Those Girls

by Lauren Saft

So, I was left standing there in the dusty gym in the midst of all these strangers, couples, on Valentine’s Day, while my boyfriend went off to dance with his (my) best friend. Perfect.

  Fernando tapped my shoulder. “Well,” he said, “would you like to dance?”

  A wave of relief. I told him I would, more than anything, and thanked him for saving me.

  “No problem,” he said. “You don’t know anyone here. It’s really cool that you guys came to support us.”

  It’s always weird being alone with your friend’s boyfriend. I never really know the rules here. Well, I mean, other than the don’t have sex with him rule that I had already broken. But in an attempt to do it the right way, what can you say and not say? Where is it okay to touch and not touch? He seemed nervous, but damn, he was cute. I never really had a chance to look at him up close before, or maybe I just never really bothered. Dark hair, dark skin, bright brown puppy-dog eyes. He looked cute in his little vest, clearly he’d tried to look nice. How could Alex not be falling all over him?

  “So they’re pretty close, yeah?” he asked, gesturing to Drew and Alex.

  “They’re best friends.” I looked over at the two of them talking up a storm, laughing away about god only knows what.

  “It’s annoying, right?”

  I laughed. “Extremely!” But I looked at pretty Fernando, and he wasn’t laughing. “I wouldn’t worry, though,” I said. “They’ve been tight for years. If they were going to hook up, they’d have hooked up by now.”

  “I guess so,” he said, eyes still fixed on the gruesome twosome. “I just wish I knew where I stood with her.”

  I shrugged, realizing the strangeness in the fact that Fernando and I had the same problem.

  ALEXANDRA HOLBROOK

  After the dance, Fernando asked me if I wanted to grab some pizza. I’d seen him at practice, but we hadn’t really talked since New Year’s, seeing as how part of the stipulation of my grounding (which included seizure of my phone and computer) was that I had to come right home after band practice (after negotiating even being able to attend practice). Part of me hoped I’d drunk-hallucinated the whole ordeal. I wondered if there was a statute of limitations on “we should probably talk about this” and if it was past the point already. For all I knew, Fernando had a new girlfriend. For all I knew, I was never his girlfriend in the first place.

  He opened the door for me when I got into his car. I smiled. He got in on his side and smiled back. Was I supposed to say something? Apologize? Was he? What was this? Was he taking me out on a Valentine’s Day date, or were we bandmates grabbing pizza after a gig?

  “I think we’re really coming together,” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said, assuming he was talking about the band.

  He looked over at me and smiled yet again, and put his hand on my leg. I smiled, again, wondering when either one of us was actually going to say anything—if either one of us had ever actually said anything during the entire duration of our relationship or if it had really just been a series of smiles, and in my naïveté, I assumed that was all relationships really entailed.

  We walked into the pizza place, which was almost empty. Blasts of spicy meat and bubbling cheese wafted around us like hot thunderclouds. I immediately started to salivate. Apparently, ten o’clock pizza isn’t a popular Valentine’s Day activity for young lovers, but it seemed as romantic as anything to me. I was self-conscious about my frizzy hair and shiny skin under the bright fluorescent lights. I fussed with my skirt and twirled my split ends.

  “Two slices of plain,” he said to the guy behind the counter, handing him a ten-dollar bill. So he was paying. And he ordered for me. Maybe this was a date.

  We sat down. He cracked his knuckles, looked at me, and said, “I want to apologize for New Year’s.”

  Massive. Overwhelming. Bowel-cleansing relief.

  “No, I want to apologize!” I said.

  “It’s been frustrating not being able to talk to you.”

  “Trust me, it’s been frustrating not being able to talk to anyone.”

  He folded his pizza in half and held the bread on both sides like a sandwich. “We don’t need to make a big deal about it,” he said, chomping away. “But sex isn’t nothing to me.”

  Oh god, he’d said the word. I was going to have to look him in the eye and talk about sex. Not just sex in the abstract, but actual physical penetration between him and me. Gross. My actual vagina may as well have been sitting on the Formica table between our pieces of pizza.

