The Pretty One (13 page)

During the ride home, George is subdued and quiet, obviously as anxious to get rid of me as I am of him. He pulls up in front of my house and stops the car. I put my hand on the door, but he stops me from making a quick getaway by saying, “Look, Megan…”

Even though I've never been broken up with before, I have watched enough chick flicks with my mom to recognize a breakup speech. But this is totally unnecessary, isn't it? I figure I'll help George along.

“It's okay. I feel the same way.”

“I'm glad,” he says, grinning. “I don't know what it is…this thing between us. But I felt it from the first moment I saw you this year.”

Um…
what?
This is not a breakup speech. This is a…

“I want to see you again…soon. Tomorrow night. I want to take you out to dinner.”

What?!
He is supposed to break up with me, not ask me out again. “No!” I practically shout. “I…I'm going out with my mom.”

“Can't you get out of it?”

“No can do.” Since when do I say
no can do
? I sound like my father.

“All right, next weekend then.” Drew leans forward, puckering up.

Fortunately, I turn my head and his big wet one ends up on my cheek instead of my lips.

“Bye,” I say, hurrying out of the car.

Minutes later I'm up in my room drafting an e-mail to Simon.

From: Megan Fletcher
Subject: Cancel the caterer

Simon,

Sorry to inform you that your services as best man will no longer beneeded. The Longwell/Fletcher nuptial sare off.

Sincerely, Megan

P.S. You should probably return the crystal candlesticks.

Within seconds, he writes back. Just like before.

From: Simon Chase
Subject: Re: Cancel the caterer

So sorry. Will happily cancel caterer but warn that you may still have to pay for five-tiered oversized cake your former fiancé wanted to jump out of. Or in.

Sincerely, Simon

P.S. They're glass.

fourteen

expressionism (noun): a style of playwriting and stage presentation stressing the emotional content of a play, the subjective reactions of the characters, and symbolic or abstract representations of reality.

“What are you doing?” Lucy asks.

I'm sitting at the breakfast table, eating my second bowl of Cap'n Crunch while continuing to work on the diorama I began at two in the morning. “I'm redesigning Simon's living room. See?” I swing the diorama around.

“That's not one of my shoe boxes is it?” she says, not even looking at it.

“I'm not sure.” In fact, the shoe box had until last night been the home of her silver gray lace-up sandals that she bought last spring.

Fortunately, she's already distracted. “Did you sleep in your clothes?” she asks.

I shake my head. “No.”

“You're wearing the same thing again today that you wore last night?”

“It's not dirty.”

Lucy wrinkles her nose like she begs to differ and shakes her head as she opens the fridge. “I thought you were getting rid of all those old hoodies.”

“They're comfortable.” I take another bite of my cereal as I turn the diorama back toward me. I move the miniature baby grand piano (that I painted white to match Simon's mother's furniture) a smidgen to the side. Last spring, I bought a giant box of dollhouse furniture on eBay for thirty dollars. Simon had thought I was crazy to pay so much for it, but I had been putting all the furniture to good use. “That's better,” I say out loud.

“So did you have fun last night?”

“Oh yeah,” I say trying as hard as I can to make sure each word is oozing sarcasm. Lucy is only asking to be nasty. After all, I think it was pretty obvious exactly what kind of time I was having.

“I had a great time,” she offers, even though I didn't ask. She pulls a Diet Pepsi out of the fridge and kicks the door shut with her foot. “Drew and I played like ten games of Scrabble. We annihilated everyone in the room.”

My hands shake at the mention of Drew's name and I drop the couch. It bounces off my big toe and lands on the floor.

I bend over and pick up the couch. While I'm down there, I catch sight of my ugly-looking toenails. Yuck. Lucy and I both got pedicures and manicures for our first day of school, and even though I took the polish off my fingernails a million years ago, I haven't touched my toes. My cuticles are overgrown and the bright pink polish is faded and chipped.

“Anyway,” Lucy says. “I wanted to tell you that after you left I was talking to Liz Hopkins, and she said she's never seen George so into anyone before.”

“George?” I pick up the dental pick that I use as a tool on my dioramas and begin gently pushing back the cuticle on my big toe. “She must be kidding. He was so busy performing he barely noticed me.”

“You sound upset,” Lucy says with a knowing smile.

“What?” I stop pushing back my cuticle. “No! I'm just saying the whole idea of him really liking me is ridiculous. He doesn't even know me.”

My sister shrugs. “Apparently he likes what he sees.”

