This Lullaby(69)

“Okay,” I said. “You’re on. We’re friends.”

“Friends,” he repeated. And then we shook on it.

That had been two weeks ago, and since then we’d talked several times, sticking to neutral topics like what was happening with Rubber Records (not much yet, but there was talk of A Meeting) and how Monkey was (good, but suffering through an infestation of fleas that had left everyone at the yellow house scratching and cranky). We’d even eaten lunch together once, sitting on the curb outside of Flash Camera. We’d decided there had to be rules, and established two so far. Number one: no unnecessary touching, which could only lead to trouble. And number two was if anything happened or was said that felt strange or awkward, there could be no strained silences: it had to be acknowledged as quickly as possible, brought out in the open, dealt with and dismantled, like diffusing a bomb.

Of course my friends all thought I was crazy. Two days after we’d broken up, I’d gone with them to Bendo, and Dexter had come over and chatted with me. When he’d left, I’d turned back to a row of skeptical, holier-than-thou faces, like I was drinking beer with a bunch of apostles.

“Oh, man,” Chloe said, pointing a finger at me, “don’t tell me you guys are going to be friends.”

“Well, not exactly,” I said, which only made them look more aghast. Lissa, who’d spent the better part of the summer reading the kind of self-help books I normally associated with Jennifer Anne, looked especially disappointed. “Look, we’re better friends than dating. And we hardly dated at all, anyway.”

“It won’t work,” Chloe told me, lighting a cigarette. “Crutch for the weak, the whole friends thing. Who used to say that?”

I rolled my eyes, staring up at the ceiling.

“Oh, that’s right!” she said, snapping her fingers. “It was you! You always said that, just like you always said that you should never date a guy in a band—”

“Chloe,” I said.

“—or give in to a guy who really pursues you, since they’ll just lose interest the moment the chase ends—”

“Give it a rest.”

“—or fall for someone with an ex-girlfriend who is still hanging around, because if she hasn’t gotten the message he probably isn’t sending it.”

“Wait a second,” I said. “That last one has nothing to do with this.”

“Two out of three,” she replied, waving her hand. “My point is made.”

“Remy,” Lissa said, reaching over and patting my hand, “it’s okay. You’re human. You make the same mistakes as any of us. You know, in that book I was reading, Coming to Terms: What Love Can and Can’t Do, there’s a whole chapter on how we break our rules for men.”

“I am not breaking my rules,” I snapped, hating that I’d ended up on the advice-receiving end of things, jumping from Dear Remy to Confused in Cincinnati all in one summer.

Now, at Toyotafaire, Chloe and I left my mother chatting with another fan and headed over to a patch of grass for some shade. At the microphones, Truth Squad was almost totally set up. Don had told us over dinner a few days earlier that he’d hired them to play an hour-long set of nothing but car-related songs to really push the idea of fun, freewheeling summer driving.

“Okay, so I’ve got some prospects for us,” Chloe said as Truth Squad launched into “Baby You Can Drive My Car.”

“Prospects?”

She nodded. “College guys.”

“Hmm,” I said, fanning myself with one hand.

“His name is Matt,” she continued, “and he’s a junior. Cute, tall. He wants to be a doctor.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s too hot to date.”

She looked at me. “I knew it,” she said, shaking her head. “I knew it.”

“Knew what?”

“You,” she said, “are so not one of us anymore.”

“What does that mean?”

She crossed her legs at the ankles, kicking off her shoes, and leaned back on her palms. “You say that you’re single and ready to be out there with us again.”

“I am.”

“But,” she went on, “every time I’ve tried to set you up or introduce you to anyone, you beg off.”

“It was just the one time,” I told her, “and that was because I’m not into skaters.”

“It was twice,” she corrected me, “and the second time he was totally cute and tall, just the way you like them, so don’t give me that crap. We both know what the problem is.”

“Oh, we do? And what is that?”

She turned her head and nodded toward where Truth Squad was in full swing, while two little kids in KaBoom T-shirts were dancing, jumping around. “Your ‘friend’ over there.”

“Stop,” I said, waving this off as ridiculous, which it was.

“You still see him,” she said, holding up a finger, counting this off.

“We work two feet from each other, Chloe.”

“You’re talking to him,” she said, holding up another finger. “I bet you even have driven past his house when it wasn’t even on your way home.”

That I wasn’t even going to honor with a response. God.