“That’s enough,” I scold myself. “Cut that shit out, bucko. Business. This is all strictly business. She ain’t want nothing like that from someone like you.”
***
I nervously pace the room waiting for Ranik’s text. Charlotte smiles and leans back on the bed, admiring her handiwork.
“This looks stupid on me,” I say, and wring my hands. The black silk dress clings to my shoulders in a v-neck and the skirt stops at my mid-thigh.
“You said you wanted to borrow a dress! I gave you a dress!” Charlotte smirks playfully.
“Don’t you have anything…anything more –”
“I told you, black is the darkest, most dour color I have. Unless you want the lime-green tube dress.”
I shudder, and lean down one last time to look in the mirror. Charlotte stands and puts her hand on my shoulder.
“You look amazing, okay? Trust me. My makeup and styling skills never fail.”
It’s true that I look marginally better than normal. Charlotte applied pale lipgloss that smells like almonds and a heavy dose of mascara to my eyes, with some brown eyeshadow. It’s a far cry from my daily bit of eyeliner and chapstick. If I don’t look in a mirror I forget I’m wearing anything at all. Instead of my usual tight bun, she’s let my hair loose, flowing around my shoulders.
“Where’s the party at again?” Charlotte asks. She looks just as good, make-up wise, since while I’m gone, she’ll be having Nate over.
“It’s a dinner,” I lie. “For the Academic Association of Mooreland. I have to attend it for one of my scholarships.”
“Right, right. God, I forgot you have so many of those.”
“Twenty-two scholarships is not very many at all, really.”
Charlotte laughs and hugs me. “Oh, Al. You’re so dumb about some things. And wonderful. But mostly dumb.”
My phone buzzes, and I quickly pull it out of the black clutch Charlotte lent me. It’s Ranik. Charlotte cranes her neck to see, but I grab my jacket and start out the door.
“Don’t stay up for me,” I smile. “And practice safe copulation.”
“Ugh, just get out of here!” Charlotte throws a pillow at the door. I totter in my heels down the steps. Mom used to make me wear them for spelling bees and math league competitions and the like, but I’m still poorly coordinated in them. When I asked Charlotte if guys liked them, she gave a resounding affirmation. Grace doesn’t seem the type to wear them, but if all men liked them, maybe Theo would, too. I need more practice in them, and in a dress in general, if I want to make Theo look at me with something more than lukewarm friendship.
Slowly, I make my way outside and behind the building. Ranik’s truck lights cut through the foggy night, and he jumps out quickly.
“Hey. You –” He rounds the truck and stops moving, his mouth agape. I look behind me to make sure there are no wild bears or, at worst, any Theo’s.
“Is…Is something wrong?” I fidget with my clutch.
Ranik’s hazel eyes can’t meet mine anymore, and he clears his throat. “No. Nothing’s, uh, nothin’s wrong. I mean, yeah, shit, I thought I saw a bat behind you! Get in the car, quick, before it sucks your blood and turns you into a vampire.”
“That is a common misconception. Most chiroptera are insectivores,” I correct, and struggle into the passenger seat. I can hear Ranik laugh as he rounds the truck and gets in the driver’s seat and pulls away.
“You sure know how to woo a man with sexy talk, don’tcha?”
“I don’t know about you, but to me the eating habits of bats are excessively erotic.”
He squints at me, then gasps.
“Was that a joke? Did you just…did you just crack a fuckin’ joke? Praise Jesus! There’s hope for you yet.”
He throws his hands up, and I grab the wheel out of panic. He laughs and pushes my hands away.
“Sorry, sorry. I’ll try not to almost kill both of us. Again.”
I look over at him for the first time – he’s wearing a black button-down shirt that looks very out of place on him, but somehow also good. The rose tattoo peeks out over his collar. His messy black hair is combed, and his pants remain jeans, just not ripped ones. He’s even wearing a leather belt. His cologne is faint and sharp and mixed with the smell of smoke.
“Where are we going, again?” I inquire.
“A club,” He says. “Of a friend of mine.”
“I stay away from clubs. I find them sweaty and discombobulating.”
He laughs. “Yeah, I’m not the biggest fan either. But this is a special occasion.”
