Never Always Sometimes

“I’ve never been a stalker before,” Dave said. They waited for the Chili’s hostess to find them a table near where Marroney and a handful of other teachers had gathered to enjoy a Friday afternoon happy hour.

“This isn’t stalking. This is organizing a coincidental run-in.”

“That’s a stalkerish way to put it.”

After obsessing for the rest of the week over how to best seduce Marroney (Dave shuddered every time she said it), Julia declared Friday to be a Never day. After school, they’d go to Julia’s house and dye their hair in a bright display of their individuality—individuality purchased from a box at the CVS. But before they could do that, Julia and Marroney had to have their meet-cute. “Prepare for a lot of flirtatious giggling and some charming repartee,” Julia had said when they were outside the school, waiting for Marroney to leave so they could follow him. “And that’ll just be coming from him.”

Now Dave watched Marroney struggle to find the straw in his margarita, his tongue flicking out blindly. He wondered if Julia would call her own bluff anytime soon. Marroney was wearing a mustard-colored short-sleeved button-up shirt with a coffee stain on his collar. His tie had little calculators on it. Five other teachers were at the table, including Ms. Romero and Dave’s AP Chem teacher, Mr. Kahn. Each of them had a giant fluorescent-colored frozen margarita in front of them.

Dave and Julia sat in a booth perpendicular to the teachers so they could both see as the teachers delved into a bottomless basket of chips and salsa. On his first attempt, a fat blob of red salsa fell from Marroney’s chips and landed squarely on his tie.

“You know, I didn’t get it at first,” Dave said, turning to look at Julia, who was smiling in Marroney’s direction, “but you’re right. This has the makings of a great seduction.”

“Your tone says you’re trying to be sarcastic, but I’m failing to understand the joke.”

“Julia, he’s hideous.”

“That’s an ugly thing to say.” Julia picked up her menu and propped it up so she could stare without being caught. “Okay, so here’s the plan.” She leaned across the table conspiratorially, refusing to speak until Dave leaned down, too. It was their classic pose for plotting mischief; they’d done it when figuring out which movie to go to, or when planning the surprise party for Julia’s dads. They’d huddled together like this when they wrote the Nevers on their bench in Morro Bay. Dave loved seeing the details on her fingers when she put them flat on the table in front of her, the way her orangey smell seemed stronger in just those instances. They always adopted a tone more serious than was called for, whispering to each other, craning their necks around, pretending to study the room skittishly, as if someone was after them. The rest of the world felt exterior to them, like their friendship was some idyllic cove only they had access to.

“We wait until he gets up to use the bathroom.”

“You are getting creepier by the minute,” Dave whispered.

“Listen,” she hissed. “When the romantic interest has been isolated—”

“You mean the victim.”

“David Gostkowski, you interrupt me again and I’ll dye your hair bright green.”

“Isn’t that happening anyway?”

“We wait until he gets up to use the bathroom,” Julia said, her eyes getting big, warning Dave to keep quiet. “At which point, we follow.” She stole a glance over the menu to look in Marroney’s direction again. He was halfway done with his margarita, sprinkles of salt on his mustache catching the light and shimmering. The table was already getting louder, breaking up into a couple of conversations. It was curious to see them behave so much like students in a classroom. “Your job,” Julia continued, “will be to go into the men’s room and make sure no one else is there. When you’ve cleared it, you give me the signal by starting a dance-off, and I go in.”

“What happens once you corner him in the bathroom?”

“Flirtation,” Julia said, drawing the word out long under her breath. It was easy to forget what she was talking about. No one could make him laugh like she could, even if it was hidden away like this, the laughter quiet but understood between them. How had he not learned to be happy with just this? How had he not managed to stifle the desire for more?

“This is by far one of your best plans.”

“I appreciate that,” she said, ignoring his sarcasm. “But you’re clearly forgetting the snow fort I designed freshman year.”

“We live in California, Jules.”

“Just because it never snowed doesn’t mean it wasn’t a fantastic fort. The planning itself was pitch-perfect; it was the execution that, at no fault of mine, fell short.” She smacked her palms down on the table and looked over at the teachers. “We’re getting away from the point. I need to do what many a teenage girl has done before and seduce the sexy older man.”

Dave stole a glance at the side of her face and then joined in spying on them. They’d decimated the chips and were raising their hands, looking around for their waitress to ask for refills. Mr. Kahn was polishing off his first margarita and grimacing from a brain freeze. “Shocking that none of them have had to use the bathroom yet,” Dave said.

