Four Sides of an Attitude: A Cufflinks & Austen Novel

by Myers, Heather C.

  But as I lead Kelly around the house, through the kitchen, and even onto the dance floor, I can’t find George anywhere. I pause, knowing that something feels off. George told me he would be here, so why isn’t he?

  “Maybe we should try the kitchen again?” Kelly suggests in a gentle voice.

  I know that that is probably futile, that George really isn’t here, but I nod my head anyway. If anything, I need to get away from the music and the dancing couples.

  As I predicted, the kitchen is empty for the most part. I feel my shoulders slump forward as I let out a sigh. Kelly gives me a small, apologetic smile but before she can place a hand on my shoulder, someone touches the small of my back.

  I whirl around, hoping that it’s George and that this is one big joke, but it’s not him. It’s Paul. In fact, the fact that Paul is even here causes my discontent to be placed on hold and I give myself a movement to slink deeper into the ironic situation fate has placed me in.

  “Ronnie?” he asks in that light, condescending voice that grates on my nerves. “Would you allow me a dance?”

  Perfect.

  Kelly, of course, finds this highly amusing and actually has to resort to smothering her giggles using the palm of her hand. She knows all about Paul and though she hasn’t met him before now, can probably tell that this man before me, though his features are rather boyish, is Paul. Because Paul is five foot four, which is one inch shorter than I am. Yes, Paul is ridiculously short. I would be amused too, if someone that short asked Kelly to dance. And unless Tom Cruise is now doing birthday parties, that probably isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

  However, as I look at Paul, I know I can’t get out of it. I’m too shocked by his blatant proposition and have no choice but to nod my head because words can’t come out. Maybe one dance with some guy that I really don’t like will help ease the sting of George not being here. Which brings up the fact that Paul’s here in the first place. Does he know Stephen or something?

  “I believe they’re going to do the foxtrot,” Paul continues because I have yet to say anything.

  His ridiculous voice—the fact that he’s changed his cadence and diction—annoys me but I’ve already nodded my head so I can’t back out now. Paul is ridiculous, period. He thinks that he’s the bee’s knees because he graduated from Harvard and works for some rich old lady who owns a prestigious art gallery somewhere in Los Angeles and has a couple more back in England. People like him are people I can’t respect.

  “I don’t know the foxtrot,” I tell him as he places his hand on my back and leads me to the dance floor.

  I manage to squirm out of his grip but it doesn’t matter because we’ve reached the dance floor. His hands would be on me again and I would have to bathe in Neosporin to get his touch off of me.

  “You’ll learn,” he tells me. “It’s really quite easy.”

  Luckily for me, Taylor and Stephen are positioned near me and Paul, and when Taylor catches my eyes, she moves herself and Stephen even closer.

  “I’ve talked to Stephen about George,” she tells me as the music begins. “And he knows what happened.”

  I am so caught up in Taylor’s revelation about George that I can’t prepare myself for Paul touching me. When he does, I jump, completely surprised, but Paul’s clueless so he doesn’t even notice.

  “Why isn’t George here?” I manage to ask before Paul begins to spin me around to the smoothly paced live jazz music.

  “You know, Ronnie, I remember my high school prom,” Paul tells me even though it’s pretty clear I’m not really listening to him. “You told me I couldn’t dance, and that was why you wouldn’t go with me. Apparently you were wrong. Mrs. Solomon has complimented me on my form, my light feet, and the way I move about the floor. She’s the reason why I’m here, you know.”

  “Stephen said that George had to go back home,” Taylor continues when our dancing partners have placed us side by side. “Some family matter.”

  “I’ve never really liked to dance,” continues Paul, “but it’s a good excuse, if one has a specific dance partner, to hold on to a beautiful woman. Mrs. Solomon says that the way a woman dances reveals a lot about her true character.”

  “Though, a little bird,” Taylor says, nodding her head ever so subtly in Stephen’s direction, “tells me that if a certain person wasn’t here tonight, George might have made an appearance.”

