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  “Lemmings, not chinchillas,” Rhys muttered as he walked to a row of dented metal lockers. On the other side of the locker room three juniors had pinned down Chadwick Jenkins, a terrified freshman, and were rubbing some type of thick, brownish goo onto his chest from a large green tub.

  “It’s hair food, man! Dude, if this doesn’t make any chest hair grow, we’ll just know you’re a chick,” one of the guys said as he slapped more of the cream onto Chadwick’s skinny body.

  Rhys wordlessly opened his locker and pulled on a sweatshirt and track pants, barely nodding at Owen Carlyle, who was farther down the row. Weirdly, Owen had seemed just as depressed and quiet as Rhys lately. Rhys couldn’t imagine what his problem was. The guy had girls tripping over themselves just to talk to him. Even today, a contingent of L’École girls had spent the entire practice on the observation deck of the pool, giggling every time Owen did a flip turn. Meanwhile, Rhys was surrounded by St. Jude’s swimmers like Hugh, who were just loud and gross and hairy and… not Kelsey.

  “Hey guys!” Coach Siegel strode into the locker room and blew his metal whistle authoritatively. He stood in the center of the room, his hairless arms crossed over his white STANFORD SWIMMING T-shirt as if he were posing for a GQ spread.

  “Trying to make Chadwick’s hair grow, huh? Reminds me of some of the hazing for the Cardinals!” Coach had graduated from Stanford just a few years ago and talked about it at every opportunity. His mouthwash-blue eyes clouded over in happy reminiscence. “Come into my office once you’re decent, men,” he said, and clapped loudly.

  The swimmers crammed into the moist makeshift office. It smelled like BO, feet, and chlorine, mixed with the pungent smell of Polo Double Black—Coach’s signature scent. He doused himself with it before he left practice to hit up happy hours. Coach was a notorious player, and the only thing he enjoyed more than telling his swimmers about his conquests was hearing about their own and offering misguided advice.

  “It’s that time of year.” Coach rubbed his hands together gleefully. “The St. Jude’s swim team fund-raiser and date auction. Everyone’s being auctioned off, so I hope you all get your girlfriends to show you just how much they love you. ” He leered at the row of hairy faces surrounding him. “So, which of you guys have ladies? Anyone single here?”

  Rhys’s stomach did a nosedive. He looked around, wondering if he could sneak through the emergency exit door without anyone noticing. He had totally forgotten about the date auction, which happened every year. Technically, the auction was to raise money for some public school’s practice time at the Y, but in reality it was just a big private school mixer, an excuse for slutty L’École girls to hook up with St. Jude’s guys and for parents to gossip about themselves and their perfect children.

  See? Benefits benefit everyone!

  Since he’d been dating Kelsey freshman year, Rhys always had a guaranteed bidder. It had always been so sweet to watch Kelsey shyly raise the paddle for him, whereas the single guys were sometimes left standing like cattle—albeit in crisp Armani tuxes.

  “Come on, guys. The bachelors are always the surprise element,” Coach pressed, clearly wishing he could be auctioned off as well.

  “I’m single!” Chadwick leaped off the floor and raised his scrawny arm. Even covered with the hair-food goo, he probably didn’t top a hundred pounds.

  “Oh-kay.” Coach looked upward, as if to ask for divine assistance. “And that’ll net a dollar. From your mom,” he cackled, looking hopefully to the team to join in on the joke. Rhys stiffened, a horrible image in his head. What if his mom was the only person to bid on him this year? Lady Sterling was the host of the wildly popular afternoon talk show Tea with Lady Sterling, a sort of mishmash of manners, etiquette, and society gossip. With his luck, she’d probably tape the whole auction for her show.

  “Who else?” Coach surveyed the guys, ranging from linebacker- size Ken Williams to the hobbit-size Ian McDaniel, and grimaced. “Do we have any other single guys? Come on, gentlemen, I know you spend Friday nights playing with yourselves. This is your chance,” he wheedled.

  “Rhys,” Hugh Moore whooped. “He needs a lady. Trust me.”

  Coach’s eyes lit up. “Rhys Sterling is single? Okay, Rhys, you’re gonna bring in the bucks and get the ladies. I’m telling you, I’m jealous.” Coach winked. “And, Carlyle? Any ladies in your life?”

