Sam fixes me with a glare. “Hat. Now.”
“I lost it.”
“You want presents?”
That’s a big no kidding, so I pull a tattered, garishly decorated, kid’s birthday hat out of my backpack and stuff it on my head.
It’s horrible but it’s the price I must pay for gifts.
Ian peers at the monstrosity as if he’s trying to figure it out.
“It’s the magic birthday hat,” Sam says as he places a large bag on the black “marbled” Formica table and scootches in beside me.
“Sam made it for my birthday when I was seven. I’ve worn it ever since.”
“What makes it magic?” Ian asks.
I laugh, despite looking like a big ole dweeb in it. “Because if I wear it and look like an idiot, I get presents. Sam is a cruel, cruel boy.”
“Aww, you look cute in it,” Sam enthuses while shaking his head in a “No, she doesn’t” way at Ian.
“Presents,” I remind him with a nudge.
“Alison Klinger, most fabulous best friend, I am humbled and honored to share in this glorious day of your birth,” Sam intones gravely.
Rachel snorts. “Goofs.”
I turn to her with mock severity. “For that you get thrown in a volcano.”
Sam shoots Rachel a smug grin.
“Don’t count yourself safe yet, buster,” I caution. “Bestow offerings.”
Sam rifles through the bag to hand me a gift of promising size. I rip it open and my eyes widen in glee. “Oooh. So worth the shame of the hat,” I say as I pull out the Blu Ray box set of the Planet Earth documentary series.
“There’s one more.” He pulls out a smaller box, which I rip into. It’s a pooping penguin chocolate dispenser.
“This may be the greatest gift ever!”
“I know.” Sam is as excited by it as I am. “You wind him up and he waddles while dropping chocolate shit out his ass.”
“I’m speechless with amazement.”
“I’m kind of at a loss for words myself,” Rachel says dryly.
Sam and I exchange pitying glances for my poor cousin who just doesn’t get the hilarity of poop.
“Oh-oh, Rach,” Ian warns, “they’ve turned their Wonder Twin faces of condescension on you.”
“Save me. I’m melting.” She swoons into his arms.
Sam steals a sip of my coffee in its heavy, white mug. He makes a face, adds sugar and takes another sip. I smack his hand but that doesn’t deter him from the continued pilfering of my beverage.
I watch Sam convince some lady at the next table into handing over the creamers she was so obviously going to use and I’m once more amused at how he charms his way through life.
My theory, after years of in-the-field observation, is that it’s some kind of coping mechanism brought on by his mom’s death when he was just a kid. And in anyone else, it would annoy the crap out of me, but it’s Sam and we’ve been best friends since our moms met in baby group, so whaddya gonna do?
Sam’s a dog, and like all good pet owners dealing with that embarrassing leg-humping issue, I just spray him down from time to time and love him anyway.
That is, until he brings out a photo album which he drops with a heavy thunk on the table.
Ian leans over, intrigued. “What’s that?”
A nightmare in glossy color.
“Tradition,” Sam says. “Started to annoy Al, now an ode to her aging.”
“Really? Insults on my birthday?”
“And a way to capture a lifetime of our excellent friendship,” he finishes, smoothly.
“Better.”
Rachel flips the book open for Ian.
I shoot her a “You traitor” glower, because she knows how much I hate that thing, but she just smiles perkily, flips her hair out of her eyes, and begins to explain the photos.
“Brilliant!” Ian enthuses as he sees the first picture.
Yeah, right. Basically, it’s Sam and me together at various ages. Pick a date, any date, and I’m there all awkward. Bad haircuts, super skinny, and flat-chested—I rocked all the best looks, while Sam was always inherently tall, dark and handsome, flashing his damn charming grin.
I slam the book shut. Stupid boy.
Chapter three
I try not to laugh at Ally tugging the book away from Ian.
“Photo time,” Rachel announces, as she pulls a Polaroid camera off the seat.
