by J. Minter
Wow, it usually took me an hour just to make it out of the cosmetics section on the ground floor at Bloomingdale’s. Since I had no good ideas about what to get Alex for Valentine’s Day, I was pretty grateful that I had SBB-on-a-mission to keep me on track.
While we thumbed through piles of men’s shirts and racks of ties and boxes of cuff links, I could feel my eyes glazing over. It’s not that I wasn’t interested in shopping for Alex—though I had to admit, high-heeled boots were way more fun to look at than cuff links. I mean, what were cuff links, anyway? But I just didn’t think any of this stuff was quite right for Alex. And I wanted to get him something really special. What exactly that was going to be just hadn’t come to me yet.
I looked at Camille to see if she was having any more luck. Her brow was furrowed in frustration.
“It’s not just finding a Valentine’s present that I’m worried about,” she explained when she saw the concerned look on my face. She was holding up a hideously ugly brown sweater without even seeming to see it. “Xander’s birthday is the week after next, and our one-month anniversary is right after that, but I don’t want to go overboard with the gifts—especially if he doesn’t think that one month is a big anniversary, ’cause you know, some guys don’t really think about that, and—”
I had never seen Camille so unglued over a guy. I could always count on her to be the smart, balanced, carefree one. What was making her so nervous? I looped my arm through hers.
“Maybe you should follow SBB’s lead,” I suggested. “Put yourself in her shoes. Look at her. She’s dating the most popular pop star on the planet and the only thing in her relationship that she’s not completely confident about is whether JR would prefer the blue or the green Burberry scarf. You should get Xander what feels right. Try not to overthink it.”
She nodded. “You’re right.” Her eyes finally locked on the mess of brown merino wool in her hands. “God, what am I doing with this awful sweater? Yuck. This is certainly not the answer.” She tossed it back in the sale bin and sighed. “I’m going to go check out those money clips over there.”
“Good idea.” I smiled. Relieved that Camille seemed to have found her purpose, I looked around for a bench. It might have been the first time in my life that I opted out of shopping. I felt a little bit like my dad or brother when Mom, Feb, and I dragged them around department stores.
“Eeeek!” SBB came up from behind me and grabbed my shoulders. “Flan, thank you so much!”
“For what?” I asked, confused.
“For revitalizing my entire career!” She was bouncing on her Ferragamo heels. The last time I’d heard her so breathless, she’d just hurled herself over one of the blue Village Voice newspaper displays on West Broadway to avoid a Segway-riding paparazzo across the street. “Alex’s friend, Brody? Or Brindy? Or, oh, Brady! Well, he just inquired about me. He got my agent’s name from Alex … and he wants to audition me for a part! In his new indie film! Can you believe it? My agent said the script is totally smart and edgy. So it’s basically the opposite of anything I’ve done before. It’ll be groundbreaking! It’ll be revolutionary! It’ll be—”
“That’s so great, SBB,” I said. I was thrilled for her—and more than a little thrilled with Alex. I’d only mentioned SBB’s career concerns in passing after the movie. It was totally sweet and perceptive of him to talk to Brady already, and without me even having to ask.
“So what’s the movie about?” I asked. “What role are you auditioning for?”
“Oh, you know, it’s a gritty drama, set in an all-American high school. And I would play the typical high school student. I’ll just have to channel my inner—oh no! My career is finished!”
The color drained from her face and she sank onto the bench next to me.
“What is it?” I asked, holding her small body upright. I started to fan her with my mittens. “What’s wrong?”
Very slowly, my little starlet eked out the words. “I never went to high school. I have no experience with ‘typical.’ I don’t have a chance.” SBB sighed wistfully.
I suppressed a grin. “SBB, high school is easy.”
She looked at me doubtfully.
“Okay,” I reconsidered. “It’s not easy to live through, but I promise you, it will be a breeze for you to act. It’s all your favorite stuff—boys, fashion, immeasurable drama.” I patted her knee. “Trust me, with my help, you’ll be the most convincing high school student the silver screen has ever seen.”