  “No.” Owen sighed. Fortunately, he thought. For the first time in his life, Owen Carlyle was staying away from females. He had met a girl at an out-of-control Nantucket party over the summer, before he’d moved to New York. They’d shared a passionate evening that had culminated in them losing their virginity to each other on the beach. They hadn’t even told each other their names, which hadn’t seemed trashy at all. Really.

  Really?

  Instead, it had been almost romantic, like they were the only people on earth, not bound by social convention, drawn together only by desire.

  Someone’s obviously been thinking about this a lot.

  The next morning, she’d given him her Tiffany ID bracelet with the letters KAT engraved on it. Owen had assumed that was her name, and had fantasized about her all summer. Then, after his first day at St. Jude’s, he’d actually run into her—with Rhys. It turned out his Kat was actually Kelsey Addison Talmadge, Rhys’s girlfriend. Right after she saw Owen, Kat—or Kelsey, it was still confusing—had broken up with Rhys. She’d shown up at Owen’s apartment door, looking more luminescent and beautiful than ever when she told him they could be together now. They had kissed, and had almost gotten together, until Owen realized he couldn’t be an asshole to his swim buddy. So he broke up with her, telling her it had just been a one-night stand and that he didn’t have feelings for her. Now Kat never wanted to speak to him again, and all Owen could do was think about her.

  Don’t worry, no one really understands what’s going on.

  “Great! Well, gentlemen, you’ll get your RSVPs in the mail soon, so look out for ’em. And get ready to get actioned!”

  Doesn’t he mean auctioned?

  Coach blew his whistle, signaling the swimmers’ dismissal. One by one the guys trailed out of the office and back into the locker room, some pausing to appraise their furry beards and mustaches in the steamed-up mirrors. Rhys plopped down on a creaky wooden bench. He needed a moment. All he could think about was the swim team benefit last year, at the Plaza ballroom, where Kelsey had worn a beautiful green organza gown and he’d twirled her on the dance floor, and they’d been so happy, and, oh… A small tear formed and dripped out of the corner of his eye, splashing on the damp tiles of the floor.

  “Are you crying?” Hugh asked as he walked by, his swim bag slung over his shoulder. Hugh was perpetually single and had already settled into a jaded bachelor routine, complete with a maroon smoking jacket he wore at the parties he hosted at his parents’ Park Avenue penthouse.

  “It’s just chlorine,” Rhys lied, roughly swiping at his brown eyes with the back of his hand. It was one thing to be a hairy loser, but to be a hairy, crying loser?

  This season on NBC: The Biggest Hairy Crying Loser.

  “No, it’s not chlorine.” Hugh stood back and assessed the situation, then plopped down next to Rhys. “You’re obsessing over Kelsey,” he said, as if he had just completed a very complicated mathematical proof.

  Rhys was silent. It was obvious—why fucking try to pretend?

  “Dude, you’re miserable. You’ve been low for weeks. You haven’t even been swimming well. No offense.” Hugh put a tender hand on Rhys’s shoulder, as if this pep talk was really helping. “You have to win her back.” Hugh nodded sagely.

  “Yeah!” Ken Williams cried in between bites of a Snickers power bar. His misshapen teeth were caked in chocolate, and flecks of the candy rained down on Rhys’s sweatshirt.

  Rhys looked from Hugh to Ken miserably. Win Kelsey back? Yeah, right. Maybe he should just give up, eat a million calories a day, and become some fat, hairy ex-swimmer. He could mov
e from the city, live in a cabin in the woods, and raise yaks. He’d have his favorite osetra caviar and sea salt caramels delivered daily from Dean & DeLuca, and he’d never have to think about girls again.

  Tempting.

  “Thanks, guys.” Rhys stood up and got ready to leave, not bothering to wait for Owen. Watching girls fall all over him was just another reminder of Rhys’s pathetic singledom.

  “Wait!” Ken pulled Rhys’s sweatshirt back urgently and Rhys stopped, trying to rein in his rising sense of annoyance. “I’m telling you, when my girlfriend Stephanie broke up with me, it turned out she was just playing hard to get.”

  Rhys rolled his eyes. Ken Williams’s only girlfriend to date had been a girl he met at a fat camp in Massachusetts last summer. If Rhys had to hear one more time how Ken had gotten her back by raiding the dining hall and stealing the whole camp’s stash of fat-free brownies for her, he was going to hurl.