  “Me neither,” I said. I wanted to make eye contact to show him that I could, that I was cool. I was a sexy, mature woman who could talk about this stuff, but I couldn’t, I wasn’t. So I didn’t.

  “Okay, good,” he said. And he reached his hand across the table, presumably to take mine. I smiled again and put my hand in his. My other hand sat awkwardly in my lap, as I eyed my pizza, wishing I could pick it up and take another bite.

  “We don’t have to talk about this,” I said. “It’s cool. I was so drunk.”

  “I know,” he said. “But I wanted to make sure you knew that I still think you’re cool, and I still want us to hang out and stuff.”

  My hand was still in his, and I didn’t know how long I was supposed to leave it there. It was starting to sweat and it was greasy from the pizza. Hang out and stuff. What the fuck did that mean? Part of me wanted to ask what the fuck that meant, but most of me didn’t want to have the am I your girlfriend? conversation, because I knew I would be uncomfortable with either answer. My dried sweat was starting to itch under the fluorescent lights. I wanted to wash my face.

  “Good,” I said, taking my hand from his and wiping it on my skirt. “Let’s just pretend that night never happened, okay?”

  “Well, I don’t want to pretend it never happened,” he said, winking at me. “I like that it happened.”

  He had finished eating; the crust of his pizza sat discarded on his plate. My favorite part. I was still hungry. I wanted to eat it.

  He looked at his watch. “We should probably get you home soon,” he said. “Can’t have you getting grounded again.”

  I nodded and eyed the pizza crust, debating if I should just ask for it. A big, thick piece that still had some sauce on it. He rolled up the plate and threw it in the trash.

  DREW CALLED AT ABOUT midnight, asking if I was awake. I told him I was. He asked if I was down for a sesh. I told him I was.

  He pulled into my driveway and around to the side of the house by the garage. There were no windows there, so my mom couldn’t see what we were doing, even though she probably knew. I told her that I’d be right back—that Drew was just dropping something off. She asked where he’d been, why she hadn’t seen him around lately, asked me to tell him that she missed him and to invite him over for dinner. Like it was completely impossible that there was an actual complicated reason that Drew hadn’t been around; like it was my fault he hadn’t been around, like I had been too busy for my old friend Drew. Like I was the selfish one.

  It was unseasonably warm for February in Philadelphia. A cool dampness sat in the air instead of the frigid bite that had loomed for the past few months. The snow was starting to melt and trickle down the sides of the streets. We sat for a while, with the windows down, letting the wet air in, while he rolled a joint.

  “No Veronica sleepover tonight?” I asked.

  “I have SAT tutoring in the morning,” he mumbled mid-lick.

  I kept my eyes straight. Tried not to catch myself staring into the soft nape of his neck again. I watched the dark street sit there purring in the wet moonlight. Every few minutes a car would shush by, and I’d get nervous, like we were about to get in trouble, even though I knew we weren’t. My mom was inside and couldn’t see us, and my neighbors couldn’t possibly care what we were doing. How were we affecting them? We’re just kids being kids after all.

  “Do you and Veronica ever smoke together?” I asked.

  “Not really.” He leaned back i
n the seat, shook the joint between his thumb and forefinger, and twisted the top. “She says she doesn’t really like it, and honestly, I don’t really like it when she smokes. She gets really stupid. Says shit that makes no sense, eats a lot, then falls asleep.”

  I laughed as, having smoked with Veronica, I knew this to be true. We always had fun when we got high, but Drew never really saw that silly girl part of me, the part that was friends with Veronica for a reason.

  He lit the joint, took a long inhale, and passed it to me. I did the same and exhaled out the window.

  “It’s good to have you back, Holbrook.” He reached over, placed his hand over my shoulder, and gave my neck a little squeeze. “I missed you.”

  I turned to him and smiled. “I missed you, too.” I looked back out the window. “I missed everything! I missed daylight. I missed the moon.”

  “Bet you missed Fernando.”

