Those Girls

by Lauren Saft

  The wind shook the trees, moving the shadows hovering over us. Drew scratched his fuzzy head and leaned back on his elbows. “Definitely. I think I convinced your brother to come, too.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because he’s a cool kid and I like hanging out with him.”

  “You’re just jealous that I have a brother and you’re stuck with a house full of women. You can’t take mine!”

  “You just don’t want fresh-faced little Josh around your cougar friends.”

  “Is it possible to be a cougar at sixteen?”

  “If anyone can do it, Veronica can.”

  I laughed.

  “She was looking pretty good the other day,” he said.

  I closed my eyes and took the punch. “Well, that’s what she does, I guess.”

  “Did you think she was flirting with me? I think she might have been flirting with me a little.”

  Of course she was flirting with him; she flirted with everyone. After all these years of him making fun of “slutty ol’ Veronica,” all it took was one hair flip and a suggestive stretch, and he was a panting dog like the rest of them? Boys are the worst.

  “Of course she was flirting with you. She flirts with everyone. That’s how she, like, relates to males. I think she’s actually incapable of actual conversation.”

  “You’re probably right.” He flicked the roach into the rolling water. But I could tell his wheels were turning.

  Suddenly, I was stoned and acutely aware that my mind was not working as quickly as it should be, and I needed to diffuse this Drew/Veronica thing immediately. Carefully, and immediately.

  “So, do you, like, like her or something?” I asked.

  He couldn’t.

  But maybe he did. Drew and I were just friends after all. Eventually, he was going to like someone. I’d always known that it was a matter of time before he had a girlfriend and I’d have to stop pretending that what we had was all I needed. Which it sort of was. As long as he didn’t have a girlfriend. But Veronica? Really? Veronica was so obvious. Such an unoriginal choice. So everything Drew always claimed he was against. I imagined he’d go for someone deep, with good taste in music, an irreverent sense of style. Someone tall. Someone who liked the same things he did, liked to sit by creeks and smoke joints and have long insightful talks about art and life. Someone who made him laugh. Someone… more like me.

  “Honestly, I never really thought about it. I mean, obviously she’s smokin’ hot. She’s funny.”

  Funny? Veronica was not funny. Veronica was oblivious, and that was occasionally entertaining. Veronica wasn’t witty or clever. Veronica loved Katy Perry for god’s sake. Like, not ironically. She had all of Katy Perry’s albums. All of them. Went to her concert. Both nights. How could Drew like someone who liked Katy Perry? All pillars of truth I’d held until that point began to slowly crumble around me.

  “I could put a word in. If you really need to get laid that badly…”

  “Would that be weird?”

  He’d probably been thinking about fucking Veronica since the moment she shoved her push-up bra in his face on the tennis court. I was going to be sick. Fucking Veronica. Goddamn, fucking Veronica.

  “It makes sense. I mean, you’re two of my best friends. You could probably get her wasted and make a move at the party.”

  If I smacked my head against the rock we were sitting on, maybe I’d die. Or get a concussion. If I died, or even just ended up in the hospital, would he be too distraught to pursue this?

  “Let’s just see what happens. Don’t say anything, okay?” He wrapped his long arm around my shoulder. “You’re such a good wingman, Holbrook.”

  THE BAND’S GARAGE LOOKED like a real music studio. On the orange shag carpet lay an old gray amp, loose wires, and unstrung instruments. No sign of cars, old bicycles, toolboxes, or anything typically garagelike. Two redheaded boys—one in a Ramones T-shirt, the other in some shade of faded tie-dye—stood with a guitar and bass around their necks, respectively. I guessed these were the Farber boys. I felt deep pangs of regret and the urge to run home.

  “Hello?” I probably should have changed out of my uniform; I must have looked like an asshole. Then again, they knew I went to Harwin; changing might have made me seem like I was trying to look cool for them.

  The guy in the Ramones shirt smiled and came right over to me. The one in tie-dye and a Hispanic-looking one behind the drums just stared me up and down, which I suppose they were entitled to do. As I would have done if some private school bitch that I didn’t know waltzed into my band practice like she had a right to be there.