SBB’s eyes got all wide and dewy, the way they did when she felt really moved. “You’ll help me, Flannie? I really want to prove that I can do this. I want to become a legitimate indie drama darling, the toast of the Independent Spirit Awards.”
“Lucky for you,” I said, “I’m something of an expert on high school drama. You can put your empathy skills to use on me.”
As SBB gave me a tight side squeeze, Camille reappeared in front of us. “So,” she said tantalizingly, holding her hands behind her back. “What do we think of this?” She held up a pocket watch dangling from a cool, sort of gaudy gold rope. “When you open it up,” she explained while demonstrating, “there are three different compartments. The watch is one, and you can store two pictures on the sides. It’s kind of a like a functional man locket. Weird or cool?”
“It’s a mocket!” SBB squealed. “It’s perfect! Where’d you find it? We’ll take three, right, Flan?”
Camille led us over to the glass case where she’d found the golden mockets. I wasn’t so sure this screamed Alex, but the other girls seemed so into it that I didn’t want to argue. As the two of them brainstormed exactly which photos they’d put inside the lockets, I felt my phone buzz in my bag. It was a text from Morgan, whom I realized I hadn’t seen all weekend.
YOU ALIVE? BEEN MISSING YOUR PRETTY FACE, she wrote. GRAB A COFFEE?
Morgan lived in SoHo, within walking distance from Bloomingdale’s, so it’d be super easy for her to come meet up with us. But as I looked at my two friends gushing over their mockets, I tried to imagine Morgan hanging out in the men’s section. All we were doing was talking about and shopping for our boyfriends. Of all my single friends, she seemed the most sensitive about her lack of significant other. I didn’t want to blow her off, so I texted back:
HOW ’BOUT LATTES TOMORROW BEFORE SCHOOL? WE’LL NEED THE CAFFEINE TO GET THROUGH ANOTHER MONDAY
I knew I was doing Morgan a favor by opting to devote time to her solo, but something about my response felt a little forced. When had it started feeling like I had to dole out time with my friends based on whether or not they had boyfriends?
“Flan,” SBB called me back to reality. “We’re about to check out. You want in on the mocket, right?”
“Okay,” I surrendered, feeling more enthusiastic about getting out of the men’s department than about the gift itself. “Yes, I’ll take the mocket.” I was going to need some serious time in the shoe section to recover from this retail therapy session.
Chapter 3
SWEET MISFORTUNE
A few hours later, I was holed up in my bedroom, avoiding my chemistry homework and holding up the mocket I’d just bought for Alex for the approval of my very discriminating Pomeranian, Noodles.
He was curled up in my arms, making his contented half-snore, half-purr sound (anyone who’s met Noodles can attest to the fact that he must have been a cat in a former life). But when I showed him the mocket, his head perked up and he sniffed it suspiciously.
“It’s all wrong, isn’t it?” I asked, nuzzling his face.
Noodles barked twice in the affirmative. I lay back on my bed and sighed. It was a week and a half until Valentine’s Day and after many hours of shopping for Alex I was back at square one. What’s more, I was feeling incapable of taking my own advice to Camille. I felt like so much was riding on this gift. Since our relationship was pretty new and I was still trying to feel things out, I just wanted to make sure to do everything right. The pressure was really starting to get t
o me.
A knock at my door interrupted my thoughts. “Flan?” My father stuck his head in. “We’re ordering from Chin-Chin,” he said. “You want the usual?”
Before he’d even finished his question, I had leapt from my bed to fling my arms around him. “Dad! When did you get back in town?”
More often than not, the rest of my family’s professional globe-trotting duties left me sole proprietor of our way-too-big-for-one-girl town house in the West Village.
My dad shrugged. “Bolivia was way too hot for your mother. We flew back this afternoon.”
It only took one look at my father to know that he spent very little time in the city during the winter. His neatly trimmed blond hair framed a face too tan for February in New York. His most recent hobby was buying mansions in foreign countries, declaring them fixer-uppers, and spending all his time renovating them. So whenever my parents made an appearance at our house, it was always cause for celebration.