Ally makes her customary eye-rolling face.
Rachel pauses. “Lovely. But considering this is the last of my film for this vintage camera and it’s back to regular old digital photos for next year’s birthday snap, you might want to make it special,” Rachel tells her.
Ally and I trade glances at that and I can tell she’s as bummed about the news as me. Rachel started taking the Polaroids of us years ago so it’s like the end of an era.
“Smile, Sam. Show them your pretty face,” Ally commands.
“Could you lose the giant frames?” It’s Ally’s newest look.
“No. It’s an ironic fashion comment.”
Her glasses are an epic fail but it’s Ally’s birthday, so I leave that deluded comment alone and smile for the camera. Flash!
Rachel hands me the photo, which I wave around to dry. I wait for it to develop, cutting a sideways glance at Ally.
“You know that doesn’t do anything, right?”
Rachel laughs at Ally’s statement, made right on time.
Ally huffs. “Well, if you’d actually listen, I wouldn’t have to keep repeating myself. It’s not science.”
“Maybe I just like the shaking motion,” I say, waggling my hand back and forth.
“Like you don’t do enough of that already,” she mutters.
“Ouch. Nice comeback, birthday girl.”
The tradition on Ally’s birthday is that we only eat dessert for lunch. And since I know that Ally will be eating mine at some point, I didn’t order the chocolate chip bacon cookies Matt recently put on the menu and instead went for lacto-vegetarian-friendly cheesecake.
Ian bites into his pecan pie that Matt has just served.
“Superb. This beats the hell out of the supermarket Black Forest crap me mum used to foist on me,” he declares.
He feeds a bite to Rachel. Ally and I make identical gagging noises.
“I’ll make you a cake next year,” Rachel says to him, ignoring us.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out and check the text.
“Maybe it’s the phenylethylamine talking, but damn this is good.”
I glance up from my screen at Ally, gushing over her chocolate cake. “Left brain, Einstein,” I scold.
Rachel grins while Ian looks blank. I keep texting because it’s from the luscious Heather I met a while back. And Ally will fill him in. It’s science. The girl doesn’t have an “off” button.
“Sam thinks I’m too analytical. Too left brain. He’d prefer we all live in our right brain.”
“The creative, conceptual part,” Ian says.
I forgot. There’s two of them.
“The side tied to orgasms,” I add, finishing my text and sliding my phone back into my pocket.
Ally frowns. “Being in love actually enhances orgasms. It’s proven fact.”
“Not according to any of the girls I’ve been with.”
Rachel gasps. “You’ve actually spoken to them?”
Ha. Ha.
“Relax,” Ally continues. “You can still believe in the power of your magical penis.”
She goes for my cake so I spin the plate to give her better access. I’ve learned the hard way that getting between Ally and dessert is dangerous.
Also, I’m hoping she’ll eat and not discuss my dick. “Don’t talk about that. It’s weird.”
&nbs
p; Ally leans over to Rachel and Ian and mock whispers, “He’s scared naming it will kill his power.”
She begins to chant. “One penis to rule them all, one penis to find them, one penis to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.”
I put on my best “Pinky” imitation from Animaniacs, our favorite show when we were kids, in response. “Egad, Brain, I wish I was as smart as you.”
Ally answers in her “Brain” voice like Orson Welles. “Don’t vex me, Pinky, or I shall turn on you.”
~
When we’re all happily sugared up, we say our goodbyes outside the diner. The wind has picked up so I don’t want to hang around too long.
Ally and I hug then she blurts out, “Jeremy is taking me to Grill Boyz tonight.”
“Wow. Real menus. Whaddya do to deserve that?” I shove my hands in my pockets to keep them warm.
She ignores me. “I think he’s going to stay here for university.”
Ian and I exchange glances. We’re on the same page about Jeremy, who I think is a pompous douche and who Ian sums up in perfect Brit-speak as a “wanker”.
