The Unexpected Everything (16 page)

“What a to-do to die today at a minute or two to two,” the group onstage started chanting, while bending from side to side, apparently done with their meowing. “A thing distinctly hard to say but harder still to do.”

“So is this your job?” I asked, as the group continued with this one, saying something about a dragon and a drum. “You just have to sit here and watch this all day?”

“I wouldn't mind,” Toby said, leaning forward in her seat and squinting. “That one guy up there is cute. I'm pretty sure. Is he?”

“When are you going to get glasses?” Bri asked her for what was probably the millionth time.

“When they stop making me look like an owl,” Toby said, still squinting at the stage.

“You could always get
contacts
,” Bri said, leaning closer to Toby and putting her finger on her lens, wiggling it around on her eye, causing Toby to shriek and turn away.

“Stop it,” she said, though she was laughing. “You know I have a phobia of hands-near-eyes!”

“I wonder why,” I said, knowing it was almost entirely because Bri had been doing this to Toby ever since she got contacts in sixth grade.

“Which guy did you mean?” Palmer asked as Toby pointed.

“You think he's cute?” Bri asked, shaking her head. Bri and Toby never liked the same guys, ever. Tom had a theory about why their taste never overlapped, but it involved Venn diagrams and math, and we hadn't let him get very far with it before we made him stop talking.

“Oh, that's Jared,” Palmer said. “He's in college. And he has a girlfriend.”

“Damn it,” Toby said, as she sat back again.

“It's okay,” Bri said, patting her arm. “He isn't that cute.”

“He
is
. I think.”

“I write down blocking, when it gets set,” Palmer said, leaning forward to answer my question. “But my real job comes when we go into tech and performance. Then I have to call all the light and sound cues.”

“Look at you,” Toby said proudly, nudging Palmer's arm, “sounding like you know what you're talking about.”

“Okay!” a bearded man who looked like he was in his forties stood up in the front row. “Good warm-up. We're starting from the top of act two in fifteen.”

Palmer jumped up. “Fifteen minutes!” she yelled, as actors started to jump down from the stage and stream up the aisles. “Be back in fifteen, guys.”

“He just said that,” Toby said.

“I know. But for some reason, it's my job to repeat times loudly.”

“Hey, guys.” I glanced over and saw Tom walking down the row to join us, looking slightly out of breath. “When did you all get here? Are you going to stay and watch the rehearsal?”

“No,” Bri, Toby, and I said in unison, and Tom took the water bottle Palmer handed him, looking hurt. It was nothing against Tom—but I really preferred to watch a play when it was rehearsed and costumed and lit and people weren't wandering aimlessly around the stage clutching their scripts.

“But it's really good,” Tom said enthusiastically, pulling his script out from his back pocket. I turned my head to read the title—
Bug Juice
. “It's this total classic, been around forever. But the writers just won a Tony this year for their play about Tesla. . . .” We all looked at him blankly, including Palmer. “We went to see it together, P,” Tom said, sounding pained.

“Oh, right,” Palmer said quickly, after shooting us a quick look. “That one. It was really . . . great.”

“How'd the ham thing go?” I asked, only to see Tom's face fall even further. We really weren't making it a very good rehearsal for him. “Well, you probably didn't want that anyway,”
I said, talking fast. “To get locked into a role like that. You need to, um . . . show your range.”

“Totally,” Palmer said, reaching up and giving his cheek a quick kiss, then widening her eyes at me in thanks.

“What's happening with cool-T-shirt guy?” Tom asked.

“You mean Dogboy,” Toby corrected, turning to me. “Any progress?”

“You guys know his name isn't Dogboy,” I said as firmly as possible. Toby had made good on her promise to call the next guy I liked by a nickname, and despite my best efforts, it seemed to be sticking. I'd been talking about Clark a lot to my friends—the way you can when you have a crush on someone you know absolutely nothing about. “Like I've told you before, it's Clark.”

Toby waved this away. “Who's named Clark?”

“Well, who's named Dogboy?” Bri pointed out, not unreasonably.