“What’s so special about it?”
“It’s, uh –” He massages the back of his neck, struggling with his words. “You know what, it ain’t important. What is important is the lesson for tonight.”
“Which is?”
He flashes a wicked grin at me. “Dancing.”
What’s left of the blood in my face drains out.
“Is this really necessary? I’m miserable at dance. Theo most likely doesn’t dance, either.”
“Right, but we can’t miss any bases. What if he wants to? What’ll you do then? Say ‘I don’t dance’ and let that Gracie girl take him? Nah. Also, it’s not all dancin’. This is a lesson on body awareness, how to handle your body to make him nutso. You’ll observe the other girls, and mimic them. Pick up a few pointers on teasin’ dudes.”
“Is teasing something men like?”
Ranik shrugs. “I mean, sometimes. It…it helps the mood. Mostly we just want Theo to get so hot and bothered by you he can’t say no when you ask him out. And this is a good chance to practice.”
“I’ll be making a fool of myself the entire night.”
“No, you won’t, because no one cares. And if they do, I’ll punch ‘em out.” He catches my eye nervously, as if he’s asking if that was too protective of him. “Or I’ll just, you know, not do anything and let you wallow in your own embarrassment.”
“I’d prefer that to your white-knighting, yes.”
“It’s not –” He opens his mouth to argue, then frowns.
“It’s not what?”
“Forget it,” He sighs. For some reason the sound tugs tiny slivers of pain from my chest. Ranik doesn’t sigh often, not in a manner so heavy and defeated. He’s always light, irreverent. I’m wearing even him down, and it makes me feel ill. It’s like watching Charlotte get bored of me, even though she never has. But the terrifying thought she might is always there. I can’t have Ranik get bored of me. He’d resign as my teacher, and I’d be left all alone and confused in the vast, foreign sea of the dating world.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“What?”
“I didn’t mean to call it white-knighting. I appreciate the sentiment behind it.”
There’s a silence, and then he slaps the wheel.
“Well strike me dumb and call me Colonel. Alice Wells is apologizin’! To little old me!”
“Don’t push your luck,” I frown. Ranik just laughs, instead, and it sounds so much better than his sigh.
He eventually parks, and I get out slowly. In the parking lot, he stretches. He looks taller, his shoulders seem broader, and when he raises his arms his shirt lifts and shows tense lines of muscle leading into the hem of his jeans. I stare at the lithe v-shape tinged with dark hair, entranced.
Ranik catches me staring. I meet his eyes squarely.
“You have very nice os coxae.”
Ranik flushes and frowns. “I have nice what?”
“Hip bones,” I say. “Os coxae in latin.”
“Oh, right!” His eyes light up. “Os, as in bone. We went over that in Psych today. So what does coxae mean?”
“Hip,” I say. Ranik smirks like he’s just figured out the secret to eternal life.
“Man, that’s so cool. Latin is so fuckin’ cool.”
“It really is,” I smile. Ranik looks to me, and suddenly clears his throat, all business.
“Okay, word of advice, m
ost dudes don’t care about latin.”
“Do you?”
“Obviously, because it’s rad and I like learnin’ cool stuff, but I ain’t most dudes. So. Just assume for now random words that sound like you’re casting a curse ain’t gonna fly with Theo, okay? If you gotta compliment his damn hip bones, do it in English. I know he’s smart and he’ll get it and all, but Grace wouldn’t compliment him in latin, so you might not wanna.”
I nod, absorbing the information carefully. “I understand.”
“And Grace wouldn’t say shit like ‘I understand’, either. She’d say like, ‘okie-dokie’! Or something annoyin’ like that.”
“Okie-dokie!” I make my voice sweet and enthusiastic as possible to mimic him. Ranik looks shell-shocked, and I feel shell-shocked just from saying it, and then we both collapse into a fit of laughter. It was so unnatural, so odd and uncharacteristic of me, that it ripped a hole in the air with its sheer ridiculousness.
“Never use that voice again, Princess,” Ranik wheezes. I wipe a tear away.
“Yet another point to add to the list of things we agree on. It’s getting rather long.”
Ranik smirks at me in a sideways manner, sadness tinging the edges.
