The Sweetest Thing Page 6

  “Remember to wear your rubber gloves and lab goggles while working with the specimens,” Mr. Phelps reminded the class as he handed out shakers of frog food. “Try to take as many notes on the frogs’ behavior as possible. You will be graded on the volume and accuracy of your data.”

  I took my lab goggles out of my schoolbag and grimaced. “Ugh. I hate these things.”

  “Yeah, they do kind of fog up.” Adam reached into his schoolbag as well.

  “That, and they look stupid. On me, anyway—like I’m a big bug.”

  Adam put his on right away and looked over at me. With his square jaw and curly hair, the goggles didn’t look too bad. “Let me see.”

  I sighed and stretched my goggles over my head. The elastic band made the back of my hair stick up. Adam laughed.

  “No, they’re cute!”

  “Cute like Bogie, maybe.” The goggles felt a little too tight, so I took them off to adjust the strap.

  Just then Adam reached across the table. Before I had a chance to react, he lightly touched my forehead. “Oh no—you already have goggle lines.”

  I took a small step backward and pulled on my gloves. “Bogie looks kind of hungry. Maybe we should feed him.” My forehead tingled a little where he’d touched me.

  Adam unscrewed the tadpole jar and tapped a few flakes of frog food out onto the surface of the water. Bogie ate them up super fast, flicking with his tongue just like a regular-size frog. It was incredibly cute and funny, and I couldn’t help but laugh along with Adam.

  “It says here he’ll start developing lungs in two weeks,” Adam read from one of the photographs Mr. Phelps had passed out. “They sure grow up fast, don’t they?”

  “Pretty soon we’ll be helping him with college applications,” I agreed.

  Adam started filling in one of the charts. “Nah, he’s going to take after me and do the dumb-jock thing. He’ll get a scholarship to some football factory if he’s lucky.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re a smart guy,” I said, surprising myself by actually meaning it. Between reading ahead in English and liking old movies, Adam seemed to have a lot of interests.

  “I don’t know.” He sighed. “Most people see the jersey and assume all I’m good at is throwing a ball around and tackling people.”

  I frowned. Hadn’t I said that about Adam when Meredith told me she liked him? It had been pretty judgmental of me, and I’d clearly been wrong. “I think you guys must work harder than most people realize, since you have to go to practice and get all your work done on time.”

  “It is kind of a lot. And to be honest, I’m a little nervous for our first game this Saturday.” Adam glanced over at me. “Any chance you’ll be there?”

  “Oh, I don’t know …” I faltered, imaging Meredith and Judith’s wounded expressions if they knew Adam had asked whether I going to be at the game, even though he was probably just being friendly. Invoking the No Adam Rule, I said, “Football’s not really my thing.” Not wanting to look at him, I tapped Bogie’s jar and watched as he swam right up to the glass to stare out at me with his googly eyes.

  But Adam went on, undaunted. “Well, Brooklyn Tech’s supposed to be one of the better teams in the conference this year, so it should be a good matchup. You should definitely check it out. You might surprise yourself by liking it.” Adam held my eyes for a second as he handed the worksheet back to me. “And it’d mean a lot to see you there.”

  The bell rang and all around us kids started slamming their books shut and putting their papers into their folders. I quickly grabbed my schoolbag and started throwing things inside. Adam hoisted his backpack onto his shoulders and looked at me expectantly.

  I rubbed my forehead, struggling with how to answer. Noncommittal seemed the best route. “We’re supposed to wear school colors, right?”

  He grinned. “Red and blue. I’ll keep an eye out for you.”

  I heaved a huge sigh as I finished gathering my things and stuck Bogie on a back shelf with the other tadpoles. This bio unit seemed like it could be fun, but I gave myself an F in abiding by the No Adam Rule.

  CHAPTER 10

  EVERYONE LIKES ADAM—AND I DO MEAN EVERYONE

  After school, I found Bennett by my locker, looking adorable as usual. He was leaning against the wall, wearing a plaid Dickies shirt and a brown corduroy jacket. His dirty blond hair fell into his eyes as he thumbed through an old comic, and his mouth was set into a funny little frown of concentration that made him look smart and a little bit silly at the same time. But as soon as he saw me out of the corner of his eye, he looked up and gave me the sweetest, nicest smile—like there was no one in the world he’d rather see. I found myself beaming right back. Okay, so yes, Adam was totally hot, but Bennett, with his chipped tooth and eager blue eyes, was totally adorable.

