I'm Not Your Manic Pixie Dream Girl

by Gretchen McNeil

  “I don’t mean Jesse,” I said.

  “I know. Spencer didn’t come to school today.”

  “Oh.”

  “And so, while I appreciate the opportunity,” Toile was saying, mic in hand, “I’m going to have to say no. I wouldn’t be your best candidate for ASB president.”

  “What?” Principal Ramos cried. “Neither of you want it?”

  Toile looked to the wings and smiled. “Nope.” Then she curtsied and skipped offstage, waving at me as she passed. “I think there’s someone who deserves the job even more than we do.”

  “Huh?” She didn’t stop to answer, exiting into the hallway.

  “Un-freaking-believable. Mrs. McKee,” Principal Ramos said. “Who came in third behind these two in the original election?”

  Mrs. McKee didn’t even need to look up the information. “Gabriel Muñoz.”

  Gabe gasped. “Me?”

  “Wonderful. Would Gabriel Muñoz please come to the stage?”

  I hadn’t expected Toile to turn down the job, and I had no idea that Gabe had been the runner-up in the election, but it was as if the stars aligned, the angels sang in heaven, and suddenly all was right with the world.

  Kurt gave him a shove toward the stage. “Get out there before Ramos changes her mind.”

  “Gabriel Muñoz?” Principal Ramos asked. Gabe nodded. “Do you want the job?” He nodded again. Then she sighed. “Thank God. Can you please just give an acceptance speech?”

  Gabe took the microphone from Principal Ramos’s hand. There was a moment of hesitation, and then Gabe realized he was in the spotlight he’d always wanted and took control of the situation. “I don’t have a speech prepared,” he began, “because I definitely didn’t see this coming.” The audience laughed. He had them.

  I patted Kurt on the arm and headed to the stage door. It was as if the fatigue and stress of the last three days hit me all at once, sapping my energy and leaving me with a sick, empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. Maybe I’d go home early? Plead illness or girlie cramps or whatever. Surely, after what had just gone down, no one would mind if I skipped the rest of the day.

  As Gabe continued to address the student body, I stepped into the hallway. Where I ran right into Toile, who was holding hands with Michael Torres.

  “Are you?” I asked. “Is he?”

  Michael Torres beamed from ear to ear. “Toile just agreed to go out with me.”

  Well, it certainly wasn’t a pairing I’d seen coming—by my calculations, there’d been barely a 17 percent chance of Toile actually agreeing to go on a date with Michael Torres. But apparently my percentages were completely off base anyway, so what the hell did I know?

  “I’m glad,” I said, smiling at Michael Torres for the first real time in my life. “I mean it. She deserves someone who’ll treat her well.”

  “Th-thank you,” he stuttered, as unsure how to take a compliment from me as I was to give it.

  We stared at each other a moment—archenemies calling a silent truce—and when I turned to leave, he stopped me.

  “Bea, thank you.”

  “Me?”

  He nodded. “I wouldn’t have asked her out if you hadn’t called me a pussy at the dance. So yeah, thank you.”

  Well, at least something I did this week worked out. “You’re welcome.”

  FORTY-SIX

  GABE, KURT, TOILE, and I all ate lunch together at the table Cassilyn had allocated to us, right in the middle of the cafeteria. Because, dammit, why not? We weren’t going to lurk in the shadows anymore. This was our time.

  Cassilyn congratulated Gabe warmly (I think she even meant it), but Esmeralda and the stepsisters sat with their backs to us, steadfastly refusing to acknowledge our presence. It hardly mattered. They weren’t the most interesting people in the cafeteria anymore. Gabe had a steady stream of classmates stopping by to congratulate him, and he introduced Kurt to all of them as his boyfriend. Toile, now a sort of toned-down version of the manic pixie who had infiltrated our school a couple of weeks ago, proved to be significantly less annoying. In fact, I kind of liked her. She was smart and funny, and took no shit. And she was way more like me than I’d ever have cared to admit.

  We never saw Jesse. I’m sure he was at school, but he stayed the hell away from us. Which proved he had at least two brain cells to rub together.

  So yeah, things were good. And I was even able to put Spencer and Cassilyn out of my mind.

