The Trouble With Flirting

by Claire Lazebnik

  “Oh, that’s too bad,” he says. “Except for the part where I’m kind of delighted about it.”

  “You don’t really like her,” I say. “I know you don’t.”

  “Well, as you’d be the first to point out, it doesn’t matter to me. I grab at whoever’s near. Whatever’s near. I’m not picky. Girls, boys, dogs, cats . . .”

  “I never said that.”

  “Didn’t you?” He gestures up toward the door. “It’s getting late. We done here, Franny?”

  I fight rising tears, rising panic. “Did you not even hear me apologize? I said some stupid things. I’m sorry. I was wrong.”

  “But you believed that stuff you said. Even after all the time we’d spent together. God, Franny—” He cuts himself off. Then he says slowly, “There’s the way people look on the outside and the way they really are, and with me you never even saw the difference.”

  “I do now.”

  “I meant everything I ever said to you, but you were too busy buying into Alex’s good-guy act to realize it.” The door suddenly opens right behind him, and we both jump. One of the resident advisors sticks his head out. “Sorry to interrupt,” he says, “but it’s that time, guys. Got to get up to your rooms.”

  “Okay.” Harry stands up straight. “Thanks for coming by, Franny.”

  “Please,” I say, not even caring that the graduate student is still there. “Please, Harry. I made a mistake. I know I made a mistake. Can’t you just—”

  “Good night,” he says.

  He doesn’t even look back, just raises a lazy hand in good-bye as he walks through the door.

  scene five

  So it’s back to Aunt Amelia’s I go. Alone. The route feels a little creepy now that it’s past eleven, and I’m lonely and depressed, so I punch William’s number into my phone, and when he answers I say, “Keep me company. I’m all alone on the street.”

  “Jesus, Franny,” he says. “That’s not safe at this hour.” It occurs to me it’s three hours later in New York and I’ve probably woken him up, but he doesn’t complain about that.

  “I know. That’s why I called you.”

  “Yeah, and there’s so much I can do to help you from a couple thousand miles away.” He heaves an exasperated sigh. “Stay on the line with me until you get somewhere safe.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “Couldn’t you have found some nice young man to walk you home?” I don’t answer, and after a moment he says, “What’s that sound? Are you crying?”

  “Maybe a little.”

  “Why?”

  It’s William and he’s on my side, so I don’t see any reason not to tell him the truth. “You know how I told you that I was going out with Harry but I liked Alex more? Well, I was wrong. Harry’s better than Alex, but I said some stupid mean things to him before I realized it, and now he won’t even talk to me.”

  I stop talking because William is cracking up on the other end of the line.

  “That’s not nice,” I say. “I’m crying and you’re laughing.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just not the world’s greatest tragedy.”

  “Shut up. It matters to me.”

  “I know it does,” he says. “I’m sorry. And here’s what I think, Franny, for what it’s worth. You’re my sister and admittedly I’m biased, but I’m guessing the guy you like is just pissed off at you right now and will get over it if you give him a chance. Because you’re pretty great, and deep down he’s got to know that. So tell him you’re sorry and—”

  “I already did. And he stayed mad.”

  “He probably just wants to make you suffer a little longer. Try again.”

  “And if he rejects me again?”

  “You’ll become a better person for it?” he suggests. “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, yada yada yada?”

  “All right, fine.” I stop and think for a moment. I’m not even halfway home yet. I’m just as close to campus as I am to Amelia’s. William is right. I gave up too easily. “Stay on the phone with me a little while longer,” I say. “I’m going back in.”

  I make it to campus safely. The most sinister thing I see is an empty beer bottle someone’s left under a bush. I stop to pick it up, then continue on my way.

  Once I’m in the theater courtyard, I say good-bye to William, who tells me sternly that I’m not allowed to walk back alone now that it’s after eleven, but we both know there’s no way for him to actually stop me.

  I stay in the shadows around the side of the dorm building so none of the RAs will see me out there, and then I text Harry.

  I’m right out front. Please come out. Please. I won’t bother you again if you’ll just come out now.

  His response comes quickly. It’s past curfew.

  Do you really care about that?

  He doesn’t answer. I wait for a while and nothing happens. It’s probably not as long as it feels—but it feels like a really long time.

  I’m losing hope and about to send another text—but what can I say to make him come if he doesn’t want to?—when the door to the dorm opens.

  Harry slips out, carefully closing it behind him so it doesn’t make a sound. He glances around and I come forward, into view. He shoots me an exasperated look, but he comes all the way down the steps and follows me around to the side of the building, out of view of the front door.

  He’s changed into sweatpants and a faded red T-shirt. His bare feet are shoved into flip-flops. The back of his hair is messed up, so he was probably lying in bed reading or something when I texted him.

  I just want to stare at him for a while.

  He came.

  He didn’t have to. And he did.

  But he’s still not yielding. “What?” he says, crossing his arms tightly across his chest. “What do you need to say now that you couldn’t say before? If I get thrown out of here because of you—”

  “I’ll tell them it’s my fault. That it was an emergency.”

  “Why are you walking around with that?” he asks, pointing, and I have to look down to remember I’m holding an empty beer bottle.

