“It’s a working title. I’m open to suggestions.” Arden flashed me a tentative smile. “What do you think?”
I studied the images more closely. They were black-and-white, or nearly so, with hazy effects near the edges, but all featured the same, vaguely familiar subject: a young man in formal dress with an intense expression.
“It’shim,” Arden informed me. “From the movie. Scroll down.”
Farther down the page, in a smaller font, another line of text appeared: Is Your Guy a Vronsky?
“You made this?” I asked.
Arden nodded, biting her lip.
“It looks very professional.”
She waved off the praise, though I could tell she was pleased. “I had some time last night, and I thought it might be a good idea to share what we’ve learned. Like a public service.”
“We could call it the Loser List.” Lydia took a meditative bite of carrot stick. “Or the D-bag Dictionary. Encyclopedia of Creepers?”
“Dangerous Dudes?” offered Terry.
Arden’s lips pursed in thought. “If you had to summarize why acertain party,who wanted to date Terry even though he already had a girlfriend, was bad news, what’s a word for that?”
“Irresponsible?” I was thinking of his reading habits, among other things. “Feckless? Or maybe libertine? Rogue? Scoundrel?”
“Ooh,scoundrel. I like that.” Arden’s thumbs danced across her phone. “Let’s call it ‘The Scoundrel Survival Guide.’ Okay.” She looked up at us. “What’s rule number one?”
Terry raised her hand. “Always check for a criminal record?”
“I was thinking more specific to the type,” Arden said diplomatically. “But that’s agreatgeneral principle.”
“Never trust a guy who has better hair than you?” Lydia suggested.
Arden looked entreatingly at me.
Whatwasthe crux of the issue? You couldn’t really saytoo attractive,because the way Alex Ritter looked wasn’t entirely his fault. “Watch out for guys who are too charming? And flirt with everything that moves? And fall in love at the drop of a hat?”
“Yes,” Arden said as she transcribed.
I peered at the screen of her phone. “Is this going to be online? For anyone to see?”
“It’s totally anonymous,” Arden assured me. “Like a blind item in a gossip column.”
“We’re okay in terms of libel laws,” Lydia added. “Technically we’re not even talking about anyone real.”
“Exactly. It’s about guys in books who happen to suck in ways we can all relate to.” Setting her phone to one side, Arden picked up her bag of chips. “Who are some others, Mary?”
“Scoundrels?”
She nodded. “The really famous ones. Super skeevy.”
I took a bite of leftover spring roll, chewing as I reflected. Where to start? “There was a man who claimed to love this woman because she was such a free spirit, passionate and intelligent and not afraid to speak her mind, but when push came to shove, he was like, ‘Sorry, I’m going to marry your passive-aggressive cousin instead because she’s better at faking it to fit in.’”
Arden smacked Lydia in the arm. “Remember Jimmy, Morrison’s friend? He used to date this girl Maggie, who was completely wild, in a totally adorable way. So funny, you never knew what was going to come out of her mouth. But then he dumped her senior year for this girl who basically never laughed. Ever. I don’t even know if she had teeth. Seriously, wouldn’t you rather be embarrassed a couple of times than bored out of your mind every single day?”
I nodded sadly. It was rare to find someone who truly valued the unique or original. Most people wanted to have what everyone else wanted, as if forming their own opinions was too mentally taxing. “There’s a famous one where a guy is mad at this other guy for calling him on his bad behavior, so the first guy dates the second one’s way younger sister and tries to get her to elope.”
“Revenge dating,” Lydia said at once. “I’ve heard of that.”
“What about murderers?” Terry asked.
