Artificial Sweethearts (North Pole, Minnesota)

by Julie Hammerle

  Sam stood up. “Dinesh, we’ll take the ring.”

  Dinesh made them wait until the current batter had struck out before he reached into the cabinet, grabbed the ring, and chucked it unceremoniously across the counter.

  Sam slid the ring onto Tinka’s finger. “Now we’re officially official.”

  She clutched her hand to her heart. “I’ll never take it off.”

  “You might want to. It’ll probably turn your hand green.”

  Laughing about embarrassing things that had happened to them as kids, the two of them walked back to the video store to relieve Maurice and wait for Jane and Karen. Sam was lighter around Tinka. He probably should’ve been more self-conscious around her because she was so pretty, but he wasn’t. He was as comfortable with her as he was with Harper. So comfortable, in fact, that when they got back to the video store and Maurice had retreated into his office, Sam handed Tinka a rag and asked her to wipe down the popcorn machine.

  “I will make it gleam, boss,” she said.

  Sam plopped onto the floor to fill the fridge with more pop, while Tinka wiped down the machine. He was in the middle of telling her about the time he got locked in a bathroom stall in fourth grade when she screeched, “Ouch!” behind him.

  He jumped up, spinning around. Tinka was clutching her hand—the same hand she’d hurt when she’d tried to remodel the kitchen by herself. “What happened?”

  “Burn.” Wincing in pain, she nodded toward the popcorn machine.

  Sam checked the appliance. “Damn it. We shouldn’t have left Maurice alone here. He forgot to turn it off. This place would go up in flames without me.” He opened the drawer next to the cash register and pulled out a tube of Alocane. “This works great. Give me your hand.”

  Tinka held out her hand. Sam rested it in his palm and assessed the situation, holding her hand up to the light. “Not too bad.” He squeezed a bit of the gel onto the burn and lightly spread it around with his finger. Tinka’s breath caught when he touched her. “Does that hurt?”

  “No,” she whispered.

  Sam’s heart beating a tattoo against his rib cage, he backed up, still holding her hand.

  Tinka’s eyes met his. “Thank you.” The air around them had changed, at least to Sam. Electricity bounced between them, and, even though he knew it was impossible, he sensed Tinka could feel it, too. Sam wasn’t Prince Eric, not even close; but Tinka, in that moment, was gazing at him like he was.

  And Sam, who had never, ever been in this situation before, and therefore had no idea how to handle it, or if he should even let himself believe it, turned away, letting go of her hand. “You need to stop hurting yourself,” he joked. “You’re turning into a rom-com cliché.” He screwed the top on the tube of Alocane and handed it to her, letting his fingers graze hers again, but for only a second. “Take this. You’ll need it.”

  Chapter Seven

  Glancing around the living room to make sure she was alone, Tinka slunk over to the coffee table, opened Karen’s crossword puzzle book, and grabbed the pencil she’d been using as a bookmark. Then Tinka crawled over to the wall near the fireplace, behind the drop cloth-covered wingback chair.

  In the corner, she drew a dinosaur about the size of her fist. It was a T-Rex, like the sketch that had been on the wall in the Fosters’ Minneapolis house.

  Tinka leaned back and assessed her handiwork. “Hi, Dorothy,” she whispered.

  In the old house, Dorothy had been Tinka’s touchstone, her confidante. She’d found the picture when she was about three years old, when she’d been hiding from her mom and dad after being scolded about…something. She’d lain under this wingback chair and noticed a dinosaur drawing.

  It hadn’t occurred to her then that it had been a Jake original. That thought came to her much later, that Dorothy was her own conduit to her brother, like Tinka was for her dad. But on that day when she was three, Dorothy was there to hear Tinka’s side of the story. Lying under the chair, talking to a dinosaur drawing was Tinka’s version of therapy. She told Dorothy all her secrets—problems with friends, crushes, her fears about going to Florian’s. And Dorothy was always there to listen.

  Today after finishing the picture, Tinka stared into Dorothy’s pencil-drawn eyes and opened her mouth to speak, but she stopped there. What did she want to say? How could she put into words what had been going through her head for the past day and a half?

  “I almost kissed Sam,” she whispered finally, right at the place where Dorothy’s ears would be, if Tinka had bothered to draw them. Then she rested her forehead on the cool plaster wall. That night at the video store there had been a moment. She couldn’t deny it.

  Tinka reached into her shirt and clutched the ring they’d won at the arcade. It was hot from being next to her skin. She’d been wearing it on a string around her neck for the past two days…for what? As a joke? Was it part of the “we’re dating” charade? Sam wasn’t here now to see it. No one was here to see it.

  She’d been having a ton of fun with Sam. He was a great friend and a terrific listener. She was more comfortable around him than anyone else. But these feelings were probably just her brain’s way of processing her frustrations about golf lessons with Dylan and not being able to tell her dad she wanted to quit the team. Hooking up with guys was how she’d dealt with—or, rather, not dealt with—her feelings at school. It was a pattern she had to break. Besides, Sam was a good friend. She wouldn’t confuse their situation by escalating it, physically.

  A sob from the basement cut through her wallowing. Tinka pulled herself from the floor and dashed downstairs, where she found Jane and Karen on the couch. Karen had her arm around Jane, who was bawling.

  “What happened?” A million terrible thoughts flew through her head—Jane’s parents were hurt, her grandma was sick, she’d found out that Tinka and Colin had hooked up.

  “Colin.” Jane sobbed.

  The blood drained from Tinka’s face.

  Karen patted Jane’s shoulder. “She texted him. I told her not to.”

  “Jane, what?” Tinka sat in front of the girls on the coffee table. “You texted Colin?”

  “He”—sob—“told me”—sob—“to stop it.”

  Tinka’s eyes met Karen’s. Karen had only recently met Jane, but she was the one with her arm around her. Tinka’d had no idea Jane was even considering texting her ex. She’d figured Jane was over him. She should’ve asked, but that would’ve meant saying his name, acknowledging Colin’s existence.

  Jane let out a giant hiccup.

  “He broke up with you.” And then he hooked up with your roommate on the last day of school, Tinka admitted silently.

  “I know, but I miss him.”

  “She needs to get Colin out of her system,” Karen said matter-of-factly. “I told her to call the guy from the coffee shop.”

  “That’s not a bad idea. You two can go out with me and Sam.” Tinka blushed at his name, which annoyed her to no end. Stop it, Tinka. Those feelings are fake. They’re a distraction. You’re confusing comfort for attraction. “Maybe they have a friend for Karen.”

  Karen narrowed her eyes. “Not interested, thanks. I don’t need your boyfriend to scrounge up a pity date for me.”

  “I’m only trying to help.” She was never going to say the right thing to Karen. Never, ever.

  Jane glanced at her phone for a moment, then tossed it to the table next to Tinka. “I don’t think that’ll work. I don’t want to, like, date somebody. I’m here for a few weeks. What am I going to do? Go out with this guy, fall for him, and then get all broken-hearted again when I have to leave? How would that help my situation?” She wiped her eyes and shook her head. When she spoke again, her voice was stronger. “I need to pull a Tinka.”

  “‘Pull a Tinka?’ What’s that?” Karen asked. “Run away to another state and stop answering people’s texts?”

  She deserved that. “Jane, I really think you should call Brian. Sam says he’s a decent guy, and a good friend of h
is.” There she was, shamelessly working Sam’s name into the conversation again.

  Jane shook her head. “I want you to teach me your ways. How do I get drunk and make out with people?”

  Yikes. A year ago, Tinka would’ve been the last person anyone would’ve been asking for hook-up advice. “Well, one pretty much leads to the other.” Tinka stopped herself. “But it’s not… You don’t want that.”

  “Since when has Tinka been getting drunk and making out with people?” Karen asked. “And also, who are you to tell Jane what she does or doesn’t want?”

  “Tinka was the queen of drunken hook-ups at school,” Jane said. “I’d be off with Colin—being all serious and fighting about him not being around or whatever—and she was having a fun time messing around—guys from class, the golf team, the baseball team. No strings. No heartbreak. No guilt.”

  Oh, there was guilt.

  “I want that.” Jane’s eyes were big and watery, pleading with Tinka to give her this one thing.

  She glanced at Karen, whose mouth had dropped open to the base of her neck. Back in Minneapolis, Tinka hadn’t been the girl who hooked up. She’d been the girl who was too busy golfing and being dragged here and there by her mom to hook up with anyone. She’d only kissed one guy before leaving for Florian’s. And now, well, she’d done way more than that. Yet another thing she’d kept from Karen. One more barrier between them. And now Karen knew.

  “We could throw a party, I guess,” Tinka said. Maybe it wasn’t the worst idea. She wouldn’t have to participate in the shenanigans. Tinka could be there as chaperone, or as the sage old woman who’d been through it all before. She could look out for her friends, put their desires first for once, Karen. “My mom and dad are going back to Minneapolis Friday night to pick up some stuff. It’d be the perfect time.”

  “So that takes care of the venue,” Jane said. “But what about the alcohol?”

  “I bet your buddy Dylan has a fake I.D. or something,” Karen said.

  “I bet he does.” Tinka glanced toward the sliding glass door leading to the patio. “Or maybe Sam knows someone.” She’d rather talk to him about this than Dylan. She’d rather Dylan not know about it at all. Dylan plus drinks equaled disaster, for sure.

  Jane clapped her hands. “Maybe he does. Ooh, go ask him. And tell him to bring a bunch of friends for me and Karen.”

  “Now?” Tinka touched her hair, which was up in a messy bun. Butterflies invaded her body, but she shook them away. She was being ridiculous. She didn’t like Sam. She couldn’t like Sam.

  To be on the safe side, she said, “Why don’t you guys go?” She nodded toward the stairs. “I’m gonna stick around here and paint the master bath.”

  But as she passed through the living room, Tinka snuck a glance at Dorothy, who was watching her with what Tinka read as a knowing, accusatory expression.

  “Shut up,” she told the dinosaur before grabbing a dry paintbrush and marching into her parents’ bathroom.

  …

  “Are you guys okay?” Jane asked Sam. She and Karen were hanging out in his kitchen decorating the picture frames that would be the favors at Matthew and Hakeem’s wedding.

  “Me and Tinka?” Sam held his handiwork up to the light, making sure he’d applied the exact right amount of glitter, whatever that was. Harper should’ve been the one doing this, not Sam. He wasn’t a glue and glitter kind of guy. “We’re fine.”

  “We haven’t seen you together much, is all.” Jane pointed to Sam’s face, and he wiped away some errant glitter.

  Sam glanced out the back door, craning his neck for a glimpse of Tinka’s house. She was over there working on stuff with her mom and dad, and the truth was, they hadn’t been together much over the past few days, not since Saturday night at the arcade. She’d come over on Monday to bake some butterscotch blondies, but that was about it. Sam had offered to help, but she sent him down to the basement to watch a movie with the other girls. “She’s been busy.”

  Or else the moment that had passed between them at the video store had thrown her off balance. It had certainly done that to him. He shouldn’t be feeling this way about Tinka, or anybody, for that matter.

  Maybe Tinka had the right of it: if there truly was something happening between them—which Sam was fairly certain there wasn’t, at least not on her end—they should stay far away from each other.

  “This is just like Tinka.” Karen made dots of glue around her frame.

  Jane glanced up from what she was doing. “What do you mean?”

  Karen looked Sam right in the eye. “Tinka’s not good when stuff gets serious. If you keep things light and happy, she’s great. Once it starts getting real, she bails.” From her seat at the table, Karen mimed a person running away.

  That almost-kiss had felt pretty real. “I think she’s just busy with her parents.”

  Karen shrugged. “Like she was ‘just busy’ with golf at Florian’s. It’s how she operates.”

  Sam placed his finished frame on a sheet of newspaper to dry. Karen could be right, but it didn’t matter. He and Tinka had an agreement. They were in a mutually beneficial fauxmance. If she wanted to bail, now or a few weeks from now, he couldn’t do anything about it. This was always going to end eventually.

  “Your thing kind of has an end date anyway, right?” Karen asked, echoing Sam’s thoughts. “Not that I’m rooting for you two to break up—I’m mad at Tinka, but I’m not that mean. You’re going to be across the country from each other come August.”

  Sam focused on another frame.

  “I remember how Tinka treated me when she moved to South Carolina. She stopped answering my calls and texts. She completely froze me out. I don’t want to see that happen to you.”

  “That won’t happen,” Jane said. “Tinka feels totally bad about how she treated you, Karen.” She squeezed Sam’s hand. “And she and Sam are so adorable together.”

  They were fake adorable. Sam was experiencing his first ever romantic relationship, and it just so happened to be bullshit.

  “Let’s talk about the party,” Jane said. “Brian says he’s all set with the beverages, so thanks for setting that up, Sam.”

  Since Sam’s dad was also going to be in Minneapolis this weekend and because Tinka’s house was such a disaster, Sam had offered to host. He was throwing a party with alcohol, blatantly breaking his father’s cardinal rule. Sam was really leaning into the cliché of the dorky boy who’d abandon all of his principles just to impress the hot girl next door.

  “Do you think it’d be okay if people crashed here, if necessary?” Jane asked. “I don’t want anyone driving home who doesn’t want to.”

  “Or can’t,” Sam said. “It’s fine if they sleep over.” No one who’d had a milliliter of alcohol would be getting behind the wheel, not on Sam’s watch.

  “It’s going to be so fun!” In her excitement, Jane dumped almost a full can of glitter on her frame. She frantically wiped up the mess.

  “I’m not big on parties,” Karen said, “but even I’m mildly excited. If Tinka figured out how to let her hair down, so can I, I suppose.”

  “You totally can,” Jane said. “Me, too. I kind of want to go old school and play Spin-the-Bottle or something. Maybe Seven Minutes in Heaven. Stuff I haven’t done in years. Can we use your cabana, Sam?” Her big eyes blinked at him.

  Seven Minutes in Heaven. Spin-the-Bottle. When he was younger and that kind of stuff was going on, he’d usually been in another room playing video games or watching movies. The one time he did play, he ended up in a closet with his sister’s best friend for seven minutes. They’d stood near the door, banging on the wall, making silly, lusty animal noises. He’d never played for real. He’d play for real if Tinka wanted to.

  “Sam?” Karen snapped her fingers in front of his face.

  He shook his head. He had to stop thinking that way. Nothing was ever going to happen with Tinka, which was a good thing. It was the way this was supposed to go. “Yeah?”
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  “Can we use the cabana?”

  “Oh…yeah. Whatever you need.” He needed to end these little fantasies. They weren’t helping anything, and they were only making him more confused.

  “Are you excited about the party?” Jane was grinning like her life was finally getting good.

  “Oh,” Sam said. “I don’t know.”

  “It’s going to be so fun.”

  Sam glanced out the door again. Tinka was out on the deck now, checking her phone, frowning at something on the screen. Fun wasn’t the word that came to mind. Anxiety-inducing? Sure. There were so many ways this could play out badly. He and Tinka could have another awkward moment like last Saturday night. Or he could have to endure watching her have a Saturday night moment with someone else.

  “Yeah.” Sam turned back to Jane. “Tons of fun.”

  Chapter Eight

  Because Jane had missed the dark party on the last night of school, she decided that their North Pole party on Sam’s beach should also be dark. But the walk to Sam’s party on Friday night was decidedly different than the walk to the Florian’s Academy dark party. There were no bras or beer bottles littering the way, just flowers and grass and lawn chairs and the occasional tree. The only light came from the moon and stars. Tinka had shut off every bit of light in her parents’ house, and Sam had done the same in his. Their entire corner of the resort was sheathed in blackness.

  She’d left her phone back at the house, too, both because that was part of dark party tradition and because she’d started getting texts from Colin.

  The first one came on Wednesday. “Tell Jane to stop texting me.”

  Tinka had ignored it.

  Then: “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  She wrote him back in all caps: “YOU HAVE TO.”

  After that he started writing about how he’d been doing some thinking and maybe when the two of them were back at Florian’s, they could pick up where they’d left off. Tinka deleted every message as it came in. She thought he’d get the point, that she didn’t want to hear from him, but apparently not, because the texts kept coming.