The Girl: Blanca (last name unknown)
The Getup: Gray wool fishbone knee-length skirt, gray button-down collared cotton shirt, white apron, Naturalizer black loafer
pumps, rattlesnake tattoo on lower back (top secret)
Blanca, the Beverwil’s
dame de la maison
(French for “lady butler”), let the twins in with a small nod. As far as nods go, Blanca’s was top-notch: inviting yet scornful,
deferential yet superior, polite yet withering. She was tall and severe and dour. Her hair, black and streaked with gray,
was pulled into a bun the size of a bullet. Her skin — the color of leather, but thin as paper — revealed a spastic blue vein
at her temple. Her heavily lidded eyes gleamed with what looked like slicks of Vaseline. Her mouth was thin and wide like
a frog’s, and so firmly clamped as to render it airtight and impenetrable. Could a mouth like that speak? Eat? Could it laugh?
Could it even breathe?
Jake and Janie didn’t dare ask. They followed the lady butler through the black wrought-iron Beverwil gates with the quiet
reverence of fairy-tale orphans.
Chateau Beverwil looked like your basic Hollywood manor on growth hormones. The main house was an 8,000-square-foot Spanish
Colonial with classic Honduran mahogany windows and exterior doors. Upon entry, however, old-fashioned gave way to ultra-modern.
Everything, from the bold abstract art to the high-concept furniture, ran in straight, neat lines. Even the beams of sunlight,
which streamed in from pristine windows and skylights, seemed thought-out, controlled,
designed.
Jake and Janie had never seen anything like it. It was like entering the Apple Store of the Gods.
Blanca shut the door with a solid thud. Janie held her breath as two doves lifted into the air. A moment later, the doves
returned to the exposed ceiling rafters, turned to one another, and softly cooed.
Then they crapped all over the floor.
Without missing a beat, Blanca yanked a cloth from within the folds of her light gray skirt and kneeled to the floor. Janie
made a motion to help, but Blanca blocked her with a small, waxen hand. Janie stepped aside, allowing Blanca to wipe the mess
with one of her patented mixed-expressions (this time: repugnance and pleasure.)
“Hey!” a voice fluttered from above. The twins turned from the spectacle of Blanca vs. Birds to the crest of a wide, sweeping
staircase. Charlotte stood — one hand on the wrought-iron banister, the other on her angular hip — and smiled. She was wearing
the most perfect little black dress Janie had ever seen. It was the kind of little black dress Audrey Hepburn might wear.
The kind of little black dress every girl was
supposed
to own, but no girl ever did. It was the little black dress of myth. The little black dress of dreams. The little black dress
that stays in style. Forever.
“Thanks for stopping by.” Charlotte stepped lightly downstairs. “If I don’t take care of these things right away, I
never
take care of them. Know what I mean?”
They didn’t.
“You mean I didn’t tell you?” Charlotte touched her hand to her forehead. (Why was she acting like a bad actress?) “Jake,
um, you left something in my car.”
“I did?” He continued to look perplexed.
Charlotte turned to Janie with a trembling smile. If Janie didn’t know better, she could have sworn she was nervous. But girls
like Charlotte didn’t get nervous.
Did they?
“Can you hold on for just a sec?” Charlotte asked. And then she went upstairs — more swiftly than she came down — hips swaying,
butt bouncing, feet slipping from their black kitten-mule heels. Jake couldn’t help but stare.
Janie couldn’t help but stare at him staring.
Once she was out of sight, Charlotte bolted down the hall and knocked on her older brother’s bedroom door with all her might.
She loved an excuse to knock with all her might. Her bony little knuckles were harder than brass.
“What?”
He appeared at last, his face a plaster of annoyance. She’d interrupted a crucial set of sit-ups, but Charlotte didn’t care.
She yanked the iPod wire from his ear like a weed.
“You need to help me. Now.”
“Um . . . no,” he replied, attempting to close the door.
“It’s important!” Charlotte stopped the door with her lightning-quick size-six foot. Her brother groaned.
“Don’t you have
Bonbon
for this sort of thing?”
“Don John,”
she corrected, “is walking Mort.” She pushed her way into his room, shutting the door behind her. She leaned up against it
and her breast heaved with urgency. “There’s a girl downstairs,” she informed him in a harsh whisper.
“What?”
“You need to distract her.”
“Why? Who is she?” he asked, growing suspicious. Charlotte took a deep breath, readying herself for a lengthy explanation.
