by Compai
“Have some more,” suggested her sexy companion. “I’ll get another.”
“Thanks,” Janie nodded. “Cool.”
“I’m Ezra.”
“Janie.”
“You’re a fun girl, Janie.”
Janie was floored. “What?” she asked.
Of all of the things Janie had been called in her life—smart, interesting, artistic, retarded—fun had never ever been one of them.
Ezra leaned in so his lips were almost touching her ear.
“I said you are a fun girl,” he repeated, flecks of his spit hitting her neck in a way that should have been gross but actually wasn’t. Creatures of Habit started in on “Death to Memories.”
It was all so exciting. From the bumping bass to Amelia screaming “fuuuuuuuck meeeeeeeemories” to the flashing lights to the double thumbs-up, it was like Janie was the star of her own insanely awesome music video. She felt swirly and strange, sexy and dangerous. She felt invincible. Ezra was talking but she could not hear what he was saying and so she just smiled and nodded and laughed a hearty laugh and sort of swayed back and forth gently while she drained the cup of its frothy amber liquid. And she was feeling a bit woozy, but not necessarily in a bad way, and she was feeling like this guy was going to kiss her soon and she could already picture herself telling Amelia all about it tomorrow and how awesome that would be and how once and for all she would vault into the bracket of Amelia’s cool friends and would forever leave behind her old label as Amelia’s sort of quirky little inexperienced buddy. So Janie just had to keep smiling and laughing and letting Ezra talk and soon he was going to kiss her. It was so obvious. And now he was taking her hand in his and flipping it over and saying something about her palm and she was sort of swaying backward on her five-and-a-half-inch heels and then for whatever reason—God only knows why—he popped into her head.
Evan.
Evan in the projection room.
Janie let herself relish the memory for a second, of how he had hooked his thumb over the waistband of her jeans so his finger was touching the right-above-her-butt skin… Snap out of it! Janie tried to focus on Ezra, who was tracing the lines on her palm with his own finger now and gazing at her through a curtain of ink-black lashes. He was close now. Slow-dance close.
Evan flashed into Janie’s head again, this time by Melissa’s pool, that first gentle kiss, before it had gotten truly Frenchy, when her lips had just locked with his in this extended peck. No! Stop obsessing. New Janie didn’t waste her precious time reliving the past. New Janie was so busy and fabulous that she didn’t even remember the past. And New Janie sure as heck did not sit around yearning for some board-shorts-sporting surfer dude. She liked the dark and brooding, tortured artist types. The Paul Elliot Millers and Ezras of the world.
“Are you okay?” Ezra asked. “You look like you’re gonna cry or something.” Janie stared up at him, in all his greasy inked-up glory, and smiled.
“Beyond okay,” she lied.
’Cause Amelia was right. All Janie needed to do in order to forget about Evan was to replace him with somebody new. As soon as Janie locked lips with What’sHisFace here, the Evan spell would break, and all of the Evan memories would just be washed from her mind, a la Eternal Sunlight of the Spotless Mind. But wait… didn’t things turn out really badly by the end of that movie?
And right then, that cursed line started playing in Janie’s head on repeat, like it had so many times that week: She kisses like a dogfish? What the hell is a dogfish? She kisses like a dogfish? What the hell is a dogfish? She kisses like a dogfish? Dogfish? Dogfish!!!
“Fuuuuuuuuuckkkk meeeeeeeeeemories,” Amelia belted out for the final time, and Janie squeezed her eyes shut and leaned forward. Ezra took the signal, and before she knew it, his pierced tongue was searching the inside of her mouth, tasting of cigarettes, stale beer, and broken dreams.
The audience went berserk.
“Show’s over, bitches!” Amelia bellowed into the microphone while Janie regained her footing. Ezra leered at her, hungry for more.