  “And that has been my intention all along, Ronnie,” Paul says. “To hold you.”

  I don’t even hear him; I’m fuming. “And he thinks he’s some kind of gentleman,” I all but spit in reply to Taylor’s news. Of course this is all Aiden’s fault. Of course George wants to come but because Aiden apparently has connections and because Stephen feels a loyalty to him, George couldn’t make it. Could the douche get any more frustrating?

  “In fact,” Paul says. “I want…. I know it’s been a while since the two of us have seen each other, but you look surprisingly beautiful and my feelings haven’t changed. I hope that maybe the two of us could stay close for this party.”

  I stop abruptly in the middle of the dance floor, my eyes narrowed in on Paul’s. “Paul, how did you even get invited to this party?” I know the question is blunt and maybe even rude, but after hearing about George and managing to catch the last little bit of information Paul was going on about, I’m more than a little upset.

  “Mrs. Solomon is the aunt of Hannah Shawe,” Paul says as though it is something I should have known.

  I shake my head and leave Paul standing there by himself. I need to clear my head. Kelly manages to intercept me after I’ve left the dance floor and I’m lucky that she knows me well enough to know that I don’t want to talk. It’s only when she leads me outside where the night is cool and we’re alone do I finally unleash the tension that’s been building up.

  “You know,” Kelly says, once I’ve finished, tilting her head slightly to the side. “Paul isn’t terribly bad-looking….”

  “What?” I ask sharply. “How can you even say that, Kell? You saw the way he danced with me. How short he is.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “When it comes to men, my happiness doesn’t require them to be tall,” she says.

  I shake my head, still dumbfounded over the situation. Paul, attractive? No way. “Maybe this night air isn’t doing what it needed to do,” I say. “Let’s go back inside and hope that your head clears up.”

  We both turn, but I’m stopped. Aiden Shawe is standing in front of the door, and unlike Paul, he’s blocking nearly its entirety due to his height. He’s looking at me with that familiar pensive stare.

  “May I have the next dance, Marion?” he suddenly asks me in that bell-like voice.

  “Yes,” I reply without thinking.

  He looks as surprised as I feel, but quickly masks the emotion with his usual look of indifference, nods his head once, and disappears back inside.

  “Did I just agree to dance with Aiden Douchebag Shawe?” I ask Kelly.

  Kelly giggles, nodding her head. “Have fun with that,” she says, patting me on the back. But I know better. She has no sympathy for me.

  There’s nothing more I want to do then to ditch Aiden and leave him hanging, much like he forced George to do to me. But maybe I can provoke him into talking about why he treats George so horribly when Aiden was the prick in their scenario. With this idea, my feet lead me back in the mansion and onto the dance floor, where Aiden is waiting for me.

  I expected that we would be dancing the foxtrot or the Charleston, but when I walk over to him, Aiden grabs my hand and then places his other hand on the small of my back. Oh shit. We would be waltzing. This is too close, too intimate. And yet, I hate to admit it, but the feel of us together, us close…it feels almost natural. His hand pressing in the small of my back, his fingers resting over my own. His hands are soft, I notice. Soft and warm. Mine are probably clammy and cold.

  The music starts and already I’ve stepped on his foot. I blush, forcing myself
to look up at him. I wait for the retort I know is on the tip of his tongue, but even though he’s looking down at me, his retort never comes.

  “I can’t dance,” I tell him, needing to break the confusing silence.

  “Indeed,” is his reply.

  I wait for him to say something more, especially since I just missed another step, but he says nothing. Instead, he continues to dance with me as though I’m some stranger, not the barbaric American he claims I am.

  “Okay, your turn,” I tell him. “I said I couldn’t dance. Now it’s your turn to say something.”

  “My apologies,” he says and I can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or not. “What would you like to talk about?”

  I shake my head. “Never mind.” I know what I want to talk about, but I’m not sure if I should risk it. Though I hate to admit it, I actually enjoy being in his arms. And even though I’m stumbling over my feet and his, I can’t help but feel…content.

