This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to events or to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental. Although some celebrities’ names are mentioned, they are all used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2006 by Caprice Crane
All rights reserved.
5 Spot
Warner Books
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 1017
Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com
5 Spot and the 5 Spot logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group.
First eBook Edition: May 2006
ISBN: 978-0-446-55104-5
Contents
Acknowledgments
Heaven
Brady
Heaven
Brady
Heaven
Brady
Heaven
Brady
Heaven
Brady
Heaven
Brady
Heaven
Brady
Heaven
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Brady
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Heaven
Heaven
Brady
Brady’s Answering Machine
About the Author
5 Spot Send Off
ACCLAIM FOR STUPID AND CONTAGIOUS
“ STUPID AND CONTAGIOUS is anything but stupid and completely contagious. Infectious, riotous, and hip beyond belief, it’s a great read.”
—Isabel Rose, author of The J.A.P. Chronicles
“A witty romantic comedy debut.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“ Smart and feisty! Milk-snorting funny and playfully intriguing! Love it!”
— Karen Salmansohn, author of How to Be Happy, Dammit
“ Insanely funny and outrageous, STUPID AND CONTAGIOUS effortlessly captures the glorious awkwardness of becoming who you are, finding that special someone who drives you crazy, and ultimately following your dreams wherever they may take you.”
—Erica Kennedy, author of Bling
“ Caprice Crane rocks! This is the best book I’ve read in a long, long time. Sharp, original, and wickedly funny, this is a must-read. I absolutely loved it.”
— Johanna Edwards, bestselling author of The Next Big Thing and Your Big Break
“ Caprice Crane’s writing is so cool I feel like the geek girl stalking her locker, trying to slide a mix CD through the slats before she spots me. STUPID AND CONTAGIOUS is hilarious and insightful. A book with its own soundtrack, this is one not to miss.”
—Pamela Ribon, author of Why Girls Are Weird
“ Caprice Crane brings her respect for music and all of its universal sentiment into her stylish, page-turning, sharp-tongued debut novel.”
— Liza Palmer, author of Conversations with the Fat Girl
For my beautiful mother, Tina Louise, the eternal optimist . . . whose outer beauty is eclipsed only by her exquisite inner . . . who’s been my biggest fan and cheerleader for my entire life. Your belief in me and unconditional support have inspired me, kept me going, and taught me faith. I love you with all of my heart.
Acknowledgments
Mom (Tina Louise), Dad (Les Crane), Stepmom (Ginger Crane), Grandma (Betty Yaeger), my dogs (Chelsea and Max), Jennie Abrams-Trager, Walter Afanasieff, Jeremy Armstrong, Jenny Bent, Cristina Brascia, Danielle Brisebois, Allison Burnett, Stephen Cabot, Adam Carl, Michelle Chydzik, Dahlia Cohen, Alex Coletti, Robert Cort, Jim Cotter, Tajma Davis, Denise Diforio, Steve Dirado, Amy Einhorn, Endeavor Agency, Ellen and Irwin Frankel, Glen E. Friedman, Jonathan Fuhrman, Gillian Garrett, D. B. Gilles, Jeff Goodman, Emily Griffin, Gary Helsinger, Kevin Hershey, Andy Kaplan, Devon Kellgren, Scarlett Lacey, Erik Lautier, Adam Levine, Brian Lipson, Melissa Lipton, David List, K. E. Macey, Nez Mandel, Nathalie Marciano, Cade McNown, Tracey Mikolas, Jill Morris, John Nutcher, Brigid Pearson, Dizzy Reed, Joel Rice, Kevin Roentgen, Amanda Rouse, Penina Sacks, James Schiff, Lisa Singer, Lou Stalsworth, Jason Steinberg, Makyla Stone, Sky Stone, Sarah Tomkins, Trident Media, Robert Trujillo, David Vanker, David Veloz, Joe Vernon, Amanda Voelker, Fran Warner, Warner Books, Elly Weisenberg, Andrea Wells (my third-grade teacher), and Harley Zinker
“ This song explains why I’m leaving home to become a stewardess.”
—Anita Miller, Almost Famous
“ Yeah, well, sometimes nothin’ can be a real cool hand.”
—Luke, Cool Hand Luke
Heaven
My name is Heaven Albright and my husband of two years is cheating on me. I’m only twenty-five and you can argue that getting married at twenty-three is young, but I’ll argue right back that people marry out of college and even high school, so considering that, it’s not so young. Anyway, young or not . . . the bastard is cheating on me. After I gave him the best years of my life.
