Wicked Jealous: A Love Story (28 page)

Diedre turned to her. “You know the magazine has an entire feature devoted to it this month. Apparently, it’s become quite the rage. Rumor has it Nicole Kidman was spotted doing it in Nashville.”

Hillary whipped out her phone and pressed a button. “The minute you get into the office tomorrow, I want you to sign me up for a Zumba class,” she whispered into the receiver. “Do a Google search for ‘best Zumba class to run into celebs’ and get me into that one. Actually, don’t wait until tomorrow. Do it now,” she demanded before clicking off. She smiled. “Just leaving a little friendly reminder for my assistant.”

The smile that seemed to be permanently etched on Cheryl’s face, because she was one of those freaky people, like my brother, who was happy pretty much all the time (“And no antidepressants involved, thankyouverymuch,” she said proudly when Gwen commented on it once at the Bean), disappeared. “You weren’t kidding,” she murmured.

Why did everyone keep saying that? It made it sound like I was a total exaggerator or something.

Cheryl stepped back and looked at Jason and me, and the smile came back. “Oh, you don’t know how happy it makes me to see the two of you together!”

“They
do
make a cute couple, don’t they?” agreed Hillary. “You know, Jason, my first boyfriend looked a lot like you.” She gave him a flirty smile. “Of course, unlike Simone, I was only ten when I started dating.”

I rolled my eyes. That was wrong on multiple levels. This was getting more and more uncomfortable by the minute. A waitress walking by with a tray of hors d’oeuvres stopped. For a second I was tempted to hijack the entire tray and lock myself in the bathroom with them. But that would have been really really wrong.

I reached for one. “What are these?” I asked her.

“Apple fritters with a smidge of crème fraiche and a dusting of cinnamon and a pinch of cardamom.”

I pulled my hand back and sighed. Just my luck. “Oh. Thanks anyway.”

Cheryl turned to the group. “Simone’s allergic to apples.”

Hillary looked up from her snake compact. “Oh, yeah. I always forget that.”

“Mmm-hmmm,” Cheryl said, giving me a look.

Hillary turned to Jason’s dad, who was busy trying to stop himself from yawning. “Actually, you know what that reminds me of? That scene in the movie you did set in—where was it? India? China?—I can’t remember where, but it looked like one of those places that’s very overpopulated and smells just awful. The one where the man starts to believe that he may be the reincarnation of Jesus?”

“It was Nepal, and it was Buddha,” Mr. Frank said icily.

“Exactly. That’s what I meant,” Hillary said, reaching for his arm and batting her eyelashes.

I looked over at my dad, who was typing away on his iPhone in the corner.

“And explain to me, if you can, what that has to do with an allergy to apples?” Jason’s dad asked.

“It was more like a
segue
,” Hillary said, “to start talking about your movies and your incredible talent and the fact that I’d just love to have you come direct something for me.”

I spent a lot of time dreaming up worst-case scenarios, in my life. But this took the cake. I don’t think I could even have come anywhere near the nightmare this evening was turning into if I’d really tried. It was one thing for Hillary to embarrass me in front of a guy, but in front of the guy’s father? Who happened to be an award-winning director?! “I’m, uh, going to go look at some of the photographs,” I announced as I drifted away. The farther away I was from the scene of the crime, the better. Plus, it would give me a chance to spy on Blush and Aleka.

“What do you think that is?” a voice asked a few minutes later as I stared at one of the photographs. Or, rather, pretended to stare at it while what I was really doing was watching Aleka laugh at something Blush had just said. Since when had he become
funny
? I mean, in public. That was one of the things I liked about him. That, unlike most people, he didn’t spend all his time making jokes in order to cover up feeling uncomfortable. Like, say, I did.

I turned to see Stan squinting. Oh God. Really? Now
this
? “I think it’s . . .” What was the best way to say this to the father of the-boy-whom-I-was-technically-on-a-date-with-but-was-currently-ignoring? ”. . . a pair of . . . buttocks,” I replied. That sounded more parent-appropriate than “butt.”

He nodded. “Ah. I think you’re right.”

He pointed to another bloblike photo. “And this one?”

I stared at it. “Uh, I’m pretty sure that’s another pair. It’s kind of what the photographer’s known for. You can read about it in her artist’s statement up front, if you want.”

He sighed. “My wife is always on me about spending all my time in movie theaters, but I’ll take a bucket of popcorn and some subtitles over this stuff any day. Even with fake butter.”

