Monday night came with all the anticipation of a high-risk bank robbery. Rachel was still faking sick and said she hadn’t seen Alex since the last time she was in school. I had somehow gotten him to agree to take me out to his and Rachel’s favorite restaurant, which I thought was a bit bold of him. This boy was definitely overconfident and needed his ego taken down a few notches.
I decided to go for a classy look for the date and chose a black and white tweed pencil skirt that came up high on my waist with a tucked-in light pink blouse. The cream colored high heels tied the whole thing together and made me look like something straight out of the 1950s. It took quite a bit of convincing to get Alex to just meet me at the restaurant instead of picking me up, but there was no way he’d believe I was as rich and well connected as him if he saw my house. I was hoping I could get there early enough that he wouldn’t even see me get out of my car that was clearly not worth millions of dollars. I finally told him there was a lot of construction going on with our house with the new home theatre we were putting in and I didn’t want him to have to walk through all the dust and debris. This seemed to work because he then quickly agreed to simply meet me at the restaurant.
Walking into the restaurant that night was a bit jarring. I was sure the hostess would see right past my façade and tell me to get out because they didn’t serve my kind there. Luckily when I told her who I was meeting, she made sure I was comfortable at an intimate table for two. Alex arrived right on time and seemed to be surprised that I was already at the restaurant. Apparently he was used to waiting on high-maintenance dates.
“Marie,” he said with a charming smile, “you’re here early.”
“Actually, Alex, I’m here right on time,” I replied, giving him a wink and my most inviting smile. I had to try to keep the small talk up for a while since Rachel said she might be a bit late. We had decided that the best way to get this whole thing done would be to bring her parents along with her so that they would see just how “horrible” Alex was and forbid her from seeing him anymore. Sadly this meant the scene that played out here would probably be very dramatic and loud, but I didn’t mind too much since I was positive I wouldn’t be coming back to this restaurant again any time soon.
I made sure to rest my hand lightly on the table so that Alex could place his hand gently over mine. Our conversation wasn’t particularly exciting, but I pretended to hang on his every word, leaning over the small circular table to get closer to him. The waitress had already come around and taken our orders, which worried me since I had expected Rachel and her parents to be there long before that happened. I was sorely tempted to take out my phone and call her to ask what was taking so long but I knew that would look far too suspicious, not to mention low-class. Instead I let Alex order for me (since I definitely didn’t speak French) and continued to lean into him as if everything he said enthralled me.
After forty-five minutes of listening to him ramble on about why the public school system was so beneath him and he liked when people knew their place in society, Rachel and her parents finally arrived. As much as I didn’t want a scene, I was desperate to get out of that restaurant so I decided to help things along a little. I snuggled up closer to Alex so that I was practically sitting on his lap and made a small, innocent observation.
“Alex, why is that girl looking over here? She just keeps staring and it’s starting to make me uncomfortable. Could you do something about that?” I asked, looking up at him from under my eyelashes.
“Where?” he asked, obviously surprised that I had spoken, since it was the first time since this date started that I had been able to get a word in. As Alex looked around the room, I saw all of the color drain from his face faster than I thought was healthy. After that it didn’t take long for the fight to begin. Rachel strode over to the table like a bull on a rampage with her parents in tow behind her. Alex stood up with his arms spread wide as if trying to say that he had no idea how he had ended up at a nice restaurant with a girl who was definitely not his girlfriend. This, however, didn’t seem to work because Rachel drew her hand so far back that she almost hit her startled mother and slapped Alex hard enough to quiet the whole restaurant.
Though I knew there would be a scene, I hadn’t expected such a forceful reaction, especially since Rachel had planned the whole thing. I thought she would at least cut the boy some slack since she knew he wasn’t technically cheating. This knowledge didn’t seem to faze her at all.