  “You must be Alex.” Ramones extended a clammy palm and shook my hand.

  “I am.” I stalled. “Hi…”

  “I’m Ned Farber; I play guitar. This is my brother Pete; he plays bass”—he shook my hand, too—“and this is Fernando, our drummer.” I waved like an idiot to Fernando, who didn’t rise from behind his drums. “Thanks for coming, and please don’t think we’re huge losers and that our mom recruits all our bandmates. We had a last-minute keyboardist-fell-off-a-building-and-broke-his-arm type of emergency.”

  I laughed. “Really? A building? How rock-and-roll…”

  “What can I say, live free, rock hard.”

  I laughed again, hoping—assuming—he was joking. “Well,” I said, putting some distance behind the awkward joke, “please don’t think I’m a huge loser and that I join the bands of all my piano teachers’ children.”

  They laughed. Genuinely. I started to relax. They seemed nice. Kind of dorky even. Not scary at all.

  “My mom said that you were very cool, but that you didn’t like music made by white people.”

  I couldn’t believe she’d repeated that. I was joking. Sort of…

  “I told her not to worry, because we have Fernando. He’s Salvadoran. Is that enough ethnic flavor for you?”

  “Token Latin drummer at your service,” Fernando said with an easy smile. From behind the drum set, he extended his hand to me, and for some reason I blushed.

  “What kind of music do you guys play?” I asked.

  “We’re sort of a funk–soul–jam band fusion. We do covers, but we write most of our own songs. We’ll cover anything from Arcade Fire to Michael Jackson to the Stones, but we sound like us, not like them, ya know?” Ned said, showing me over to the keyboard. I didn’t really, but I hoped I would soon.

  I ran my hands over the plastic keys and wished I’d practiced more.

  “Right up my alley,” I said. “I have a pretty eclectic taste myself. Just no whiny white people music.”

  Ned and Fernando laughed; Pete seemed to be somewhere else.

  “We try to avoid being whiny white people whenever possible,” Ned said. “You wanna play something?”

  “Anything?”

  “Probably not Mozart,” Pete chimed in. “He’s pretty whiny and white.”

  Finally, a real laugh instead of a nervous one; my cheeks started to relax.

  I vacillated between new-school and old-school. I didn’t want to play anything too obscure, but I wanted to prove my musical street cred. Stick with a classic. The Cure or maybe Stevie Wonder. Bob Marley? I wondered what they liked, what they’d think was lame—if they were ironic or snobby or if they were the kind of musicians who loved all music or the kind who hated everything. I decided that everyone likes Stevie Wonder. Whether you’re into rock, pop, oldies, gangster rap, or new wave Afro-punk—everyone likes Stevie Wonder.

  When I’m nervous, I hum the melody to “My Cherie Amour,” so I went with that. My dad always sang it to me, and I taught myself how to play it the day after he moved out. I always taught myself to play something new when I wanted to not think about something. He’d be so excited that I was in a band. Though he’d probably just tell me how much cooler his band was, how much better music was in the sixties, and how much harder he worked than I ever would.

  Fernando hit the snare, and before I knew it, all the
boys had joined in; I relaxed into the music, so much so that I didn’t even realize that I’d started to sing. Ned was clearly the talent. Once he strummed his Fender the whole room melted around us, and my little ditty became full-blown, chest-melting music. I watched him play and transform. He was all over my slightly nuanced melody, and the song grew in a way that no song of mine ever had before, because I’d always played alone. Fernando fell right in with the beat, and Pete, too. And the next thing I knew, the familiar song became something completely different and completely beautiful, and I was completely in the middle of it. Holding it up, but being swallowed by it at the same time. They followed my changes through my key jump at the end, and I knew that these guys knew what they were doing. Hopefully I had fooled them into thinking that I did, too.

  The song ended, and I realized I was smiling.

  “Well,” Ned said. He looked at Pete, then at Fernando, slapped his guitar, and nodded. “I’m comfortable saying, you’re in!”

  They liked me. I was good enough. I was in. It was too late to run.

