Perfect Fifths_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [84]
You suck.
eleven
Marcus struts over to the elevator bank, presses G, and waits. A second or two later, he is joined by a young girl in a pink tracksuit. She is pouting in petulance but also because her mouth is overcrowded with orthodontia.
He looks down at her and smiles. “Hey,” he says.
She glares up at him skeptically. “Why are you wearing a bathrobe? You look ridiculuth.”
Marcus bursts out laughing, too disarmed by her candor to be the least bit offended. After all, he does look ridiculous, but only a kid would come out and say it. He decides to tease her a bit. “Don’t you know? It’s the latest style,” he says. “I can’t believe you left the room without wearing your bathrobe.”
“It ith not,” the girl replies in total confidence. “You look like a pervert.” She beams as she says this, pleased with the rejoinder and herself. Her mother comes Ugging toward them.
“Amber! What have I told you about talking to strangers?” Her eyes crawl all over Marcus, taking in every detail of his appearance: height, weight, build, hair color, tattoos, scars, and/or other distinguishing physical characteristics.
“To not to,” Amber says sullenly.
“It’s not her fault,” Marcus says. “In her defense, you can’t blame her for asking why I’m wearing a bathrobe, can you?”
“No,” Amber’s mother says curtly. “But I can blame you for wearing one in the first place. What are you? Some kind of pervert?”
“I told him he lookth like a pervert,” Amber singsongs.
The pervert comment makes Mommy proud. She throws an arm around her daughter and brings her in for a hug that says, That’s my girl! As the pair embraces, Marcus catches a look at himself in a nearby mirror and instantly sees the truth in their assessment. He does look like some kind of a pervert. What is a bathrobe but a cozier version of a flasher’s trench coat?
“I’m wearing pants,” Marcus explains, idiotically lifting up the hem of the bathrobe to reveal a corduroyed leg. Judging from the horrified expression on both mother’s and daughter’s faces, this fact only seems to further implicate Marcus in perversion.
Determined to clear his name, Marcus is relieved when Amber removes a pot of Mixed Berries and Clotted Cream Lip Plumping Balm from her pocket. Aha!
“Be You Tea Shoppe,” he says as Amber pinkie-applies the translucent red gloss to her puckered lips. “I know the woman who founded it.”
Now Marcus is a bathrobe-flashing perv with an unseemly knowledge of pretween beauty products. When Amber and her mother step back to keep their distance, Marcus realizes too late that such a comment won’t help undo pedophiliac aspersions. Thankfully, before he can say or do anything else to sully his image, the elevator arrives on the twentieth floor. The doors open, revealing a single passenger, a middle-aged woman dressed like lunch on the African savannah, who, thankfully, seems too preoccupied with her cell phone to take much notice of him. Marcus is relieved that he won’t be left alone with the appalled mother-daughter pair. He makes a sweeping ladies-first gesture with his arms.
“Oh, no,” Amber’s mother says in a tone that is as derisive as it is decisive. “You can go alone, dressed like that. We’ll take the next one.”
Marcus slinks inside the elevator. Seeing the anger in Amber’s mother’s face, he feels compelled to offer an explanation. “The airline lost my luggage!” he lies.
“Did they altho looth your mind?” Amber retorts.
The girl earns a high five from her mom just before the doors slide shut. Marcus straightens his spine, lifts his chin. He tries to assume a dignified air, like a man of leisure who thinks nothing of going about his business in a borrowed bathrobe.
“They lost my luggage, too,” confides the elevator’s only other passenger. “I’m on hold with Clear Sky Airlines right now. Wait—I think I’ve got someone—nope. Still on hold.”
Marcus smiles genially, turns his back on her, and watches the numbers light up in descending order.
The women finger-jabs