The One & Only(25)

“What’s that?” I said, laughing. “That I’m easy?”

“Well, frankly, yeah. I mean … Not easy in that way … Just easy. You never do the psycho girlie thing, do you?”

“Depends on what you mean by psycho girlie,” I said, thinking of the napkin covered with Coach Carr’s doodles that I had rescued from the trash after an athletic department meeting sometime last year. That would probably be considered psycho by most, especially given the napkin’s proximity to a half-eaten Bunki’s donut, which also happened to belong to Coach Carr. At least I didn’t finish it.

Ryan clarified, “You didn’t wait three days to write back. You didn’t ask for all the details before you committed. You didn’t make sure you could schedule a blowout and spray tan on such late notice. You didn’t ask exhaustive questions about what you had to wear. You just said yes.”

I smiled, thinking that maybe Lucy was right. Maybe Ryan was looking for a low-maintenance anti-Blakeslee. If so, he had come to the right girl (although I made a mental note to schedule a blowout and spray tan since that was what he was clearly accustomed to).

“Well, now that you mention it. What are the details?” I had given my only proper gown to a thrift shop because I never wore it and because Lucy had informed me that it was too short, that my toes should show only as I took a step forward, not when standing still. “Is it black-tie?”

“No. Just cocktail attire. The invite actually says ‘business casual,’ I think. It’s a benefit for autism. One of my causes,” he said. “But I don’t really have to do anything. Just show up for an hour or two. With a stunning girl on my arm.”

I was pretty sure that he didn’t mean to call me stunning any more than he had meant to call me hot, but I still felt a goofy grin on my face and was grateful that he couldn’t see it. “Stunning, huh? That’s a tall order.” I spun around in my desk chair, turning to face the only window in my office, with the perfect view of a gorgeously symmetrical loblolly magnolia already in full bloom.

“It’s not a tall order for you. I saw you on the sidelines, looking effortlessly fine in that Walker getup,” Ryan said as I heard his turn signal in the background, confirming that he was in his car. “Never seen a chick look that good in khakis.”

I laughed with nervousness and a little bit of excitement. Was this really happening? Was I really about to go on a date with a star quarterback, famous even to non-football fans? I reminded myself that it was only Ryan James, my old friend, who just happened to be a Dallas Cowboy—and that I was sure it would amount to very little.

“Well, then,” I said. “That’s settled. Business casual it is. I’ll wear my game-day khakis.”

“You can wear whatever your little heart desires,” Ryan said, taking the phone off speaker. His voice dropped, low and smooth, as though he were whispering in my ear. “I have always been a big fan of your collarbone, though …”

I stopped in my tracks, a distant memory suddenly unearthed from the spring of our junior year. Ryan and I were at some frat party. I was wearing a white tank top to accentuate my tan (those were the days when I actually went to tanning beds, a.k.a. cancer chambers) and was dancing to “Brown Eyed Girl” when he came up to me and said, “Anyone ever tell you that you have a sexy collarbone?”

I wasn’t entirely sure where my collarbone was until he ran his finger along it and said, “There are ass guys … leg guys … boob guys. But this … is my spot.” His finger lingered there, long enough for three friends, Lucy included, who was visiting from UT, to inquire about the incident later. I told them it was nothing. I knew it was nothing. Nothing more than a drunken frat-party exchange with one of the biggest players on campus. And by player, I didn’t mean on the field.

“Yes. I think you mentioned that once,” I said now. “A long time ago.”

“I’d love a refresher.”

“Well, then,” I said, grinning into the phone. “I’ll see what I can do for you.”


That night, my mother made me dinner, a gourmet French meal in her dining room, complete with candlelight and white-cloth napkins. But the formal presentation didn’t stop her from leaping out of her seat and yelping when I gave her the Ryan update, a contradiction that was so my mother. At heart, she was a TV-dinner kind of girl, but she fought hard against her redneck roots, doing everything she could to distance herself from her lower-middle-class upbringing in Odessa. Behind her back, and before Mrs. Carr got sick, I called it the Connie effect, joking to Lucy that my mom had spent her entire adult life trying to extinguish her inner tacky light and be more like her high-class friend. I actually don’t know how Mrs. Carr stood all the copycat behavior, but I’m sure it had something to do with her own perfect mother instilling in her the charitable belief that imitation was the most sincere form of flattery.