  “I found it on the street.”

  “Why didn’t you throw it out?”

  “I needed it,” I say, and hurl the bottle down at the cement walkway, where it shatters into a million pieces. I still have my pitcher’s arm, I guess.

  Harry jumps. “Jesus, Franny! They’ll hear that! What are you trying to do?”

  “I want to start over,” I say, and step toward the smashed bottle. “So I’m going back to the beginning. I’ll walk on broken glass and cut my foot and then you can carry me again and we’ll start over.”

  “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” he says. “And I should also point out that you’re wearing shoes, so you won’t actually cut yourself.”

  “I’ll take them off.” I raise my right foot behind me, which leaves me perching precariously on one very narrow high heel. I reach down to undo the shoe strap and wobble, losing my balance.

  Harry grabs my arm. “Careful! You’re going to fall right into the pile of broken glass, you idiot.”

  I grip his shoulder and raise my head. “I am an idiot. That’s what I was trying to tell you earlier, but you wouldn’t listen. I’m an idiot and I know it.”

  “I was listening.” He hauls me away from the glass and safely onto the grass at the side of the building. “People like you need to stay far away from sharp objects.”

  “People like you need to rescue people like me.”

  “It’s a full-time job.”

  “And it doesn’t pay very well.”

  He’s still holding on to my arm. He doesn’t seem in any rush to let go. He studies my face for a moment, then nods toward the walkway. “You’d really walk barefoot through broken glass for me?”

  “I’d crawl through broken glass for you.”

  He shakes his head. “Overkill, Pearson. Now you’re getting all hyperbolic.” He sounds like himself again. Finally. Lik
e Harry. Like my Harry.

  I pull his arm tightly around my waist and pin it there. “No,” I say. “It’s true—I would. If I thought it would work to get you to give me another chance.”

  “So what?” His voice sounds a little raw, but he’s not pulling his arm away. “So now I’m just supposed to be okay with everything? Crush you to my bosom? Say ‘all is forgiven, my child’?”

  “Yeah, pretty much. Except for the ‘my child’ part. That’s creepy.” I butt my forehead against his chest, like a calf. “Harry,” I say.

  He takes his arm away from my waist, but only to grab my shoulders in both his hands. He shakes me gently, his fingers pressing into the flesh there. “Broken glass all over the cement. You’re such a moron.”

  “I know.”

  And then he kisses me. It starts out sort of angry, but it ends somewhere else entirely.

  Some time goes by. Maybe a lot of time. I don’t want to move from that spot, and unless I’m totally misreading the situation—and I’m not—Harry is pretty happy where he is too.

  His touch still gives me goose bumps. And his kisses still send tiny little earthquake shock waves through my head and body that leave me vibrating. It’s even better now than before, and not just because there’s the whole I thought I’d lost you I’m so glad I didn’t making-up thing, which, believe me, is nice enough in its own right, but also because I was holding back before, not completely believing in the idea of us. I thought Harry was some kind of second-place runner-up, someone to distract me while I hoped and waited for Alex to see the light.

  Our theme for tonight: Franny is an idiot.

  Our moral: the guy who sends smoldering glances your way may turn out to be kind of lame, and the guy who seems like a shallow pretty boy may actually be kind of wonderful.

  Also: silky tank tops are an excellent outfit choice if you’re planning to make out standing up.

  Also: I think I’m in love with Harry Cartwright.

  I know—that’s not actually a moral.

  I just wanted to sneak it in there.

  I have no idea what time it is when we stop kissing. Harry walks me back to the apartment, saying that if I could walk through broken glass for him, he can risk a warning slip for me.

  It takes me forever to fall asleep.

  At some point I do, though, because in the morning I wake up smiling.

  Aunt Amelia wants to know how my Very Important and Special Event went. “Best night of my life,” I say sincerely.

  “You got in awfully late.”

  “I told you I might.”

  She can’t argue with that.

  I walk into the dining hall at breakfast time and look around. There’s only one person I want to sit with, and he’s already at a table with Isabella and Julia and Manny. Just as I cross to them, Marie sits down next to him and smiles, putting her hand on his arm. His eyes meet mine—he saw me come in—and he kind of looks at me like he’s asking a question.

  I shake my head. I don’t care. He wasn’t reaching for her; she was reaching for him. And that’s how it’s always been, really, except that one time, two nights ago, when I hurt him so badly I can’t bear to think of it now, and he wanted to hurt me back.

  I get a cup of coffee and a muffin and stroll back to the table. I take the empty seat next to Isabella, who smiles at me more warmly than she ever has before.

  So she and Harry must have already talked about us. I’m glad she doesn’t hate me. She seems to love Harry almost as much as I love my brother, and I’d hate any girl who hurt William. But maybe Isabella is more forgiving than I am. Or maybe Harry told her to give me a break.

  He greets me now with “Looking a little tired there, Pearson. You stay up late last night?”

  “You’re not looking so fresh yourself, Cartwright.”

  “That’s not what my mirror tells me.”

  “Yeah? What does it say?”

  “That I’m one fine-looking young man.”