“That beats the leftover pizza feast I had planned,” I said, breathing in the familiar piney smell of my dad’s aftershave. “I thought I was home alone.”
“Far from it.” My dad smiled, ruffling my hair. “We’ve got a full house, kiddo. Patch got in this afternoon from L.A. and he’s meeting Feb at the airport as we speak. I think they’re each bringing a friend home for dinner.”
“They’re not calling them friends anymore, Richard.” I heard my mother’s voice coming up the stairs. “You’re so old-fashioned.” She cupped my face in her cool, manicured hands and kissed both my cheeks. “Hello, darling,” she said. “Isn’t the new PC word for one’s significant other partner? That’s what Whoopi calls her boyfriend on The View.”
“Wait,” I said, trying to catch up to my in-on-all-the-family-gossip parents. “Patch and Feb suddenly have partners? And they’re bringing them to dinner? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
My mother clucked her tongue. “Have you lost your flair for the impromptu dinner party? Didn’t your father and I teach you anything? Have we been away too long?”
“No, yes, and yes,” I said. “I’m so glad you guys are back, even if it’s only for—”
My dad looked at his watch. “Fourteen hours. Why don’t you give Alex a call? See if he wants in on this partners evening?”
When my parents went downstairs to get ready for dinner, I slid the mocket into my underwear drawer and picked up my phone to text Alex.
DINNER PLANS? CAN I TEMPT YOU WITH GREASY CHINESE FOOD AND MY FAMILY?
I was trying to sound casual, since I knew it was a really last-minute invitation, but when Alex replied: WISH I COULD! COMMITTED TO GRANDMA’S TASTELESS CHICKEN TONIGHT, I couldn’t help feeling a little bit bummed. My family was together so rarely that I hated missing the opportunity to have Alex at my side. Especially if Patch and Feb were both bringing home their, uh, partners.
Oh well—dinner with the fam, even as the seventh wheel, still beat microwaved pizza.
Soon a mess of voices filtered up from the first floor and I rushed down to meet my siblings, whom I hadn’t seen in over a month. When I saw my older sister tripping over her suitcases in the foyer, a big smile spread across my face—then quickly turned into a laugh.
Feb was decked out in head-to-toe safari gear. A tall, blond guy standing with his arm around her sported a coordinating ensemble.
“So that’s what you’ve been doing all month—hunting for ivory?” I joked, giving Feb a kiss.
“Not exactly,” she said, shoving one of three massive trunks against the wall. “Kelly and I just started a line of activewear with Karl Lagerfeld. It’s inspired by the haute Australian bush hunter. You like?” Feb spun around to model, then put her hand on Kelly’s chest. “Sweetie, meet my little sister-slash-protégé, Flan.”
“Nice to meet you, Flan,” the haute bush hunter boyfriend said. “And yes, before you ask, it’s supposed to be ironic.”
I smiled at Feb. “I like him already. Where’s Patch? I thought I just heard his voice.”
Feb rolled her eyes and flung open the door to the coat closet under the stairs. A huddle of bodies, one of which I recognized as that of my older brother, Patch, tumbled out in a lump.
“Remember when we used to wrap fruit roll-ups around our fingers and lick them off?” Feb muttered to me under her breath. I nodded, not sure where she was going with the question. “I think Patch’s new girlfriend has him confused with a fruit roll-up.”
I looked at Patch, who was bright red at having been busted making out in the coatroom. He did have a strange girl attached to his neck, but something else was different about him too. He was wearing a fitted yellow button-down and gray pin-striped slacks. I almost didn’t recognize my vintage-T-shirt-only-wearing brother underneath the fancy clothes. Only a girl he really liked could get Patch to dress up for family dinner. At least his hair was still sticking out in all directions—that part I recognized.
Patch pulled away from the girl and gave me a friendly nod. “Hey sis. How ya been? This is Agnes.” He sounded out of breath.
Agnes smiled at me warmly and said hi, but quickly turned her attention back to Patch. She focused on smoothing his hair out and giggling in his ear.
Feb made a gagging motion as my dad’s voice called out from the kitchen.
“Mom’s threatening to eat all the spring rolls if you kids don’t get in here.”