His face had changed to something famished, insatiable. He reached for Janie’s slender waist and pulled her toward him, way closer than slow dance close. With her entire body pressed against his entire body, Janie was overcome by a wave of nausea; an overwhelming, all-encompassing desire to yak. Janie had no clue if it was from the dirty-gym-socks taste of this guy’s tongue or the feeling of his scrawny body entwined with hers or those two huge hits of weed in the Volvo before the concert or the empty cup of beer in her hand that had once been full or the image of clean, pristine, and unbearably beautiful Evan that was welling up in her mind anew now and obviously had not been exorcised through her deep-throated makeout sesh with the very excited and very scary person holding her against him in a death grip. God, he was strong for his size. Janie closed her eyes, this time not to invite another throat excavation but to make the spinning stop. But Ezra didn’t know that. And so he leaned in to lay another one on her—and he would have too, if some insane blond hippie chick hadn’t busted in.
“Hey!” Petra squawked, and snatched her teetering pal away from the lascivious stranger. “What’s with you, dude? Can you not see how wasted she is?”
“Hold up,” corrected Ezra, “she kissed me.” Then he added, skeezily for Janie’s benefit, “And she knows what she’s doing.”
But just as Petra prepared to give the butt-chinned creepoid a piece of her mind, she heard her name come through the speakers. Petra turned to find her onesie-clad beau standing alone on the stage.
“Petra Greene,” Paul repeated into the mic, staring at her and causing everybody else in the room to do the same, “this one’s for you.”
Paul’s declaration was met by a swell of applause from the audience, peppered with deep grunts and high-pitched wails. Creatures of Habit was doing an encore! Or so they thought…
Paul pulled out a pan flute and held it to his perfect pink lips. He then proceeded to daintily blow into the bamboo tubes, producing a sound reminiscent of a Renaissance fair. As Paul slid up and down the instrument, Petra watched, horrified. Then somebody behind her said what everybody in the room was thinking….
“Boo!”
Paul kept playing, either unaware of or indifferent to the tidal wave of boos steadily mounting in the audience below.
“Go back to Narnia, you freak!” someone bellowed.
“Let’s get out of here,” Petra demanded. A woman could only endure so much. She jostled Janie (the only person in the room who had been soothed to the point of falling asleep standing up by Paul’s pan flute solo) while the notes continued to tinker like wind chimes on a breezy afternoon.
“Petra Greene?” called a voice behind them. Petra turned, and a chubby kid with a septum pierce promptly chucked his entire beer in her direction. Petra gasped, disbelieving—though only slightly sprayed—and then turned to see where the bulk of the bevy had landed; Janie was drenched.
“Way to go, you jackass Yoko,” spat the angry punk.
“You little shit!” wailed Petra, wresting herself away from Janie and lunging toward the little jerk. He sprinted away, cackling like a wicked fairy, but Jake appeared out of nowhere and tripped him, sending the evil imp flying.
“Let’s get out of here,” Jake advised, scooping his sloppy sister onto his shoulder and leading the way toward the exit. Petra was more than happy to oblige. The night had been like some kind of trippy nightmare, and she couldn’t wait to wake up.
And Petra wasn’t the only one horrified by the evening’s events. Standing by the men’s room while Jake, Janie, and Petra hightailed it out of there was an impossibly out of place blond kid with smooth tan skin and a sickly expression on his rose wax lips. How long had he been standing there? All alone in his board shorts and flip-flops? And what had he just witnessed that had left him looking so completely and utterly, incomparably appalled?
The Girl: Janie Farrish
The Getup: Trashed
Having never had a hangover before, Janie was stunned by just how bad it was possible to feel. When she had been sick in the past, it had always been an either/or situation. Either her head ached or her stomach was queasy; either her throat itched or her muscles throbbed. Today, Janie needed a fifth choice: all of the above. What the hell happened last night?
“What the hell happened last night?” whispered Jake. He had tiptoed into Janie’s bedroom to check on her. And also to make fun of her for being such a mess the night before, of course.
“You tell me,” Janie replied without moving from her facedown-on-pillow position.
“Well,” Jake began, “from what I could ascertain, the party spirit of Tara Reid entered your body and possessed you for the evening. She smoked a bunch of Petra’s weed, drank a huge beer even though she is on Accutane, let a Hells Angel grope her by the bar, and then came home and puked all over the bathroom, but with the help of her loving brother, her mom did not find out, and now she has agreed to give said loving brother the Volvo for the next two weeks in exchange for his vomit-cleanup services and continued silence.”