“Eech,” I say, making a face as I go back to my toe cuticle.

“What?”

“What he sees
. What you're saying is that he likes my new face and body. That's so, well, superficial. By the way, do you have any nail polish remover? I have to take this polish off. It's gross.”

“It's under the bathroom sink,” Lucy says, in her annoyed voice. “Look, Megan. You have to accept that you look different now. You better adjust. You can't keep acting like you used to otherwise people are going to start to hate you.”

“What do you mean
acting like I used to
?”

“Don't take this the wrong way, but I just don't understand why you still seem to feel so sorry for yourself. I know that before the accident things weren't all that easy for you. But now you have a whole new you, and all these guys think you're hot, and you got a part that a lot of people wanted and here you are, still eating a million bowls of Cap'n Crunch, sucking your thumb, working on your dioramas, and picking your toes.”

Picking my toes?
“For one,” I reply, sitting up straight as I set down the pick. “I'm taking care of my cuticles. For two, this is only my second bowl of Cap'n Crunch. For three, I don't feel sorry for myself. And for four, I don't suck my thumb!” How dare Lucy even insinuate such things? After all, she's the one who feels sorry for herself. She just can't seem to get over the fact that I, her lowly little sister, beat her out of a part.

But I don't say that. I really don't want to argue with Lucy anymore, and besides, I suspect she might have a small point. I am feeling a little sorry for myself. But I have a right to. After all, my sister and my best friend have recently gone loco. Anyone in my shoes would be upset.

In fact, I'm so certain I'm in the right, I pour myself some more Cap'n Crunch to soak up the leftover milk in my bowl and call the one person I know will agree, my mother. Even though it's Saturday, she left for work before I woke up.

“Hey, honey,” Mom says, answering her phone. “I'm about to go into a meeting. What's up?”

Lucy walks back in the room, eyeing me suspiciously as if she thinks I'm going to tattle on her or something. “I just…I wanted to know what movie you wanted to see tonight,” I say loudly into the phone. “I can order tickets online.”

“For when?” she asks.

“Tonight.” I have been looking forward to my date with my mom. I have everything all planned out including where we will eat (Blue Agave) and what I will order (house salad followed by carnitas).

“Oh Megan, I'm sorry. For some reason I thought you had plans. I'm going out with Carol tonight. We're going to the Baltimore Symphony. They're playing Mozart's Requiem.”

My mom made plans that didn't include me? “But I've hardly seen you all week,” I say, sounding more like a five-year-old than a sixteen-year-old. “I have a lot to tell you.”

“Hah!” Lucy murmurs, just loud enough for me to hear her. I roll my eyes at her and she shoots a smirk in my direction before leaving the room again.

“Sounds like we got our connections crossed,” my mom says.

I honestly can't believe my mom, the one person who is supposed to be there for me in my time of need, is blowing me off. After a moment of silence she says, “Maybe I should call Carol and tell her I can't make it.”

As much as I'm tempted to tell her what a fabulous idea that is, I keep my mouth shut while I think about it for a minute. Can I really ask my mom to cancel her plans just to hang out with me?

“It's okay,” I say finally, forcing a smile even though she's not there to appreciate my effort. “I'm supposed to read
Moby-Dick
this weekend, anyway.”

If she preferred listening to a funeral procession to going out to dinner with me, fine. I'm not going to feel sorry for myself. No way. I will stay home with
Moby
and read. And I will like it. But before I begin to read, I find Lucy's nail polish remover and use it to take off my toenail polish. Then I clip off all my fingernails and paint them with the rancid No More Nail Biting stuff she bought me last year.

         

After an hour of alone time with
Moby,
my nails are dry and I'm so desperate for company that I call Simon. I know it's a risky proposition because he was so angry with me for blowing him off, but he did respond immediately to my e-mail last night, so I'm kind of hoping that things have calmed down between us. I call him up and act like nothing weird has transpired between us whatsoever and ask him if he wants to do something. Even though I'm kind of expecting Simon to be busy (even though he's not), he acts totally normal and suggests we meet at the coffee shop at six.

Since I have about five hours to kill, I take my book and walk to the aquarium.
Moby
stays in my backpack while I watch his distant cousins the dolphins perform before heading back to Federal Hill to meet Simon at Spoons. Since Simon has paid the last couple of times we went out, I plan on getting there early so that I can get the drinks before he arrives. I'm feeling pretty good until I set foot inside the coffee shop. Simon is already there and has snagged a premium spot near the window. Even though I'm counting calories, he has an iced mocha cappuccino (with whip) waiting for me. To make matters worse, he's sans glasses and wearing a preppy boy costume.

