“Wait! Question!” said Chrissy.
“What?”
“Why is the phone in the bag? Won’t it look like you knew you were going to lose it?”
Lauren thought about that, but then shook her head. “No, I can say I keep it in the plastic baggie to keep it from getting wet!”
“Genius,” said Chrissy. “One more question. What should I do while you are having the flirtatious conversation with Charlie? Maybe I should bust out my phone and pretend to be talking to someone?”
Lauren started to nod, and then violently shook her head. “No, you can’t do that. Because I’ll have just told him that you left your phone back at the house. No, no, that would be disastrous.”
“Yeah, true. So maybe I’ll just go for a walk or something.”
“Sure, sounds good. So . . . phase two is ready to commence. Time for me to start searching for my missing phone,” she said.
Chrissy nodded and gave her a subtle thumbs-up.
Lauren sat up and casually reached into her bag. Were the boys looking over this way? She didn’t dare look up to find out. She rummaged casually, then grew increasingly concerned. She began taking stuff out of the bag. Chrissy joined in to help. Soon they were both on hands and knees, crawling around on the blanket, shaking out their T-shirts and looking inside all the pouches of their tote bags. A few more minutes of this and then . . .
“Looking for something?”
Lauren jumped. It was Charlie! And Frank. The boys were standing right next to their blanket!
This was not going according to the Plan. She was supposed to approach them! She was so flustered, she forgot if she had even come up with a contingency plan on her flowchart allowing for the possibility of Charlie just showing up like this. She started to panic.
She felt Chrissy nudge her in the ribs. She recovered. “Oh! Hi, you guys. Um, yeah. I seem to have misplaced my cell phone. I can’t find it anywhere.”
“Wow. That stinks,” said Frank. “You want me to call it and see if we can hear it ring?”
“Um, no! I mean, yes . . . but . . . ” Lauren stammered. Now she was completely flustered. It was supposed to be Charlie, not Frank, who called her phone! Oh, why was the Plan so hard! Why was Frank always showing up at the wrong time, butting in when his help was not wanted? She gathered herself, made herself think clearly. “I, uh, hate to make you go to the trouble. Maybe you have your phone on you?” she asked Charlie in the most casual voice she could muster.
But Charlie didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the drama unfolding before him. He was staring out at the water. “The waves are picking up, dude,” he said. “We should go back to bodysurfing.”
“He doesn’t even have a phone because he keeps breaking them,” said Frank with a good-natured roll of his eyes. “But I have mine right here. What’s your number?”
Miserably, Lauren recited her phone number for Frank. Loudly enough for Charlie to hear it, just in case he was secretly paying attention . . . and got a new phone, and had it long enough to call her before breaking it.
Frank punched in her number. The four of them stopped to listen for a ring. Then Lauren remembered. She’d forgotten to turn on the ringer. The phone was set to vibrate. There was no way they’d hear it.
“Uh, Laur?” asked Chrissy. “Do you have it set on silent, by chance?
Lauren nodded slowly. “Yes. I guess I do.”
“Maybe it got buried in the sand,” said Frank. “Charlie, come help us look.”
The four of them got down on hands and knees and began feeling around in the sand. Of course, Lauren knew where she’d buried it. But she made sure to kneel down next to Charlie, at the other side of the blanket from where she knew her phone was buried. At one point, their hands touched underneath the sand. A thrill zipped through her. They’d touched! They’d practically held hands!
“Got it!” yelled Frank, triumphantly holding up the plastic bag containing Lauren’s phone. “Boy, it was really buried,” he said. “Good thing you had it in this bag or it could be totally trashed.”
“Thanks,” said Lauren numbly, taking the phone from him.
“Let’s go, dude!” said Charlie. “The waves are awesome right now!”
“Be right there,” said Frank. “I need to put my cell phone back with my stuff.”
After the boys had left, Charlie toward the water where their other friends were already surfing, and Frank toward the boys’ stuff, Lauren groaned and turned to Chrissy. “That was an epic fail,” she said.