“Clark what?” Tom asked, taking a long drink of his water.

“You know multiple Clarks?” I asked, stalling.

“Maybe,” Tom said with a shrug.

“You don't know a Clark,” I said, feeling like we were losing sight of logic entirely. “You certainly don't know more than one.”

“Only one way to find out.” Palmer raised an eyebrow at me like she knew I was hiding something.

“Fine,” I said with a sigh as I examined my nails. “He's Clark Goetz-Hoffman.”

There was slightly stunned silence from my friends, and then Toby let out a soft whistle. “Jeez. Did his parents really hate
him or something?”

“Nope,” Tom said, shaking his head. “Doesn't ring a bell.”

“I told you,” I said.

“So what's happening with you and Clark Goetz-Hoffman?” Bri asked, and I winced, thinking that I actually preferred “Dogboy.”

“Nothing,” I said with a sigh. It was unfortunately true. Clark had arranged with Dave and Maya for Bertie to be walked once a day, even on the weekends. Maya had offered to take those shifts for me, to give me some days off, but I'd told her I would do them. So I'd been back to his house six more times, but it wasn't like I'd made any huge progress. I hadn't even talked to him yesterday—he'd just waved from the window as I walked down the driveway with Bertie. He was usually there, either when I arrived or left—I'd decided that the Jeep with Colorado plates was his, since it was always the only car there. I'd never seen anyone other than him, though, so it seemed like both his parents must work all day, and that's why they needed a dog walker. I still wasn't clear on why Clark didn't do it, since it seemed like he was home anyway.

In the week or so I'd had to observe him, my theoretical crush had only increased. Clark still seemed pretty nervous around me whenever I picked up or dropped off Bertie, always managing to drop something or talking a little too fast, and for some reason, this made him even cuter. I also had the feeling that if we could talk for more than five minutes, this would go away. He usually stopped dropping things right about the time Bertie would yank me toward he door, having gotten fed up with waiting.

When I looked online for more information about him
(since all I knew about him was that he liked the same movies as Tom and was bad at walking his dog, neither of which were turning out to be great conversation starters), I couldn't find anything, no matter how much I googled. Nobody I knew had heard of a Clark Goetz-Hoffman going to school around us. And, like my friends had just proved, that wasn't a name you quickly forgot. I figured that maybe he went to boarding school during the year, or something. Even as I tried to tell myself I was being ridiculous, I'd started spending more and more time getting ready each day, to the point where Maya, when we were doing a key exchange yesterday, had waggled her eyebrows at me and asked me if I had a hot date.

“You should ask him out,” Palmer said with the confidence of someone who's been in a long-term relationship for three years. “I mean, what's the worst he can say?”

“He could say no,” Toby pointed out.

“And then he could say, ‘You're fired. Please don't walk my dog anymore,' ” Bri added.

“Right,” I agreed. I'd already done my mental pros and cons list about this and had realized how awkward it would be if I asked him out, got rejected, and then had to see him every day. Plus, there was something nice about how things were right now. Theoretical crushes could remain perfect and flawless, because you never actually had to find out what that person was really like or deal with the weird way they chewed or anything.

“I think you should go for it,” Tom said, giving me a thumbs-up. “Give him a shot.”

Palmer gave him a level look. “Is this just because you want another guy to hang out with?”

“Not
entirely
,” Tom muttered, suddenly finding the floor very interesting. “I just liked his
Doctor Who
shirt.”

“You can hang out with Wyatt tonight,” Bri said, and Toby's head whipped around so fast, I got smacked in the face by her hair. “He said he was going to try and stop by the diner. And there's supposed to be a party at the Orchard.”

“Oh, Wyatt's back?” Tom asked, sounding distinctly unenthusiastic. “Yay.”

“How do you know that?” Toby asked, leaning across me to get closer to Bri, like proximity would help her understand this. “Did he call you? Did you talk to him? Did he say anything about me?”

“He just messaged me last night,” Bri said. “Calm down.”

“How could you not have
told
me this? Can I see your phone?” Toby asked, now practically in my lap as she tried to reach across me and into Bri's bag. “Oh my god. What did he say?”