“It is, ain’t it?”
Before I can ask him what that means, he walks towards the neon-lit front of the club, the garish pink sign reading; VENN DIAGRAM. It should be busy on a Friday night, but no one is in line. There’s only one bouncer, a beefy man with a hawk tattoo on his shaved head.
“Ranik,” the bouncer nods. “And who’s this lovely lady?”
“Hey, Lance. This is my, uh,” Ranik scrabbles for the right word. “My –”
“Tutor,” I offer my hand. “I’m his tutor in math. Alice. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Alison,” Ranik says quickly. “Her name’s Alison. Anyway, can we go in yet?”
“One sec, lemme check,” Lance winks, and ducks into the club’s doors. It’s an odd thing to do, but Ranik turns to me and interrupts my thoughts.
“Look, probably not the best idea to use your real name here, okay?”
“Why? Aren’t these people your friends? I should introduce myself properly.”
“Yeah, but –” His face contorts. “If Theo somehow catches wind you were here – I mean, lots of kids from school come here. So. I don’t want you to –I don’t want being seen with me ruinin’ your chances, okay? You’re working hard. And I don’t wanna ruin that for you with my shitty rep.”
Before I can argue, Lance comes back, smiling. “Alright, they’re ready.”
Ranik sighs. “Let’s go.”
Lance leads the way into the completely dark club, and we only get a few steps in before the lights flash on all at once. Forty people all shout ‘surprise!’ at the same time, throwing confetti and glitter and streamers at us. I blink away glitter and Ranik musses it out of his curly hair, laughing as Miranda and a large bald guy initiate a group hug on him. Everyone claps. Balloons in emerald green and dark blue flood the ceiling, with a green banner reading ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY RANIK’ hanging over the fluorescent-lit bar in the back. The dancefloor is empty and glowing with neon lights, just waiting for the party to start. A black guy with horn-rimmed glasses cuts through the crowd holding a giant cake, and the crowd starts to sing Happy Birthday. Ranik shuffles uncomfortably, flipping some people off in a childish, petulant way, but the flush on his cheeks and the smile on his lips says he’s pleased as punch. When they finish, he blows the candles out, and the cheer is deafening. The cake moves to the bar and gets cut up. Miranda takes a bit of cake and smears it on Ranik’s face, and the large bald guy who hugged him then promptly shoves Ranik’s entire face in the cake. I expect him to be furious, but Ranik comes up laughing and looking like a badly painted mime. As the unsullied portions of the cake are passed out and Ranik cleans up in the bathroom, I look to Lance.
“He didn’t tell me it was his birthday.”
“He’s secretive about that kinda stuff,” Lance smiles. “Doesn’t like sharing things. I don’t think he had much of a home life, growing up, and sometimes that makes people close off, makes ‘em not want to share. We wrestled it outta him, though.”
“And all these people…know him?” I ask.
“Sure. They’re our club regulars. When Ranik first moved here, he worked as bouncer with me. Barbara gave him the job.” Lance nods at a jovial man with bright pink lipstick and a blonde wig flipping bottles behind the bar as he mixes drinks. “Didn’t have a place to go, so we let him sleep in the storehouse in the back for a bit, too.”
I can’t imagine confident, cocky Ranik sleeping on a storehouse cot in the back of a club run by a transvestite. I can’t imagine him anything less than independent and devil-may-care, bedding girl after girl in a grungy apartment of his own.
“He’s a good kid, just a little stubborn. Not dumb, because he’s smart if you explain stuff.” Lance claps my shoulder. “Thanks for helpin’ him with his math. Means a lot to us. We all wanna see him succeed up at that school.”
“Cake?” Miranda comes up to us with two paper plates laden with sugary goodness. Lance takes one and grins.
“Thanks.”
I take the other one tentatively, noting the way her bottle-green eyes observe every inch of me.
“Thank you.”
“You look familiar,” She says finally.
“I’m Alice…son,” I say. “Ranik’s math tutor.”
Her pink eyebrows raise into her likewise candy hair, and she grins like a cat who just caught a bird. “Oh reeeeally?”