“Yeah, it kind of was,” agreed Chrissy. “Too bad. I guess neither of us thought to make sure the ringer was activated. Still, it was kind of sweet the way Frank was so willing to help out, don’t you think?”
Lauren just nodded, but she wondered if there was more to Chrissy’s comment. Did it mean that Chrissy had finally seen the light? Was she thinking about switching her crush? Lauren knew she couldn’t ask Chrissy right then and there—given the fact that they had just made up and all that—but she promised herself she’d try and find out more later.
Just then, the phone in Lauren’s hand vibrated. Who could that be? She stared down at the caller’s number. It was unfamiliar.
“Hello?” she said.
“Hey, Lauren. It’s Frank.”
She whirled around to look. Sure enough, he was standing near the boys’ blankets, on his phone. He looked at her, grinned sheepishly, and waggled his fingers in a small wave.
“Um, hi.” She waggled her fingers back at him.
“I was wondering if you want to go have ice cream later,” he said.
Lauren tried not to groan into the phone. Was he asking her out? That couldn’t be. He must mean with the group. With Chrissy. And Charlie. “Well, um, maybe,” she faltered. “Can Chrissy come too?”
“Er, yeah, sure,” said Frank.
“So, like, everyone will be there?”
“Yeah, sure,” he said again. “Meet at Rudy’s? Maybe like at seven?”
“Okay.”
“Well, bye.”
“Bye.”
She hung up. She watched him jog down to the water to join his friends in the waves.
Operation Cell Phone: fail. The Love Plan was doomed.
chapter 12
“DOES THIS MAKE ME LOOK STUPID?” ASKED LAUREN. She stood before the full-length mirror in front of her closet door, her back to Chrissy, one hand on her hip, the other flicking at the skirt she had on.
In the mirror, Lauren watched Chrissy put down her book, roll over from her back to her stomach, and lie diagonally across the bed. She put her chin in her hands and regarded Lauren, one eyebrow raised.
“No. It does not make you look stupid. You look cute. You looked cute in the last four outfits you tried on too.”
Lauren rolled her eyes and turned back to look at herself in the mirror. “I’ve decided my new personal style philosophy is girly-casual,” she said. “Which means I can go supercasual sometimes, but I can also dress things up and be really girly when the situation calls for it. A lot of guys really like girly girls. I think this outfit strikes the right balance, don’t you?”
“Lauren, you should wear whatever you feel good in,” Chrissy replied.
“So what are you going to wear?” asked Lauren.
Chrissy sat up and stared down at her T-shirt and shorts. “Uh, I thought I’d wear this?” she said.
“But we’re going out to Rudy’s for ice cream. Frank is going to be there. I think he’s a pretty nice dresser, from what I’ve seen, except for that dorky bathing suit of his.”
“I don’t care if he’s a nice dresser. Because I don’t like Frank. I thought I made it clear, I like Justin.”
Lauren shrugged, and uncapped her lip gloss. “I get it. I just think it’s always smart to keep an open mind.” she said, smiling at Chrissy. Chrissy’s eyes flashed. “Would you please stop lecturing me on guys?” she replied, struggling to keep her voice even. “I like Justin. Not Frank. If you think Frank is s
o great, why don’t you start liking him?”
Lauren stopped slathering lip gloss and turned around to face Chrissy. “Ew. As if. I like Charlie, in case you forgot.”
“Well, maybe you should rethink that,” said Chrissy. “Because Frank is much more interesting than Charlie. Have you really not noticed that Charlie is kind of obnoxious? And not really very interesting? If you think Frank is so fabulous, you should go out with him!”
Lauren shoved her lip gloss back together and then slammed it down on her dresser. “Okay, maybe we should stop talking about this. I like Charlie. You like Justin. I’ll stop trying to make you like Frank, and you will stop saying bad things about Charlie. Deal?”
Chrissy sighed. Hadn’t they essentially made this same deal at the beach?
“Deal,” she said finally.
They walked in silence toward Rudy’s. Lauren glanced at Chrissy’s casual denim shorts, cute black T-shirt, and neon pink flip-flops, and wished she’d gone that route. She felt stupid and overdressed in her skirt and cropped top and wedge sandals. Like she’d made way too much of an effort.