“Daddy, do you see what I have to put up with?” she shrieked, drawing the attention of everyone who hadn’t already been alerted by the slap. “He’s disloyal! I’ve been trying to tell you for so long. I deserve so much better than him, Daddy!” After this proclamation, Rachel broke down into what I can only describe as the most poorly acted fit of crying I had ever seen. Her mother wrapped an understanding arm around her daughter’s shaking shoulders, which I found at least slightly endearing. They might be filthy rich and spoiled rotten but they still possessed human emotion, which was more than I expected. The “human emotion” coming from Rachel’s father, however, was less endearing and more terrifying.
I couldn’t quite understand what he was saying but he was definitely turning an unhealthy shade of scarlet as he bellowed at a still-dumbfounded Alex. I didn’t quite know who I should feel sorry for in the situation that was playing out before me; though I was quickly starting to suspect that I shouldn’t really feel sorry for any of them. Instead I sat awkwardly at the table, fully aware that many of the eyes were turned on me. I was officially cast as the “other woman” in this scenario. I twisted my cloth napkin into a small pillar in my lap before finally deciding it would be best to just get out of there. My usual apologize and dash strategy didn’t seem appropriate for this situation so I had to think quickly.
Standing up I shot an icy death glare at Alex and threw my cloth napkin down on the table. Rachel’s father had stopped yelling for a moment, presumably to catch his breath, so I took that opportunity to say in a high-pitched, indignant voice, “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you had a girlfriend,” before stomping out of the restaurant, hoping I wouldn’t trip over anything and draw even more attention to myself.
Once I reached my car, I turned and looked behind me to make sure Alex or Rachel’s family wasn’t coming out of the restaurant to see my old, unimpressive car. Much to my delight they were nowhere to be found.
I drove home with a grin plastered to my face, excited to recount the night’s events to David and discuss our plan of attack for the next day, though I suspected that after that performance, Alex wouldn’t find me quite as appealing as he had just moments ago.
I wore a low-cut, teal, silk blouse to school on Tuesday with black skinny jeans and open-toed teal heels. It was easy to spot Alex in his normal spot by the tennis courts. He looked eager as I walked up behind him, which I thought was odd since I had just caused him quite a bit of grief the night before. I had to think of a good excuse as to why I would be coming around after I had declared my loathing so forcefully just a day ago. He glanced around often; apparently looking for someone that I assumed was me. I decided not to disappoint him. Leaning over behind him, I whispered a quick, “Looking for someone?” in his ear. His cheeks instantly turned red when he saw me, though he kept himself beautifully composed.
“Hey, Marie,” he said casually, though by the way his eyes kept wandering to my lips, I knew I’d snagged him. “I’m really sorry about last night. I should have told you about that little detail,” he said casually. I figured that when he said “little detail” he meant the fact that he had a girlfriend who he was cheating on with me. Instead of showing my true disgust for this boy, who apparently hadn’t learned his lesson, I simply shrugged my shoulders.
“I’ve already forgotten about it,” I said sweetly.
I spent all of my energy that morning being as openly flirtatious as I possibly could be without literally throwing myself at Alex. David spent the day away from the spot because, according to him, just because he’d agreed it was a worthy cause, it didn’t mean he’d be able to stand by and watch some other guy ogle me. I found his jealousy endearing.
I left school Tuesday afternoon (David and I had agreed not to meet in the parking lot in case Alex showed up) and drove down to the park, slipping out of my heels and exchanging them for the black flip-flops I had tossed in my car that morning. David was waiting for me in his car, and I got in the passenger seat. We had decided that since we weren’t able to make our date a few days ago, we would celebrate our inevitable victory tonight by going to dinner. It had been my idea to meet in the parking lot of the park rather than at my house, after our last experience there. David assured me that wasn’t likely to happen again but agreed to the park.
We went to the same Italian restaurant he had taken me to on our first “fake” date. The food seemed better this time, and the conversation was infinitely better. We sped through the list of “favorites” (favorite movie, color, animal, food) and worked our way into goals for the future. I had much more to say about my goals, since I didn’t posses any favorites of my own. The conversation continued as we migrated back to the park and ended up lying on a blanket in the grass.