“I know, right? Those are some sizeable drinks. Maybe Marroney is much younger than he appears. God, he must be so virile.”

“I’m going to puke all over you. Good luck with the seduction covered in my puke.”

“The stench of another man on me will only make him jealous.”

For the next twenty minutes, after they’d placed an order with their waitress, they watched the teachers. At first they attempted to be inconspicuous, but the teachers seemed to be in their own little world, and once their drinks were refilled, they didn’t care much for anything on the outside. Julia refined her strategy, and despite the dull ache in his chest at the thought of her seducing anyone at all, Dave helped. By the time Marroney stood up, Julia’s plan had been tweaked to perfection. Or at least that’s what she said when she stood up and pulled Dave by the arm, motioning for him to follow.

As per their revised plan, Dave sped up past Marroney and cut him off before he got to the bathroom. No one else was in there. He checked the two stalls for feet, just in case. Then he went to the faucets and pretended to wash his hands as Marroney came in. Dave tried to hide his face so that Marroney wouldn’t recognize him, then said, “Urinals aren’t working. Gotta use a stall.”

“Thank you,” Marroney said. He entered the first stall without so much as a glance at the functioning urinals. As soon as he shut the door, Dave walked out of the bathroom, where Julia was waiting. She was so excited, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, her hands balled up into little fists.

“Okay, phase one complete,” he said. He put his hand on the back of his neck, a nervous habit. “You realize this is insane, right?”

“You’re mispronouncing ‘genius.’”

She took a breath, like someone about to attempt swimming the length of a pool underwater. And with that she walked into the men’s bathroom.

Dave anxiously watched the door close behind her, casting a glance to make sure no one had noticed. The hostess was on her phone; a waitress was waiting at the window for a dish; the manager stood by the bar, looking at something on a clipboard. Chili’s was probably the best place for covert operations; no one cared enough to look around.

It was only about thirty seconds later that she came back out, a huge, goofy grin on her face, color in her cheeks. She put her hands on Dave and urged him back to the booth. “Retreat! Retreat!”

“What happened?”

“Dammit, man, fall back!” Julia cried, laughter on the edge of her voice. When they slipped back into the booth, back in their conspiratorial hunch, she erupted into cackles while Dave could only sit there and watch.

“I take it the meet-cute didn’t go as planned.”

“We should get the bill before the cops arrive.”

“Julia, what the hell happened in there?”

“I may have tickled him,” she said, still red and laughing, looking over her shoulder toward the bathroom. “Accidentally.”

Dave stopped looking for the waitress to signal for the check. He slouched closer to Julia. “How do you accidentally tickle someone?”

“I froze up, okay. He walked out of the stall and I was standing there trying to figure out how to break the ice. We stared at each other and then I just kind of...tickled him.” She reached for her glass of water and took a long swallow. “Which, by the way, was an awful plan. Cornering him in the bathroom and expecting flirtation to just happen naturally? That’s sloppy planning. I expect more from you.”

“It was your plan!”

“Don’t split hairs now; it’s too late to apologize. Just do better next time.” She looked over her shoulder again and gave a little gasp when she saw Marroney coming out of the bathroom. “I may have yelled something inappropriate, too.”

Dave held his breath as Marroney walked past the table, his eyes fixed on Julia’s. “I told him I wanted to lick his face,” Julia whispered quickly, right before Marroney’s mustard shirt passed by their lowered heads.

MAKING A MESS (#ulink_d85093ae-24f5-5b33-9ebc-4be8ce9a7496)

WHEN THEY LEFT Chili’s, Dave felt wonderful. Things had gone wrong, but in the exact way they should have. Now he had the evening with Julia to look forward to. He sincerely doubted bright green hair would look good on him, but he had succumbed to Julia’s rationale about the Nevers making the end of the year more interesting. So what if it was some insane attempt to prove herself original, probably in an attempt to win her mom’s approval; the Nevers brought out a joy in Julia that he loved being a part of. As long as nothing between them changed, he didn’t have much to complain about.

“Why’d we add this to the list anyway?” Dave asked after they’d left the CVS and were parking at Julia’s house. He was holding the boxes of green and pink dye in a plastic bag in his lap.

“My mom,” Julia said. “She’s always told me that changing looks has nothing to do with leading a unique life. It’s usually the sign of a pretty ordinary inner self.”