, her voice softer than before. “Is there anything you want to talk about?”
I’d stopped sharing the details of my personal life with Flordeliza when I was thirteen. With good reason. Every time I mentioned a boy I thought was cute (there were a few) or one that I thought might think I was cute (there were far fewer), my mom inevitably turned the conversation from my puppy love to cheating spouses, custody battles, second marriages, and general relationship bitterness. As if my short-lived crush on Carlos Velasco freshman year would have ended a decade later in a messy divorce.
Then every time she had a new boyfriend who was absolutely, positively “the one,” she’d start pressuring me about finding one of my own because being in a relationship was the single greatest thing in the world. Until she’d get dumped and the cycle would begin again.
Mother-daughter heart-to-hearts about boys weren’t really part of our repertoire, so I think she was as surprised as I was by the words that came flying out of my mouth.
“Jesse dumped me.”
“And Spencer was consoling you?”
That was the last question I’d expected. “Yeah.”
“That’s a good friend,” she said. “Someone who cares about you very much.”
“I guess.”
She arched an eyebrow. “You guess?”
What was she getting at? “Actually,” I said, feeling contrary, “he was kind of pissing me off.”
She looked me steadily in the eyes. “By the way he stormed out of here, I’d say he was the one who was pissed.” Then she shook her head and smiled. “So what are you going to do now?”
I thought of the list of manic pixie attributes and my realization that the trope had a formula. Had Toile figured that out too? I laughed at the idea. Her flighty quirkiness was the real deal; no way was she smart enough to pull a con like that on the entire school.
But I was.
“I’m going to win back my boyfriend.”
My mom looked confused, as if I’d answered a question she hadn’t asked. “How are you going to do that?”
Good question. Maybe I could use the Formula as a model and alter it to fit this manic pixie crap. I’d need a new attitude, a new approach to school and relationships, not to mention a new style and wardrobe. These were all thing
s I knew virtually nothing about. I was going to need some help.
“Flordeliza,” I said, being careful not to use “mom.” “You know how you’re always trying to get me to do something more fun with my hair?”
“Yes,” my mom said, glancing at me sidelong as if she wasn’t quite convinced I was about to make her mother-daughter bonding wish come true.
I smiled and placed my hand on top of hers. “Do you think your stylist has any openings tomorrow?”
Armand, my mom’s hairstylist, was able to squeeze me in bright and early Sunday morning. You know, when we were supposed to be at Mass. A Mass we never missed.
Flordeliza didn’t care. Within seconds of getting off the phone with Armand, she’d already rearranged her Saturday to squeeze in our weekly obligation at the five-o’clock evening Mass. We never, ever went to that one, which featured a guitar and electric keyboard musical accompaniment my mother loathed (“If I want to bang a tambourine, I’ll put on Stevie Nicks!”). But when faced with a choice between folk music and finally sharing her love of elaborate hairstyles with her daughter, she’d gritted her teeth and made it through the service.
I was in Armand’s chair at the crack of eight thirty the next morning. He stood behind me and slowly pulled the ponytail holder from my long, wavy brown locks. As my hair was freed from its constraints and hung limply down my back, he pursed his lips, his eyebrows raised so high I thought they might permanently relocate up to his shiny bald head.
“When was the last time anyone worked with this?” he asked, not even attempting to disguise the revulsion in his voice.
“I get it cut every ten weeks,” I said. “To avoid split ends and maintain healthy follicles.”
“Cut.” He snapped the final consonant, practically making a second syllable out of it. “Armand does not cut. He transforms.”
I was about ready to transform myself right out of his chair when my mom stepped in. “Bea needs your magic, darling.” She rested her chin on Armand’s beefy, well-toned shoulder. “She’s finally ready.”
I'm Not Your Manic Pixie Dream Girl Page 8