I nodded. “I know what you mean.
L’Homme qui aimait les femmes
is playing at the Nuart tonight. One night only.” I would have suggested it to Jason, but considering how he’d reacted to
Freaks and Geeks
, I didn’t think it would have been a good idea.

He looked surprised. “You know who François Truffaut is?”

I nodded. “Well, sure. He’s like the most important thing to come out of France other than . . . I don’t know . . .
croissants
. He’s my favorite, actually.”

He smiled. “And you refer to the titles by the French instead of in English.”

I shrugged. “It just seems wrong not to.”

He shook his head. “Amazing.” His face fell. “You do realize that this kind of thing is lost on my son?”

I smiled. “Yeah, I know.”

“The other day I walked into his room and he was listening to that Jackson Brewster boy.”

“Justin Bieber,” I corrected. “Yeah, he mentioned that he liked him.”

“But he’s a good boy. Despite the fact that he doesn’t have an ounce of taste when it comes to music.” He smiled.

I smiled back. Before I could ask him what it had been like to work with Catherine Deneuve, one of the greatest French actresses of all time, Zooey Woodson began this spoken-word thing about the beauty of butts while some tattoo-sleeved guy banged a gong at the end of every sentence. (Thor would later tell me he thought it was genius.) As Stan and I both stifled yawns, Hillary came
click-clack
ing over.

“I just had a fantastic idea. Why don’t we all go to dinner? The six of us!” she exclaimed. “That way we can get to know each other, seeing that, you know, our children are dating. And Stan, I can go over our development slate with you, and we’ll see if there’re any movies that you might be interested in directing!”

“I don’t direct movies,” he said. “Only films.”

Hillary gave one of her tinklier laughs. “Movies, films—same thing.”

His eyes narrowed. “Not in my book they’re not.”

Hers brightened. “Ooh—you write books as well? How did I not know this! Are any of them available to be optioned? Are they plot-driven, or more character-based? Because the character-based ones end up being
so
slow as movies—”

“No, I do not write books,” Stan said. “And even if I did, you can be assured that not only would I not option one to you, but I would sincerely hope that you wouldn’t even buy one of them to read, because the idea that my readership was made up of people like you would cause me so much distress I’d have to flee the country and only be published by small independent presses that don’t have distribution in chain bookstores—”

“Well.
Someone
takes his work quite seriously,” Hillary said.

He glared at her.

“Which is a wonderful, wonderful thing!” she cried.

“Number one, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t interrupt me because I’m not finished yet,” he snapped, “and, number two, yes, I do take my work seriously. Which is perhaps something you should consider doing at some point, as well. In fact, if you were able to put aside your narcissistic self-obsession for a few minutes, instead of allowing your pathological envy of Simone to manifest itself in a multitude of passive-aggressive gestures toward her that are severely uncomfortable for others to behold, maybe you could learn something from her. Because despite her young age, it’s obvious that she has more character in her . . .
femur
 . . . than you do in your entire personally-trained-to-the-hilt body!”

My legs
had
gotten super strong from the Zumba-ing. Stan wasn’t nearly as loud as his wife, but by this time we had drawn quite the crowd. Even Zooey had stopped her spoken-word rant and drifted over to see what was going on.

For a moment, Hillary remained quiet. “So . . . I guess that means I should hold off on messengering over all the scripts we have in active development for you to read?” she finally asked.

“Actually, what it means is that I think you’re everything that’s wrong with Hollywood today,” he replied. “And that maybe you should follow Simone’s lead—both in the kind of films you watch and in the way you treat people.” He looked at Cheryl. “I think I’d like to leave now.” He turned to Jason. “I hope I didn’t embarrass you too much.”

Jason’s neck had shrunk so much the collar of his shirt was touching his ears, which made it so that when he shrugged, it looked like he was about to hurl.

Hillary turned to my dad. “Jeffrey, are you going to let him talk to me like this?”

My dad looked up from his iPhone. “Sorry—what was that?”

Stan turned to me. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Simone. Good luck with everything. One day you should come by the house. I’ll screen
Jules et Jim
for you and tell you about the lunch I had with him in Paris when I was just starting out.”

That was my second favorite Truffaut movie. It was about a woman who is torn between two best friends. (“What French movie
isn’t
?” Nicola liked to say when I brought it up.) I smiled. “That would be amazing.”

