Wicked Jealous: A Love Story (12 page)

A row of lipsticked O’s faced us. “It’s only one of the greatest movies ever made,” Cheryl said. “Bette Midler? Diane Keaton? GOLDIE HAWN?”

Nicola shook her head. “Never heard of it. I tend to stick to Monty Python,” she said. She pointed to me. “As for her, if it’s not a depressing French film where people sit in cafés debating the meaning of life while puffing on cigarettes, she’s not interested.”

“That’s not entirely true,” I said. “It doesn’t
have
to be depressing. It just has to be French.”

Cheryl sighed as she patted me on my arm. “My husband would love you.” I wondered how Jason’s dad—a man with such great taste—felt about the fact that his son listened to Justin Bieber.

“Shouldn’t you girls be watching movies with that Austin Katcher boy? Or Tyler Laufer?” Cookie asked. “They’re both such warmies.”

“ ‘Hotties,’” I corrected.

She took out her notebook and made a note.

“Who?” asked Nicola.

“I think she means Ashton Kutcher and Taylor Lautner.”

Nicola wrinkled her nose. “But they’re such . . .
boys
. Simone and I, we like . . .
real
men. Like . . . loggers. Or ranchers.”

I looked at her. “What are you talking about? We hate being outside.”

She shrugged. “Well,
we
wouldn’t actually go outside.
They
would. We’d stay by the fire and . . . I don’t know . . .
knit
.”

I rolled my eyes. “Speak for yourself. I have no idea what my type is.” Although after my run-in in the parking lot with Jason, I was thinking maybe I could hold off on that whole interaction-with-the-opposite-sex thing for a while longer.

“Anyway,” Cheryl went on, “in the movie, Shelly Stewart was this very mean young woman, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, who started dating Morty—I can’t remember who played him—when he divorced Bette Midler—”

“Sarah Jessica Parker played someone mean?” Nicola asked. “But she’s always so nice. Probably because she made all that money off of
Sex and the City
.”

“I know,” Cheryl agreed. “This was before that show. Oh, and I should add that she was
a lot
younger than Bette.”

“Well, Hillary
is
a lot younger than my dad,” I said. “And I think it would be fair to say that she’s a little . . .
challenged
on the nice front.”

Cheryl rolled her eyes. “Oh please, honey,” she said. “You’re with friends here. From everything you’ve said, the woman sounds like an overwaxed, overstraightened, unwrinkled nightmare.”

Wow. Who knew middle-aged women could be so harsh? It sounded like something you’d hear coming from one of the tables on the Ramp, except these girls had poochy stomachs.

“I guess that’s one way of describing Hillary,” I agreed.

“She’s probably just jealous of you,” Cookie said.

“Jealous of
me
?” I asked. “For what?” As far as I could see, the only thing I had going for me that Hillary didn’t was the fact that, because I was double-jointed, I could touch my wrist with my thumb. And although I was pretty proud of it, the one time I showed her, not only did she not seem impressed, but she told me to please stop right away because we were in the middle of dinner and it was making her nauseous.

“Because you’re smart . . .” Gwen said.

“. . . even if you’ve never seen
The First Wives Club
,” Marcia said.

Okay, so I was a little bit smart. Like fourth-in-my-grade smart, even though I didn’t advertise it, because I didn’t need to be called That Weird Fat Smart Girl.

“. . . and witty,” Brenda added.

Fine. Maybe I was a little bit witty. But when your social life is kind of nonexistent, you’ve got a lot of time on your hands to work on that stuff.

“. . . and not afraid to be your own person,” Rona said. She shook her head. “I’m telling you, what I would’ve given for my Marci to have been more of her own person when she was your age, instead of trying to be like all the other girls at her school,” she sighed. “Do you have any idea how much we ended up spending on therapy for her when she graduated from college and wouldn’t get out of bed for the next three months after she decided she had no identity?”

“Ladies, not to sound superficial or anything,” Cheryl said, “even though, because it
is
L.A. that would obviously be forgiven, but there’s a giant elephant in the room that everyone seems to be avoiding.”