  The weed started to kick in. The streetlights glowed brighter, lining the trees and houses in an iridescent haze.

  “Not as much as I missed you!” I said, and pinched his cheek. “Why aren’t we listening to music?”

  “Good god, I don’t know! What do you want?”

  “Something chill.”

  “Perfect,” he said, and lit the joint again. “So Fernando’s a good guy,” he said as he inhaled, and the beat filled the car.

  “Yeah, I know.…” I trailed off. I wondered if every time we hung out now, we’d have to talk about Veronica and Fernando. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d talked about anything else.

  “So are you gonna make me ask?”

  “Make you ask what?”

  “If you guys have done it yet.”

  The weed, my head, the lights and music. All of a sudden, it all became too much.

  “I’ve been grounded for a month!”

  “So you haven’t?”

  I don’t know why, but I said, “I didn’t say that.”

  “You little minx! And you thought you could get away with not telling me.…”

  “You didn’t tell me the second you slept with Veronica.”

  “Yes, I did!”

  “I just haven’t felt like talking about it.”

  What was I going to tell him, the truth? That I tried, but Fernando didn’t want me? That I was totally unsexual, undesirable, and that, just like him, Fernando thought I was fun to hang out with and great to talk to about music, but didn’t want me.

  “So that’s it,” he said, inhaling again. “You’re done.”

  “What does that mean?” The lights pulsated, and the bass on the car shook my seat.

  “You gave it up. You gave it to Fernando. You’ve gone to the other side.”

  “Oh, don’t be so dramatic. It’s just sex. You had it with Veronica.”

  “Yes. Yes, I did.” He looked at the glowing green numbers on the stereo.

  MOLLIE FINN

  In geometry, Veronica asked me if I’d told Alex about New Year’s.

  “Oh my god, no!” I said. “Why? Do you think she knows?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied, doodling stars in my textbook. “Drew’s just been so distant. I thought maybe you told Alex and Alex told him or something.”

  “Well, I didn’t. And you better not, either!”

  “So.” She crossed and uncrossed her legs and twirled a thin piece of hair around her pinkie. “Have you and Sam talked about it much? I’ve been wondering.…”

  Why was she bringing this up now, in math class? We’d successfully managed to pretend it never happened, and I was really relishing in her newfound ability to follow fucking directions. The truth was that Sam and I didn’t talk about it much, but when we did, he got smiley and flirty and raunchy, and as miserable as the fucking experience was and as creepy and dirty as I’d felt since, it had worked. Sam was back with me again, I could feel it—he wanted me again, paid attention to me again, was excited to see me, touch me, have sex with me again. So fuck her, thinking that she had some sort of place in our relationship now. Thinking that she was somehow involved.

  I drew a bear and a pig in the margin of my notebook next to her star. Then some lightning bolts.

  “Not really,” I said, “and I thought we agreed that we weren’t going to talk about it, either?”

  “Even me and you can’t talk about it?” she asked with genuine sadness in her eyes. “Because Drew’s been weird. I can’t tell if it’s me, if he subconsciously can sense something.…”

  She was provoking me. Wanting me to ask about her relationship, wanting us to be girlfriends who talked about this kind of stuff, who gave each other advice and supported each other and told the other that everything was going to be okay like we used to.

  The first time I ever hung out with Veronica alone was one time in seventh or eighth grade, when Alex was out of town. She was this tall, glamorous creature who came from New York who’d decided that she liked Alex, which made me jealous of Alex, but also wonder what it was about her that was attractive to someone who came from somewhere where everyone was attractive. And why she’d chosen her to bond with and not me. I hated her, but I also wanted her to like me.

  We raided her mom’s closet and dressed each other up in fur coats and leather pants and all sorts of ridiculous things that my mother had probably never even heard of, let alone worn, and took pictures of each other. I put on some neon hot pants, and she said, “Your butt is amazing. I could fit it in the palm of my hand.” Every inch my butt grew after that, I always thought about whether it could still fit in the palm of somebody’s hand, and that if it couldn’t, it was too big and I no longer had anything that Veronica didn’t.