As the five of us headed into the dining room for dinner, Feb took me by the arm and pulled me back. She gestured at Patch and Agnes. “Never, I repeat never rent a houseboat off Capri for a week with those two.”
“Why?” I said, wishing I wasn’t always in school to miss the fun sibling bonding trips that Patch and Feb took every month. “That sounds so fun.”
“Fun would require your brother to keep his hands off Hag-nes for more than three minutes at a time,” Feb corrected.
“Ah, I can see that,” I admitted, “but double-dating must be fun. Do you go on double dates with your other friends? Have they all met Kelly?”
Feb looked thoughtful for a minute. “To tell you the truth, Flan, since I started dating Kelly, I haven’t really seen much of my friends.”
Huh? But Feb had always been my friendship role model. She was legendary for her elaborate social circles. She had more friends on Facebook than anyone I knew!
“But what about Jade Moodswing?” I asked, remembering how tight they’d been at the French designer’s fashion show just last month. “Or Opal Jagger?”
“I dunno.” She shrugged. “We’ve sort of just … drifted apart. Nothing dramatic. You’ll see when you get serious with someone. It’s just one of those things.”
I looked at my sister, who was back to giggling with Kelly. I had always looked up to her, but at that moment I found myself hoping I didn’t end up like her. No matter how great things were with Alex, I never wanted to drift apart from my friends. It just felt so sad. There must be a way to strike a balance, right?
Trying to put her words out of my mind, I headed for my usual seat next to Patch. But Agnes—not surprisingly—had slid in before me.
“Hey Flan,” Kelly said, pointing to a seat between himself and Feb. “Sit here.”
“Everyone settled?” my dad asked. “Let’s grub.”
While he distributed chopsticks, the rest of us got to work opening up the stacks of steaming white boxes of food.
“No Alex tonight, Flan?” my mother asked. She’d changed into a black and white silk kimono and laced her chopsticks through her hair. “He’s such a hunk, isn’t he?”
“He’s having dinner with his grandmother,” I said, slurping a bowl of egg drop wonton soup.
“Awwww,” everyone at the table seemed to say at once.
I looked up at them. “What?”
“That’s too bad,” my father said.
“Really sucks,” Patch agreed.
“Would have loved to meet him,” Kelly said.
“I’m sorry, Flan,” my mother said, sounding like she’d take
n empathy lessons from SBB.
“It’s no big deal.” I shrugged. “I saw him yesterday.” I mean, it would have been great to have Alex there, but it wasn’t like I couldn’t function without him. Right?
“I’m just glad to be with you guys,” I said, convincing myself.
“That’s nice,” my mother said. “Isn’t that nice, dear?” she asked my father. When he smiled at her across the table, it was hard not to notice the silent closeness between them—between all the couples.
But then, midbite of her scallion pancake, my mother hopped up from the table. “I completely forgot to call Gloria about our donation to the Guggenheim’s restructuring. BRB!”
As my siblings and I groaned at Mom’s perpetual overuse of out-of-date slang, my dad sighed and picked up his BlackBerry. “Well, if your mother has permission to do business at the dinner table, I’m just going to send one quick e-mail.”
I looked to Patch, who usually harassed my parents when they got bogged down by work during family time, but he was consumed—literally—by Agnes, who still seemed to have her lips attached to his neck.
Geez, if I was looking to my family for examples on how to be in a relationship, this dinner party was leaving me a little uninspired. I turned to Feb and Kelly, the last couple standing.
“So,” I asked, trying to make normal conversation. “You guys have been traveling in the bush? Is it hot there or what?”
“Not really. It cools down at night,” Kelly said.
“Are you kidding? It’s been like living in a sauna,” Feb said, oddly riled up. “And you never let us use the air conditioner! You wonder why I always have to wear my hair up!”
“We’ve been over this,” Kelly said, shaking his head. “I think you know the carbon footprint of the average air-conditioning-using American.”
Whoa, who knew I could hit such a sore spot by asking the most boring question in the world? If Kelly and Feb were fighting over the weather, how did they handle the hard stuff?