  “Hey,” he said, shoving off the wall with his left foot. “Just thought I’d stop by and see if you wanted to go to the Bean Garden for a latte.”

  “I wish I could, but Feb’s been acting like a cartoon version of somebody’s mother. She wants me to come home right after school now.” I sighed. “Pretty soon she’ll be putting bars on my windows.”

  “Or maybe she’ll hire a bouncer to keep me out of your house—isn’t that more her style?”

  I laughed. “At this point, I can almost imagine her doing that.”

  “Anything I can do to help?” Bennett asked me as I twisted the dial on my locker door.

  I put the books and papers I needed in my bag and slammed the metal door shut. “Yes, on second thought, you can take me out for coffee.” Bennett was so sweet and thoughtful. I grabbed his hand and gave it a friendly squeeze. “I haven’t gotten a chance to talk to you all day.”

  “So, I’m thinking about sending some of my clips from the Spectator to this writing contest,” said Bennett, as we walked down the second-floor hallway. “It’s sort of a long shot, but the person they choose gets to write a weekly column for teens on the Time Out New York Web site.”

  “Wow, Bennett, that’s so exciting.” We reached the end of the hallway, but when we turned the corner into the stairwell, I almost gasped out loud. There, coming down the stairs from the third floor, was Adam McGregor.

  For some reason, running into him when I was with Bennett made me feel slightly panicky. But Adam didn’t seem fazed at all to see me with another guy. He just smiled, and it occurred to me that maybe I’d misunderstood the way he’d acted in bio and at lunch. He seemed to be friendly with everyone, and the fact that he’d been so nice to me probably didn’t mean anything except that he was a nice guy. Whoa. I’d been acting just like Meredith and Judith—reading way too much into totally innocent conversations. The idea should have cheered me up—one less thing to worry about!—but for some reason it didn’t comfort me quite as much as it should have.

  “Hey, Flan,” he said with an easy grin. “How’s it going?”

  “Oh, hey, Adam.” I said, trying to sound as nonchalant as he did. “Have you met Bennett?”

  Adam kept smiling, but I could have sworn that a flicker of something—disappointment, maybe?—came across his face. Almost immediately, though, he turned to Bennett and offered his hand for him to shake.

  Bennett took his hand, glancing between Adam and me. “Nice to meet you. So … you’re in bio together, right?

  “Lab partners—we have a tadpole together.” Adam gave me a playful wink, and I blushed a little. Then he pointed to the comic book Bennett still had in his hand. “Hey—is that Green Lantern?”

  “Yep—number seventy-five,” Bennett said, holding up the cover for Adam to see.

  Adam took the comic book from Bennett and flipped through the thin pages. “My brother’s obsessed with Green Lantern. He has a bunch of these comics—all the way back to the beginning of the series.”

  “Really?” Bennett lit up, and if I didn’t know better, I would say he looked at Adam with almost as much adoration as Meredith and Judith had at the pep rally. “You’re kid
ding me. This series is incredible. I only really got into it a few months ago, but the art, the stories—”

  “Yeah, that’s what Darren always says. He’s kind of a nut about it and keeps them locked in a filing cabinet.” A girl with curly brown hair squeezed past us to go upstairs, shooting Adam a flirtatious grin in the process. Adam smiled back, and then continued talking to Bennett. “You should come over sometime. He loves showing them off, so I bet he’d be happy to let you check them out.”

  “That’s really nice, Adam,” I said, almost to remind them that I was still there. It was kind of weird how they were both totally ignoring me all of a sudden. “Anyway, Bennett and I were going to go grab a cup of coffee, so we better get going. …”

  “You want to come with us?” Bennett asked as I started inching toward the stairs. “We’re heading down to the Bean Garden.”

  “I wish I could, but I promised a friend I’d help him with his English homework. If his grades drop any lower, Coach’ll have to put him on academic probation.”

  Bennett looked impressed. “No offense or anything, but I didn’t actually think football players helped each other study.”