He’s cheating on me with someone he works with. A girl from his office who he didn’t even think was cute at first, but after months of working long hours together and cultivating inside jokes, and commiserating over bad cafeteria food . . . they’re bumping uglies. It sickens me to even think about it. He’d always be so happy when he came home late from work, and you’d think I would have caught on because nobody’s happy when they have to stay late at work. But I thought he just really enjoyed his job. Or maybe he was pissed off, but the minute he walked through the door and saw me, his bride of two years whom he loved and adored, all the day’s annoyances would disappear. Poof.
But no. He would come home all smiles because he’d just gotten his rocks off with some little skank who probably wore twinsets and laughed like a hyena at their stupid inside jokes. I hate twinsets, with their matching fabric and color coordination and phony reserve. It’s a known fact that twinsets are one of the most easily removed garments there is. Her name is probably Megan or Jessie, and she’s probably a couple years younger than me. She’s like me two years ago, but in a twinset. He’s re-creating me even before I’ve had a chance to become the tired, old, sexually reluctant “ball and chain.” I resent that. I’m not old.
Marriage sucks. People who tell you that you stop having sex after you get married are right. You just don’t have it anymore. It’s not like you say your I-dos and immediately stop. It takes a little time. Of course there’s the honeymoon, and the first few months of playing horny housewife and helpful handyman, or slave girl and surprisingly warmhearted barbarian, or Winnie the Pooh and the Magical Honeypot. But after a while you stop shaving your legs, and he stops noticing, and it seems more practical to try to get a good night’s sleep.
Brady
My name is Brady Gilbert, and I hate the window seat. Airplanes in general are a pain in the ass, and when I clearly stipulate that I want to sit on the aisle, a window seat is a personal affront that my secre
tary will be hearing about. If I had a secretary.
I’ll just sit here and will nobody to sit in the aisle seat. That way I’ll not only have the aisle seat, but I’ll be able to achieve that almost-but-not-quite-comfortable sleeping position that inevitably ends up with a dead arm, stiff legs, and dried drool at the outer corner of my mouth. In front of complete strangers, no less.
Don’t get me wrong . . . sure, it’s nice to look out a window. But at what price? Do I want to have to ask permission every time I need to take a piss? It’s like needing a hall pass in school, but worse. These are strangers. And when I got a hall pass, I didn’t inconvenience anyone. But to go to the bathroom on an airplane, I have to make awkward small talk and offer the obligatory apologetic shrug to a guy who’s been hogging my armrest. Then he gets up just enough to let me squeeze by. He’ll sigh as he gets up, not trying to make me feel guilty per se, but more like “Oh, these old bones of mine,” which is crap unless he’s over eighty. And he’s not, he’s just annoyed.
Then to add insult to injury, as I maneuver out of the “now more room than ever before” four inches of space, I hold on to the tacky fabric headrest of the seat in front of me and get a glance from that person, too. I’m making enemies left and right. Flight attendants hate me, too. Me and my devil-may-care bladder. Then when I come back, I have to do the dance all over again. Heaven help me if it’s a three-seater with a middle seat. Not to mention the etiquette question of which way to pass my neighbors—crotch first or ass first?
I hate the window seat. So I wait, and I will. People are still boarding, but so far, so good. I’ve spotted the token hot chick that’s way out of my league anywhere but in my overactive imagination. This is going to be a long flight. There is always that one hot chick, no matter where you’re going, domestic or international, and never in the seat next to you. Or me.
Well, this flight’s no different. In walks our token goddess of flight, and I shift all my willpower to connect her ass with the seat next to mine. Nothin’. But she smiled at me, or at least I think she did. Maybe she was smiling at the flight attendant who’d just given her an extra blanket. Just because.
Heaven
If it sounds like I’m okay with my husband cheating on me, it’s because I’ve worked hard at it. And not in the way that you might think. You see, I’m not actually married. And nobody is cheating on me. I’m engaged. I’m getting married in eighteen months. I do these little mental exercises every now and then to prepare myself for anything that might come up in life.
Unfortunately, you caught me when I was smack-dab in the middle of one, so we sort of got off on the wrong foot. I’m still me, and everything I told you up until the married-with-the-cheating-husband bit was true. Just not that part. I guess that’s where we started, so you really don’t know me at all. But you have to admit, I was handling it fairly well. Which I think I can attribute to my exercises. Had I never done this and found myself in the position of having a cheating husband, I don’t know how I would deal. Luckily, I am now prepared.
So let’s start over. I’m still Heaven Albright, still twenty-five years old. I’m five foot six and I weigh about one hundred thirty pounds. One twenty-five. One twenty-five on a good day. One thirty if I’m PMS-ing. One thirty if I’m depressed or indulging a little too much in things like wine or pizza or raw cookie dough. One thirty most of the time. I have medium-length dirty blond/light brown hair. It’s that store-bought highlight thing. Kind of rootsy and tricolored, but not in a punk rock kind of way. Or like pasta, for that matter. Okay, sometimes I may top out at one thirty-five. And five feet five inches if you wanna get technical.