Maybe it was because of the brain cells she had wasted back when she was younger and had followed this band called the Grateful Dead around the country, but I wasn’t too surprised to see Marcia nervously glance around the Coffee Bean as if she were on the lookout for an actual elephant.

“What?” I asked.

“The elephant is the fact that you happen to be
gor-geous
!” she trilled. “Especially with your new look.”

“Riiiiiiight,” the rest of the women said in unison as they nodded their heads.

I looked over at Nicola for some help, but all she did was shrug. “Maybe no one’s called you gorgeous before,” Nicola said, “but when I was in line in the cafeteria the other day, I did hear Matt Durkin tell Charlie Rackoff that you had a nice butt.”

I looked at her, surprised. “You didn’t tell me that.”

She rolled her eyes. “We’re talking
Matt Durkin
here,” she said. “The kid who has yet to outgrow his paste-eating habit. Would that really have been of interest to you?”

“Good point,” I agreed.

“It will be good for you to get away from Hillary for a while,” Cheryl said. “From everything you’ve told us, that woman is bad news.”

The last few weeks of school kept my mind off of what I was getting myself into—especially as I took in the fact that kids came up to me and asked me to sign their yearbooks while writing things in mine like “Have a great summer—hope to get to know you better next year” and “U have killer style!” But now that school was over and I was about to move in with my brother, I was getting more and more nervous, to the point where my appetite was almost nonexistent.

“What if it’s really dirty?” I asked Nicola as we got out of my car on D-day (“Will you
please
stop with the negative attitude?!” Nicola said every time I referred to moving day as that). We hauled my stuff to the front door. Originally, my dad was going to come with me—sort of as a quality-time/bon-voyage-type thing—but then Hillary reminded him that she had made plans for them to have brunch with her best friend Cricket (“Did I mention she’s one of the top wedding coordinators in the city?”).

At least he felt so bad that when Hillary wasn’t looking, he slipped me two hundred dollars and told me to do something nice for myself. Which, if I continued to stay this anxious, might possibly include a return to my snack-cake hobby.

I took a look at my new home for the summer. Like a lot of the houses in the neighborhood, it was a Craftsman. But unlike the other ones on the street, with nice landscaping and flowers, this one had a gnome family in positions that wouldn’t exactly earn it a G rating if they starred in a movie.

“These are college boys. I’m sure they’re very neat,” Nicola replied. “Max wouldn’t live with a bunch of slobs. He smells too good to do something like that.” She smoothed the ends of her hair, which that day, due to an unfortunate run-in with a bottle of red dye that looked more orange once it was applied, was covered with a bandanna that had been worn by an actress who was an extra in
Bridesmaids
. “Do I look okay?”

“He’s not here. He’s working today.”

“Oh bloody hell. I put on mascara and everything.” She yanked off her bandanna. “Probably better off, seeing that I look like Ronald McDonald.” She took in my baby-blue dress with the sailor collar that I had gotten off eBay for twenty-five bucks, after a frenzied bidding war with some user named VintageVixen. “You, on the other hand, look like you should be boarding a ship for Paris. Nice get.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I just wish it weren’t polyester.” I gave a quick sniff at my left armpit, relieved to determine I was okay. Polyester and sweat did not mix well.

When we got to the door, I rang the doorbell, but from the thumping electronica that was coming from inside, we would have been standing out there until tomorrow. As soon as we walked in the door, we both covered our noses.

“Ewwww,” I said. I didn’t even know how to describe the smell. It was like a combination of rotting pineapple and yogurt that was about three weeks past its expiration date.

“Okay, so maybe you’re going to want to buy a can of air freshener,” Nicola said.

“A can? Try a case,” I replied. I looked around at the pizza-stained paper plates and dented cans of Red Bull that littered the coffee table. “And I should probably get a Dumpster while I’m at it, too.”