I looked over at Jason to see if the idea of his father inviting me over completely mortified him, but he was too busy still looking like a turtle.

Cheryl hugged me. “Good to see you, sweetie. You look beautiful. I’ll see you at class on Tuesday.” She turned to my dad. “Very nice to meet you. Your daughter is wonderful.” Then she turned to Hillary. “Hmmph,” was all she said before she pulled herself up to her full height—all five-feet-one of her—and walked out the door.

Hillary turned to me, this time not even trying to hide how much she hated me. “I can’t believe you would embarrass me like this in public. After all I’ve done for you!” she hissed through gritted teeth.

“Me?! I didn’t even open my mouth!”

“I . . . I . . . took you shopping!” she cried.

My dad came over and grabbed her arm. “Hillary, I think we should go now.”

“Fine.” She scanned the crowd. “It’s not like there’s anyone high level to talk to anyway. They’re all gone,” she announced as she grabbed his arm and began to lead him toward the door.

“Nice meeting you, Jason,” he called over his shoulder. “Have her home by midnight. It’s not like I’ll be there to check, but her brother will, and he’s very protective!”

I covered my face. “Tell me all that didn’t just happen,” I moaned.

“What part?” Jason asked.

I peeked between two of my fingers. “Any of it.”

He pulled my hands down. “It wasn’t
that
bad,” he said. “Compared to . . . stepping on a land mine and having your leg blown off. Or being in solitary confinement and being driven crazy by the slow dripping of water right next to your ear. Or . . .”

I cringed. “Okay. Duly noted. But still, it was awful.”

“You want to get out of here and go get something to eat?”

I nodded.

As we walked toward the door, I looked around for Blush. Seeing that there weren’t a lot of tall African American guys in the crowd, he would have been hard to miss, but he seemed to be already gone.

eleven

I wondered if I’d ever get good enough at dating so that I didn’t spend the entire date worrying about what would happen at the end. Because to have to go through life saying “Really?” and “Mm” every minute and a half so that the guy thought I was listening to him when, in fact, what I was really doing was thinking about how to position myself in the passenger seat so that if we did end up making out, I wouldn’t end up with a gear shift in my stomach would be pretty sad.

The good news about being so preoccupied was that when Jason turned on the ignition of his car and “One Less Lonely Girl” blared out of the speakers, I didn’t throw up. And when he took me to In-N-Out for dinner and spent the whole time talking about Lady Gaga, I wasn’t bored out of my mind. Instead, I just hmm’d and mm’d and really’d while I wondered whether fries gave you bad breath and how I could have been so dumb as not to remember to buy Altoids.

When we had been done eating for a while and had received more than a few dirty looks from the assistant manager because there were a bunch of people waiting for tables, he smiled at me. “You ready to go?”

“Oh. I guess. But I was just going to get another refill on my Dr Pepper,” I said nervously. So what if I had already had three in an attempt to keep my hands busy with the straw so that I didn’t do the thing I did when I was nervous, which was scrape at my cuticles? So what if I’d have a full bladder and totally have to pee while we were kissing, and instead of saying, “Hey, Jason? Do you think we could stop kissing for a second and find a bathroom?” because I wouldn’t want to break the mood, I’d just hold it for so long that it would turn into a bladder infection.

“Okay,” he shrugged.

I stood up and smoothed my dress. What was I so afraid of? So we were going to make out. Well, maybe we were. It was wrong to take these things for granted. It wasn’t like I hadn’t done it before. I totally had. Well, once. And who cared if that time had been on the street in public under a streetlight while this time would be alone in a dark car? It wasn’t so different. I sat back down.

“I thought you were getting more soda.”

“I changed my mind.” I might as well have gotten it over with. Or gotten to it.

“So you want to go?”

I nodded. “Wait!” I panicked as he started to get up. “I . . . I changed my mind. I do want more soda. But I’m not going to get a full one. Just . . . a little.” But instead of getting more soda, I went to the bathroom where I did a head-to-toe inspection of anything that could be considered offensive if Jason and I found ourselves within a two-inch radius of each other. Nothing in between teeth. No offensive smell coming from armpits. (But I smacked some water and liquid soap on them anyway and used the scratchy brown paper towels to pat them dry anyway.) Decent breath. (Shoving five pieces of Eclipse peppermint and chomping for a while before spitting them out helped.) Makeup still intact. (Most girls probably would’ve taken the time to touch it up, but most girls didn’t have shaky hands, which could result in permanent blindness.) Hair not completely flat nor overly sticky from product (thanks to a little wash and dry with hand dryer). Red lips made kissable with the addition of a little (at first too much) gloss.

