Page 28 of The Other Side of Paradise
She laughed, waving me off. “Relax. It’s my treat.”
“Your—” I blinked hard. She was a graphic designer. What kind of graphics was she designing, cocaine labels? I knew it was a high-end resort BB and I worked at, and I knew our guests were generally all the petite-bourgeoise types, butgraphic designer dropping this much on a shirt for a friend she’d met two days agowasn’t petite-bourgeoise, that was… that was… grande-bourgeoise.
I should have refused. But if Stella was buying me a shirt, I was going to have my new favorite thing I’d ever owned. I was probably going to masturbate wearing the thing.
Jesus, I didn’t know where that thought came from, and I wasn’t going to entertain it any further here. I blushed hotly,taking the hanger from her. “Um… thanks. I guess I owe you more flowers to make it up to you.”
She grinned, and I felt my stomach drop out. Every time I made her smile, I felt like a shaft of heavenly light opened up in the sky and the hand of God had reached down to celebrate me. I was so fucking down bad. “You don’t need to flirt to get me to buy you stuff.”
“Psh—” My brain shut down—felt like a car trying to kickstart the ignition and something blew out. I gave it the mental equivalent of a kick in the side of the engine block to get it revving up. “So, what, are you telling me to stop?”
“And miss out on seeing how you stall for a second trying to figure out a smooth line? Never. It’s cute.”
Jesus Christ, kill me. I hung my head. I wish it didn’t turn me on so much that she so effortlessly maneuvered around me. “Sure you want me to practice? I might get better enough that I don’t crash out midsentence like that.”
She winked. “I’ll take my chances.”
Okay, yeah, she made a good point. I’d keep crashing out if she kept winking at me.Jesus.If she’d been actually flirting with me, I wouldn’t have known the difference. It probably counted as bullying to bethatattractive andthatmuch my type and to flirt with methatmuch while being straight, but it wasn’t like I wanted her to stop.
But luckily Stella was chatty, and we got to make easier small talk once she wasn’t spiraling out over whatever had happened with her dad. She preferred not to talk about herself, at least not for now, and asked me lots of questions instead, so I wound up rambling about my paintings, the painting workshops I volunteered at, and inevitably, Brooklyn came up a lot, enough that by the time we were finishing up and Stella was getting me the final piece to tie it all together—a sleek blazer in a houndstooth pattern that I protested there was no way I couldpull off and she’d silenced me with a wink—she stood outside the changing room where I was trying it with the rest of my outfit, and her voice was soft when she said,
“Do you have a crush on Brooklyn?”
I snorted, but my heart skipped a nervous beat—not over Brooklyn, because ew, but because talking about crushes with Stella was dangerous territory. I paused, looking at myself in the mirror as I did the buttons up on the shirt—I didn’t have, like, really serious body dysmorphia over being fat or anything, but I kind of hated how clothes were all designed for skinny people, but Stella had a good eye, because the brick-red button-up she’d picked out for me had a silhouette that actually looked like it was supposed to be on my body. “Not in a million years,” I laughed, but it came out a little quivery. “She’s way too old for me, for one. And for two… not my type.”
“Oh yeah?” she said, her voice soft from the other side of the thick red curtain closing off the changing room. I shrugged—not like she could see me, but I felt nervous and awkward in my body talking about this with her.
“Yeah. I mean, she’s twenty-six. I’m nineteen.”
“Oh, she’s the same age as Ryan. That’s cool. When she’d said she was hanging out with a bartender, I’d pictured this messy twenty-one-year-old with, like, huge fake tits or something.”
“Uh, yeah, no, that’s not BB.” I paused. “Wait, does that mean you think I’m into messy disaster girls with huge fake tits?”
“I dunno, I wouldn’t judge you,” she laughed. “You just talk about her a lot and it’s kinda… I dunno, tender.”
“She’s my best friend… honestly, I love her, just don’t tell her I said that. My, uh—” I fussed with the sleeve on my shirt. “My parents suck, so. She’s my family. So I guess the third reason I’m not into her is because it would feel like incest.”
“Huh.”
That was a loaded finish. I really hoped it didn’t mean she’d expected me to be into incest. I focused on pulling on the blazer, sliding my arms into the sleeves, and I hated to admit when I was wrong—I was the kind of person where I could know full well I was wrong and I would still keep arguing with whatever stupid loophole technicalities I could find to try totechnicallybe right aboutsomethingbecause I was stupid and stubborn and annoying—but I had to admit I was wrong, because I, uh, I looked good in this. Houndstooth was working for me. I looked sleek, put-together, cool and… well, I mean, kind of like a lesbian, honestly. Something about the striking look of a houndstooth blazer just shoutedbig queer vibes,and I was genuinely really into it. I mean, I kinda looked like a different person. One who was maybe a little more competent.
I was so engrossed in checking myself out in the mirror that it hit me like a brick to the head when Stella said, “So, who do you have a crush on?”
“Huh—” I jerked back, bumping against the changing room wall. So much for being cool. Fuck me. “What? I don’t. Who do you have a crush on?” That wasn’t the question I’d meant to ask. I hadn’t even meant to ask a question. It had just been words I could find, and I regretted them instantly, especially when Stella laughed.
“Oh, are you talking about that lifeguard too?”
Ugh,no.The last thing I ever wanted was to think about that fucking lifeguard. The idea of Stella giggling gazing into that Jacob guy’sdreamboat eyesmade me want to scream. But it was either that or she’d ask about my crush that I guess she’d picked up on, and I’d die, so I threaded my fingers in between the buttons of my shirt, and I said, “What was his name, Joshua?”
Trying to sound like I hadn’t etched his name into my memory the instant I’d heard about him as the worst thing tohappen to me. “Jacob,” she said, and I swallowed. “Yeah, he’s pretty hot.”
“Uh-huh… I’ll take your word for it.” I pursed my lips. I didn’t want to hear any more of this. “I’m not the best judge of hot men.”
She laughed. “You can appreciate it, though, right? Like, I can tell when a girl is hot.”
“I… don’t think I can. Men just look like men.”
“So, like, you can look at some cool, tall guy out on the beach with no shirt on, great figure, big winning smile, and you just think, like,yep, a guy?”
