Very Lefreak

by Rachel Cohn

  No, wrong. She shouldn’t be having sympathetic feelings for Bryan. He was hiding her beloved machine. He had dismantled her online project. He was a dick. In the worst sense.

  But Very was determined not to beg him for the machine back. She couldn’t let Bryan know her hunger burned that deep. The Grid? Who cares. That old thing. Whatever.

  With Jean-Wayne’s help, Very could get her fix on the outside just fine until her gadgets were returned to her soon, and then she could take her habits back inside—to the privacy of her own machine.

  Summer break loomed, and Very realized now how she would fill it.

  She was going to go on an epic adventure to find El Virus. She figured she’d start with a road trip to various presidential libraries across the nation; that’s probably where his clues led. She’d begin at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt library in Hyde Park, New York, then go on to the Harry S. Truman library in Independence, Missouri, and all the way to the Richard Nixon library in Yorba Linda, California, if that’s what it took. She’d even backtrack to the Calvin Coolidge library in Northampton, Massachusetts, if necessary, although that one seemed so footnote-able.

  What Very needed to figure out was how to finance her journey. She also needed to buy one of those gorgeous GPS gizmos and learn how to drive, but she’d worry about that part later. For now, she had to focus on fund-raising.

  Could she sell her laptop and live off her iPhone to get her online fix, once her stuff was returned to her at the end of the semester? No, that wouldn’t work. She couldn’t sell off the laptop; her mother had provided that for her. And Very’s thumbs were too chubby for full-time iPhone tapping—she’d go crazy.

  She could sell sexual favors to the Dreams team….

  No, too sleazy. And it would make the groping sessions she’d resumed with Ghana in the hallway outside the Dreams room less fulfilling.

  What an absurd idea, to sell sexual favors. What had happened to Very that she would even consider stooping that low to finance her expedition? Maybe Dreabbie was right, and Very did have a problem?

  Silly.

  No way.

  Next idea.

  She could sell her eggs to infertile couples. The Columbia Spectator was always running classifieds looking for donor eggs from healthy, Ivy League–smart young women.

  That could work.

  Okay. At least Very had a backup plan now. But selling her eggs might take too much time, with all the paperwork and testing and blood samples and surrendering her genetic code and whatever. The summer could be over before she got paid.

  What to do?

  Very decided to turn to the one person who always had a good answer for everything.

  She found her best guru, Hector the Janitor, mopping the floors in the dining hall.

  “You’re looking for a smoke?” he asked her. Hector reached into his uniform pocket and pulled out a hand-rolled cigarette for Very.

  “I’m looking for something more,” she said. She held up her customary payment to Hector—one of Aunt Esther’s sweaters that Hector’s mother-in-law apparently adored. “I need guidance.”

  “Do you ever, señorita,” Hector said.

  CHAPTER 16

  Tonight We’re Gonna Party

  Like It’s Finally the End of Finals

  Hector had it all figured out in no time.

  To set out on her summer quest, Very was going to need an epic amount of money. The most surefire way to get that money would be her old reliable.

  Throw an epic party.

  THE ASTRONOMY CLUB PRESENTS!

  Top-Secret Extra-Credit Lab Midnight Stargazing Event of Awesome*

  Saturday, midnight till sunup.

  Campus Observatory.

  Follow the meme clues for event entry password:

  lefreak / le-awesome productions.

  You know the dot-com trail—URL it, baby.

  * Beer and dancing may be involved.

  ($20 cover)

  Harder booze may also be available.**

  **(Cash bar—please tip your legal-drinking-age bar staff generously.

  She’d only had two weeks to put the whole thing together, and study for and take finals, but she’d pulled it off. Where there was an El Virus–inspired will, there was a way.

  Very was not a complete idiot. She could learn from her mistakes.

  Don’t throw party in any residential dorm facility where persnickety RAs prowl, looking for inmate infractions.