I’ve always thought I had somewhat chubby cheeks, but I think I finally see some cheekbones coming through. And not by sucking in my cheeks when I look in the mirror. I never quite got that whole thing. Whenever I’m washing my hands in a public bathroom, nine times out of ten, the woman next to me sucks her cheeks in when she looks in the mirror. What are these women doing? Trying to look thin? Like a fish? Like Zoolander? If they’re not going to keep that face on when they leave the bathroom, what exactly does the exercise gain them? If it’s just for fun, then, hey, I’m all for it.
When I say marriage sucks, I don’t mean it sucks, so much as I don’t really know if it sucks or doesn’t. I’ve heard good and bad. My feelings about marriage are mixed, or should I say mixed-up. My parents were split before I even knew what a split was. So, while I’m speaking with authority, I have no experience with marriage or married parents, to say nothing of marital bliss.
My first memory of the male/female dynamic would be enough exposure to hold me through several years of high school.
When I was about eight years old, Pete, my neighbor from down the street, used to lurk outside my house for hours on end. Sometimes I’d come out and play. Sometimes not. He was relentless in his pursuits, and with me . . . persistence often pays off.
One day, when I was picking flowers from my neighbor’s garden to make a bouquet for my mom, Pete followed me for half an hour without saying a single word. And I ignored him.
When I started to go back to my house, he finally spoke up and asked what I was doing later. I told him I was going out to dinner with my dad. He asked if he could come. I said okay.
On our way to Santo Pietro’s we were in the backseat of my dad’s Camaro. My dad’s girlfriend, Sandra, was in the front seat with her long blond hair and overgrown, feathered bangs, and all I could think about was the twisty garlic knots that we’d have at the restaurant. I didn’t see my dad very often. I think it’d be safe to say the garlic knots were more familiar to me than my dad.
So there we were . . . me, dreaming of bread, Pete trying to get my attention. And the whole car ride I was trying to touch my tongue to my nose.
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” he said. I shrugged and stuck my tongue out at him.
“You don’t want to?” he asked.
“I just showed you!” I said, sticking it out again, this time bulging my eyes out at the same time.
“Not that,” he said. And then he looked down and yanked at his zipper.
“I don’t think so,” I replied, wondering how much longer to Santo Pietro’s.
“I’ll show you mine anyway?” he offered.
“Okay,” I said, looking out the window, watching my dad navigate the twists and turns of the canyon.
Without a second thought, Pete unzipped his fly and pulled out his johnson, not even bothering to unbutton the top button. He just pulled it through. It was thin. It looked like a misplaced pinkie.
But more important, my tongue was now only a teensy weensy bit away from my nose. I gave it one last try, curling it upward, stretching it, reaching . . .
Then BOOM. From up front, a thunderclap shook the car in the form of my dad yelling. I don’t remember what he said as he caught Pete in the rearview mirror, his penis on casual display as though it were a Peking duck hanging in the window of a Chinese restaurant, but I know the sheer force of it practically blasted me out of my seat. To this day, the mere sight of a penis makes my ears hurt a little.
My dad turned the car around immediately and took Pete home, and then he took me home. No garlic knots. I was devastated.
Brady
And then he comes. The jerk-off that is about to claim the seat next to mine. My aisle seat. No chance of there being two beautiful women on this plane. Not with my luck. Luck being a relative term, because lately I haven’t had any. I’m the Siegfried and Roy of luck. Not in the smash-hit-show-on-the-Strip-for-fifteen-years-running sense, but rather in the this-thing-that-supposedly-loved-me-is-dragging-me-around-by-my-jugular-like-a-rag-doll-and-fighting-off-efforts-by-stagehands-to-rescue-me sense.
I look in the mirror and I know I’m not in the top 1 percent. But definitely top 10 percent. Or maybe 20. Certainly no worse than 30. Anyway, I clean up nice. I’m a good enough height that I don’t automatically get ruled out for dates on that alone. In some cases, it m
ay have even been the only attraction, which is not to say I’m super tall—luckily, I’m just tall enough. It’s like that sign in front of the dangerous rides at the amusement park: You must be this tall to get on this girl.
Some girl once told me that I have a cute smile. But there was a time immediately after the Rolling Stones’ Tattoo You came out when I thought it could have been made better with the addition of a diamond in my front tooth, à la Mick Jagger.
I have what has clinically been described as “dating disorder,” characterized by a series of medium- to long-term relationships, suffering from sore tempers, abraded vocal cords, and the occasional fractured heart.
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