As we stood there taking in the disaster zone that I was going to call home for the next month, a dust bunny danced its way across the floor. “That thing has better rhythm than I do,” I said. “It’s moving in time to the music.” It wasn’t like I was a neat freak or anything, but this was ridiculous. “This is like my worst-case scenario times ten.”

Nicola walked over to the plaid couch and yanked out a red-and-white-striped tube sock that was peeking out from between the cushions and held it up. “Were dirty socks included in your worst-case scenario?”

I shook my head. “No. I was trying to stay positive.”

She reached in between the other cushions and pulled out a pair of navy-blue boxer shorts with little white whales on them.

“Ewwww!” we screeched in unison.

Boxer shorts were
definitely
not part of the worst-case scenario.

As she threw them toward me, a sleepy-looking short guy with a serious case of blond bedhead and a soul patch walked out of one of the rooms scratching his stomach and the boxers landed smack on top of his head.

He pulled them off and squinted at them. “Oh cool. I’ve been looking for these. These are Tuesday’s.”

Nicola pointed to the pair he was wearing—yellow with little green frogs. “So I’m guessing those are Saturday’s,” she said.

He looked down. “Yes. No. Wait. Saturday’s are red with little monkeys. These are . . . Thursday’s.”

“You haven’t changed your underwear since Thursday?” I asked nervously. What had I gotten myself into? Dust bunnies could be taken care of with a broom, but guys who didn’t change their underwear?

He thought about it for a second. “Nope. I did. I change them every morning. I was just really tired when I grabbed these out of the drawer yesterday. I swear.” He yawned. “Oh, man. I need coffee.”

“Are you just getting up now?” Nicola asked.

“Yeah.”

“At two o’clock?”

“It’s only two? Cool. It’s still early,” he replied while scratching his stomach. “So who are you guys?”

“I’m Simone,” I said.

Nothing. Well, except for another yawn.

“Max’s sister?” I added.

“Cool. I didn’t know he had a sister.”

Nicola and I looked at each other nervously. Because he was so busy looking at the bright side of things, my brother could be a little spacey at times, but it’s not like he would’ve forgotten to tell his roommates I was moving in for a month.

“He did tell you that I’m going to be staying here for a while . . . didn’t he?” I asked nervously.

The guy yawned again and thought about it. “Nope.”

Apparently, not only
could
he space on it, but he had. This was just great.

“But it’s all good. Welcome. I’m totally digging your specs.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m Chris, by the way,” he said. “But feel free to call me Narc. Everyone else does.”

“Are you a cop?” I asked nervously. It wasn’t like I did drugs or shoplifted or any of that kind of stuff, but just being around cops made me feel guilty. Even mall cops.

“Oooh, can I see your gun?” Nicola asked excitedly.

“Not that kind of narc. Narc as in narcolepsy,” he explained. “Where you fall asleep all the time.” He pointed to a room where I could make out a messy unmade bed. “That’s my room. Well, mine and Noob’s.”

“What’s a noob?” Nicola asked.

“It’s not some sort of reptile, is it?” I demanded. My brother did not say
anything
about reptiles. Ever since he had put a salamander in my bed when I was eight and it almost crawled into my open mouth while I was sleeping, I had a huge phobia of them.

“I think you’re thinking of a newt.” He turned to Nicola. “Hey, are you living here, too?”

She shook her head.

“Too bad,” he said with a smile. This Narc guy was pretty cute—especially if you went for the sleepy-eyes/bedhead look, which, from the way I watched Nicola turn red, it seemed that she did. Plus, having her crush on someone who was related to me only by living situation rather than blood would be a lot less awkward for me. “You could’ve taught me how to speak with an English accent to impress girls.”

So much for that idea. And from the way that Nicola stopped arching her back in an attempt to make it look like she had boobs behind her
REALITY IS FOR PEOPLE WITH NO IMAGINATION
T-shirt, she felt the same way.

“Anyway, it’s not a what—it’s a who,” he explained. “Noob’s real name is . . .” He thought about it. “You know, I don’t
know
what it is. Ever since I’ve met him, he’s just always been Noob.”