  MOLLIE FINN

  Sam had his own little apartment in his basement. The walls were blue plaid and dusty, covered with sports paraphernalia. It was like our little windowless den of debauchery. His parents never went down there. Ever. We smoked, drank, fucked, everything down there; no one bothered us. Ever. It was terrifyingly liberating.

  “I just think it’s weird that Alex would join a band and not have mentioned it, or even that she was thinking about it, before.” I groaned.

  Sam’s stomach rumbled as I lay with my head in his lap. I hoped that this position would lead him to stroke my hair or rub my arm or perform some sort of gesture of affection like he once would have in this situation. Instead, he took this opportunity to spread his arms over the couch like vulture wings and use my hip as a place to occasionally rest his beer.

  “Yes! All right!” Sam jolted forward toward the TV, knocking my head into his knee.

  “Babe,” I barked without even turning around or moving from his lap, “are you even listening to me? Should I just stop bothering to talk to you?”

  “No, babe. I’m listening. This is a great fucking game, though. Did you just see that steal?”

  “Yeah, awesome.”

  “Fuckin’ awesome!”

  And he rested his beer back on my hip.

  “So, you don’t think that’s shady of Alex?”

  “It’s a fucking gay-ass band of public school losers, babe. Who cares?”

  “It’s not the band; it’s that she didn’t tell us. She didn’t even tell me. I just think that’s weird. Why wouldn’t she have mentioned it before?” I snuggled up closer to Sam’s crotch and petted his thigh on top of his dusty khakis, hoping the movement would bring a comforting hand down to me. One stroke of my arm, cheek, anything.

  “Maybe she’s realizing that it’s not necessary to consult you every time she takes a dump. Seriously, who fucking cares? Alex is getting a life. Good for her. Yes! Run, you motherfucker!” And he sprang forward, dripping some beer on my nose. I wiped it off and pretended to fall asleep.

  A few minutes later, Sam leaned over me again, squishing my head as he set his sweating beer on the coffee table. He put his rough hand on the curve of my waist and squeezed my still-unsettled stomach.

  “Ouch,” I said. “Be gentle. I’m not a fucking football.” I laced my fingers through his and guided his hand down my torso to show him how I’d prefer he just rub me lightly. I felt him stretch back and unbutton his pants behind my head.

  “Gentle, huh?” he said, reaching into his pants with one hand and squeezing my ribs again with the other.

  I flipped around on his lap to find his open pants and erect dick, which he’d so kindly already stuck over the elastic of his M&Ms boxers. The ones that had holes in them and were three sizes too small, but that he liked to wear so he could grab his crotch and say, Melts in your mouth, not in your hand.

  “Oh yeah?” I said coyly as I began to stroke it.

  “And go slow this time, babe—don’t fucking rush it. You always rush it.”

  I rolled my eyes, but propped myself up and prepared for the task at hand. I decided this would be a good time to ask for the favor. “Babe, will you get a keg for Veronica’s party on Friday?”

  He nodded.

  SAM DIDN’T SAY MUCH in the car on the way to the party, which made me nervous. I was wearing the pink miniskirt he loves, and he didn’t even mention it.

  “Thanks for picking up the keg,” I said, staring out the dirty window, watching stone house after brick house after maple tree roll by. “I thought Veronica got a fake ID; I don’t know why she can’t get her own fucking keg.”

  “She probably just wants to owe me so she can thank me by blowing me later.”

  “You’re so hilarious!” I punched him in the arm. Hard.

  His hair was getting long, was starting to look like it did when we first started dating, all floppy and sun-bleached. I thought it was so cute then.

  “Oh, come on, Veronica sucking a dick is like anyone else giving a high five or a handshake. And I hear she gives a great handshake.”

  “Well, practice makes perfect.… Where did you hear that? Austin?”

  “Austin, Parker, Davis, Phil Miller, Tim Miller. I think there’s a note on the urinal in the science lab.” Sam squeezed my knee and cracked himself up, as usual—no one laughed harder at Sam’s jokes than Sam. “Maybe she could give you a little tutorial, show you some new tricks? You could use some new tricks, babe.”

