by J. Minter
To diffuse the tension, I picked up the first tub of food in front of me. “More beef and broccoli, anyone?”
Feb looked at the food and then at Kelly with narrow eyes. “No thanks, Flan,” she hissed. “We’re vegan now.”
“Oh, just lay on the guilt,” Kelly moaned. “Everything is all my fault!”
A squeaky smooching sound—the parting of lips across the table—put a pause in their argument. Agnes was taking a breather from Patch and had turned to face us. “Could you guys keep it down over there?”
“Yeah,” Patch agreed. “You’re sort of harshing our mellow.”
“That’s it,” my mother reappeared from the kitchen. “None of the brainiacs in the art world know how to read a simple e-mail. I have to dash uptown to straighten out this mess.” She paused and looked around the table. “I’m so sorry to have ruined this lovely dinner. We’ll reschedule, okay? And next time, Flan, you must make sure your partner can join us! You know what they say—nothing makes a mother hen happier than seeing all her chicks settled down. …”
Everyone around me seemed to take a cue from my mom and started stacking up the plates. Before I knew it, I was alone in the dining room. So much for a fun family dinner.
I was used to being alone at the dinner table, but I wasn’t used to being alone when the rest of my family was home. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually ended a family dinner feeling worse than before it. Was it because everyone was partnered off tonight except me? Or was it just because I hadn’t had my fortune cookie?
Making jokes out of the cheesy Chin-Chin fortunes was usually our favorite part of the meal. I reached for the bag and pulled out one of the cookies.
I popped open the wrapping and performed my superstitious ritual of eating the whole cookie with my eyes closed before I unfolded the fortune. In a weird way, it felt like a lot was riding on this moment. Maybe if my family couldn’t offer me relationship guidance, a generic platitude would do the trick. Slowly, I looked down at the slip of paper.
Have a wonderful night!
Lame! So much for guidance. I guessed that when it came to navigating relationships, I was on my own.
Chapter 4
THREE SCOOPS, TWO SPOONS, ONE SHOCKER
An hour later, there was a knock on my door. Wondering if it would be the four-eyed, kissing Pagnes monster, or maybe Feb in tears after a blowout with Kelly, or possibly one of my parents checking in on my lonely evening, I opened up the door.
“Guess who?” Alex was standing in the hall outside my bedroom wearing his Hermès navy peacoat and a big grin.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Kidnapping you,” he said. “Come on.”
I glanced back at the chemistry notebook on my bed, and took it as a sign that Noodles had crawled on top of it and fallen asleep. “I’ll grab my coat,” I said.
Outside my brownstone, Alex’s driver was waiting in a town car. He opened the door for me and I slid in.
“Where are we going?” I asked—praying for Scoops, my favorite ice cream store in the city. But then, we wouldn’t need the driver to go to Scoops. It was just down the block on Bleecker Street. …
“You’ll see,” Alex said, raising an eyebrow.
The car hurtled south, through the West Village and into Chinatown, before taking a left on Canal Street. The streets were damp with slushy rain, and red and gold flags hung from storefronts, announcing the Chinese New Year. Even through the windows, the air was heavy with the scent of seafood shops lining Canal.
When the car pulled to a stop on a quiet street below Canal, Alex said, “I felt bad about missing Chinese food with your family, so I thought I’d make it up to you with Chinese dessert.”
Ooh, he was good. He was very good.
“You mentioned once that you were on a quest for the best mocha chip ice cream in the city,” Alex continued. “I know you think you’ve found it at Scoops, but you’d be cheating yourself if you didn’t try this version.”
We stepped off the damp street into the old-fashioned ice cream shop, loud with a surprisingly large crowd. All the flavors were written in Chinese on a huge whiteboard. I stood on tiptoe to kiss Alex on the lips. “This is so cool and authentic,” I said. “I love it.”
When I first met Alex, I thought he was your typical, partying bad boy. He wore designer motorcycle boots and played punk rock gigs at Hamptons parties. At first, I was impressed by the way he didn’t care about the social rules that everyone else in our scene was so obsessed with—oh, and I was also super attracted to him. But mostly, I was intimidated.
But ever since our first date at Wollman Rink last month, I’d realized that for every thing about Alex that might paint him as a certain type of guy, he broke the rule by also being something completely opposite. Like, he wasn’t just the captain of the Dalton lacrosse team—he was also an alternate on the math team. And his goal in life was to become a screenwriter, even though his dad assumed he’d go to law school and take over the family firm. And there was a really good chance he’d do all of those things. By now I knew that I should never assume I knew everything about Alex, because he always had a surprise up his sleeve. Kinda like how I shouldn’t have assumed I knew all the good ice cream places in the city. …
Alex took care of ordering and handed me the bowl with tidy scoops of mocha chocolate chip. I grinned and took a bite.
“Omigod,” I said with my mouth full of perfectly soft ice cream. “Scoops just got some serious competition.”
“Save room,” he said, snagging a spoonful. “This is not the last stop.”
I took my to-go cup and followed Alex back to the car, excited to see what else he had planned.
“So how was dinner?” he said as we continued west along Canal Street. “What’d I miss?”
I thought about divulging how crazy my siblings were acting over their new S.O.’s but I didn’t want to scare my still-new boyfriend, so I just said, “Oh, you know, the usual. Mom dressed in theme; Dad oversaw the passing of food; kids fought over the extra fortune cookie.”
“I’m sorry I missed it,” Alex said before telling the driver to take the Brooklyn Bridge. “I hope you got your hands on that last cookie.”
As we drove over the bridge, taking in arguably the very best view of the glittery city, I thought back to my lonely moment at the dining room table. “Yeah,” I said. “I guess I did.”
“And?” Alex prompted. “What’d the fortune say?”
I laughed and started blushing for no reason. “It said, ‘Have a wonderful night.’ “
“Well,” Alex said, as we stepped out of the car for the second time, on an equally dark street corner in Dumbo, “no one can say we didn’t try.”
The Brooklyn Ice Cream Company is legendary for its no-frills flavors and amazing ingredients. It used to be a favorite of mine, but I realized I hadn’t been back here since I was a kid—and I’d definitely never tried their mocha chocolate chip.
Alex and I strolled along the promenade and sampled the second contender’s ice cream. “Hmm … It is chocolatier,” I said thoughtfully. “And meltier … Hard to pick a favorite!”
“Don’t pick a favorite yet,” Alex said, steering me back toward the moonlit car. “If you think you can handle it, I’ve got one more place for us to hit.”
“I think you underestimate my ice cream–eating capabilities,” I joked.
We crossed the bridge back into the hustle of Manhattan and headed north again toward SoHo.
“This next place isn’t technically ice cream—but the mocha chocolate chip is good enough that I think we should make an allowance.”
“Ooh, I think I know where we’re going,” I squealed when the car stopped on Spring Street. We got out in front of the neon circular sign of Rice to Riches, a funny little café that serves dozens of crazy flavors of rice pudding.
By then, I was getting pretty full, so we decided to walk off all the mocha chocolate chip with a stroll around the ne
ighborhood. Alex had his arm around me and I fed him spoonfuls of rice pudding—and only occasionally wondered whether this type of PDA would make Feb roll her eyes and vow not to rent a houseboat with Alex and me. I’d gotten as far as picturing the six of us, all hanging out on a boat for a week of island-hopping in the Mediterranean, when Alex came to a sudden halt.
“Look who it is,” I heard a guy’s voice say and looked up to see Alex’s friends from Dalton—Remy Wise, Troy Fishman, and Xander. I thought Camille had said this morning that she and Xander had a study date tonight. …
“Oh, hey guys,” Alex said.
“Hey Alex,” Troy said, a twinge of annoyance on his face. “You know, your grandmother looks an awful lot like your girlfriend.”
“Yeah,” Remy said, crossing his arms. “You say you’re having dinner with Grandma and then ditch us for Flan? Nice.”
Alex looked flustered and shook his head. “Guys, I didn’t ditch you. I did have dinner with my grandmother. I just picked Flan up a little while ago. What’s the big deal?”
It didn’t make any sense that the guys would think Alex ditched them. Had I done something to make them so cold?
“Whatever, man,” Xander said, barely looking at me. “Seems like you’re busy, or whatever.”
Why was this black cloud hanging over the group? And why was it so easy for me to imagine this exact scene happening between me and my friends?
Alex looked stressed. He was running his hands through his hair. I put my hand on his arm. “Hey,” I whispered, “I hope you didn’t feel guilted into hanging out with me tonight. I didn’t mean to—”
“No,” he said quickly. “I wanted to hang out with you. I definitely didn’t expect to piss anyone off by hanging out with you.” He looked up at Xander. “Just because Camille …” He trailed off.
“Just because Camille what?” I asked. “Xander, where’s Camille?”
Troy scoffed. “Like you don’t know, Flan.”
Xander was looking at his feet.
“Know what?” I asked. “What’s going on?”
“I figured she would have told you,” Xander admitted finally. “We broke up. A few hours ago.”
I looked down at the remaining rice pudding in my bowl, which looked anything but appetizing. Alex’s friends were all pissed at him for hanging out with me. Now Alex was squirming and clearly weirded out about missing post-breakup dude time. Worst of all, my best friend was probably sitting at home alone, heartbroken and miserable. And right before Valentine’s Day! Poor Camille.
And did this mean I was now the only one in my circle of friends to have a boyfriend? That definitely wasn’t going to make my balancing act any easier.
Chapter 5
A LATTE WITH A SHOT OF ATTITUDE
The next morning, I set my alarm forty-five minutes early so I could be dressed and ready to hang with Morgan before school. We were meeting at Agata & Valentino’s café on Seventy-ninth Street, and I didn’t want to be late.
Ever since I’d enrolled at Thoney in January, Morgan had been a funny, comforting presence in my life. In fact, she’d been the very first person to be nice to me when I showed up shaking in my Moschino all-weather boots as a Thoney infant. I remember how nervous I was, not knowing how to get anywhere in the unfamiliar building. If it hadn’t been for Morgan’s peppy fashion compliment, I might still be frozen in the marble Thoney foyer.
My first month at school had kind of been a trial by fire—complete with an all-out election war over Thoney’s coveted Virgil coordinator with Kennedy Pearson and Willa Rubenstein (longtime frenemy and newfound enemy, respectively). But now that I was happily comfortable in my school life, I knew that I owed a big chunk of that happiness to my friendship with Morgan. Recently, though, I could tell she’d been kind of down. Last month, she’d gone on two dates with a random Exeter boy, only to hear that he’d been seen making out with a sophomore at a party three days later. None of our friends had even known she liked him that much, but there had definitely been a downward shift in the fun rating of the music she downloaded to her iPod.
For the past two weeks, she’d seemed to be actively trying to burst her eardrums with gloomy Cat Power music. I knew that her bubbly, indie rock–loving former self would be ashamed at some of her current musical choices, so recently, I’d been brainstorming ways to get the old Morgan back in business. I’d been meaning to plan something really fun for the two of us to do together over the weekend.
But now it was another Monday morning. How had a whole two days passed with us barely speaking? Morgan had been at her family house upstate on Friday night, and I had been with Alex on Saturday … and Sunday.
But this week I was determined to focus on our friendship.
I stepped into the newly revamped café of Agata & Valentino. It used to be just your run-of-the-mill gourmet grocery store. My mom and I would swing by for rotisserie chicken and grape gazpacho after she picked me up at my grade school, Miss Mallard’s. But last year, the owners expanded the store to double its former size. Now there were a chic little coffee bar and pastry shop on the opposite corner from the grocery store. The place was always a little hectic with stroller pushing mothers and UES museum curators, but it was still the best spot in the neighborhood for a pick-me-up before school.
When I found Morgan in her gray Vera Wang toggle coat, she was waiting at the head of the line for her soy latte with hazelnut syrup.
“Morning, sunshine,” I said, tapping her on the shoulder.
She turned and gave me her usual air-kiss, but she looked unusually tired.
“I’ll believe the sunshine bit when I see it,” she said, gesturing outside at the dismal gray February morning. “Can we make that a double shot in my latte?” she shouted over at the barista.
“I brought you something,” I sang cheerily, holding up a new Vampire Weekend LP Patch had brought back from L.A.
“Oh,” she said flatly, eyeing the CD. “Thanks, Flan.”
“But you love Vampire Weekend,” I said. “And this is an unreleased live album. Where’s my frantic I-love-you-Flan jig?”
“God, that espresso maker’s loud,” Morgan said, clutching her temples. “Is it, like, insanely loud in here? Let’s go outside. I can’t hear anything.”
I glanced at the terrace, where the iced-over patio furniture looked pretty forlorn.
“I guess we can just head toward school?” I said, kind of disappointed not to have a relaxing catch-up convo in the café. Instead, we grabbed our drinks and made for the door pronto.
“Sure.” Morgan shrugged. “School. Where we’ll be greeted by poster after poster after poster trying to sell us on how ‘wild’ and ‘amazing’ the Valentine’s Day Dance is going to be.”
Whoa. Someone had woken up as bitter as the unsweetened espresso I was drinking.
“Come on, Morg,” I said. “Who cares what the lame student council posters claim? If we want the Valentine’s Day Dance to be fun, all we have to do is show up and make it fun. Tell me you haven’t lost faith in our powers of partying? Now, on to the important stuff,” I said, tugging on her coat playfully. “What are you going to wear? You’re the only one in our crew who looks good in red, so I nominate you to wear the bold and dramatic color of Cupid.”
Morgan looked at me like I’d just asked her what she was going to wear to her beheading.
“You’re joking, right, Flan? I thought we’d all agreed on this. None of us are going to that lame dance. Sadie Hawkins? For Valentine’s Day? I mean, whose idea was that? Probably the dean’s—the male dean.”
“Morgan,” I said, putting my arm around her as we turned onto East Eighty-eighth Street. “We’re an all-girls school. If we don’t ask the dates to our own dance, how are they supposed to know about it?”
“That’s not the point,” she huffed. “The point is—”
Uh-oh, Morgan’s Random Exeter Boy baggage was rearing its ugly head again.
“The point is …” she repeated, unwinding her
red Colette scarf from around her neck. Her face was flushed. “… that Camille has just been dumped by another typical jerky guy. We have to boycott the dance to show solidarity for our friend, and our gender as a whole.”
Oh. Shoot! I could not believe I’d forgotten about Camille and Xander. I mean, I hadn’t really forgotten—after Alex dropped me off last night, I’d only called and texted her about eleven times. Her mood online was still set to romantic—so obviously she wasn’t ready to let the world know about her breakup just yet. I figured that maybe she just wanted a little time, that maybe she’d come to me when she was ready.
But Morgan seemed to know the gory details. Obviously, I was missing something. And had she kind of spat out those last words a little bit more viciously than necessary?
“Okay,” I said, digging through my bag for my Chanel Tulip lip gloss so Morgan couldn’t see the look of embarrassment on my face. “I guess I missed that conference call about the dance.” I shrugged. “If you guys don’t want to go for Camille’s sake, of course I’ll boycott with you.”
But even as I said the words, I knew I wasn’t hiding my disappointment very well. As we stepped into Thoney and walked through the entryway hall, Morgan swung by her locker. For the first time, I noticed all the posters that she’d had been talking about:
COME TO THE CUPID COTILLION!
TAKE ACTION—DON’T LET YOUR DATE GET SCOOPED UP BY ANOTHER WOMAN!
ROSES ARE RED, VIOLETS ARE BLUE, EVERYONE
WILL BE AT THE V-DAY DANCE—WILL YOU?
So they were a little dorky. The thing was, I did want to go to the Valentine’s Dance. It had never occurred to me not to go.
Just then, Willa Rubenstein, class president and resident sociopath, brushed by in a swishy candy apple red Moschino skirt.
“Aww, cute,” she said in her patented saccharine voice. “Cinderella wants to go to the ball. Too bad rumor has it none of your posse can get dates. Planning the cover-up girl-power night instead, I hope.”
