Perfect Couple

by Jennifer Echols

  “The drunks all rode here with Kaye.”

  He certainly seemed dismissive of his girlfriend, placing her in the collective of “drunks.” He hadn’t seemed so dismissive of her when he was holding her hips, or rubbing her shoulders while she sat between his thighs.

  Without asking whether I needed help, he picked up one of my ice chests. “You haven’t emptied this?” He pulled the plug in the bottom to let the water out.

  “No!” When he looked up at me in surprise, I explained, “You’re wasting water. If you’re going to empty it, at least do that where the plants get watered.” I nodded toward a palm grove.

  “Anything that needs watering isn’t native to the area,” he said.

  I laughed before I remembered I was supposed to be mad. “Brody Larson,” I scolded him, “are you trying to out–environmentally conscious me?”

  “No, ma’am.” He turned his head and eyed me slyly. “Well, maybe. Come on, let’s water your aspens or Rocky Mountain firs or whatever.”

  We dumped the water on some obviously nonnative flowers, then carried the coolers back to Granddad’s car. As Brody shut the hatchback, he asked, “So, what about our yearbook picture?”

  “It’s too late now,” I said solemnly. I meant for the picture. I meant for us, too.

  His face fell. “Is it?”

  “Yep,” I said firmly. Then I sighed and looked up at the twilit clouds, which were rapidly fading into the night. “Seriously, it’s too dark. The picture won’t turn out. I still need to take it for my deadline, though.” At the thought of all the photos looming, dread formed a knot in my stomach.

  “That’s okay. We’ll just have to try again,” Brody said happily.

  “Yeah.” After today, I knew I should take this picture with as little fuss as possible before I fell farther for him, or went farther with him. But if he suggested a new meeting place, I wasn’t going to say no. “We could go back to my original idea of taking it in the school courtyard, just to be done with it. It’s going to be hard to get what we want with a lot of other people watching, though.”

  “You’re right about that.” He almost sounded like he meant something else. Something more personal. Something very private.

  He cleared his throat. “I have football practice every night this week, and when it’s over, my mom wants me home. For some reason, she makes me do my homework.”

  “How odd.”

  “I still like your fake-date idea, though,” he said, “and we have to eat. What if we met at the Crab Lab for dinner tomorrow? We could make that look like a date.”

  “We could make that look like a date,” I agreed. And I would look forward to it like a date. I knew this was a bad idea, but today I’d found out how much fun Brody’s bad ideas could be.

  * * *

  The next evening, I stepped out of the house wearing high-heeled sandals, shorts, and a pretty, flowing top. I knew I looked stylish. But I felt dressed down to the point of ridiculous, like Tia occasionally wearing her pajamas to school, with or without a bra, when she woke up late. I told myself I was uncomfortable only because I was used to wearing the 1960s-style high-necked trapeze dresses I’d made. Showing a normal amount of skin made me feel like I was letting it all hang out.

  The last thing I needed was a commentary from Mom. But there was no getting around her. She was replacing the flowers at the base of the sign in the front yard of the B & B.

  “Look at you!” she called. “Without the glasses, I hardly recognize my own daughter. Don’t you look cute!” She wanted me to tell her that she’d been right about my contacts, and I’d been wrong.

  Walking over, all I grumbled was “Thanks.”

  “Meeting Kennedy for a date?” She eyed the camera bag slung over my shoulder.

  “No, I have to take some photos. I’m just grabbing dinner while I’m there.”

  She sat back on her bare heels and pushed her hair out of her eyes with one dirty garden glove. “I don’t like you spending so much time on these photography jobs you’re inventing for yourself.”

  She made my work at the 5K yesterday sound imaginary. It was hopeless to argue with her, though, so I only said, “It’s not a job. This is for school.”

  “But you’re going to all that effort at the yearbook to get into a college art program, right?”

  “Yes,” I said carefully, wondering where she was going with this. The way she phrased it, an art degree was a bad thing.