  “God, you’re conceited,” Marie says, pushing at his arm with a little laugh. But both the gesture and the laugh feel a little desperate. Like she knows something’s going on. She turns to me. “I’m really worried about my costume, Franny. The dress is like slipping off my shoulders, and I don’t want to be constantly grabbing at it onstage. Can you please tell your aunt she has to fix it?”

  “She and I don’t have that kind of relationship,” I say.

  “She’s your aunt.”

  “But she’s your costume designer. I think you’d better give her your alteration notes yourself.”

  “Thanks for nothing.”

  “You’re welcome!” I say cheerfully.

  She looks around to see if anyone’s going to back her up. Julia changes the subject, asking which casts are rehearsing in the theater today.

  “I think we are,” Isabella says. Her eyes fall on Alex, who’s sitting at another table with Vanessa and Lawrence and some others. “It should be interesting.”

  “You mean because you and Alex have to play opposite each other?” Julia says bluntly. “That happened to me once when I was a sophomore. I was going out with this guy, and then we broke up right before we had to do this huge love scene. It was the most awkward thing in the world.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Isabella says. “It’s called acting, right?”

  “I’m getting a muffin,” Marie says, standing up. “Don’t let me eat the whole thing, okay?” she tells Harry. “One bite, that’s it.” She heads off toward the buffet.

  Isabella turns to him. “You need to talk to her,” she says. “Right now. Or else you’re just being mean.”

  “Who died and made you Jiminy Cricket?”

  “Harry . . .”

  “I know, I know. Fine.” He gets up and goes after Marie.

  “Talk to her about what?” Julia asks Isabella.

  “Harry and Franny got back together last night,” Isabella says with a nod in my direction. “She can fill you in on any details.” She stands up with her tray. “I’m going to go over my lines. I’ll see you guys later.” She leaves.

  “Really?” Julia says to me.

  I nod sheepishly. Given the last conversation I had with her, when I was insisting I didn’t care at all about Harry . . . let’s just say this isn’t my proudest moment. On the other hand, Harry’s got it a lot worse right now. He’s taken Marie off into a corner and they’re talking. He looks apologetic. She looks furious.

  Julia flings up her hands. “I can’t keep up with any of this. Everyone keeps changing partners. Except us. We’re the only stable couple.” You’d think they’d been going out two years instead of two weeks. She rises to her feet. “Come on, Manny. Let’s go somewhere where you can draw me a diagram so I can figure out who’s going out with who, because it’s all getting way too confusing.” She pats my shoulder. “You’ll probably regret this, Franny.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “It’s your life.” She and Manny stroll away, leaving me alone at the table.

  I sip some coffee and watch Harry and Marie. He holds his hand out—friends? She stares at it a moment, swats it away, then turns on her heel and strides rapidly across the floor and out of the dining hall.

  Harry comes back to our table. “She changed her mind about the muffin,” he says blandly as he sits down.

  “Yeah, I saw.” We sit in silence a moment. Then I say, “Just out of curiosity—you didn’t actually like her, did you?”

  “Not in any meaningful way.”

  “So were you just using her to make me jealous?”

  “Of course not. That would be wrong.” He taps his fingers on the table thoughtfully, then says more seriously, “I don’t know . . . I wasn’t thinking that was what I was doing—it wasn’t deliberate or anything—but I can’t really explain it any other way. She got on my nerves, and I paid her a lot more attention when you were around to see and tried to avoid her whenever you weren’t.. . .”

  “Yeah, that would be using her to mak
e me jealous.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “Totally morally reprehensible. On the other hand . . . it worked.” I shift a little closer to him. “And I’m glad you don’t really like her.”

  “Stay jealous,” he says. “I like you that way.”

  “It’s all fun and games until I start boiling bunnies.”

  “Back where I comes from, we calls that ste-ew,” he says.

  “Nice accent,” I say. “You might want to reconsider the acting career.”

  “There you go, shooting me down again.” He waits a beat. “You know what that means.”

  “Time for me to build you back up?”

  “Past time, I’d say.”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  He considers. “The practice rooms should be empty. We could sneak into one and make out until you have to go to work.”

  “What kind of girl do you think I am?”

  He leans forward and puts the back of his hand against the back of mine. Just kind of presses it there. And he says, “My girl?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Let’s go.”

  scene six

  It’s a good thing we grab the chance to be alone that morning, because free time becomes scarce that week. At rehearsal, we’re running through the play in its entirety, starting over again as soon as we’ve finished with the last scene and Charles has given us notes, breaking off only to go to meals or to bed. Time is running out, and Charles’s temper is running short. He wants it to be good, and we’re all still occasionally flubbing our lines or forgetting the blocking.

  I dash back to the workroom during the scenes I’m not in, and, depending on how much time I have until I’m needed again, I either work there until my next scene or bring some hand sewing back to rehearsal.

  I have to give Amelia credit: she’s working like a madwoman, trying to get all the costumes for all the shows ready by the time performances start in five days, and her output is really impressive. It feels like every time I return to the Sweatshop there’s another rack of finished costumes that are neatly labeled and ready for the upcoming dress rehearsals.