  It was always like that with Veronica, always a competition, and I always felt like I was losing—until I got Sam. Finally, I earned something that she wanted, because I’d worked for it. For once, the world didn’t fall effortlessly into her lap like it always fucking did. Boys just naturally flocked to her; her parents just threw money at her and let her do whatever she wanted. She ate whatever she wanted and stayed thin, did whatever and whoever she wanted and people still liked her, never studied and got good grades. I didn’t understand it, and it wasn’t fair. Alex and I were best friends for years, and then Veronica came along and they were instantly close. Sam met Veronica and immediately liked her. I killed myself for everything I had, and it all still felt like it was slowly slipping from my grasp—fuck her. I was going to make her work for my friendship; for once in her life, she would have to fucking earn something she wanted.

  “I think you’re just being paranoid,” I said.

  “Girls!” Mrs. Matthews screamed. “Can either of you tell me what kind of triangle this is?”

  “Uhh… equilateral?” Veronica guessed. She was wrong.

  Part 5

  THE SPRING

  VERONICA COLLINS

  I figured I’d have a St. Patrick’s Day party, because, well, I was bored out of my mind and was starting to get that disconnected vibe I got from time to time. I was starting to wonder if I’d gone about this year all wrong. All I’d wanted was for things to be good with Alex and Mollie again, for the three of us to laugh and make inside jokes and dance around like we used to. I thought dating Drew would bring me and Alex closer together, give us something in common, be an excuse for us to hang out all the time but, of course, stupid me, it did the opposite. We barely even talked anymore.

  I guess I didn’t know what I thought sleeping with Sam would do for my relationship with Mollie, but I just wanted to prove her wrong about him, prove to myself that I was right about that night freshman year and that I could have had him if I wanted him. If I could show her that she was wrong about him, maybe she’d realize she was wrong about a lot of things. Maybe she’d feel knocked down a peg or two, get over herself, get over it all, and come back to me and Alex and be able to just say fuck it with us, relax, be silly with us, and have some fun again, stop trying so hard and caring so much, maybe start eating, like, actual meals again.


  We needed an excuse for everyone to get together and have fun again. March had been totally rainy and miserable, so I figured I’d give us all something to do and look forward to and have a party.

  I decided to mix it up and make it a day party, have everyone over at, like, noon and start boozing from there. Also, I was tired of trying to fill my Saturday afternoons alone. I always wondered what other people did all day when they were alone. When we were younger, Alex, Mollie, and I used to hang out, go to the movies or the mall, make mischief in one another’s houses on Saturdays and Sundays, but that wasn’t happening anymore. They were always busy now: band practice, homework, SATs, jogging, family stuff, Sam. And Drew never wanted to hang out in the daytime; he was always writing. Writing, writing, writing. About god only knows what—he still hadn’t let me read anything.

  One could spend only so many Saturdays at the mall alone. I tried to watch some of the movies that Drew told me were so good, but I always found myself zoning out or falling asleep. Same thing happened with homework. I got more involved in my cooking; I went out and bought myself really fancy knives, got a fancy French cookbook, and challenged myself to make every dish in it. When I finished the French one, I got a Chinese one. I’d eat as much as I could in two days, and then bring Tupperwares full of leftovers to Gabby Sherman and the do-gooders to take to the homeless shelter, because what a waste. I started cleaning, too. Furiously. Rosie asked me if my mother was upset with her, if we’d gotten another housekeeper to come in on her days off, because the house was always so spotless when she arrived. I just told her it was my new domestic phase. That I wanted to be a good wife some day! She laughed.

  I called the party for noonish, and by two PM, some of the jocks had shown up, a few seniors, some randos from our grade, Josh Holbrook and some sophomores, but no Alex, no Mollie, and no Sam or Drew.

  I called Drew a few times, but there was no answer. It was taking him longer than expected to get the green streamers and leprechaun cutouts I’d asked him to pick up.