  Get Ghana, age twenty-two, to take on keg ordering and delivery duties. A student leaving the country the afternoon after the party to return to his native African homestead for the summer would be less likely to be called as a material witness in any potential but highly unlikely university investigation into party.

  Exploit Barnard girl with the Very-crush who is also the student manager of the Barnard Bartending Agency for hooch and event staff.

  Don’t send out invitations on freaking paper-printed newsletter.

  Circulate event info electronically only: pop-up ads on select college gaming networks; fake e-mail chain letters purporting to solicit funds for some poor kid’s kidney stone surgery in Lithuania; Columbia and NYU dining hall complaint message boards; and Ye Olde IM Favorite lists.

  Guarantee spectacular attendance by inciting partygoer FOMO—fear of missing out—through viral YouTube campaign, a clip montage of the greatest party movies in the history of the world (Animal House, Can’t Hardly Wait, Superbad, Showgirls, The Exorcist, etc.).

  Biggest hurdle: holding the party in the observatory at historical landmark Pupin Hall, the famed astronomy and physics building where the atom was first split by Enrico Fermi. Overcome security concerns by exploiting janitor Hector’s connections to campus security staff. Offer payola to Hector and on-duty officers, a cut of proceeds for looking the other way during party.

  Rally Jean-Wayne’s engineering Dream team to cross-circuit the building’s security cameras for the event so playback of the previous night’s empty rooms will appear on the main security monitors during the party’s night of awesome.

  Assure paid-off security officers that no acts of terrorism will take place during the party in the hallowed location, leading to no inter national incidents that will be splashed across the front pages of the New York Post and Daily News the following day.

  Also promise that any toilet backups will be fixed and cleaned by dawn.

  Wear the sluttiest dress available—in Very’s case, a psychedelic tie-dyed T-shirt she’d made the summer she was eleven (it fit back then), appropriately ripped so it drooped off one shoulder like in Flashdance, cut low for maximum cleavage effect, and cinched at waist, with a handyman’s belt loaded with tools in case anything broke during the party and needed to be fixed. Plumbing equipment stored separately. No good way to accessorize a toilet plunger, sadly.

  Now that she was back into the techno-game, Very was fully game ON.

  Her party was a smash, even with no atom-splitting taking place (at least that Very was aware of; she would be pissed if any of those physics nerds got into any such antics on her party watch—Hector would never trust her again). Final exams were ending, and with students planning to disperse for the summer, the party people—hundreds of them—were primed to get down.

  Ace DJ-ing from Very’s party playlist, “Tear the Roof Down, Suckas”—a mix of funk, reggae, metal, disco, and bubblegum-pop classics that she’d created on her secret laptop in the Dreams’ green-room den of iniquity—had the crowd pumped and gyrating on the dance floor. Why hadn’t she thought of this before? An observatory with a world-class telescope was the ideal place for accommodating a huge crowd. A disco ball had been hung over the dance space, and it totally complemented the planet/stars vibe and shimmered sparkles over a lot of really bad dance moves, making everyone look suddenly sexy. The drunkenness helped liven the effect, too, as did the thick, cement observatory walls, which would not spill noise pollution onto the street below.

  Seriously. She cou
ld have a big-event-organizer career ahead of her if she just put her mind to it. Even Lavinia said so.

  “Look at this madness you’ve created. Have you ever thought what you could accomplish if you channeled all this brainpower and energy into something worthwhile?” Lavinia asked Very.

  The massive room had a domed ceiling; somewhere between the floor and the high ceiling, a ladder had been situated across two opposing beams to make for extra seating space, and on that ladder Very sat with Lavinia. The disco ball hung from the ladder, and Lavinia and Very kicked it side to side to each other as their legs dangled high over the pulsing dance floor.

  “What would you consider to be worthwhile?” Very asked. Generally, she feared heights, but with Lavinia sitting by her side, she felt immune to vertigo. Besides, Very was too high on the party’s success to worry about how high she was sitting. She was smart enough to be sober up there, too. Nothing would ruin her party like having to unclog a toilet that was spinning before her eyes, or one that she’d just puked into.