  “I just think you’re wasting a lot of time on this,” she said, “working your fingers to the bone for nothing. You don’t have to go to college. You can run the B & B with me, right here. Stop making work for yourself, and use your time to help me. I need you.”

  “No, thanks,” I said faintly, even though I got the impression she was telling me, not asking me. “I’ve never wanted to run the B & B. I’ve always wanted to be an artist.”

  “You could still be an artist,” she said. “You can take pictures in your spare time, just like you do now. Why would you need to go to college for that? Your grandfather never went to college, and look at the beautiful paintings he produces.”

  “Granddad was an insurance salesman,” I reminded her. “He didn’t need an art degree because he never tried to make a living as a painter. In fact, I think that’s what drives him to paint so much now. He never took a chance and studied what he wanted for all those years, and now he’s making up for lost time.” I didn’t add, That’s probably why he’s crazy.

  She shook her head. “Painting gives him an excuse to lock himself in his house and never talk to anyone. But you and I have the perfect life over here. Business is getting better. Our finances would be better if you took on more of the work so I didn’t have to hire so much out. And, Harper, the snowbirds would go crazy over a mother and daughter running a B & B. They would flock here.”

  “I have an appointment,” I said. “Let’s talk about this later.” I hurried away as fast as I could in high heels on the soft earth, crossing my fingers this would be one of those weeks my mother was too busy for me.

  I clopped down the brick sidewalk into town and swung open the door to the Crab Lab. Inside was dark. At first all I could see were the white lights strung over and around the old crab traps high on the walls. Over the doorway to the kitchen hung an antique diving suit with a picture of the University of Florida Gator mascot taped behind the mask. After my eyes adjusted to the dim light, they skimmed over the other diners and fell on Brody in a booth for two in the back corner. He was watching me.

  He stood. His hair was damp from his shower after practice, and long enough that it curled at the ends. Instead of his usual all-purpose gym clothes, he wore khaki shorts and a green striped button-down shirt that made his eyes look even greener. When I reached him, he took me gently by the elbow and said, “You look nice,” in my ear. He kissed my temple—which struck me as something adult friends would do when they met in public and were pretending not to have an affair. Something my dad must have done a million times.

  We sat down. “Sorry,” I said. “Am I late?”

  “I’m early,” he said quickly, sounding almost nervous. He lowered his eyes as if he was embarrassed. Brody Larson, nervous and embarrassed around a girl: me! Surely I was reading him wrong, but in my fantasy he was affected by my presence, which was adorable.

  Then I noticed the long splint on the middle finger of his left hand. A metal brace kept his finger straight, forcing him to shoot the bird perpetually.

  “Brody! Did you break your finger?”

  “Oh.” He looked at it like he hadn’t noticed. “Maybe. Probably not. I’m supposed to have it x-rayed tomorrow.”

  I gaped at him. “Does it hurt?”

  He shrugged.

  “Well, excuse my concern,” I said, laughing. “I tend to overreact. I thought I was going to die from a contact lens gone haywire yesterday.”

  “You were really in pain, though,” he said. “It’s hard to think about anything else when you ca
n’t open your eye.”

  “True,” I admitted, instantly feeling fifty percent less stupid. Brody did that for me a lot—made me feel less stupid rather than more. It was a strange sensation after weeks and weeks of Kennedy.

  “Anyway,” Brody said, “the hurt finger isn’t on my throwing hand, so who cares?”

  “Right!” I said with gusto. “How did practice go—besides possibly breaking a bone, but not a bone you care about?”

  He shrugged again, and his mouth twisted sideways in a grimace.

  I was afraid I knew what his expression meant. I asked, “Still being too careful when you play?”

  “Yes,” he said, “but we’re also having the other problem you asked about yesterday. Guys on the team are being dicks about Noah.”

  “Yeah.” I couldn’t imagine having to put up with teasing or worse from a bunch of ultra-macho guys with something to prove.