  “I know,” Rhys said shortly. The guys’ support was sweet and everything, but he really didn’t think they could help him.

  “No, really, dude, you have to try to win her back, or else you know Jenkins is just going to try to hump you,” Hugh snorted. Chadwick, hearing his name, scurried away from the group to safety, still in his Speedo. “I mean, you’re hot, you’re smart, you’re this whole big package.” Rhys blushed and turned away again. “Not that package.” Hugh laughed. “Anyway, maybe she’s feeling inferior.”

  “What?” Rhys was skeptical. Somehow he couldn’t imagine Kelsey, a brilliant painter whose work had already been featured in professional Manhattan galleries, feeling inferior about anything.

  “Yeah.” Hugh nodded knowingly. “It’s like some sort of projection. Chicks do all this crazy psychological shit.”

  Someone’s been watching too much Dr. Phil.

  Rhys looked at the rest of the guys, who had all drifted toward the conversation. They were nodding. Then Chadwick started chanting, in his alto voice that sounded like a choirboy’s at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Rhys, Rhys, Rhys. One by one the boys joined in, and Coach emerged from his office, nodding in silent approval. Rhys stood up on the wobbly bench and nodded to all of them. They all believed in him. He just had to believe in himself.

  “I’ll get her back!” he announced grandly. He noticed an eighty-something-year-old guy in a saggy Speedo, early for the Y’s open swim session, and winced. He couldn’t let his youth just pass him by!

  “Awesome—shaving party tomorrow!” Hugh crowed. Rhys glared at him. Couldn’t the guys just let the hair-growing-until-Rhys-got-action project go? Hugh shrugged. “You need to get her back and do something, man.”

  One by one, the guys filed out, high-fiving Rhys. They seemed to stand taller, knowing their leader was back in the game.

  “Hey.” Rhys approached the next row of lockers, where Owen was wordlessly rolling his swim towel into a tight snake.

  “Hey,” Owen responded woodenly. Of course the whole reason he’d told Kat—Kelsey—they couldn’t be together was so she’d go back to Rhys and all would be right with the world. But then when a week had passed and nothing had happened, he’d felt . . . well, relieved. The idea of Rhys trying to win her back made Owen hurt in an area suspiciously close to his heart.

  “I didn’t see you over there. Do you think I should do it?”

  Owen took in his friend’s furrowed brow. Rhys needed Kelsey. That much was clear. Finally, Owen nodded.

  “Yeah, man. Win her back.” He folded his towel into a smaller and smaller ball.

  “So, are you excited about the auction? You’ve certainly got enough girls who’ll bid for you,” Rhys ventured.

  “Nah.” Owen shrugged and zipped his bag. “I’m taking a break to focus on swimming. Girls slow me down.”

  Rhys nodded. Something seemed off about his friend, but he couldn’t figure out what. On the surface, Owen looked great, and his times were amazing. But he hadn’t seemed like himself.

  “Okay, see you…” Rhys said uncertainly to Owen’s retreating back. Was there something he didn’t know?

  And does he really want to know it?

  she’s already a triplet, but b may have found a twin. . . .

  “What can I do for you, baby?” a kindly white-haired bartender asked as soon as Baby opened the door to a nondescript bar on the Upper West Side on Tuesday after school. It was the same story everywhere. Partly because she was so tiny, people often called her “baby,” which made it sort of awkward when they eventually found out that was her real name. It usually bugged her, but this bartender looked like a skinny, European version of Santa Claus, and had probably worked at the bar for at least thirty years. Possibly wearing the same shirt, Baby realized. Stains dotted the white fabric like constellations at the planetarium.

  “Um, a Jack and Coke.” Baby nodded definitively. She played with one of the bar napkins, idly folding it into smaller and smaller pieces.

  “Hey!” Sydney Miller clomped up to the bar behind Baby and sat down. She was wearing knee-high lace-up Doc Martens with enormous platform soles that made her stand almost six feet tall, a black lace skirt, and a black wifebeater that read, I SLAP MY OWN ASS. With her lanky frame, dark bobbed hair, and rectangular-shaped glasses, Sydney looked like she belonged in a coffee shop in Williamsburg drinking some sort of organic, fair trade coffee, not at an old-school Irish pub on the Upper West Side. Baby grinned in relief. When Mrs. McLean had sentenced her to work on Rancor, she had assumed she’d have to meet with some poetry-loving, prairie-skirt-wearing girl who’d want to debate the merits of sestinas versus pantoums. But she’d immediately recognized Sydney as the one girl at Constance she could actually imagine being friends with.