  Lavinia hadn’t been mad about the party, surprisingly, saying only that she couldn’t police Very’s every technology whim and she was too busy studying for finals to try. So if Very was going to throw a party, Lavinia said, she figured, If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. She wouldn’t give Very her spare ‘Pod back, or lobby Dreab-bie and Bryan for the return of her laptop and iPhone, however. The e-laws for Very had been laid down, and Lavinia, for one, was sticking with that original plan. What Very chose to do outside those boundaries was her choice.

  Lavinia said, “I’d consider your time spent to be worthwhile if you could assure me you’ll tap your brain for the good, and promise me you won’t wind up in a post-party future, waking up barely alive in some tawdry ditch, then Googling the closest McDonald’s location to make a french fry run instead of using the iPhone to call for help from the police.”

  “My, you dream so big for me.” Very reached over to hold Lavinia’s hand so she could steady her gaze to look directly down onto the floor crowd. She felt comforted that Lavinia knew the fries would be her priority. It was nice to be so understood by at least one person in the universe. “Want to go down and dance?”

  “No, thanks,” Lavinia said.

  “Don’t be a wallflower. It’s a night for blowing off end-of-semester steam. Anybody who interests you down on the dance floor?”

  “I’m about to go away for the summer. I’d rather just hang with my friends tonight than shout over the music to get to know new people down there.”

  Very said, “Understood. I see you meeting a hot fellow camp counselor this summer, anyway, having some crazy adventures in the Arts & Crafts building. Kinky stuff involving making pot holders?”

  “You,” Lavinia said, “could maybe dream bigger for me. C’mon, let’s get off this ladder. I’m getting dizzy up here.”

  Together they descended the ladder and veered over to climb the stairs to the giant telescope viewing perch, where the actual Astronomy Club was assembled, taking looks up into the great beyond.

  “It’s too hazy tonight to see any good stars,” the club president told the girls. “So we focused the telescope on the Empire State Building.”

  Very and Lavinia stepped up to the viewing lens at the same time. “Jinx!” they both said as their cheeks touched. They shared the telescopic vision, looking directly into the offices on the top floors of the Empire State Building, which appeared so close and large it was like the building was directly in front of them instead of a few miles away downtown. They watched some late-night office workers go about their business—typing on computers, talking on the phone, cleaning out desks.

  Very said, “The workers seem so live and close. It’s like they’re in a video game. Except they look more real.”

  “They are real,” Lavinia said.

  Very hadn’t heard from El Virus again since those twenty-eight messages on her first night with the Dreams guys, but when she finally found him this coming summer, Very was going to tell him about this magic. About the party she’d thrown so she could finance finding him, and about how Lavinia’s cheek was so soft and delicate, and how the Empire State Building was populated by 3-D action figures at night, and how if she could observe stars in the sky with anyone, she’d probably choose Lavinia first, but El Virus would place a close second.

  From behind them, a girl tugged on Lavinia’s arm. “Jennifer! I was hoping to find you here! The crew team’s all here. We were looking for you.”

  Very and Lavinia turned around. An Amanda, crew-girl specimen, stood before them, her face flushed and eager.

  Lavinia jumped down from the viewing perch like Very wasn’t even there. “Great!”

  And Lavinia was gone, dragged away by the Amanda, who didn’t seem to even notice Very glaring at her.

  Well, then. If that’s how it was going to be, Very had some end-of-semester celebrating to do herself.

  She’d actually done it. Not just the party, but a legitimate 2.8 GPA. Not the 3.0 she was required to have, but she felt sure Dean Dean would put in the good word for her to keep her scholarship funds intact; she’d tell him so at the meeting she was scheduled to have with him the following afternoon to discuss her academic status. She’d survived without her iPhone and laptop—with a little help on the side, courtesy of J.-W. and the Green Team, but the Powers That Be would never know that part. She wouldn’t know until her meeting with Dean Dean whether Dreabbie had signed off on Very’s returning to student housing next year, but who cared? Very would worry about that later. Problems? She had no problems.