  “If Noah and I weren’t friends,” Brody said, “I might be the one being a jerk. I feel like a terrible person.”

  It took me a moment to decipher what he meant. “I feel like a terrible person” coming from Kennedy would have been sarcastic, but Brody didn’t play that game. As I worked through his words, I murmured, “You honestly feel bad for something you didn’t do?”

  “No, I said if Noah and I weren’t friends—”

  “But you are friends,” I said. “I mean, this kind of self-flagellation is what I do. But in your case, it makes zero sense. You are friends with Noah, and you’ve had his back. When he and I went out last year, he talked about how supportive you’ve been. That’s the type of person you are.”

  Maybe it was just the dim restaurant lighting, but the shadows under Brody’s eyes looked darker than ever as he said, “You always make me feel better.” He said this seriously, like it was a bad thing.

  “That’s exactly what you do for people,” I said. “You make everybody feel more comfortable.”

  “No, that’s what you do,” he said.

  He was right. I wasn’t sure I did make people feel more comfortable, but I tried. Maybe Brody and I were a lot more alike than I’d thought.

  “You’re an advocate for Noah,” I assured him. “You don’t have to give a speech about it or scold anybody. All you have to do is stand by him, because guys look to you as an example. You’re the center of attention and the anchor of the team. You’re so all-American, you might as well have the US flag tattooed on your forehead.”

  “Really?” he asked so sharply that I automatically responded, “No, of course not.”

  He eyed me. “You’re saying I’m so unpredictable that I’m predictable. A football player who’s everybody’s friend, and who gets in a little trouble, but has a heart of gold.”

  I was shocked. That was exactly what I meant. And I could tell by his tone that he took it as an insult.

  “I was kidding.”

  “It is what it is,” he said. “That’s not how I feel, but that’s how people see me, and I have no argument with it, really.” He spread his hands. The splint on his finger clicked against the tabletop. “Your observations about people are interesting. You don’t have to back off just because I question you. I’m not Kennedy. I don’t have to win the point every time.”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but I didn’t know what to say. I’d resented Kennedy’s power trip yesterday, but I’d thought I was just in a bad mood, crushing on Brody after he brushed me off. I hadn’t realized my interaction with Kennedy was obvious enough for someone else to take note.

  And I was very interested that Brody had noticed.

  “Do you think I’m too quiet?” I asked timidly. “Kennedy tells me I hardly say anything, like I’m giving him the silent treatment.”

  “You speak when you have something to say, unlike Kennedy, who mouths off about movies nonstop until somebody tells him to shut up. Then he sulks and refuses to talk.”

  He had that right. “How do you know?” I asked. “I didn’t think you and Kennedy were friends.”

  “I’ve had PE with him since kindergarten.”

  Sawyer appeared beside our booth with a tray. He wore a Crab Lab T-shirt. A white waiter’s apron was tied around his waist. His blond hair seemed even brighter than usual in the dimly lit restaurant. He set a diet soda in front of me and a glass of iced tea in front of Brody.

  “Thanks,” I said. “We missed you at the beach yesterday.”

  “You could have found me right here.” He moved to the next table.

  Brody squeezed a lemon wedge into his tea. “Did Sawyer take our drink orders?”

  I thought about it. “I guess not. I always get a soda, though.” I tasted it. “Diet.”

  “And I always get tea.” Brody tasted his. “Sweet tea. I guess he’s cut out the taking-your-order step.”

  “Does that make him a good waiter or a very bad waiter?”

  We both laughed. When we couldn’t sustain that anymore, we both looked toward Sawyer as if he would give us something else to say. Especially after I’d shared how self-conscious I was about being quiet, I couldn’t run out of words now! I wanted to talk about Kennedy some more, and then again, I didn’t.

  Suddenly I was aware of how Brody and me sitting together in this dark booth would look to anyone else from school. I reminded myself that we had a perfectly legitimate excuse to be here together.