  Mostly.

  After school, I took the bus to Dad’s instead of Mom’s. He and Sheri wanted to have dinner with me to celebrate the soon-to-be Giovannini baby.

  It was comfortable in the house again. Sheri was over the moon to be an expecting mom, and it was wonderful to see my dad doting on her—pulling out her chair before she sat, fetching items from the kitchen, and asking repeatedly for her to “take it easy.”

  Sheri glowed, and judging by her apparent happiness, I guessed that my dad hadn’t confessed his affair—or whatever it had been. And to be honest, I was okay with that.

  At least until he screwed up again. Then I’d kill him.

  “So, how is Jesse?” my dad asked after I’d picked at my food and left most of my meal on my plate. “I haven’t heard you mention him in days.”

  “He’s fine,” I said, not even sure if that was true.

  “He’s a nice one, Bea,” Sheri said. She kept her left hand on her belly as she ate, as if she was protecting the precious cargo within. “And really cute. Is he still doing that painting thing?”

  I stiffened. She was talking about Spencer. She thought Spencer was my boyfriend.

  I felt the lump rising in the back of my throat, but instead of fighting it off like I’d been doing all day, I let the bubble of sadness wash over me. Tears welled up, and I dropped my head just as they cascaded down my cheeks.

  I heard a loud clank—my dad’s knife and fork hitting the ceramic dinner plate. “Are you okay?”

  “No.”

  Sheri rested her hand on my arm. “What happened?”

  I couldn’t have explained it all even if I’d wanted to. I didn’t understand half of it myself, how I’d been dating Jesse and in love with Spencer, all without even knowing my own feelings. I’d hurt my friends, and though Gabe had forgiven me, I was afraid that Spencer never would.

  Did it matter? I mean, even if he could get past what a selfish moron I’d been, could I really just swing back into a friendship with him? No, I don’t think I could. I remembered all of our time together: hanging out in his studio, art shows, concerts, watching TV on the sofa, our bodies so close together you’d think we were a couple. How could I watch silently while he dated Cassilyn? Feeling my heart break afresh every single time he looked into her eyes, held her hand, kissed her?

  The tears flowed. I took a deep breath, attempting to steady myself. I’d been so stupid. So ridiculously, blindly idiotic.

  “Bea?” Sheri repeated, her calmness oddly soothing. “Is there anything we can do to help?”

  Another breath, and I trusted my voice. “No. Nothing.” I swallowed. It was probably easier just to give them the quick and dirty version than to explain the mess I’d caused. “Jesse and I broke up.”

  “Oh, Bea.” Sheri squeezed my arm. “I’m so sorry.”

  Strangely, saying it out loud stopped the tears. Jesse was no longer my sore spot.

  Dad cleared his throat, as if he was about to impart some timeless parental wisdom. “Well,” he said slowly, “I guess the song applies now.”

  I glanced up at him, confused.

  “Andrew . . .” Sheri’s voice imparted a warning.

  He smiled at me, oblivious. “You know, ‘I wish that I was Jessie’s girl.’”

  “I don’t think you’re being appropriately sensitive to Bea’s feelings,” Sheri said while she stroked my arm. “A girl’s first breakup is a traumatic event.”

  He picked up his fork. “Not as traumatic as her first divorce.”

  She ignored him.
“Besides, that’s not even the right lyric. It’s ‘I wish that I had Jessie’s girl.’”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Of course it is.” Then she sang a line. “‘Where can I find a woman like that?’ It’s by Rick Springfield. Do you think he was singing about wanting gender reassignment surgery?”

  Their ridiculous argument faded in the background as my mind raced. The tune and the lyric were familiar. I closed my eyes, desperate to recall the moment. Gabe had sung a line from a song—once in Spencer’s studio, once at school—and when I asked what it was, he’d just winked and said something. What was it?

  “‘Where can I find a woman like that?’” I repeated.

  “Exactly,” Sheri said.

  Spencer’s face. When Gabe made that joke, one I didn’t understand, Spencer’s face had gone ashen. My heart began to race. Had I read that reaction wrong? Had Spencer been upset because he was in love with me?