David had his arm around me, enabling me to rest my head on his chest as we spoke. The lights around the park made it difficult to see the stars, but I wasn’t looking at the sky anyway. With my eyes trained on the perfect boy beside me, I asked him to tell me about his family. I knew it sounded like an oddly masochistic question coming from someone in a broken home, but I actually enjoyed hearing about normal families.
“Well, you already know about my parents. I’ve got one little sister and no brothers, but I do have a rather amusing grandma,” he said, sounding very much like someone telling a bedtime story. “She grew up in the south but moved down to Simi Valley when my dad moved to Thousand Oaks. She always says the most inappropriate things.” He laughed softly at some unspoken memory and continued. “Most of the time she’s pretty funny, but we have to be careful when we’re out in public. Some people don’t understand where she’s coming from.”
I closed my eyes and listened to the steady beat of David’s heart, never wanting this moment to end. “What about the rest of your family?” I asked, just wanting to keep him talking. The way he talked about his family was so loving that it made me wish I had that kind of relationship with my own.
“The rest of my family is pretty normal. We try to get together every few years, but it’s difficult with everyone spread out all over the country.” He shrugged and fell silent, and we both listened to the wind blowing through the trees for a little while. After a few more moments of silence, I voiced a thought that I had been entertaining since our talk a few days earlier.
“David?”
“Mmm?”
“I was just thinking about how well this job is working out… and how well Blane worked out, and I was thinking… maybe if we did a background check on each client to make sure they weren’t some sort of ‘chronic dumper,’ we could still keep the business going.”
He didn’t say anything for a minute, and I thought maybe I’d overestimated the appeal of this proposal.
“Go on,” he said after a moment, much to my relief.
“Well, maybe you could perform the background check since you have vast journalistic skills,” I said as I nudged him with my shoulder. We had moved on from his less-than-kind description of me in his article, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t taunt him with it every now and then. “Maybe you could decide if the person is a worthy client and I could do what I do, then you could sweep in and save me from any commitment at the last second.” I paused, thinking through this a bit more now that I’d said it out loud. “Maybe we could say that everyone can get one breakup before they’re no longer eligible for the service. The only time we’d perform multiple breakups for the same person would be in special cases like Rachel McKlintock, where they’re already so spoiled that our refusal wouldn’t make a difference.”
I looked up at David and saw that he was actually working through my proposal in his head, which, honestly, was much more than I’d expected. I tried to let him think without staring at him, so I closed my eyes and just concentrated on the way his chest rose and fell with each slow breath he took.
“I like that idea,” he said finally, actually sounding pleased. I looked up at him to see him smiling back down at me. He kissed the top of my head and I reveled in the odd compromise to the two futures I had originally imagined. I was the luckiest girl alive to get to have a little of both of the worlds I couldn’t seem to give up.
Project “Alex Swensen” was in full swing by the time I pulled into the parking lot on Wednesday morning. David had scoped out the perfect spot where he could keep an eye on what was going on and sweep in at just the right moment. No matter what happened, today was a pivotal moment for this job, and a lot rested on exactly how I played the whole thing.
I emerged from my car in a dark blue lace tank top and a short white skirt. I passed David in the parking lot briefly, but we didn’t acknowledge each other’s presence, though I could have sworn I heard him say something about how I looked like a sailor. I wanted to turn around and shoot some counter attack about how he had dressed like a rich kid today, but I had to stay focused on the job. I had a very expensive looking, but very fake diamond necklace around my neck, and I had curled my hair once more, letting it fall wildly around my face.
David and I had both gotten to school a bit late that day and therefore had to wait until break to perform the entire scene. It worked out better that way, in my opinion, because having more time was always an advantage. It left room for mistakes. I walked to my class, taking note of the various prom posters around school. They all advertised the same date: May 17. It was only four days from now-this Saturday night. I wondered fleetingly if David would ask me, or if I even wanted him to ask me. Prom seemed like such a trivial ritual, but it would be fun to go. I had never been to a dance before, and while I was sure actually dancing was out of the question, it would be nice to get all dressed up with David.