  “You’re Baby, right?” Sydney plopped onto the stool next to her without waiting for an answer. “Can I have a Guinness? It’s freaking hot outside!” she called to the bartender, wiping away the beads of sweat on her fair forehead. “You know, I didn’t realize that you and Avery were sisters. You seem so different,” Sydney exclaimed, peering curiously at Baby. She grabbed Baby’s drink and took a liberal swig.

  “Jack and Coke,” she observed, clearly impressed. “So, what are you doing with that J.P. Ridiculous Cash dude? Are you together?”

  Baby smiled at the randomness of Sydney’s all-over-the-place monologue. “I guess so. I mean, yes,” she said firmly. She took a sip of her drink, enjoying the way the sweetness of the soda mixed with the burning sensation of the whiskey. She thought about how J.P.’s lips tasted like eucalyptus and Marvis toothpaste. She took another sip of her drink. She could like whiskey and eucalyptus.

  Just as long as she doesn’t mix them together.

  “Interesting. So what’s it like dating the mini mogul?” Sydney popped some of the stale-looking orange-cracker-and-peanut mix on the bar into her mouth. It looked at least as old as the bartender. “Yum,” Sydney commented, her tongue ring flashing in the dim light of the bar. Besides the bartender, they were the only ones there. It sort of felt like a secret clubhouse.

  “He’s great,” Baby said simply. She felt surprisingly shy talking about J.P., even though she wasn’t shy about her feelings for him. Ever since they’d kissed yesterday, they’d quickly assumed the roles of boyfriend and girlfriend. She had woken up this morning to J.P. calling her. He’d e-mailed her a sweet note during study hall, and had even made dinner reservations for tonight, before Baby told him about this meeting. It was super romantic, but a huge change from her last boyfriend, Tom, whose idea of a romantic gesture was not letting Baby’s phone calls go straight to voice mail. It was going to take a little while to get used to this whole perfect-boyfriend thing. But Baby certainly could get used to it.

  Couldn’t we all.

  “Well, good for him, I guess. I don’t know him at all, but I know he was dating Jack Laurent. Could you imagine dating that bitch?” Sydney shuddered, as if she were really considering a relationship with Jack.

  Sweet. They could wear matching message tees: I’M A BITCH and SHE
’S MY BITCH.

  “Why is everyone at Constance so bitchy?” Baby asked, genuinely curious. She knew they were supposed to talk about Rancor, but it was nice to talk to another girl who seemed to have the same attitude that she did.

  “I think it’s because all-female communities are inherently unstable, especially in the presence of heteronormative cultural forces.” Sydney chewed thoughtfully and shrugged as she wiped orange crumbs off her ruby red lipstick. “That’s why I wanted to meet here. Once school is over, I just like to be as far away from Constance as possible.”

  “I know what you mean. I’m still sort of on probation,” Baby admitted. “Actually, Mrs. McLean suggested I work on Rancor. Which I’m totally excited about,” she said quickly, not wanting to offend Sydney. “I’m just relieved I didn’t get kicked out. I don’t know what I’d do.” Baby shrugged and thought about it. What would she have done? Become a professional dog walker? Bitchy culture or not, Constance Billard was one of the best schools in Manhattan, and definitely Baby’s best option.

  “Are you kidding? They wouldn’t kick anyone out. They’re so scared about the endowment,” Sydney snorted. “And no problem about Rancor. I got roped in for the same reason.”

  “You did?” Baby asked, realizing she was now on her second drink. How’d that happen?

  Heteronormative cultural forces, perhaps?

  “Yeah, I sort of had an incident with my English class last year. I did this campaign where I put these RESIST THE PATRIARCHY stickers in everyone’s blue books before exams, since all we read all year are dumb old white-man novels. I just wanted to raise the issue. It was totally a good idea.” She sighed tragically. “So, I’m glad you’re helping me. And help is the operative word. You have to look at this shit.” Sydney smiled ruefully as she rooted through her orange Brooklyn Industries messenger bag. Baby realized she had the same one in lime green at home.