Her brother stopped her like a crossing guard. “Wait! Wait! Never mind!” he ordered. She closed her mouth. “Okay,” he continued
once he was safe. “All I wanna know is, is she hot?”
Charlotte squinched her nose at the word “hot.” She knew it was in her best interest to say yes, but she was feeling a little
stingy. She had made a real effort to be nice to Janie — she’d even said
hello
— and Janie had narrowed her eyes like a viper. True, Charlotte teased her in the ninth grade, but that was, like, a
year
ago. Janie Farrish should know better. Grudges are the pastime of old ladies and gang members, not attractive young girls.
Attractive young girls obsess over
themselves,
not
other
people.
Could it be Janie didn’t quite know she was attractive?
After all, her transition from Ignorable to Adorable came at mind-bending warp speed, and identity-switches that quick
can
screw with the system. But while Jake handled his with unparalleled cool, Janie was completely freaking out. Charlotte guessed
she suffered from an acute Ugly Duckling Complex, or “UDC.” Charlotte was concerned — not because she cared about Janie, but
because she cared about her future with Jake. As long as his sister’s UDC went untreated, Janie would continue her grudge,
which meant she might do or say anything to turn Jake against her.
Charlotte wasn’t about to let that happen.
“Well?” Evan prompted. “Is she hot or not?”
“She’s . . . okay,” Charlotte managed to admit. Her brother raised his eyebrows with interest. He knew his sister too well.
Charlotte insisted her friends — who looked like hairless dogs in makeup — were “cute.” Only the very hottest girls earned
the resentful “she’s . . . okay.”
“
She’s okay,
huh?”
Charlotte smiled. She knew her brother too well. Nothing excited him more than a “she’s . . . okay.” Now Evan would flirt
his head off, Janie’s UDC would be gone in half a heartbeat, and Jake would finally belong, truly and completely, to Charlotte.
“So?” Charlotte repressed a smug smile of triumph. “Will you do it or what?”
He pulled a fresh t-shirt over his cherished abs and grinned. “Do it.”
Evan could not believe his truly excellent luck. Not only was the girl downstairs hot, she was
that
hot girl. The hot girl with the
dress.
Or was that green thing a skirt? Like any self-respecting guy, he could never remember the difference.
Since their salsa bar encounter, he’d decided to ask around about a girl named “Jane”; no one seemed to know who on earth
he was talking about. There wasn’t a chance of their crossing paths in class (Evan was a senior and Jane, he guessed, was
a junior or a sophomore), and the next Town Meeting wasn’t for another two days. He loitered around Baja Fresh, but she never
showed again. Weird. Winston was a fairly small school. Could a girl like that just disappear?
And then, just as mysteriously, reappear in his parents’ foyer?
Evan tramped downstairs in his bare feet and greeted her with his best hot guy grin. “Whattup.”
“What,” Janie stammered. “Um, hi.” Her foot turned toward her ankle, like it always did when she was discombobulated.
Heath Ledger Boy was Charlotte’s brother?
She couldn’t believe it. If her foot turned a fraction of a degree more, her ankle might snap.
“I was beginning to think you were abducted,” he joked.
“What?” Janie felt her cheeks grow hot. “Why would you . . . ? Ha. Abducted. No.”
Jake watched the interaction between Evan and Janie with a puzzled frown. “You guys know each other?”
His sister simultaneously nodded and shook her head. She couldn’t say she knew Evan. At the same time she couldn’t say she
didn’t. All she could say for sure was, in a misguided effort to make him laugh, she’d imitated Tarzan in the middle of a
Mexican restaurant, reaching levels of dorkyness not meant to be explored. When she thought about it (
Ahhhh-ee-yah-ee-yaaaaah-ee-yah-ee-yaaaah!
) she became too mortified to breathe. Which is why, the four times she’d glimpsed Evan on campus in the past two days, she’d
darted for cover.
“Evan darling, give Janie the tour!” Charlotte ordered from down the hall. She tugged Jake by the elbow.
“So,” Evan said once their siblings were gone.
“So,” Janie said back. Of course, she’d heard Charlotte’s brother had returned to Winston for his senior year, just as the
guy in Baja Fresh claimed
he
had. Why hadn’t she put two and two together? Why hadn’t she realized Charlotte’s brother and Heath Ledger Boy were one and
the same?
“Can I, um . . . get you something to drink?” he asked, desperate to fill the silence. “A spritzer?”