“Fine, whatever,” mumbled Janie. Just hearing the word “Volvo” made her carsick.
“Sweet!” Jake exclaimed, impressed by how easy that had been. He stood up and headed for the door. Janie flipped over.
“Where are you going?” she whined. “You can’t abandon me in this state.” The mere act of rolling onto her back made Janie’s head throb like it was stuck in a vise. She squeezed her eyes shut. “Ow!”
“What!” Jake exclaimed.
“My head!”
Jake laughed. “Tara Reid left you with one wicked hangover.” He opened the door.
“Jake!” Janie wailed. “Seriously, where are you going?”
“I have to go to Charlotte’s,” he said, pulling a loose thread from the hem of his vintage cowboy shirt and watching it unravel. “She wants to ‘talk,’ and I’d rather get it over with now than postpone the inevitable.”
“Which is…?” his invalid sister inquired.
Jake sighed. “Every time Charlotte says she ‘wants to talk,’ it really means she wants to interrogate me about Dogfish again. And then tell me she’s not ready to get back together.”
Janie popped up to sitting, despite her head spins. “Dogfish?” she gasped.
“It’s our nickname for Nikki Pellegrini. Charlotte is still obsessing over that stupid kiss, so I told her kissing Nikki Pellegrini was disgusting. That she kissed like a dogfish. Which, in retrospect, was not a very considerate thing to say, since I have never kissed a dogfish before and maybe they are actually very skilled in the—”
“What!” bellowed Janie. “Nikki Pellegrini is Dogfish!?!”
Jake started. “Wow, chill out. I know it was a kind of jerky thing to say, but I just wanted to make Charlotte feel better.”
Janie’s heart was racing; practically bouncing out of her chest. She had broken things off with Evan—darling Evan!—over something he had never even said about her. She had squandered their incredible connection over something that had never even happened, and now he probably completely hated her. She’d ignored his texts, ditched their date… oh God! She’d made out with that disgusting walking cigarette butt at the concert last night.
“I’m coming with you to Charlotte’s,” Janie announced, tearing back the covers. “I have to talk to Evan.”
“Eew! Eew-eew-eew-eew-eew!” wailed Jake as he turned onto Charlotte’s tree-lined street. “That’s like, incest!”
“How is that incest?” Janie rejoined from the passenger seat. Jake had refused to take Janie with him to Charlotte’s unless she told him why she wanted to go so badly, and so finally she’d just spilled it all: how she’d hooked up with Evan, how she’d overheard Charlotte talking to Jake and thought she was talking to Evan, and how she’d dissed Evan—the guy of her dreams—over a stupid misunderstanding. She’d wanted Jake’s sympathy. But instead, what she got was…
“Eew!”
“Yes, I heard you the first fifty times,” Janie replied.
“You cannot date Evan if I am dating Charlotte,” Jake shuddered.
“Well, lucky for me, then, Charlotte doesn’t want to date you,” Janie quipped. “Can you drive any slower, Grandma?”
Jake gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white.
“So, did you not even consider the grossness of swapping siblings before entering into this romance with my girlfriend’s brother?” Jake inquired. In truth? Janie thought. Not really. She had been way too busy worrying about Evan being Charlotte’s brother to get around to worrying about Charlotte being Jake’s girlfriend.
“If you say anything to Charlotte I will kill you,” Janie warned. “She’s already done enough damage.”
“Why would I say anything to Charlotte? If she knows my sister is shacking up with her brother then she really won’t want to date me.” Jake winced. “If you say anything to Charlotte, I’ll kill you.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Janie replied, gnawing on her thumbnail till she chipped the perfect black polish. Janie flapped the passenger side mirror down and stared at her reflection. Her skin looked blotchy, and somehow dry and oily at the same time. Her eyebrows were actually tangled. Janie didn’t even know eyebrows could get tangled. Her bangs, which had fallen in a perfect glistening curtain when she’d left the house the night before, had devolved into a row of greasy wisps, parted in the middle. She tried to comb them down over her forehead with her fingers, but the oily stands refused to form a cohesive whole. She grabbed two bobby pins out of the cup holder that served as her portable beauty shop and pinned the scraggly strands back to the rest of her hair. No better. No worse. Janie stared at her bedraggled reflection and marveled at her own stupidity. It seemed so obvious now. Of course Charlotte was still obsessing over Nikki Pellegrini. Of course she had been covering up when she told Janie she was on the phone with Evan. Of course Evan would not discuss Janie’s makeout skills with his sister. It had all been a hideous misunderstanding. That much was certain. Now the only question was whether or not Janie could make it right again.