  I bolted from my chair, yanking my phone from my pocket. I had Gabe’s number dialed before my dad and Sheri could react.

  “Bea!” Gabe said, answering before the first ring was finished. “What’s up? Kurt says hi and wants you to know he’s—”

  “Did Spencer have a crush on me?” I blurted out.

  Silence.

  “Is that a yes?” I prompted.

  “He swore me to secrecy,” Gabe said. “Said he’d tell you in his own way. He . . . he made you a video.”

  A video? Fibonacci’s balls. The thumb drive. He’d given it to me the day after my breakup. He’d asked several times if I’d opened it, which I thought was super annoying of him at the time. I was too hung up on all my Trixie BS to even think why he was so upset that I never saw what was on the drive.

  “I have to go.” I ended the call before Gabe asked any questions. My brain was focused on that thumb drive.

  What had I done with it? Tossed it on my desk in my other bedroom. Then what?

  The other day in my room, I’d been about to plug it into my laptop. I’d been interrupted by Jesse’s campaign email and dropped the flash drive back into my tote bag.

  “Can I be excused?” I asked.

  “Of course,” my dad said. “Is everything okay?”

  “You know what, Dad?” I said, turning toward my room. “It just might be.”

  My breath caught in my chest as a video of Spencer popped onto my screen. He was sitting on the sofa in his studio, wearing his usual work outfit of paint-smeared jeans and a ratty old T-shirt. His hair was mussed up, the long bits sticking up in front as if he’d been running his fingers through it repeatedly, and his face was flushed.

  “Hey, Bea,” he said, a tremor in his voice. “I’ve been wanting to tell you something for a long time. I was going to do it when I got back from Europe, and then when I found out you were dating Jesse, I just couldn’t.” He kept his eyes cast down toward the coffee table, occasionally glancing up at the camera as if he was afraid of what he might find there. “Gabe called me twenty minutes ago with the news, and, well, I figured I’d better do this before I lost my nerve.” He smiled. “Here goes.”

  The video stopped and cut to a photo montage while music played in the background. The song might not have been familiar, but the images were. Spencer and me. A montage of our friendship. In each photo, we were smiling, laughing, making faces, teasing each other. And pissing each other off. Lunch at the café in the Getty, pretending we were fancy LA art patrons while we sipped our coffee on the veranda. Huddling under a torn plastic bag when a freak rainstorm erupted during an outdoor concert. Our trip to Magic Mountain, where Gabe and I took a picture of Spencer puking his guts out after a ride on one of the crazy roller coasters. In each photo there was lightness and joy, and anger and frustration.

  A lyric caught my attention, familiar because Sheri and my dad had just been fighting over it ten minutes ago, and I realized that I was listening to “Jessie’s Girl.” Spencer had put together a love letter.

  My heart leaped in my chest before a cold realization dawned on me. That was two weeks ago. Before Trixie. Before Cassilyn. Before our friendship had been blown to smithereens. Could I really believe for a second that his feelings were still the same?

  There was only one way to find out.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  THE LIGHT WAS on in Spencer’s studio when I walked up the driveway. He was working. He always worked when something was bothering him. Was that something me?

  Probably. Though maybe not in the way I hoped.

  Still, I had to find out. I gripped the thumb drive in the palm of my hand and marched up to the side door. It was unlocked.

  Spencer stood at his easel, still tucked away in the corner of the garage. He was wearing almost the same outfit he’d had on the day he filmed his video—the same outfit he wore most days when he was fixated on his work—and as his brush raced furiously over the canvas, he seemed oblivious to my presence.

  In other words, situation normal.

  Except it didn’t feel normal. The exact opposite of normal, in fact, which technically is “abnormal,” although that word wasn’t appropriate somehow. More like the absence of normal. And though I was relatively sure, based on the bulging lines of his tightly clenched jaw, that he felt the awkward semi-abnormalness too, I tried to act like we were the old Spencer and Beatrice with our easy, fun friendship, and not the new Spencer and Beatrice, who interacted beneath a cloud of unspoken words and unrequited feels. It was the only thing I could do.

  “Hey,” I said, hands shoved in the pockets of my jeans.