“Here,” Bri said, handing her phone to Toby, who stayed exactly where she was, half leaning across me.

“Tobes,” I said, trying to nudge her off me.

“Shh, I'm reading.”

“See?” Bri asked, shaking her head. “He basically said that he's in town, I told him we might be at the diner tonight, and he said he'd stop by. End of story.”

“Wait, I thought you
liked
Wyatt,” Palmer said, turning to Tom.

“Of course he likes Wyatt,” Toby said, not taking her eyes from Bri's phone—or moving off of me.

“He's okay,” Tom said with a shrug. “I just didn't know we
were going to be hanging out with him again this year.”

“You were just telling me how much you wanted another guy to hang out with,” Palmer reminded him.

“Yeah, but Wyatt's always, like, calling me ‘brother,' ” Tom said, dropping his voice down into a pretty decent Wyatt imitation. “And he's always hitting me on the back.”

“Maybe that means he likes you,” Toby said, looking up from the screen for only a second.

“Well, it hurts,” Tom muttered.

“Oh, shit,” Palmer said, looking at her watch and jumping up. “I totally haven't been paying attention to the time.” She nudged Tom. “You've got to get back there, babe.” Tom nodded, gave her a quick kiss, and started to jog up the aisle. She turned to us and nodded up toward the director. “I've got to get these actors back in. See you guys tonight?”

“Absolutely,” Bri said as she stood and started to gather her things. “Just text us when you're done with this.”

“Have fun,” I said, waving at Tom and starting to head out of the row, but not before Palmer grabbed my arm.

“You should go for it with Clark,” she said, giving my hand a squeeze. “Why not?”

I smiled at her and headed up the aisle of the theater, then out into the bright sunshine of the parking lot, where Bri's SUV, a purple Escape hybrid, was parked. She'd gotten it earlier this year and immediately named it McQueen. “Because it's the Grape Escape,” she'd said, smiling proudly when she told us. “Get it?” None of us did, and Bri had declared us all completely lacking in any kind of film education and then made us watch
The Great Escape
and
Bullitt
back-to-back, which led to Palmer
developing a huge crush on Steve McQueen. (This then led to Tom getting incredibly jealous of a dead movie star and getting a sixties haircut that looked terrible and took months to grow out.)

I knew that
why not?
was pretty much Palmer's motto, but even so, I found her words echoing in my head the whole time we were at the beach. We spent the afternoon stretched out on towels on the sand, passing magazines and iPods and bags of chips back and forth, Toby endlessly speculating about Wyatt and what she should wear and if she should make the first move, Bri talking her through every scenario, even increasingly unlikely ones, until they were both doubled over laughing. I was only half paying attention, my mind on Clark and whether I should go for it.

I was still debating this as I arrived at Clark's, a tank top and cutoffs thrown over my bikini, my hair up in a slightly sandy knot. He wasn't around when I let myself in, and I managed to catch Bertie on only the second try. I'd developed a technique that involved hiding a leash in my back pocket and not letting Bertie see it until I had a firm grip on his collar.

I walked Bertie around the neighborhood, taking a slightly longer route than usual, trying to figure out what my hesitation was. Why
wasn't
I just going for it? Asking guys out had never scared me before, and it honestly wasn't fear of losing this client. I knew Maya would understand if I told her I was no longer comfortable walking Bertie. And while there was a tiny piece of me that was embarrassed that Clark knew me as a dog walker—about as unprestigious as you could get—it wasn't like he went to my school or we knew anyone in common. If this was going to be a three-week relationship—max—what did that really matter?

By the time I was walking back to Clark's house, I'd made my decision. There was really no downside, after all. If I asked him out and he said yes, that would be great. If he said no—because he might have a girlfriend, for all I knew—I'd pretend that I had been asking him to hang out as friends and discuss Bertie. And then I'd get Maya and Dave to take over some of the walks, since I was really just doing this every single day so I'd get to see him. Either way, it would be fine. There was very little risk involved, just momentary humiliation, and I could certainly handle that.