“About time,” Rachel says loyally. I know this is only out of duty to her cousin’s wishes because I’ve heard her rant about Jeremy too.
“Yay!” I echo, slightly too late to mean it.
Ally glares at all of us.
Rachel and Ian look away. Cowards. It’s up to me to man up and say it. “He’s a smug dick.”
“He’s smart. We have a meeting of the minds.”
“Please. If you’re gonna be shackled to this guy, your minds shouldn’t be what’s meeting. Where’s the fire?” I launch into a little porntastic “bow chicka wow wow” music complete with suggestive hand gestures.
Ally gets this prim look on her face. “We have a very full intimacy of which ‘bow chicka wow wow’ is only one part.”
She gloats as if she’s won some major debate. Smarty pants forgets that I’ve literally known her forever and have more than a few things to toss back in her face.
“That lab you hang out at? You named the research parrots Buffy and Angel, after one of the greatest forbidden vampire love affairs ever memorialized on TV. You want fire. You’re settling for comfortable. Or breathing. The jury’s still out.”
“Sam!” Rachel admonishes.
“Bad form, mate,” Ian mutters.
They don’t need to worry. Ally can defend herself.
“You can psychoanalyze my relationship once you’ve actually had one,” she tosses back at me.
“Why? You heckle the Oscars and you haven’t seen all the films.”
“How is that the same thing?” she demands.
“Look, all I’m saying is before you waste your best years on him, screw someone else. Make sure you know what you’re missing. Get past the love baggage.”
Now everyone stares at me with various degrees of disbelief. What? It’s common sense.
“There’s no baggage,” Ally insists.
“747, baby.”
“People on glass runways…” Ally places a hand on my shoulder. “Sweet, idiotic boy, contrary to your belief that you respect women, treating them like socks to jack off into is not actually respect. So forgive me if I don’t follow your brilliant advice.”
I shrug it off, knowing we’re polar opposites on this one. “Just trying to help.”
“I know.” She sloppily smooches my cheek. “Thank you for my present. Now go. You’re going to be late for your study group.”
“Yes, mom.”
It’s not exactly study group but I do have to meet my classmate Monica for our marketing assignment. We’ve been given the task of pretending to be an ad agency and their client. The ad agency (me) must work with the client (Monica) to meet her needs on this specific campaign.
After a brief stop home to pick up my roughed out ideas, I head to the teen lounge room at the library where a bunch of us are meeting up in our groups.
Monica shyly waves me over to her table. She’s her usual twitchy self, like a little anxious mouse.
The assignment we’ve pulled is that she’s a chocolatiere and I’m designing a new campaign for her. I pull out a couple of small, kick ass mock-ups of chocolate wrappers with designed blocks of text on display around them.
I’m a whiz with graphics. All about the visuals. Screw university, I’m headed for an electronic design program.
Monica squints to read the text, then looks at me, confused. “But chocolate is all about love and romance.”
“You make ninety percent of your sales on Valentine’s Day,” I say, having researched this fact. “What about the rest of the year?”
I explain the concept. “Once your accompanying site is launched, people will send in real-life, funny, date-from-hell and love-gone-wrong stories. They’ll be printed on this packaging.”
I point out the tag line written in script along the bottom of one of the mock-ups. “Treat yourself.”
Then I sit back, pleased with the slam-dunk of an “A” I’ll be getting.
“I don’t know,” she says.
So pull your finger out and offer up an idea, I think but instead say, “You’re ignoring those who either don’t want or can’t find love, but don’t want to turn to chocolate as a pity measure.”
Props to Google and pop psychology.
“We’re changing how they think about chocolate,” I continue. “Making it funny and empowering instead of pathetic. ‘Treat yourself.’ Trust me.”
Monica hesitates. Under the weight of my pressured stare (I mean, I spent at least an hour looking this stuff up), she caves and gives a tiny nod of okay.
By this point, my head is killing me. Under the unholy trifecta of Cass, Ally, and Monica busting my balls, this weekend has sucked.