  “Well,” I force myself to continue. If I’m not talking, I would be thinking, and I certainly don’t like where my thoughts are headed. “I guess dancing at a party is better than dancing in a club.”

  “Do you have rules about conversations in every aspect of your life?” Aiden asks me, looking me in the eye. “Or just with people who go to UCLA?”

  “Of course not,” I scoff. “I would prefer to be brooding and alone rather than dive into social situations, and when I am forced to actually socialize, I prefer to be sarcastic.”

  He raises a brow, understanding that I am mocking him. He doesn’t look too happy about it, but then again, he hasn’t stopped dancing with me. “Let me ask you something,” he says after a moment. “Does your bright attitude come naturally to you, or do have to work at it?”

  “That all depends,” I reply, and it’s like there’s no one else in the room except him and me. The tension is heavy between us, and I’m sure it’s reflected in how we’re looking at each other. “Some people enjoy my bright attitude, which makes it disappointing that they couldn’t make it to this party.”

  Okay, so I would talk to Aiden about George.

  “George has a remarkable way of making friends with beautiful women due to his choice of words and easy smile,” Aiden remarks, and though the words are complimentary, they are tainted with darkness. “Whether he’s able to retain them, however, is left to be seen.”

  Did Aiden Shawe just say I’m beautiful?

  Focus, Bixby. Don’t let his pretty words and blue eyes distract you from the information you want to know.

  “It’s too bad he lost your friendship,” I say. “Is that something that can change? Can your friendship be repaired?”

  “It can’t.” He stops suddenly even though the music hasn’t, and I notice that we’re the only couple in the room who isn’t moving. Aiden doesn’t care, however, and tilts his head down so our noses are a fraction apart. I think I’m holding my breath, but I can’t be sure. “Why would you even ask such a question?”

  “To figure out what kind of person you are,” I reply through gritted teeth. It amazes me how quickly I could go from being nervous around him to being angry.

  “And what kind of person am I?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” I tell him, and for whatever reason, my voice is somewhat disappointed.

  “Well, maybe one day you’ll figure me out,” he says.

  It’s only then that the music stops, and that’s only because the countdown to the new year has begun. But for some reason, I can’t bring myself to count down with everyone else. All I can see are Aiden’s blue eyes staring at me enigmatically.

  I’m too tired to figure him out right now. I’m too upset to even be around him. So I take a step back, and as people hug and wish each other a happy New Year’s, I turn around and lose myself in a sea of dancers. I can’t see where I’m going, but it doesn’t matter because in all honesty, I have no idea where that is.

  And the thing is, I don’t think I want to know.

  Chapter 9

  “So?” Hannah asks once Taylor walks through the door. “How was it?” She tilts her head, turning so she can regard me with questioning eyes. “Which one is this one again?”

  “Date number three,” I answer, extending my fingers to emphasize my point. “If she regarded Sex and the City as the dating bible, this would be the date she—”

  “Oh, shut it,” Taylor interrupts me, her entire face going crimson. “I don’t happen to believe the dating rules are strictly Carrie-esque, thank you very much.”

  “I think that was Samantha’s rule, actually,” Hannah murmurs.

  It’s been two weeks since New Year’s, and my roommates and I have begun our winter quarter at UCI. I’m taking four classes, including a Shakespeare class, a poetry class, and two writing classes specializing in different types of literature. I’ve been busy with reading, to say the least, but I love it. One of the biggest reasons I became an English major was being forced to read books regarded as classic, controversial, or somewhere in between. Even though I don’t enjoy every piece of literature I read, I know that I can learn from the different writers in some way.

  Hannah has taken to our American schooling system, and it’s really no surprise that she already has hordes of new friends on Facebook and at least three guys that are interested in her, though she doesn’t quite feel the same about them. Plus, Hannah is only eighteen. She has her entire life to plan for, so she says she doesn’t want to settle for someone who doesn’t meet her exceedingly high standards. I happen to agree with her logic, but then again, there is only one Joel McHale, which means I have no choice but to lower my standards just a tad.