“Sure,” Janie replied, following him into the sleek, monochromatic kitchen. Evan pulled the heavy door of a silver Sub-Zero
refrigerator, and it released a sound like a loud sucking kiss. He found an Orangina and handed it to her, unscrewing the
cap.
“Thanks.” She took a birdlike sip before returning the bottle to the counter. They’d stationed themselves on either side of
the massive granite-topped kitchen island. Evan planted his hands on both corners, facing Janie like an air hockey opponent.
He could really go for a game of air hockey, he realized with a pang.
“I like the bottle,” Janie observed, turning her Orangina so the label faced her.
“You’re exactly like my sister,” came Evan’s amicable reply. Charlotte liked the bottles so much, she refused to throw them
out. She lined them on her windowsills like little glass soldiers.
“I’m nothing like your sister,” Janie countered with a small laugh.
“Yeah.” He smiled. “I guess not.”
“Really?” Janie paused. “You really think we’re
nothing
alike?”
Evan took a deep breath. He’d only meant the sister remark as a throwaway comment. How had it turned into this, like,
big deal
? But Janie was waiting on his answer, so he’d better come up with something. He scratched the back of his ankle with his
flip-flop and thought it over. His sister was short. Janie was tall. His sister had curly hair. Janie had straight hair. His
sister was his sister. Janie was
not
his sister. “I guess you guys seem pretty different,” he concluded.
She nodded. Of
course
he’d say they were different. Charlotte was pretty and confident and rich and fashionable and popular. Janie was not. She
crossed her arms in front of her chest and stared at the floor.
It took Evan all of .5 seconds to realize he’d said the wrong thing (
why
it was wrong remained a mystery.) But before he could retract his answer, her brother walked into the kitchen.
“Jake!” Janie exclaimed with relief.
Jake just stood there, his smile enormous to the point of distorting his face.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he responded in a vague sort of way. “Hey, man.” He nodded to Evan.
“Whattup.” Evan nodded back.
Janie turned back to Evan with a half-wave. “It was nice meeting you. Again.”
“Yeah,” Evan murmured, watching her exit. Her narrow hips tick-tocked like a clock.
Sorry, buddy,
they seemed to say.
Your time is up.
Evan made a slow lap around the kitchen island and tried to make sense of what happened. He stared at Janie’s virtually untouched
Orangina, his words echoing in his ears.
Can I offer you a spritzer?
He cringed at the memory. What kind of self-respecting dude says
spritzer
?
Evan grabbed the Orangina bottle by its neck, carried it to the sink, and tipped it on its head. The orange liquid gurgled
and fizzed. He watched it for a second, then turned on the faucet, letting the water run. Just like that, the drink was gone
— out of his sink forever.
If only he could get her out of his mind.
If only he could get her out of his mind.
As of only twenty-three minutes ago, Charlotte Beverwil had pulled Jake into her laundry room, where — amid the steamy hum
of a polished steel washer and dryer — she’d given him, at long last, “that thing he left in her car.” Jake had been expecting
his gray sweatshirt. Or maybe his Arcade Fire CD. Instead, he got a very urgent, extremely passionate, push-against-the-wall-style
kiss. It wasn’t what he’d been expecting.
It was exactly what he’d been looking for.
Only now, as he sat in the Volvo with his brooding sister at the wheel, did panic begin to seep in. Because this was the thing:
Charlotte Beverwil had experience. In fact, according to his buddy Tyler, she hadn’t even
gone
to embroidery school in Belgium. According to his buddy Tyler “embroidery school” was just an elaborate metaphor for, well,
you know.
“Yeah, even I do
that
kind of embroidery,” he snickered, tying his shoe by Jake’s locker. “The needle goes in, the needle goes out. The needle
goes in, the needle goes out. Dude, you
know
what she was up to in jolly ol’
Belgium.
”
Jake slammed his locker shut, grimacing at his friend. “Man, are you as dumb as you sound?”
But Tyler had a point. Girls like Charlotte didn’t just
not have sex.
They exuded sex. They
were
sex. And they
definitely
did not jaunt all the way to Europe to
sew.
No doubt about it, Charlotte Beverwil had experience. And experience led to another dreaded ex:
expectations.
A girl like Charlotte expected a lot — and Jake wasn’t sure he could deliver. After all, he was still a virgin. What if she
were to find out? What if she could somehow
tell
? Jake paled at the thought. If Charlotte knew he was a V-boy, she’d realize how uncool he was and Jake would turn into the
worst form of ex there was: