One Night That Changes Everything

by Lauren Barnholdt

  “Why would they …” Marissa starts, frowning. “I mean, how did they … ?”

  “I wrote it down,” I say. “In my notebook.”

  “Right,” Marissa says. She looks at the floor.

  Here’s the deal with Nigel Rickson: I used to be in love with him. And when I say, in love with him, I (obviously) mean from afar. He’s from England and he showed up at our school freshman year with this totally sexy British accent. He was into all this weird hip-hop music and he wore baggy clothes and had braces which totally somehow worked on him and made him seem very badass. Like how some rappers have gold teeth?

  Anyway, the braces are long gone, but the hip-hop clothes are still there, and Nigel Rickson and his friends still walk down the hallways at school listening to underground hip-hop on their iPods and spend their weekends scouting artists for the record label Nigel is going to start one day.

  My crush on Nigel was one of those crushes that at the time was super-strong, until one day I had Clarice ask Nigel what he thought of me, and he seemed kind of clueless as to who I was, and it made me really upset and I spent all of the next week obsessing over him and listening to sad love songs in my room.

  And after that, I was pretty much over him. Although sometimes when we’re in a class together I’ll find myself staring at him and sort of daydreaming about what it would be like to make out with him. Also, one time I kind of saw that he has a little bit of hair on his stomach, like this little trail that sort of goes from his belly button, um, down, and you’d think that would seem really gross, but it wasn’t, it was super-sexy and made my head get all wobbly and I almost passed out in gym class. Of course, that could have been because we were running the mile that day, but I don’t think so.

  Anyway, up until Cooper, I guess you could say he was my longest crush. Like, of course I’d had crushes on guys after that and before that, but Nigel is the one who I’ve always kind of come back to. Until Cooper, and then I kind of forgot that Nigel existed.

  Isn’t that funny? Or maybe even ironic? I mean, now they want me to try to make out with Nigel, and it shouldn’t even be that scary, because I don’t like him anymore, but it still is pretty scary because it means I have to, you know, try to get him to kiss me.

  “You’ll be fine,” Marissa says. Her voice sounds confident, but her face doesn’t look so sure.

  “Where is he?” I ask. “Have you seen him?”

  “Yeah, he’s in the corner, with some of his friends. They were playing craps or something on the floor.”

  “They were playing what?”

  “Craps, you know?” She mimes throwing something. “Like with dice.”

  Oh. Great. Not only do I have to figure out a way to get him to make out with me, but now I have to compete with gambling? There’s no way I’m going to win that battle.

  “Give me your iPhone,” I demand.

  Marissa hands it over. I scroll through her apps until I find Pandora. If I’m going to do this, I at least need something to talk to him about. I’ll find a good rap artist, listen to some songs, and use that as a conversation opener. But in my heightened state of despair, the only rap artists I can think of are mainstream rap artists. Which is fine, but I need something more impressive. Something that will make him think we have a connection, me and Nigel, two rap aficionados.

  “What are some underground Boston rap artists’ names?” I ask Marissa.

  She looks at me. “Are you seriously asking me that?”

  Hmmm. I rack my brain, trying to remember at least one person or group. I should be able to. I mean, when I was a freshman I totally spent a whole weekend scouring the internet for local Boston rap artists so that I could impress Nigel with my knowledge in study hall the next day. Of course, I chickened out and didn’t talk to him, but still. Damn. What was that one guy’s name? Mr. something. Or maybe it was a group? That’s the other problem with underground rappers, you can never tell from their names if they’re solo artists or groups.

  “Mr. Rift!” I scream. “That’s the name of that one guy, Mr. Rift!” I start plugging it into Marissa’s phone.

  “Mr. Rift,” Marissa says thoughtfully. She takes another sip of her drink. “I like it. It sounds kind of … old school. But hip.”

  I don’t ask her what she means by that, because I’m still looking for songs to listen to and because Cooper picks that moment to come waltzing into the kitchen like an asshole.

  “Oh,” he says, when he sees me and Marissa.

  “Oh?” Marissa says, looking at him coolly. “Is that really all you have to say for yourself?” She crosses her arms, like maybe she might be ready to fight. Which is crazy. Marissa never fights. Well. Except for one time in seventh grade when Meredith Cosanti stole her sports bras and wouldn’t admit it. But that was junior high, everyone was fighting in junior high.

  “Marissa,” I say, warning her. I’m plugging Mr. Rift into Pandora, but it’s not coming up. “Is there any other way to spell rift?” I ask.

  “R-I-F-T,” Cooper recites. I ignore him and turn my back on him, speaking directly to Marissa.

  “Is there?” I ask. “Any other way to spell it?”

  “I don’t think so.” She frowns.

  “Why do you need to spell rift?” Cooper asks. He walks over and looks over my shoulder at the screen of Marissa’s iPhone. There’s nowhere for me to go, since the counter is right behind me, and Cooper’s arm brushes against mine, making my head feel all wobbly and fizzy. I tell myself it’s the drinks, even though I only had three sips.

  “None of your business,” I say, pulling the phone out of his line of sight. But it’s too late—he’s already seen what I was trying to do.

  “Do you mean … do you mean Mr. Lif?” he asks. “The rapper?”

  “No,” I lie, but I’m already plugging in the right name. Mr. Lif! I should have remembered, since I made up this (obviously not very effective) mnemonic device when I had to remember it the first time. Something to do with elevators, I think.

  “Why are you looking up Mr. Lif?” Cooper asks. He’s leaning over me again, trying to get a look at the iPhone. He smells like soap and shampoo and that same yummy smelling cologne. Wait a minute. I give the air another sniff.

  “Are you … are you wearing the cologne I gave you?” I ask incredulously.

  “No.” He gets a panicked look on his face and takes a step back.

  “Yes, you are,” I say, narrowing my eyes. For some reason, this bothers me even more than the watch. I mean, I gave him that cologne as a present. Because I liked the smell of it and because I wanted to do something nice for him. Not so he could go around wearing it, probably so he can get Isabella all hot and bothered and have his way with her.

  “Take it off,” I demand. Which makes no sense, since how do you take off cologne? I mean, I guess you could wash it off, but is Cooper really going to do that? And he would have the whole rest of the bottle, anyway. Although from the way he smells, it doesn’t seem like he’d have much left.

  “I can’t take it off,” he says.

  “Don’t ever wear it again,” I command.

  He rolls his eyes. “You don’t own the cologne.”

  I skip a few songs on Pandora until a Mr. Lif song comes on. Hmm. This is actually kind of catchy. You know, if you like that kind of thing.

  “This is kind of catchy,” Marissa says. “If you like that kind of thing.”

  Jeremiah Fisher peeks his head into the kitchen. He looks around, sees Marissa, and gives her a huge smile. “Hey,” he says. “There you are!”

  Oh my God. I mean, seriously. She’s been here for at least thirty minutes, he must have seen her before this. And he’s just now coming over to say hi to her. How lame. On the bright side, now my best friend and I are both in the same situation, i.e., having to tell stupid men where they can go and stick their stupid lines and games. Now Marissa and I can bond together in a show of sisterhood and feminism.

  But of course, Marissa just smiles at him, fli
ps her hair back, giggles, and says, “Yup, here I am.”

  I sigh.

  “Come hang with me,” Jeremiah commands. And then he disappears before Marissa can answer him.

  “You’re not,” I say.

  “Why not?” she asks, biting her lip.

  “You know why not,” I say.

  “Wait, you guys hooked up?” Cooper asks. “You and Jeremiah?”

  “What, like she’s not good enough for Jeremiah or something?” I demand.

  “No, I didn’t say that,” Cooper says. He opens the refrigerator and pulls out a Tupperware bowl, then heads over to the drawer in the corner and pulls out a fork. “I just didn’t think he was your type, Marissa, that’s all.”

  “Don’t tell her what her type is,” I say to Cooper. “You don’t even know her.” Which is kind of true, but kind of not. When Cooper and I were dating, he did spend a lot of time with Clarice and Marissa, mostly because I was determined not to lose myself in the whole “I have a boyfriend” thing and forget about my friends. But obviously I didn’t want to lose Cooper, either, so we all spent a lot of time together.

  “Why isn’t Jeremiah my type?” Marissa asks, looking at Cooper with interest.

  “Not smart enough for you,” Cooper says. He’s now eating what looks like some kind of pasta out of the container. Probably his own food left over from last night, when he was here with Isabella. He probably made her dinner, and then they had sex in the bedroom. Either that or he feels comfortable enough with her to just eat her food. I swallow around the lump that keeps popping up in my throat.

  “Jeremiah’s smart,” Marissa protests.

  “Not really,” Cooper says. “I mean, he’s not dumb or anything, he’s smart when it comes to school stuff. But he doesn’t like to analyze things the way you do.”

  “True,” Marissa says. She twirls a strand of hair around her finger and thinks about it. Unbelievable! I’ve been telling Marissa this for, like, weeks and Cooper says it to her once, and she’s considering it.

  “Don’t talk to her,” I say to Cooper. “In fact, what are you even doing here?”

  “I’ll be in the living room,” Marissa says. Evidently Cooper’s observation about Jeremiah wasn’t enough to keep her from following him out there. This makes me happy for some reason, even though it shouldn’t.

  “So why are you listening to Mr. Lif?” Cooper asks.

  “Like you don’t know,” I say.

  “I don’t.”

  “I have to kiss Nigel,” I say. “And so I figured that would be a good way for us to bond.”

  “You have to kiss Nigel?” Cooper asks. “Nigel Rickson?” He sets his bowl down on the island in the kitchen. “That’s what they told you to do?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “That’s what they told me to do.”

  “But you like Nigel,” he says.

  “Duh,” I say. “Which is the reason I wrote about him in my notebook, which is the reason they’re making me kiss him.” I don’t correct him to say that I used to like Nigel. Let him think I still do. And anyway, maybe I do. Maybe Nigel is the new Cooper. Maybe we’re going to get married and live happily ever after. Of course, I thought that might happen with that guy Rich from the club, but still.

  My phone rings then. Clarice. I answer it.

  “We’re at Isabella Royce’s house,” I say. “Where are you?”

  “Um, leaving Derrick’s apartment,” she says.

  “Did you have fun?”

  “Not really,” she says, sighing. “Butch and his girlfriend left. And so then me and Derrick were just listening to some music, and he had his arm around me, and it was really nice. But then I started telling him about Georgia, you know, and how different it is here, and then he started acting all antsy, like he wanted me to get out of there.”

  This is a pattern that happens sometimes with Clarice. Well, most of the time, actually, not just some of the time. She’ll meet some guy, get invited over to his place, and when it becomes clear that she doesn’t want to hook up, he’ll either kick her out or make her feel like he wants her to leave. Usually this comes after Clarice has given him tons of signals that she does want to hook up, like, you know, going over to his house late at night. She’s kind of a tease, although she doesn’t realize it.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “Not a big deal,” she says, sounding breezy. Clarice doesn’t ever stay down for long. “So listen,” she says, her voice bright. “I have a really great idea.”

  “You do?” I ask warily. The last time Clarice had a really great idea, she ended up with a tattoo of a Japanese symbol on her back that she had to get removed when she realized it meant “visitors welcome.” Kind of ironic, when you think about it. Plus now’s not really the time for great ideas. I’m in the middle of a pretty big personal crisis.

  “Yes,” she says. “I got it when Derrick was talking about something he did last year, for his senior prank.”

  “Okay,” I say again. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Cooper throw the empty Tupperware bowl into the sink, then reach into the pantry and pull down a box of cookies. He holds them out to me, offering me one. I glare at him and then turn my back.

  “Well, apparently Derrick and his friends had this huge prank planned, but it didn’t really work out, so they had to do an alternate prank that involved stealing this guy’s pet pig and, like, you know, letting it loose.”

  “Didn’t that happen in a movie?”

  “Didn’t what happen in a movie?” she asks.

  “That someone stole a pig and let it loose?”

  “Varsity Blues,” Cooper pipes up helpfully from behind me.

  “Varsity Blues,” I tell Clarice, my back still turned on Cooper. Which doesn’t help, because I can still feel him behind me, eating and, you know, watching me or something.

  “I don’t know,” Clarice says. She sounds confused. “Why would he tell me he did something that happened in a movie?”

  “Maybe they got the idea from the movie, and so they did it themselves,” I say, mostly because I don’t have the heart to tell her that he probably lied in an effort to impress her and get her clothes off. Behind me, Cooper guffaws. I turn around and smack him on the shoulder.

  “That’s probably it,” Clarice says. She sounds relieved. “Probably they stole that idea from the movie.”

  “Totally,” I say. Cooper rubs his shoulder and puffs his lip out, pretending to pout, even though there’s no way that hurt him.

  “Anyway,” Clarice says. “So that’s when I got the idea. You know, on how we can get you out of this.”

  “You want us to steal a pig?” I ask.

  “No-o-o-o,” she says, sounding like she thinks I’m completely stupid for not getting it. “I want us to steal your notebook back.”

  Oh. My. God. Of course! Clarice is brilliant! Why hadn’t any of us thought of this before? If we can somehow get my notebook back, then this whole charade will just … end. Because if I have the notebook, they can’t do anything to me! They’ll have nothing to hold over my head! Of course, I don’t know where the notebook is. But if I can somehow figure it out … My heart leaps, and for the first time all night, I start to feel a little bit hopeful.

  “Interesting,” I say to Clarice slowly, so that Cooper doesn’t know what we’re talking about.

  “I think so,” Clarice says, sounding pleased with herself. “Anyway, I’m getting on the T now, so I’ll see you soon.”

  I end the call and take a deep breath. Okay. New plan. Get through this whole dumb kissing thing, then figure out how to get the notebook back. Easy, right?

  “Clarice ended up back at some guy’s apartment again?” Cooper laughs, then holds the cookies out again.

  “I said, ‘no thank you,’” I say haughtily, even though my stomach is rumbling. I will not take any food from him, thank you very much, and definitely not any of Isabella’s food. “And don’t talk about Clarice like you know her. In fact, please don’t talk to me at all.”
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br />   Cooper gets a serious expression on his face then and sets his cookie on the counter. “Eliza,” he says. “Listen, you …” He takes a deep breath and starts again. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Don’t have to do what?”

  “You don’t have to go out there and try to kiss Nigel.”

  “Yes, I do,” I say. He’s moving toward me now, so I take a step back and the kitchen counter pushes into my lower back. For a second I have a flashback of how it used to be, when Cooper and I were together. I’d be leaning against my locker before second period history, and he’d have his arms around my waist, trying to kiss me, and I’d be pushing him away because I was always afraid of getting into trouble, even though I totally wanted to kiss him.

  “You don’t,” Cooper says now. “Fuck them, Eliza. Who cares if they have your dumb notebook? Let them post it online, no one cares.”

  “Easy for you to say,” I say. “It’s not your notebook.”

  “So you wrote some stuff in there about wanting to kiss Nigel when you were in ninth grade and how you’re too shy to do karaoke, big deal,” he says. “Just tell them to fuck off.”

  I take a deep breath and think about how easy it would be, how nice if I could just tell them I wasn’t going to do it anymore, if I could just completely and totally not care. But I can’t.

  “I can’t,” I say. And for a second, I think maybe Cooper’s looking out for me, that maybe he’s worried about me, that even though what he did was gross and disgusting, that maybe he still kind of cares about me. He’s getting closer to me now, looking at me, and he puts his arms on either side of me, holding on to the counter behind me with both hands.

  “I miss you,” he says, looking right into my eyes.

  I want to say something smart back, but all I say is, “Then why are you letting them do this? Tell them to stop.”

  “Because if I try to call it off,” he says, “if I stick up for you, they’re going to want to go after you more. But you can stop them, you can tell them you’re not going to do it.”

  “I can’t,” I say again. My heart is beating a million miles a minute, and a voice in the back of my head is telling me not to believe this, not to let him suck me back in again.