  Adam shrugged. “Well, he’s one of our best players—it’d hurt to lose him for even a couple games.”

  “Still, it’s cool of you to help him,” I agreed, a little grudgingly.

  “We’ll see how much progress we make. I’m still trying to convince him that The Catcher in the Rye isn’t about a baseball player.” He hefted his backpack down off his shoulder and took out a notebook. “Anyhow, here’s my e-mail address. I should be around this weekend if you want to stop by.”

  “Cool!” Bennett said excitedly. “I’ll give you mine, too.”

  Even though Adam had been nothing but nice to me, it seemed like every time I saw him my life got more complicated. What was this guy’s deal, anyway? Tutoring his friends, charming mine … and now he was going to hang out with Bennett? As the two of them scribbled down their e-mail addresses, I tried to convince myself that things would be better now that all of us were becoming friends … and that being friends with Adam wasn’t exactly against the Rule. But I couldn’t help feel worried. What if they got together and talked about me? I mentally scrolled through all my past conversations with Adam, making sure I hadn’t said anything that could possibly be construed as flirtatious.

  A second later Adam said good-bye and bounded down the second-floor hallway. Bennett was standing still, looking more than a little awestruck.

  “That guy’s awesome. And can you believe his brother’s a Green Lantern fan?”

  “I can barely wrap my mind around it,” I said dryly. But what I really couldn’t wrap my mind around was how easy it was for Adam to charm everybody I knew … including me.

  CHAPTER 11

  RULES ARE MADE … TO BE BROKEN

  I had such a nice time with Bennett at coffee that I completely lost track of time. It was dark when I finally got home, and I fumbled with the lock to let myself into the house. Noodles jumped on me the minute I was inside, his dark brown eyes glowing with excitement and love. I sat down on the floor and he kissed my face, wriggling his whole puffball body with happiness. But judging by the awful silence that filled the house, he was the only one glad to see me.

  “Hello?” I called. “Anybody home?”

  Maybe I’d gotten lucky—maybe Feb and Patch had forgotten about being responsible and taken off for a party at Butter or something. But then a stern voice called, “We’re in here, Flan.” My good mood deflated instantly, and a searing feeling of annoyance replaced it.

  I went into the kitchen, where they were sitting much as they had been the other night, Patch with the newspaper in front of him, Feb dressed in another vintage housewife outfit—gingham dress, white ruffly apron—with a pair of knitting needles and a ball of yarn in her lap. This time, though, there weren’t any trays of cookies on the table, and Feb and Patch were both looking at me with deadly serious expressions.

  “What?” I said, setting down my bag and purse. “Stop with the silent treatment already.” I walked over to the fridge to get myself a bottle of juice.

  “Hey, Flanny, take a seat. Feb’s pretty worked up,” said Patch.

  I snorted as I popped open a Nantucket Nectar. “Okay, but you guys better make it fast, because I’ve got a lot of homework.”

  “Enough with the attitude, Flan,” February snapped. “Now listen. The last time Mom and Dad were home, Patch and I saw how happy you were, and we started talking about how maybe a little bit of discipline was just what you needed. Neither of us had that when we were teenagers, and look how we ended up.”

  I looked from Feb, in her heels and apron, to Patch, who was wearing his usual T-shirt and jeans.

  “Yeah, you guys are completely out of control,” I said dryly. “And Patch is still a teenager, in case you forgot.”

  “Listen, Flan, I know this might not make sense to you now. But at my internship, I’m starting to see the way the real world works, and believe me, it’s nothing like the way we grew up. No all-night parties in the middle of the week, no VIP passes, no celebrities. Well, okay, this firm does handle a lot of entertainment cases, but you know what I mean.” She wagged her knitting needle at me menacingly. “I hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but it’s already eight o’clock—you didn’t call to tell me where you were, even though I told you yesterday I want you to come straight home after school. So your brother and I”—Patch shifted uncomfortably in his chair—“decided it might help us provide you with structure if we set some ground rules.”

  I laughed so hard, strawberry-guava juice almost came shooting out my nose. “You’re going to give me rules? I’m the good one, remember?”

  Feb picked up a piece of paper from the table. A recipe for mojitos was scribbled on the back.

  “Rule number one,” she read. “Come home directly after school. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.”