Angry customer pounding on the door because I was taking so much time.

“Okay, okay,” I said as I did one more spin in front of the mirror for a last look. Which, because the mirror showed me only from my head to my boobs, meant I had to step up on the toilet. Not—I realized as I almost fell in—one of my better ideas.

I unlocked the door to find an angry woman who looked like an extra in
Jersey Shore
covered with ketchup stains holding the hands of two equally messy little kids. “Finally. What’d ya do? Fall in?”

“Almost,” I muttered as I tried to make my way past them.

“Ya see what I gotta deal with here?” she asked, pointing at the kids. “Maybe next time you can do the rest of us a favor and practice being a supermodel at home.”

“I wasn’t. I just—see, the thing is—I’monmysecond dateeverandthisreallycuteboyisabouttodrivemehomeandI’veneverbeeninthatpositionbeforeandI’mnotsurewhatI’msupposedtodo,” I blurted out.

Her face softened. “Ohhh. Now
that’s
a whole other story.” She patted my arm with her sticky fingers. “Don’t worry, honey. You look hot. And if he, you know, tries anything you’re not comfortable with, you just tell him that your father
knows
people.”

“Huh?”

“You know, like Tony Soprano kinda people?” Her left eyebrow arched.
“Capiche?”

She wanted me to tell him my dad was in the
Mafia
? “Sure.
Capoosh
,” I replied. I studied French rather than Italian, but that seemed like the likely past tense.

She looked confused. “Huh?”

“Nothing. Thanks for the advice,” I said, as I darted around her and made my way back to Jason.

“You okay?” he asked when I got back to the table.

“Oh yeah. Fine. Long line at the soda thing. Decided to drink it there.” I gave him a smile. “All ready to go if you are!”

The drive back to Venice was filled with more small talk. I tried not to compare Jason to Blush—how Blush, when he asked me a question, let me get my entire answer out and really seemed to think about what I said before he responded. Or how when I was with Blush, we talked about movies and music and TV, like Jason and I did, but then we also talked about other things. Like our families. Or our most embarrassing moments. Or how when I was with Blush, I felt comfortable blurting. Not in an awkward, fueled-by-nerves way, like I sometimes did with Jason, but because I felt relaxed and comfortable and didn’t feel the need to rewrite and revise everything in my head before saying it.

But Blush was busy listening to Aleka blurt.

The ride was also filled with more Bieber. Which didn’t help.

“Oh, I love this one,” Jason said, turning up the volume as we turned onto my street. “It’s called ‘U Smile.’”

I tried to smile back. The last time Blush and I had hung out, he played this song “In a Sentimental Mood” by Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, which, up until then, I had never heard but quickly decided was my new favorite song.

Suddenly, Jason pulled over to the side of the road.

“Um, my house is farther up the block,” I said.

He smiled. As if listening to the Biebs go on about how the girl’s lips were his biggest weakness, and how he was all in, with his cards on the table, wasn’t bad enough, suddenly, I had to listen to Jason sing it
with
him. In a voice so off-key it would have frightened small children.

How could someone so cute be so tone-deaf?
I thought to myself as I nodded along and tapped my hand on the armrest. What was wrong with me? A cute boy was
serenading
me. Not just a cute boy—a cute popular boy who sat on the Ramp. I should have been thrilled. As a girl, I was supposed to love this kind of stuff. At least that’s what books and movies said. But all I could think about was whether it was possible for ears to get bruised from certain noises and if so, how long it took for them to heal.

“So what do you think?” he asked when he was done.

“That was
great
,” I lied.

He smiled. “Thanks. My mom’s always saying it’s too bad I’m such a jock because I’d be great in chorus.”

That had to be the unconditional-love stuff that you always heard about between mothers and kids, because Cheryl was not that clueless.

“So you still hate the Biebs?” he asked.

“I—uh—”

He laughed. “I saw you getting into it. I think you might just be a Belieber now.”

As if.

He looked at his watch. “It’s only eleven. Want to take a ride down to the beach?”

“Okay.” Maybe the sounds of the waves would wash away the sound of his singing that was still ringing in my ears.