  I hoped George would be able to fill that place but ever since that time in the bookstore when he came to ask if I was going to Stephen’s party, I haven’t heard from him. Surely there’s the same technology in England as there is here in America; can’t he shoot an e-mail my way or write on my Facebook wall or something? I’m not asking for some grand gesture of love or anything, but even a phone call just to tell me that he’s all right would have been nice. But that doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen any time soon and there’s really only one person I can blame for this.

  Luckily for me, I haven’t seen Aiden Shawe since our stare-off on New Year’s Eve. In fact, I’ve forgotten our little soirée with the waltz and the way he held me and looked at me. Besides his role as Hannah’s older brother, he means nothing to me and I certainly hope it stays that way. I didn’t get to see George New Year’s Eve because of him, and I am highly suspicious that George’s lack of communication also has something to do with Aiden. Though I want to bring this up with Hannah, I don’t want her to feel as though I’m somehow attacking her brother, nor do I want to give Aiden any ideas if George’s silence isn’t his doing. But it probably is. I mean, I hope it is.

  Is that a bad thing to want? The alternative would be worse. If Aiden isn’t behind it, that would mean that George is choosing not to speak to me, which means I’ve misinterpreted the signals he was sending or he never liked me in the first place. I did kick him in the balls, so his not liking me would be understandable. I just wish that if this is the case, if he doesn’t like me in that way, he would have been clearer so I wouldn’t have gotten my hopes up and—

  Okay. Time to stop now. I have school to focus on. I have friends that can distract me if school’s not cutting it. And Taylor, my lovely sister, has just returned home after her third date with Stephen Downey.

  After we left his New Year’s party, Taylor told Kelly and me that once the ball dropped, Stephen had asked her out. Apparently he was too shy to go with tradition and kiss her, but he did ask her out. I can only imagine how he would have done it; it probably took him a good half hour before the words came out. But the fact that he actually did it despite his bitchy sister and grumpy friend gets him a gold star in my book. And Taylor was—still is—excessively happy at the prospect because she never would have asked him out no matter how much she li
ked him.

  Despite women’s rights, feminism, and Gloria Steinem, Taylor is very much a traditionalist. Not to say that she doesn’t want to be treated equally or anything, but she believes that a man who should court a woman, buy dinner on the first few dates, say “I love you” first, and that sort of thing. She’ll never live with a man before she’s married, or at least engaged, but I think she’s a little more open about the prospect of premarital sex. At least I hope she is. How badly would it suck if, on her wedding night, she and her new husband aren’t sexually compatible? The romantic argument might work for Disney flicks, but Taylor hopefully knows better and understands that while sex isn’t the key component in a relationship, it’s a pretty important factor.

  “Amazing,” Taylor says warmly. I watch as her brown eyes shine and I know that she’s reliving every single detail in her mind regarding Stephen and their date. “He took me to the beach. Apparently, it’s raining in England right now—”

  “There’s a surprise,” Hannah remarks from her place at the dining table.

  But Taylor continues as though Hannah hasn’t even spoken. “And you know the weather’s always relatively warm here, so he thought it would be romantic to have a picnic on the beach,” she says. “He brought a blanket, a basket; he even brought a delicious wine. And the weather was perfect, though nobody was there, which made it even more romantic.”

  “Vomit inducing romance,” I murmur, shaking my head. Taylor gives me a look and I feel myself straighten. “I’m just kidding, Tay. I’ve been telling you that you and Stephen should get together and I’m happy that he asked you out and that you’re enjoying yourself. Is he everything you dreamed of?”

  “Don’t start with me,” she warns, pointing a finger at me, and though she tries not to smile, she fails. It’s obvious she’s too happy to even attempt being anything else. “But to answer your question, yes. Yes, he’s everything I hoped he would be and even more.”