  Spencer’s eyes never left the canvas. “Hey.”

  “I don’t know if you heard what happened at school today.”

  “I heard.”

  He clearly wasn’t impressed with my efforts to fix what I’d broken. Not that I blamed him.

  Part of me wanted to leave right then, just walk away from our friendship and save myself from the arrow that was aimed straight at my heart. But I couldn’t. I had to finish this, even if it meant hearing from his own lips how I’d ruined everything.

  “I, um, looked at that thumb drive. The one you gave me a couple of weeks ago.”

  He set his jaw. “A bit late.”

  Late. As in, I was too late. He was in love with Cassilyn.

  I felt a sob heave up from my stomach, and I pinned my lips together in an effort to suppress it. What good would tears be now? They wouldn’t change Spencer’s feelings.

  “Anything else you want to say?” His voice had an edge, and his brushstrokes became harsher.

  “I . . . I’m so sorry,” I sputtered out.

  He still refused to look at me. “Sorry for what?”

  “That I didn’t know.”

  The strokes from his paintbrush slowed. “You didn’t know I was in love with you?”

  I shook my head as heavy tears rolled down my cheeks. I may not have wanted to admit it, to myself or anyone else, but somehow I’d always known his feelings. What I didn’t know were mine.

  I took a deep breath, steadying my voice and forcing back the tears. “No, I knew that,” I said quietly. I watched him closely, desperately hoping for any sign that he wouldn’t hate me forever. I could live with losing him, but I couldn’t handle the idea that for the rest of our lives, he’d always think of me with bitterness. “What I didn’t know was that I was in love with you too.”

  “Was?” he asked, sounding perfectly calm.

  I wasn’t expecting that. “Huh?”

  “Past tense. You were in love with me?”

  “Was. Am.” My voice trembled and I felt dizzy, disoriented. “I’m in love with you, Spencer. I always have been.”

  “You have a shitty way of showing it.”

  “I know.”

  “I had to stand by and watch you make an idiot of yourself over Jesse.”

  “I know.”

  “Making yourself into something you thought he wanted.” He glanced up at me briefly. “The right guy would never want you to change. He’d
like you, flaws and all.”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but the words stuck in my throat. He was right. Spencer had always liked me the way I was: when I was dorky and unpopular and spitting out percentages and equations like a camel. He would never have wanted me to change.

  He returned to his easel. “And then Cassilyn came along.”

  My eyes drifted to the back of the canvas. Cassilyn’s portrait. “She’ll . . .” I swallowed, trying to stay the tremor in my voice. “She’ll make you happy.”

  He paused then, finally. Dropped the paintbrush into the jug of water and slid his palette onto the table. “Cassilyn is super into me.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek, hard, hoping the pain in my mouth would drown out the pain in my heart.

  He grabbed the easel and angled it so I could see the portrait clearly. It was Cassilyn, no doubt about it. Golden blond hair, slender features, and soft curves. But it was the style of the painting, not her beauty, that momentarily took my breath away. The brushstrokes were strong, haphazard, and yet deliberately placed. The background and foreground were delineated by drastically different color palettes—dark purples and teals in the back and a mix of oranges and yellows in the front—and Cassilyn’s stylized features practically leaped off the canvas. It was the first real piece of his art that I’d ever seen, and it was truly spectacular.

  “Spence,” I breathed. “It’s beautiful.”

  “She was all over me Friday night after the dance.” He grabbed a rag and wiped his hands. “But nothing happened.”

  “What?” My eyes were glued to the painting.

  “I told her I couldn’t see her anymore.”

  “Why?”

  He dropped the rag on the table and stood before me, his deep blue eyes fixed on mine. “Because I’m still in love with you.”

  I thought I might faint. Or cry. Or laugh. Or pee my pants. Maybe all of them at once. I’d never felt like that before: like I was standing with my toes on the edge of a precipice about to jump.

  “You’re still in love with me,” I repeated, just to make sure I hadn’t imagined it.

  He stepped closer, his body inches from mine. So close I could feel his heart hammering in his chest. And though we’d been that close a gazillion times during our friendship, it was the first time I’d done so with my eyes open. Literally and figuratively.