  “What?” I exploded. “That’s totally ridiculous. When am I supposed to hang out with my friends? And hello? Are you familiar with the word hypocrisy?”

  “Friends are more than welcome here. If they’re not the sort of people you’re willing to bring into this house, well … then maybe they’re not friends worth having.” Feb looked down at her piece of paper again. “Rule number two. You now have an eleven o’clock curfew.”

  “Curfew?”

  “Rule number three. Leave your bedroom door open when you have boys over.”

  “Sometimes when Bennett and I are studying, Patch is down here playing the Clash so loud the walls shake! We shut the door for quiet.”

  “Rule number four. No clubbing until you’re twenty-one.”

  This was beyond ridiculous—it was totally unfair. All these years, I’d put up with Patch’s wild parties and February disappearing for weeks at a time. Now I was supposed to follow their rules? No freakin’ way.

  “Okay, I’ve had it.” I slammed my juice bottle down on the tabletop and stood up. “Feb, you only turned twenty-one three weeks ago, and you’ve been a fixture in the New York club scene for years. Patch is only eighteen and the bartenders at Lotus know his name. You guys are really being totally awful and you know it.”

  I picked up my quilted Marc Jacobs bag and stormed upstairs, ignoring the threats to ground me that Feb was yelling at my back.

  CHAPTER 12

  SARA-BETH BENNY AND THE ATTACK OF THE POD PEOPLE

  I immediately went out on my balcony, and called Sara-Beth Benny to commiserate.

  While I waited for her to pick up, I settled down on my bamboo lawn chair and stared up at the sky. My balcony is probably my favorite thing about my bedroom. It’s small, but it has a nice view of our yard and the yards of the other town houses, including SBB’s. There’s a little wrought-iron railing around the edge of it, with flower boxes where I grow mint and rosemary, and just this past weekend, I’d carved a jack-o’-lantern and stuck it out here too.

  �
�Flan?” SBB finally answered on the seventh ring. She sounded out of breath. “Oh my God, I’m so glad it’s you.”

  “Why? What’s going on?” I leaned over to light the cinnamon candle inside my pumpkin. It smelled delicious.

  “It’s a nightmare, is what it is! So I fired Nada and it was a terrible scene—she was crying and yelling gypsy curses and it was drama, drama, drama, and you know my nerves, so I had no choice but to call the police, and of course with all the sirens and me outside in a kimono at ten in the morning, all these horrible, horrible reporters started swarming down the block, and they were snapping pictures and laughing and it was such a terrible scene, I don’t think I’ll ever recover. So by then I just wanted complete simplicity, just something nice and clean and simple, you know, no more of this embroidery and crystals and giant bronze elephants in every room, because honestly, I just don’t need that kind of thing in my life. So I hired a new designer, this Leif Gaardner, and he promised me that he could make me a new living space that would be calm, you know, utterly calm and sterile, and out of all recycled materials, too, if you can believe that—he’s done some wonderful things with truck tires in Northern California—and the long and short of it is, I can’t stay on the phone because they’re delivering it any min—Oh, here they are now! Wait, wait, I’ve got to go up to my roof!”

  “Your roof? Wait, Sara-Beth, what are they delivering?” I stood up and looked over at her house. An enormous hydraulic crane had rumbled to a stop on Perry Street. A white Tylenol capsule the size of a VW Bug dangled from its jaws.

  The portico door to Sara-Beth’s roof was flung open and she came running out, waving her spindly arms around frantically. She yelled directions to the crane operator while the capsule ominously swung back and forth from wires that, from where I sitting, didn’t look particularly secure.

  “Sara-Beth?” I yelled into the phone. I saw her lift her cell phone back up to her ear.

  “So, the thing is,” SBB shouted, “Leif thinks the problem is wasted space. I’m only one person—how can I be expected to use a whole town house?” She turned toward the crane, flapping her arms and shrieking, “To the right! No, the other right!” To me, she continued, “There’s just so much pressure to make use of the living room and the dining room and the ice dispenser and the Jacuzzi, and obviously it’s stressing me out. But this pod provides everything I need—nutrition cubes, solar power, even moist cloths for bathing! And the best part is, no wasted space. I won’t even be able to turn around in there. It’s like a padded cell.”