  “Fuck you. If you want Veronica’s expert tricks of the trade, don’t let me stop you. I’d put in the order for the Valtrex now, though.”

  “It’s really too bad she’s such a slut,” he said. “She’s so hot. Usually only ugly girls need to whore it out like that.”

  “God, you’re an asshole.”

  “It’s why you love me.”

  I waited in the car while Sam dealt with the heavy lifting, and we drove the rest of the way to Veronica’s in relative silence, listening to the radio—some angry, thrashing, noisy nonsense that I pretended to like. I wondered if Sam really thought Veronica was that hot. If everyone really thought she was that hot. I didn’t think she was that hot. She was skinny and had big boobs, fine, but her face wasn’t that great. Her eyes bugged out, and her hair was weird. Thin, frizzy. She wasn’t that fucking hot.

  VERONICA COLLINS

  I always get nervous before parties, even if someone else is throwing it, which seemed to never happen anymore. I was wearing my yellow Paris dress, the sparkly backless one, because it had brought me good luck with the Greek guy over the summer. First party of the year, no harm in being superstitious, right?

  Alex and I sat on my patio and ripped tequila shots before people arrived. I figured I’d take this time to tell her about Austin and how I was trying to make him my boyfriend. I wasn’t going to tell her about him coming over the night before, because I didn’t want to make a big deal about it, because I was trying to be mature this year—girlfriends don’t go around telling their friends every little detail about every little time they have sex with their boyfriends, because who cares, right? But I decided maybe I should, because I wanted to be sure that Austin wouldn’t mention his visit to Sam, who’d mention it to Mollie, who’d then call me out for being shady, which I guess I had been, but whatever. Sometimes being shady is just way simpler and can save everyone a lot of melodramatic conversation and Mollie the opportunity to start with all the Veronica’s a slut jokes. Why were we legally obligated to report all our actions to each other, anyway? I’d tell Alex that he came over and we hooked up.

  I skipped the part about how I’d spent the entire afternoon cooking for him. I’d become a pretty avid watcher of Food Network in all my newfound time home alone, so I’d gotten into experimenting in the kitchen. I’d made myself coq au vin and beef bourguignonne, and learned how to julienne and render—whatever took time. I’d never been able to sit through movie
s or a full hour of homework or a book or anything, but I’d found that cooking was enough activity to keep me engaged. And then afterward, there was an actual reward! Eating! Eating legitimately way more delicious food than the Lean Cuisines and take-out Chinese that had been what I’d come to call dinner since middle school. I’d been begging Mollie and Alex to come over so I could cook for them, but obviously that never happened. They had mothers who cooked for them. Mothers who were big on things like dinner and curfews. Eventually, I got so lonely (and, okay, good enough that I wanted to show off to somebody) that I called Austin, Sam’s friend who I’d hooked up with a few times last spring. I asked him if he wanted Veronica haute cuisine and to maybe watch a movie or something. He said he did.

  Of course, he showed up at like ten and told me he’d already eaten. Of course, I told him that it was no big deal and that there were leftovers in the fridge if he wanted me to heat anything up or anything. Of course, he said he just wanted to watch the movie.

  We were twenty minutes into some zombie nonsense before his tongue was down my throat and the condom was on. I know that come over and watch a movie is international code for come over and hook up, but I thought maybe since we’d already hooked up a few times (and everyone knew about it thanks to the Whole Foods parking lot debacle) and he wasn’t so humiliated by it that he was still occasionally calling me that maybe he’d be interested in hanging out for a little or at least trying my freakin’ Thai curry halibut. Operation: Date Austin was not off to a good start.

  “You’ve gotta stop putting out for these lax assholes,” Alex said. And then she said, “Heeeey…” and she dragged the eeeh out in a suspicious way. “Why don’t you hook up with Drew?”

  Drew? Her Drew? Guys like Drew weren’t interested in girls like me. And I wasn’t interested in guys like Drew—or was I? I wasn’t getting anywhere with Austin Markel popular, athletic types. Did I like Drew? Maybe I did. Or, at least, maybe I should.

  “Why? Did he say something?” I asked.