  I dredged up the courage to say, “I wish I’d applied for yearbook editor.”

  “Really?” Brody asked.

  “Yeah . . .” I examined the paper placemat. “Maybe Kennedy would have gotten the position anyway, but I avoided even trying. It would be torture to have to tell people what to do and deal with them if they didn’t.”

  Brody nodded. He knew plenty about that from being quarterback.

  “But I didn’t apply,” I said. “And now Kennedy is in charge of the yearbook. He’s in charge of me. I thought he had an eye for design, which is what made me like him in the first place. It turns out that he just talks the talk. I cringe every time he sets one of the photos I worked so hard on at some weird angle, or makes it so small that the detail is lost, or so large that the resolution won’t support the image.”

  “I don’t know anything about that stuff,” Brody said, “but even I can tell you’re great at what you do. Everybody is saying you take terrific photos for the Superlatives. You have a reputation for making people look better than they do in real life.”

  I laughed. “It’s called lighting.”

  “You shouldn’t downplay it,” he said. “People will keep these yearbooks. When they show them to their kids in twenty years, they may not recall posing for the photos, but they’ll see your results. You’re framing how they’ll remember themselves forever.”

  You always make me feel better, I thought.

  “I guess you’re majoring in art in college,” he said.

  “That was my plan,” I said. “My mom told me a few minutes ago that I should drop my photography jobs, forget college, and help her run the B & B.”

  “No,” Brody said in the authoritative tone that was becoming familiar.

  “ ‘No’ what?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, “that’s all wrong for you. People who cater to tourists around here are outgoing. You like meeting people, but only from behind a camera lens. You don’t want to interact with strangers constantly. That would be a nightmare for you.”

  I laughed at how right he was. “My mom says it would look quaint, just what Yankees are looking for, a mother-daughter B & B.”

  “Who cares how it looks?”

  “She does,” I said. “And, hey—speaking of how things look—that shot I snapped of you and Will and Noah at the 5K will be on the front page of the local paper tomorrow.”

  “Wow!” he exclaimed.

  “Yeah! I’m sure it’s because you’re a local celebrity.”

  He gave the restaurant a parade wave.

  “But I was so much prouder of that picture than I’ve ever been of som
e sweet beach scene. I’ve studied form and color and setting up the perfect static shot, but what really excites me is catching people in action, the way a photo can tell the story of who they are. Maybe I shouldn’t go into art after all. I could try photojournalism.”

  He opened his hands. “That would be great. Why don’t you do it?”

  I shrugged. “You have to be brave to do that. You can’t stand on the sidelines. You wade into the thick of things. Otherwise you won’t get the picture. Tia says I have an adventurous spirit without any wiles. I have the instinct to get myself into trouble, but not the courage to stay there or the wherewithal to get out.”

  “Tia said that?”

  “Well, not in so many words.”

  He sat back. “That doesn’t sound like something Tia would say to you. It sounds really discouraging.”

  “Oh, you’re right. She just laughs at me for being adventurous, or for wanting to be adventurous. But I’m not daring like her.”

  Sawyer reappeared beside us with an even bigger tray than before. He set my plate in front of me—a green salad with shrimp, avocado, and mango: yum—and served Brody a huge fish sandwich with grilled vegetables. There was no “Does everything look okay?” from Sawyer. He tucked his tray under his arm and headed for the kitchen.

  “Wait a minute,” Brody called after him. “We didn’t even order. What if we’d wanted something different from our usual?”

  Sawyer marched back to our table and gave Brody a baleful look. “Did you want something different?”

  “No,” Brody said.

  “See?” Sawyer started to move away.

  “I did,” I said, raising my hand.

  Sawyer turned back to me. His eyes were crossed. “The only reason you’re saying you want something different, Harper, is that I pointed out you always want the same thing.” He walked toward the kitchen without giving us another chance to complain.