The Girl: Charlotte Beverwil
The Getup: Brown herringbone dress by Ralph Lauren Blue Label, beige cashmere capelet by Giorgio Armani, cranberry beret by M Missoni, raspberry ballerina flats by Elizabeth and James, manicure (in Essie’s “Mademoiselle”)
Charlotte answered the door in a capelet. A freaking capelet. And at the sight of her perfect glossy curls, her perfect glossy lips, her perfect glossy nails—even her teeth were glossy—Janie was overcome by the urge to mash her china cup face in.
“Janie!” gasped Charlotte, taking in the beer stain on Janie’s ocean blue bustier, the torn hem of her brand-new mini, the knee-high stilettos, and the smeared mascara. “Let me guess… you are going to the ‘Thriller’ tribute at Staples?”
Janie wanted to strangle Charlotte with her cashmere capelet. But instead she announced, “I need to talk to Evan.”
“He’s not here,” Charlotte replied. Jake strolled up the combed gravel drive and met them at the door to the Beverwils’ 8,000-square-foot Spanish colonial estate. “Hello, Jake,” Charlotte intoned, kissing him once on each flushed pink cheek. “Come in.”
Jake strolled into the house, headed for Charlotte’s sprawling candy-colored bedroom. “Catch ya later, Courtney Love,” he called to Janie.
“Where is Evan?” Janie asked.
“Why?” Charlotte inquired. “Are you, like, obsessed with Evan? That’s so cute!”
But Janie did not have time to cook up an excuse—or to give Charlotte a black eye—and so she grabbed her copy of the Volvo key out of her ratty hobo and bolted back down the long gravel drive.
“Tell Jake I said sorry,” Janie called behind her. Jake would have to find his own way home. Janie had to take the car. She had to find Evan. But if he wasn’t home, where could he be? There was only one place Janie could think to look. Something inside her said that�
�s where he would be, but how could she be sure? Janie had been (oh so) wrong about Evan before. She started the engine and hoped for the best, placated by the fact that at the very least, things couldn’t get much worse.
It was one of those overcast late afternoons inching into early evenings in Santa Monica that leave the beach all but empty. A slumbering homeless man on a bench and one lone Rollerblader were all Janie could see as she swept the Volvo into the parking lot in front of Station 26, the only place she could think to look for Evan. He’d told her once that he liked to go there to think. And also when he didn’t want to think. When he just wanted to clear his head. It was a throwaway comment, but Janie remembered it clearly. And everything else Evan had ever said to her, for that matter. Janie leaped from her vehicle and slammed the door, click-clacking toward the beach in her scuffed Louboutins. She reached the sand, pulled off her boots and socks, and ran toward the lifeguard station in her bare feet. In the murky gray late afternoon light, the station was just a blur. But as Janie padded closer and closer, it slowly came into focus, and as it did, so too did the sandy-haired boy sitting on the edge of the platform, letting his long legs dangle off the edge, and staring into the endless ocean before him.
“Evan!” Janie cried, sprinting toward him like she might miss him if she didn’t run as fast as her bony legs could carry her. She probably looked like a hooker the morning after, in her unraveling, cigarette-burned miniskirt and beer-stained bustier, but Janie did not care. She had to get to Evan. She had to explain. Now!
“Evan!” she called again. This time he turned, but Janie could not make out his expression. Finally, out of breath, she reached the foot of the lifeguard station, huffing and puffing to regain her composure.
“What are you doing here?” Evan asked.
“I have to talk to you,” Janie announced. “Can I come up?”