I brighten as I spot my buddy Etienne enter. Ally accuses me of being a dog? He makes me look like a guitar-strumming sensitive. The brother is French. Enough said.
Of course his attention is stalker fixated on trying to run into Clarissa, most popular girl at his school. Etienne has the kind of rugged good looks and a Frenchie French accent that can totally pull chicks. The problem is what comes out of his mouth.
“What’cha up to today?” I ask.
“First I’ll beat you five times at foosball, then I’ll go home and plow this piece of ass till she can’t see straight. Merveilleux.”
See?
“There’s three minutes she’ll never get back,” I retort.
“It’ll be five at least. I’ll pull her like a hamstring. She’ll beg for more.”
“Is that what you teach them after ‘fetch and play dead’?”
“Enculé.” Which is “fucker” in French, and Etienne’s favorite word for me.
“Trou duc.” Asshole. Thanks to Google Translate, I could have chosen Icelandic, Urdu, or Yiddish for the insult but choose to honor the prick in his native French.
Etienne laughs. “Nice. Where’d you learn that?”
“Your sister. Three months ago? It was the last thing I heard.”
Etienne nods gravely. “Oui. She swears like a sailor. Ssh. Clarissa. A feast in fuck-me pumps. I must have her.”
I glance over at the recently arrived Clarissa, who’s waving to a friend. Despite Etienne making her sound like a truck stop ho, she’s actually this smiling, pretty Jamaican girl.
“Two words, buddy. Restraining. Order.”
Etienne claps me on the shoulder. “Come. We will go on a coffee run as a distraction for my erection.”
“An extra small then.” You can never diss the size of your friend’s dick enough.
Chapter four
I head to the lab to see the parrots since it beats staying home and waiting until I can see Jeremy again.
I’d managed to wrangle a volunteer position at one of the lo
cal universities in the biology research lab. I love all animals but especially birds, so they assigned me to help out this PhD student care for the parrots in her dissertation. It’s fun and will look good on my university applications.
Miyuki, my “boss”, throws me a smile as I come in. “Hey birthday girl, didn’t think I’d see you today.”
She tosses me a stopwatch. “Help a girl out. Start it when I nod.” Easy enough.
Miyuki takes Buffy, a White-Fronted parrot out of a large cage running along one side of the lab. The cage contains mirrors mounted on horizontal bars and toys strewn inside.
Miyuki gently presses the back of her finger against the parrot’s lower abdomen and nods at me. I start timing as Buffy takes flight.
Buffy lands on a large metal table, beside another parrot, Spike, who preens. She spends a moment checking Spike out, then tosses her head dismissively, heading for a small covered cage next to him. Take that.
Protruding from the cage’s door is a two-foot-long glass tube, large enough for her to walk through but obstructed by a colorful wooden block.
“Ally?”
“Twenty-seven seconds,” I reply as Miyuki makes a note.
Buffy pecks at the block in front of the tube to move it. Her actions get more frenetic until with a satisfied chirp, she’s moved it enough to toddle in.
Miyuki pulls the cover off the small cage to reveal Buffy touching beaks and tongues with her male mate Angel, much like French kissing.
It’s so sweet.
I click off the stopwatch. “Fifty six seconds.”
Miyuki nods. “Okay. So by day twenty-two of the pair bonding, the response time of subject to seek out mate is sixteen percent faster, despite new opportunities for coupling.”
I watch as the parrots stop kissing and Angel throws up on Buffy.
Miyuki shakes her head. “Nature certainly has an interesting sense of humor when it comes to mating rituals.”
I smile indulgently at the parrots, drop a treat on my palm, and reach inside the cage to let Buffy hop onto my hand, a heavy, feathery bundle.
I pull her out. “It’s sweet. A sign of affection between Buffy and Angel.” I carefully wipe her head.
Sam Cruz's Infallible Guide to Getting Girls Page 2