I spent my entire class texting David to make sure he was ready for everything. He quickly reminded me that it wasn’t hard to strut in and act like he loved me. This made me smile and blush deeply, which didn’t escape the notice of my teacher. I tried to keep my emotions more at bay for the rest of the class but continued to text David any time my teacher wasn’t looking.
By the time I left class and headed toward the tennis courts, I was feeling like a secret agent. I was even considering coming up with my own theme music when a look at Alex brought me back to the here and now. I noticed with some apprehension that his friends weren’t flanking him as they normally were. I started to wonder if I had overestimated my charm. Alex wore an odd expression that I couldn’t really understand, and I was slowly becoming convinced that he had found out the entire plan and had dismissed his cronies to beat me to a pulp, or something equally as horrible. Knowing him, that “equally as horrible’” thing would have something to do with discontinuing my nonexistent trust fund.
“Marie?” he said as I approached, and I wondered if he was looking for confirmation of my identity or simply a nod to show I was listening. I opted for the nod. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot these past couple days,” he began, and I could almost taste the victory. I even felt a bit bad, since he seemed to possibly care about me.
“Have you?” I said noncommittally.
“Yes… and I’ve been thinking that we could be good for each other. I mean, with my family’s connections and your family’s connections, we could do anything.” Oh, how romantic. He wanted to date me because we could plot to take over the world together. That’s what every girl wants out of a relationship.
“Really? Because I was beginning to get the impression that you and Rachel might still be together,” I said, wanting him to actually tell me that he had broken up with her.
“Me? No, I’m not with Rachel anymore,” he said casually.
“Is that so?” I said simply, assuming with some relief that this meant he and Rachel were officially broken up. I hadn’t been able to actually confirm this fact since Rachel seemed too busy to take my calls all of a sudden. Shaking the thoughts from my mind and turning my focus back to Alex, I smiled, trying not to let him see my distaste for him. I was desperate for David to sweep in and bail me out, but he hadn’t come yet and I couldn’t quite understand why.
“So, with that out of the way, I was wondering if you would want to be my girlfriend. Just imagine how much influence we’d have. No doors would be locked to us.” This boy’s method of romancing a girl really wasn’t a flowers and chocolates approach, was it? I waited for a moment, trying to look like I was thinking it over, while in reality I was waiting for David to make his big entrance. Suddenly I was beginning to panic, wondering if maybe he thought we were doing it at lunch and was just waiting for me by the library. I looked around nervously, but I couldn’t spot him anywhere.
“Your girlfriend?” I repeated, trying to buy myself some time to think.
“Yeah. I really do think it’s a good match, and I’m sure our parents would agree.”
“Well, there’s no denying that,” I said enthusiastically, still waiting for David to rescue me from the clutches of Stock Exchange Boy.
“So, what do you say?” he asked, obviously a bit put-off by the fact that I hadn’t answered him in the affirmative right away.
“I say… um… that’s a really generous offer…” I trailed off, not quite sure where to go from there.
“But one she sadly can’t accept,” said the sandy blond-haired boy who had suddenly appeared right beside me. I didn’t have to fake my relief at the sight of him, though I wanted to stomp on his foot for taking so long.
“Jackson, what on earth are you doing here?” I asked, my face the epitome of astonishment. “I thought your parents took you on holiday to… to… Paris.” I had forgotten my line, apparently, but I thought my recovery was convincing enough.
“I told them to fly me back early when I realized I was going to miss your birthday, honey bear.” I had to choke back a laugh at David’s moment of improv. We had definitely not decided on disgusting pet names, though I wouldn’t mind giving him a taste of his own medicine.
“Well, I’m so glad you did, snuggle bunny,” I said in the most pathetic baby voice I could manage. Alex looked as if he wanted to vomit, which I couldn’t blame him for. If I thought someone was seriously calling her significant other snuggle bunny, I’d have to run for a trash can too. David looked as if he wouldn’t last much longer. His stomach was shaking with the effort of holding his laughter in. “Sorry, Alex, I didn’t know I was sending that kind of signal to you. But I swear, it’s not you, it’s me…” I shrugged innocently and took David’s hand.