“Miranda, here. Eat a piece before it’s gone.” The large, bald man walks up and offers her cake. She takes it, eating small bites but never taking her eyes off me. The large man smiles at me, his torn denim vest only highlighting his huge arms. He’s even bigger than Lance.
“I’m Trent,” he offers a hand twice the size of mine, and I shake it. “Nice to meet you.”
“Alison,” I say. “It’s very nice to meet you, too.”
Trent points to the black guy with glasses. “That’s Seth over there. He’ll probably try to come up and talk to you about an obscure indie band at some point tonight. The three of us are Ranik’s roommates.”
I make an ‘aha’ face.
“Barbara’s behind the bar. You’ve already met Lance, I see. Anyway, thanks for coming. If you don’t mind me asking, how do you know Ranik?”
“She’s his math tutor,” Miranda drawls, nudging Trent in the ribs, but he ignores her as Ranik comes up, face a little red from being rubbed clean and a piece of cake in his hands.
“Thanks a lot for messing up my hair. That shit took hours,” He snaps good-naturedly at Trent. Miranda smirks.
“If you’d stop spending so much time in front of a mirror, maybe you’d get something done with your life.”
“Oy, I’m not gonna take this from the girl who still works at Hot Topic,” Ranik protests. Lance chuckles.
“How old are you now, thirteen?” Trent asks Ranik innocently through a mouthful of cake.
“Old enough to beat your ass into whipped cream!”
“Ranik!” Twin girls in sparkly crop-tops and skinny jeans interrupt and latch themselves onto his arms. “Come dance with us!”
As if on cue, a thumping bass starts from the DJ in the corner.
“One sec,” Ranik says, then turns to me, pulling me away from Lance and the others gently. “I’m real sorry about all this.”
“Sorry for what?” I cock my head. “I think it’s delightful. Happy birthday, also.”
Something flickers across his expression, and if I didn’t know better I’d say it was quickly-squashed joy. He shakes his head.
“I didn’t mean to – I just thought this would be a good place. I should’ve picked a different club, and not on my birthday. But I wanted you to –”
“It’s fine,” I say. “You should go - you’re the man of the hour. It would be very poor manners to keep your guests waiting.”
>
“Is it okay…” He trails off. “Is it okay if I say you look nice?”
The question startles me, and he must see that, because he starts clarifying.
“Don’t want you to think I’m hittin’ on you, because I’m not. Just wanted you to know you look nice, but I didn’t say nothing because I didn’t want you to – I didn’t want you to get mad at me again. I’m not tryna bed you. Just want you to know you’re really pretty. Tonight. And every day. Wait, shit.”
A strange warmth trickles into my heart. He winces and kicks the floor, head suddenly snapping up and eyes alight with an idea.
“It’s a continuation of our lesson!” He says quickly. “Yeah! Uh, learnin’ how to take compliments from a guy. Yeah. So, just let me say you look pretty. Without getting mad. Just one time.”
“You’ve said it several times already now.”
“Right! Shit. Okay, I’ll stop. Anyway, lesson over, the end. Hope you heard it enough, because I won’t ever say it again. I’ll come back,” He insists. “And we can try the other actual lesson out then. Just, don’t leave.”
“I won’t. But I’d do better if you gave me an assignment while I’m waiting.”
“Um,” He looks around, then settles on the bar. “Go talk to Barbara. She and I talked – she’ll get you started on the basics.”
“Thank you. I feel much more at ease when I’m productive in a new and strange social setting.”
Ranik smiles, and then disappears into the crowd. The two girls instantly latch on his arms again, I note with a taste of bitterness on my tongue. I ignore it. I have no business being bitter about what he does. I have a lesson to learn for Theo.
I walk up to the bar, hovering uncertainly around the edge of it. Barbara’s dressed in a beautiful pink silk negligee and fuzzy slippers, and she cracks jokes and flirts with customers all while fixing dozens of complicated drinks at lightspeed. I’m so awed by her multitasking I don’t notice when she turns her gaze to me.
“Sweetheart?” Barbara waves a hand in front of my face. “Yoohoo? What do you want to drink?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I was so entranced – your speed and accuracy serving the drinks is incredible. You’re amazing.”