“Why are you all dressed up?” I say, taking a seat across from him.

“I'm not dressed up.”

“You're not wearing your shorts or your glasses.”

“I'm not wearing shorts because it's cold and I'm not wearing glasses because I got contacts.”

I take a sip of my iced mocha cappuccino. I want to believe him. I really do not want to think that his being dressed up has
anything
at all to do with me, but I have a nagging and mildly horrific idea it does. “I thought you said you couldn't wear contacts.”

“I figured it was worth another try. My glasses were…beginning to annoy me.”

“Well, you look good.” I take another sip. I'm not a hundred percent sold, but if Simon says that his glasses were beginning to annoy him, I'm willing to take him at his word. The past few weeks have been totally stressful and I so badly want everything to be back to normal again. If I have to ignore a few things until they blow over, so be it.

“Thanks,” he says, reddening. “And so do you…as usual.”

Ignore it,
I remind myself. After all, how could I blame Simon for seeing me a little bit differently these days? I
am
different. I now look like the kind of girl I used to secretly envy; the kind of girl with a face that wins attention and admiration from strangers; the kind of girl who has no idea what it's like to be mocked and despised, or worse yet, invisible. “So what did you do last night?” I ask, quickly changing the subject as I dab about twenty calories of whipped cream off my lips with my napkin.

“Laura came over and we hung out,” he says. “She's really funny. You'd like her.”

Even though I really don't know her that well, from what I have seen, she's not funny in the slightest. But I don't care about that. What matters is that Simon obviously likes her. And I really want him to
like
her—like her so he'll be happy, and we can get back to normal. “What did you guys do?”

“Not much. She came over and we played Monopoly.”

“Sounds fun,” I say, although I hate Monopoly. In fact, as Simon knows very well, I hate all board games. So it is probably good that he has found someone besides me to play Monopoly with.

He smiles at me again and glances away, as if he's getting ready to say something. Something uncomfortable. “About the other day…,” he begins. “I'm sorry. I'm happy for you about this play thing. I was just being a jerk.”

I'm reminded of the scene from
Men in Black,
when the old man's head opens and there's a little alien sitting in there, manning the controls. Simon may be wearing a costume, but the same little alien is at the wheel. He is still my BFF.

“Look what I did last night.” I reach into my backpack and pull out the diorama and the plastic bag with the furniture. I set the diorama on the table, place the furniture inside, and turn it around so he can see it. “Look familiar?”

“That's…is that my living room with the furniture rearranged?” Simon asks. “That's great! Let's do it for real. My mom will totally freak. Can you come over tomorrow? We'll rearrange the furniture before she gets back.”

“Your mom will kill you if you do it without her permission. But keep this and show her. If she likes it, I'm totally up for it.”

He takes the diorama and smiles at me again.

Neither one of us say a word. “Thanks again,” he says, tapping the top of the diorama. “This is really, really great.”

“It's not
that
great.” His reaction is a little over the top considering I've made him dioramas before and he couldn't have cared less. Like when I bumped my knee on his dresser and decided it was in the wrong spot, so I made a diorama of his bedroom with all the furniture rearranged. He looked at it for two seconds before telling me in detail why my design wouldn't work.

“I just want you to know that I'm happy for you—you know, about the play,” he says. “I just, well, I missed you last year. I was kind of hoping that when you came back things would get back to normal. The Chase/Fletcher set design team would be in business again.”

“I was looking forward to that, too, but this whole acting thing just kind of popped up out of nowhere.”

“And it's
great
. Considering how much you used to talk about being a drama major.” Even though Simon's trying to be supportive, his insistence is beginning to sound a little insincere. “By the way, I was sorry to hear about your wedding.”

“I'm all broken up about it.” I take my napkin and pretend to dab my eyes. “Hah! We couldn't even make conversation! It was so awkward it was painful. I only gave him one-word answers.”

“Who can talk to that guy?” he asks. “He's so full of himself.”

“I don't know. I wasn't any great catch, either. But when he dropped me off, he acted like we were made for each other. Get this: He told me he wanted to see me again and then he tried to give me a big wet one, right on the lips.”

“You
kissed
him?” he asks, squinching up his face.

“My reflexes were too good. He got my cheek instead.”

“The guy's a little thick,” Simon says, picking up a napkin and folding it. “You're going to have to be blunt, otherwise he'll never get the message.”

“I don't know if he's thick. He's in all AP classes.”