Her mind was a whirl. What if Chrissy was supermad at her? What if Chrissy decided to go back to school and tell all their friends about how Lauren had lied about Charlie, that Lauren was not going out with Charlie, nor had they ever been going out? The humiliation would be unbearable. Lauren wondered if she could transfer schools. Didn’t kids do that all the time?
The closer they got to Rudy’s, the more upset Lauren felt. This beach vacation had not turned out at all the way she’d imagined.
And deep down, way deep inside her, a tiny voice whispered: Charlie is kind of a jerk. And Frank is really sweet. She tried ignoring the voice . . . but it kept going. Maybe Chrissy is right about Charlie. Remember how he was kind of a bad sport in volleyball? Remember how uninterested he seemed in talking about anything? Maybe he’s uninteresting.
He isn’t! She almost said it out loud. The two girls were nearly at Rudy’s. Then something Chrissy had said echoed in her mind. Frank is much more interesting than Charlie.
Frank?
He was, actually. He was totally more interesting than Charlie. And funnier. And nicer. He was the one who offered to look for the phone and who came over to see if she was okay when Chrissy stormed off.
And in a way, Frank was just as cute as Charlie. Not the tall, athletic physique, broad shoulders, perfect hair kind of cute. But the interesting, funny, quirky good looks, I-don’t-care-what-people-think confident kind of cute. Plus, he had those adorable freckles.
Wait a minute. Why was she thinking about Frank? Now she was totally and utterly confused. Did she have a crush on Frank? Or was she still in love with Charlie? She started to panic just as they were walking into Rudy’s.
Charlie wasn’t there. But Frank was, and so were the two Matts and Owen and Cody and Grant and also three little kids—two girls and a boy. They looked like they might be between four and seven years old. What were they doing there?
“Hey!” yelled Frank, waving wildly at the girls from the large table where they were all sitting. “Over here!”
The girls weaved their way through tables of people eating ice cream, toward their table.
“This is my sister and brother, Isabel and Josh, and that’s our cousin, Natalie,” said Frank.
“I didn’t know you had little brothers and sisters. They’re cute,” said Chrissy, ruffling Isabel’s dark, curly hair.
“We’re not cute!” protested Josh.
“And not little!” added Isabel. Then she smiled up at Lauren. “You’re pretty. I like your ballerina skirt.”
Lauren felt herself blush.
“Charlie isn’t coming,” said Frank, looking everywhere but at Lauren. “He had to go somewhere with his family for dinner.”
“That’s fine!” said Lauren, way too quickly and eagerly.
“My dad gave me money for all of us to get ice cream,” said Frank, “since I’m taking my little brother and sister along. What can I get for you?”
“Strawberry frappé with whipped?” said Lauren.
“Double-scoop chocolate chunk and coconut?” said Chrissy.
“Coming right up,” said Frank. “If you don’t mind watching the little guys.”
“We’re not little!” shouted Isabel.
“He didn’t mean you, silly,” said Lauren, scooching herself in to sit at their end of the table. She jerked a thumb in the direction of Frank’s friends. “He meant them.”
She saw Frank grin before he turned and headed up toward the ice-cream counter.
“I’ll go help him carry everything,” said Chrissy, and she followed Frank to the counter.
Lauren’s brow furrowed. Great. What if Chrissy suddenly decides to take my advice, and starts crushing on Frank, she worried. She put that thought out of her mind and decided to focus on the kids. She was pretty good with kids and they were generally a lot easier to talk to. “Who wants me to draw a picture of them?” she said to them.
“Me!”
“Me!”
“Me!”
Lauren picked up the cup of crayons from the table and turned over her paper place mat. “Hold still,” she said to Isabel, and began drawing.
Frank and Chrissy returned with their ice cream as she was halfway through drawing Josh.
“You’re an awesome artist,” said Frank admiringly. He and Chrissy stared down at the drawing of Isabel that Lauren had already finished.
Chrissy didn’t say anything. She took a seat down at the other end of the table and pulled out her cell phone to check her messages for what seemed to Lauren like the hundredth time that day. Lauren watched as Chrissy stared at her phone and appeared to read and then reread a text. Then she quickly closed it up again and shoved the phone into her purse. Lauren tried to make eye contact with her, but Chrissy looked down at the floor.
“Everything okay?” asked Lauren, taking a delicious sip of strawberry frappé.
Chrissy nodded quickly. She’s definitely still upset with me, Lauren thought, a knot forming in her stomach. Luckily, the little kids had plenty of energy to keep the conversation going, and no one seemed to notice the tension between the two girls.
A little while later, they’d finished their ice cream. The girls said good-bye to the group, thanked Frank for treating them, and headed home. “Looks like things worked out, right?” Frank whispered to Lauren, nodding at Chrissy.
“Oh, yeah, everything’s fine,” Lauren whispered back. As if.
“See?” said Frank. “Sometimes things just work out.”
Lauren and Chrissy barely said a word as they walked home. Lauren tried striking up a conversation a few times, but Chrissy seemed to be a million miles away. They joined Lauren’s parents in the sitting room and watched the end of a long, complicated spy movie of some sort. Then they climbed the stairs, got into bed, and turned out the light.
chapter 13
ON WEDNESDAY, THE GIRLS WENT TO THE BEACH and tried to act as though everything was normal. But there was definitely tension in the air between them. Lauren grew more and more worried. At dinner, they both made an effort at polite conversation, but Lauren was sure her parents noticed something was wrong. Luckily, they didn’t say anything. The four of them watched an old movie together, and then the girls went upstairs and went right to bed. Lauren fell asleep with a lump in her throat.
Thursday morning Lauren was awakened by a cardinal. It sat on the tree branch outside her window singing prettyprettyprettyprettypretty! over and over. Sun streamed in through the parted curtains. She closed her eyes again and stretched like a cat, savoring the anticipation of another beach day waiting to happen. And tonight was the barbecue! It was hard to believe they would have to pack up and go home in two more days.
And then she remembered the fight, and that Chrissy was still mad at her. She realized right then that she had to fix things so they could enjoy the last couple of days of their beach vacation. Chrissy was too important to her
—Lauren couldn’t let her stay mad. They had to talk things out. She turned to look over at her friend, ready to apologize for everything.
Lauren realized that Chrissy wasn’t in her bed and was instantly wide awake.
Two minutes later Lauren charged downstairs and into the kitchen, where her parents were sitting at the table reading the newspaper and drinking their coffee. Lauren was shocked at how calmly they sat there. Why hadn’t they called the police? Organized search parties? What if Chrissy was hitchhiking her way back to New York and had been picked up by some crazy person?
“Where’s Chrissy?” she asked, panic rising in her throat.
Her mother lowered her coffee cup and gaped at Lauren, still midswallow. Her father, who had just taken a large bite of toast, appeared not to have heard the tone of panic in Lauren’s voice. He moved his lower jaw around like a camel at an oasis, chewing his toast. A maddening three seconds ticked by before her mother finished swallowing her coffee and spoke.
“Oh, she was up early! She left a note that she was going out for a run.”
“And you let her go?”
Her parents both lowered their newspapers and stared at her.
“Honey,” said her dad, “it’s not like East Harbor is a high-crime area. You can look at her note. She said she’d run along Crane’s beach. There are tons of dog walkers out this early in the morning and virtually no traffic.”
“Is everything okay between you girls?” her mom asked gently. “I sensed trouble in paradise.”
“Everything’s fine,” said Lauren. She couldn’t look at her mom. She knew her mom didn’t believe her. She sighed. “Well, not perfectly fine. We just had a teeny tiny disagreement.”
Lauren lowered herself into a chair. Maybe her dad was right. Maybe Chrissy was just going for a jog. They’d been jogging every few days together. But maybe not. Maybe she’d decided she couldn’t spend one more minute with Lauren after the way Lauren had acted, and decided to try to make her way back to New York. Would Chrissy do something like that?
Lauren's Beach Crush Page 8