  She was high on this moment that she, personally, Very Le-Freak, had made happen. The party was a few hundred people deep, and would probably go down as Extremely Legendary in the archives of Columbia party history. And now Very had the money for a cross-country adventure to rescue her El Virus. She’d leave as soon as she was packed out of her dorm room, or once Lavinia, exasperated and wanting to check out already, had done it for her. Very didn’t yet know how she’d start her expedition. She’d plan the journey along the way. Life was more exciting that way. And to think she had accomplished every detail of this party electronically. Why anyone would try to curtail Very from her e-habits was, simply, ridiculous logic. Clearly, her best self came forward through machinery. She was all-powerful in that format. Practically a Cylon! (But she was the really hot blond Cylon, not those other sad sacks.)

  Very eyeballed Bryan on the dance floor; he was doing an awkward white-boy two-step with the girl Dreabbie had tried to fix him up with. And since she, Very LeFreak, was feeling so celebratory, she was not going to take on her slut personage and sabotage his attempts to hit on the girl. Though she could. She could. But Very decided she could be bigger than Bryan. If Bryan got lucky and got some, he’d finally give Very her fucking machine back already. The two of them could be finished, cleanly and neatly, and without the need to scan his browsing history to see where he’d taken her machine, because she was over it, didn’t care, just wanted to have this episode excised and to move forward in her life, onward to her El Virus–hunt presidential libraries road trip. Her friendship with Bryan was over. She’d find a newer, better cuddle buddy: E.V. himself.

  Very approached Bryan on the dance floor, coming up behind him and tickling his back. Bryan turned around. He looked like a frightened cat when he saw Very; his back arched and his electric hair frizzed high.

  “Debbie decides when you get your stuff back, not me,” Bryan said loudly, over the music.

  Very would be bigger than this. She would. She swayed to the beat of the song, grinding herself up against Bryan’s front. She leaned in to tell him a secret.

  “Faux-mo the girl,” she said, gesturing to Bryan’s otherwise dance partner.

  “Huh?” Bryan said.

  “Pretend you’re not into girls. Let her think you’re just experimenting with her. Then she’ll be all over you. A sure thing.”

  That’s what Very should have done with Bryan to begin
with, she realized. Pretended she was only into girls. So then she never would have hurt him, and never would have had her laptop taken away by him in retaliation. She would never have lost a cuddle partner. And friend.

  Very abandoned Bryan to head over to the bar area, where she could scan the room for new victims. She needed some love tonight. An easier entanglement than the Bryan type, no strings attached. Of the most obvious pickings, Very considered: Ghana, grooving under the disco ball, who’d been giving her some some-thin’ on the q.t. lately, but had held back on giving her the whole shebang because of his long-distance girlfriend; a really hot basketball player dude she’d been admiring in the dining hall all year, whom she’d really like to slam-dunk; the Barnard bartending girl, whom she kinda owed anyway, and …

  Very’s scan was being most annoyingly uncooperative. Her gaze kept pulling in the wrong direction, away from her intendeds, and toward Lavinia, dancing with the Amanda in a corner of the room. They were, like, dancing-dancing, not just snapping their fingers and mouthing lyrics, but actual hip-and-booty shaking up close and personal, while a parade of crew girls circled them, cheering them on.

  The dance hall sight was just … disgusting. Who was Lavinia to behave so wantonly?

  Very’s slut personage triumphed, ultimately, redirecting her laser scan away from the so totally lesbo crew and directly back onto Ghana. Target lock. Beep beep beep.

  Very had better things to do than worry about Lavinia’s antics, which would probably culminate with the girls’ crew team having a slumber party and cooing over an assortment of stupid Hugh Grant movies, none of the girls drunk or bold enough for more than slight petting—with each other, with themselves, or with the boys’ crew team, undoubtedly having a pornfest in the next room. Very had superior ways to cap off her night. Like giving herself a parting party gift of Ghana.