Page 11 of Misfortune and Mr. Right

“I knew you were clueless, but I didn’t think it was this bad. Did you hit your head sometime between high school and tonight?”

Maisy chides her husband on my behalf. “Gil! Is that any way to talk to your best friend?”

“No. Yeah. You’re right. But trust me, if you had seen him in high school, you’d agree. It was so blatant.” He turns his attention back to me. “You showed up at every event Olivia was in, enrolled in every class she did, and you always took center stage and first place. If there was a prize to be won, a position of influence to be held, or an accolade to add to your resume, you claimed it. You always outshined her—perpetually made her look like she wasn’t up to the standard you set. And you never backed down. Plus, there were the pranks.”

“Which went both ways!” I remind Gil.

“Of course they did. You don’t expect a girl like Olivia to lie down and take a beating. She’s going to fight back. That woman’s a fighter. Always has been. I respect her indomitable spirit. But, man. You two. It was worse than the Hatfields and McCoys.”

Gil’s looking at Maisy again. “You should have seen them, babe. Logan got chummy with our janitor, Sam. One day, he talked him into unlocking Olivia’s locker in high school. Then you know what our boy here did? He filled her locker with slime held in some intricately rigged thin plastic sheeting that ripped the moment the door opened. You know the goopy stuff kids make on YouTube? Imagine Olivia opening the door to her locker and a landslide of slime oozing out all over her. It was insane. Like Flubber had babies and then held a family reunion in Olivia’s locker.”

“I removed her books first,” I say sheepishly. “And she retaliated big time.”

Gil laughs. And it’s not a chuckle. He’s cracking up. “By putting itching powder in your briefs? Oh, that was rich.” His words come out between gasps of laughter.

“She …” Gil covers his mouth with his napkin. Then he looks at Maisy. “She …” He takes a steadying breath and gets ahold of himself. “She sprinkled that stuff in all Logan’s compression shorts and left them folded the exact way he had left them in his cross country locker. We had a race that afternoon. Logan changed into his uniform after school—including …” Gil laughs again. “Including changing his underwear.”

Gil looks at me. “Do you remember that bus ride?”

“I’ll never forget it.” I squirm a little even though there’s no itching powder in my briefs today.

“It started with you shifting a little in the seat next to me. I remember telling you to sit still. Little did I know. I thought you had race-day nerves.”

He cracks up again. “You were trying oh-so subtly to scratch without actually scratching! And the race!” He snorts through his laughter. “Oh! You ran like you had ants in your pants!”

“Okay, okay,” I say. “Do you realize how heat impacts itching powder? Most people don’t.”

My attempt at logic only serves to fuel the fire of Gil’s hysterics. He dabs at his eyes with his napkin. Even Maisy is suppressing a grin. Kudos to her for trying not to laugh.

“And that right there shows we were on even ground,” I say. “I messed with Olivia. She messed with me. It was mostly innocent. And it was high school. That’s like five lifetimes ago.”

“I think things started out innocently enough,” Gil concedes. “I’ll give you that. You merely strove to achieve maximum success in everything you put your hand to—as always. But once the rivalry between the two of you caught fire, nothing stopped either one of you. I distinctly remember trying to play Zelda in my basement one afternoon after school while you paced back and forth, ranting about Olivia and how she was ‘going down’ in debate class.” He makes quote fingers when he saysgoing down, to emphasize the exact words I used.

Memories start to flood me like a dam breaking after the final drop of water presses too hard against the deteriorating wall.

I remember the way I lit up with a passion to dominate Olivia. But hey. I was a teen boy. She irked me. And … she intrigued me. I possibly harbored a bit of a crush on her. She was pretty, intelligent, and clever. And that spirit of hers—the one Gil admits to admiring—it felt like a siren call to me at that age. I wanted more of her, any way I could get it.

My infatuation with Olivia Pennington is something I’ll keep to myself. I think half the time I was struggling in vain to impress her. Winning wasn’t merely a way to show myself and everyone else I could best them. A part of me wanted Olivia to see me at the top of my game and be wowed. That was all so long ago. Surely she’s moved on. It’s been ten years. I no longer need to prove myself like I used to. I’ve matured, obviously. I’m sure she’s moved past all that by now.

“Okay. So, maybe it got out of hand at one point,” I say, glancing across the table.

Maisy looks pensive, as if this revelation about my high school game of cat-and-mouse might impact the way she views me despite having known me well for the past four years. I was Gil’s best man. Maisy’s always had a soft spot for me. She has to see I’m barely a shadow of the kid I once was.

“It was high school—a full decade ago,” I defend. “Olivia can’t possibly still be holding a ten-year grudge.”

Gil simply shrugs. “I’m one-hundred-percent Team Logan. But if I’m being honest, I can easily see why she wouldn’t be rolling out the red carpet. You outshined her everywhere she went. Even in college. And now the stakes are so much higher. You just walked into her workplace.”

“What are the odds?”

“Right?” Maisy says. “I think it’s a sign. You could have ended up anywhere, and here you are in the same workplace as Olivia.”

“They are both in marketing. It’s not completely unrealistic,” Gil says to Maisy.

“True. I just like to imagine things … like, Logan’s been gone all these years. He’s back. At the same workplace …”

Gil places his hand over Maisy’s and leans over to kiss her cheek. “Keep dreaming. It’s one of the things I love most about you.”

Maisy smiles. “You know,” she says to me. “They say there’s a fine line between love and hate.”

---