“Let’s go make birthday preparations on my yacht,” David added enthusiastically, making it difficult for me to keep my expression neutral. “It was lovely to meet you, Andre,” he said over his shoulder as we left. If David hadn’t done a relatively thorough background check to show me that, until Rachel, who was even more well-connected than him, Alex had been quite the player, I would have felt slightly bad about the whole thing.
“Honey bear?” I asked, as we walked down the hallway to the now familiar spot by the library. David laughed loudly at his own cleverness and messed his hair up, loosening the gel that had kept it slicked back for our little show.
“Honey bear is nothing compared to snuggle bunny. Where did you even get that from?” he asked incredulously.
“Just by looking at you, lovekins,” I said, pinching his cheek as we stood at our spot. Sitting was out of the question in my short skirt.
“All things considered, I think that went pretty well,” he told me, after disheveling his hair to his satisfaction.
“It would have gone better if you had actually come in when you were supposed to,” I said accusingly. “What took you so long?”
“It was fun to watch you sweat,” he said cheekily. I hit him on the arm and pretended to pout for as long as I could stand it, which was only a few seconds.
“Well, say you’re sorry so I can forgive you or no yacht ride for you.”
“I’m so sorry, Amelia Marie Bedford. From now on I will ruin the lives of others right on schedule.” I gave him a sharp look but ignored his apology and pulled out my phone.
“Now, to see if everything worked out with Rachel,” I said, by way of an explanation.
“Hello?” came Rachel’s sleepy voice. I just couldn’t understand how that girl could sleep in so late all the time.
“Hey Rachel, it’s Amelia. I was just wondering if everything worked out all right? Because if it didn’t, then you have a cheating boyfriend on your hands.”
“Oh yeah, Daddy was really upset and said I couldn’t date him for another minute,” she said nonchalantly. I suppose it would have been too much trouble for her to call and tell me this herself. “So I’ll send someone over to the school to slip the money into your locker next week. I’m taking a small vacation from the whole public school thing.”
“All right, well, good luck with that,” I said insincerely as I hung up the phone. David looked at me inquiringly and I just said, “Rich people.”
“Rich people indeed,” he agreed as he looked me up and down. “I wasn’t aware that rich people dressed like sailors,” he said with a laugh.
“At least I didn’t wear something straight out of a cologne ad,” I said incredulously, though my voice still held a humorous edge.
“Hey, you just said wear ‘expensive looking clothes.’ Slacks and a button-up shirt are expensive,” he said reasonably. “Although maybe popping the collar was a bit much.” I just shook my head at his logic, a smile creeping onto my face. “Besides,” he continued, “I wanted to look nice when I asked you.” I stared at him, waiting for him to finish his sentence, but apparently that was all I was getting without giving him a little prodding.
“Ask me what?”
“If you would be interested in going to prom with me.” He looked at me expectantly now, all joking gone from his face. My smile widened for a moment before melting away.
“I think all of the tickets are sold out,” I answered dismally.
“Yeah, I figured that would happen… that’s why I bought them when we decided to call a truce last week.” I could tell that he was pretty pleased with himself, and quite frankly, I was too.
“I would love to,” I said happily, trying not to look like a grinning idiot. David beamed at me before his face became serious once more. “Oh no. There’s more?” I asked, completely at a loss for what else he could possibly need to say.
“I know it’s none of my business but I figured… maybe getting a dress and everything would be a good opportunity for you to spend some time with your mom.” His voice was barely above a whisper, but I heard him perfectly.
It had been sweet of him to think of that, but I couldn’t imagine my mom and me spending a girl’s day out to go shopping for a dress. Not wanting to spoil his plans, though, I said, “Yeah, maybe,” without much hope that my mom would agree to come with me.
“Just promise you’ll ask?” he said hopefully.
“I promise.”