Once we parked, he turned the music down so that it was only slightly rather than completely annoying. In all the times I had thought about my first real makeout session, this was not the sound track I had thought would accompany it. “You’re pretty cool, Simone, you know that?” he asked as he moved toward me.

“Thanks. So are you,”
Other than your taste in music
, I thought as his face moved in toward mine.

But once his lips hit mine, all thoughts of Justin Bieber, Blush, and Hillary disappeared. Instead, I thought about . . . actually, the longer we kissed (which felt like hours, or maybe seconds, I couldn’t decide) the more I was unable to think about anything other than the fact that I was going to be
totally
screwed the next day when the oxytocin/obsession thing took full effect.

And then Jason took his hand and tried to snake it down the neck of my dress. Then I snapped back into thinking.

Despite my lack of experience, I was pretty sure that saying, “What do you think you’re doing?” would probably kill the moment, which is why I decided to gently grab his forearm and yank his hand out of there. Which worked . . . for about two minutes, until he tried it again.

Luckily, I cut him off at the pass. As difficult as it was to separate my lips from his, I did. “Look, Jason, I really like kissing you. And I’d really like to keep doing it. But do you think we could just, you know, keep it at that for now?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, just as breathlessly.

Really? He was going to make me spell it out for him? “I mean . . . do you think you could stop putting your hand down my dress?” That wasn’t so hard. In fact, it felt really empowering.

“Sure,” he said as he pulled me toward him and started kissing me again.

Wow. That was easy.

Or at least I thought so, until he took his hand and, instead of putting it down
my dress, decided to attempt to put it
up
it.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?!” I yelped as I pushed his hand—and him—away. “I just told you I wanted to slow things down!”

“No you didn’t. All you said was not to put my hand down your dress!”

I glared at him.

“Oh, Simone, come on,” he said as he leaned toward me again. “I
like
you. And it seems like you like me. It’s not like I’m going to post about this on Facebook.”

My eyes widened. I hadn’t even thought about that. “I like you, too,” I replied as I pushed him back. “But I want to go slow.”

He leaned over again. “But you have such an awesome body. I know a lot of guys like those anorexic types with no boobs, but I think a girl with meat on her is hot.”

“Meat”? That was so
not
hot.

I pushed him away again. “I said I don’t want to.” I may have felt shaky inside, but my voice was surprisingly strong.

He fell back against his seat. “Whatever.”

“We can still kiss.”

He didn’t even look at me. “Actually, I think I should get you home.”

“Okay,” I said quietly, pinching my thigh through my dress so I wouldn’t cry. This wasn’t fair. Why did I feel like the bad guy here?

He drove me home in silence, which was even worse than Justin Bieber. Then, as he pulled up in front of my house, he didn’t even put the car in park. He just stared straight ahead.

“Well, thanks for dinner,” I said.

“You’re welcome.”

“Hey, did you know that In-N-Out uses cottonseed oil to make their fries?” I asked. “I read that somewhere. Apparently, it makes them healthier. I meant to bring that up earlier. You know, when we were actually at the restaurant.” I know it sounded like more of my nervous babbling, but it really wasn’t. I was trying to come up with ways to stay there just a little longer so that Jason would have the opportunity to realize what a complete jerk he was being and apologize. Otherwise, I would be left with the fact that, unless I was willing to do more than kiss, he wasn’t interested in hanging out with me.

“Fascinating,” he replied, still staring ahead.

I waited. Nothing.

“I guess I should go,” I finally said.

He couldn’t even be bothered to nod.

I got out of the car. I didn’t have a lot of experience with guys, but I knew I’d never hear from Jason again. When school started again, if we passed each other in the hall, I knew he’d conveniently manage to look away. Which was why before I walked away, I needed to take this opportunity to be really honest and tell him what was on my mind, so that I wouldn’t turn into one of those girls who filled notebook after notebook with angsty poems and song lyrics about the experience.

“Jason?”

“Yeah?”

“I just need to tell you one thing.”

“What?”

I dipped my head into the car so he’d be sure to hear me. “I will never, ever be a Belieber. And to be honest, the fact that you are?” I shrugged. “It’s a little creepy.”

I didn’t even wait to see the look on his face before I started walking toward the door. I didn’t need to. Because there was no way it could’ve matched up to how proud I was of myself for coming up with that comeback in the moment rather than three weeks later.