Confessions of a Not It Girl (12 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

Not only did Brian and Rebecca stay out until two in the morning drinking cosmopolitans at The Madison, not only did they go back to his apartment and make out-- without him either (a) drooling all over her or (b) asking her to just touch it once, he also invited her to a party Saturday night.

In other words, during the same twenty-four-hour period in which (a) my dreams of being with Josh were dashed by incontrovertible proof of his love for Brown-bound Leslie, and (b) I was eye raped by Henry the Horrible, my best friend was at a chic Midtown bar acquiring a cute, funny, sexually experienced boyfriend.

Of all the unique qualities I could contribute to the Wesleyan community, none seems so worth mentioning as the fact that I am a huge loser. Accepting Jan Miller guarantees no Wesleyan student need ever again feel inadequate. "At least I'm not Jan Miller" will become the rallying cry of the Wesleyan campus. Who knows what heights Wesleyan graduates will achieve, safe in the knowledge that no matter how far they fall, someone will always have fallen farther, fallen faster....

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"I think you're overreacting." Rebecca and I were drinking cappuccinos at Bombshell, our favorite cafe in SoHo, where we'd planned to meet to celebrate our respective romantic victories. Needless to say, only one of us had anything to celebrate.

"Do you think Leslie has a tiny butt? I bet she has a tiny butt."

"Why are you worried about her butt? Sarah's, like, barely even heard of this girl. They probably went out for two seconds last spring, and Henry's just dumb enough to think they're still together."

I shook my head the whole time she was talking. "You don't understand. I had a
feeling
about Leslie. Just the way he said it." I made my voice airy and wistful. "Leslie." I turned to Rebecca. "See the difference?"

"Well, I see that you're
crazy."

"Josh probably told Sarah he had a soccer tournament this weekend, and really he flew out to Seattle for a secret romantic rendezvous with blond-haired, blue-eyed Leslie and her teeny tiny butt."

"You're insane, do you know that? Sometimes I seriously worry that you have no grip on reality whatsoever."

"Do you realize Henry actually thought he had a
chance?
He
flirted
with me. When he left he gave me a really significant look like this." I lowered my chin and stared at Rebecca. "And then he said, 'I have the feeling this isn't the last time we'll cross paths.'" I shuddered. "Be honest. Do I give off a vibe that says, 'No, handsome stud, I don't want you to make a pass at me,' while at the same time communicating, 'Hello there, acne-ridden dwarf. Promise me we'll meet again.'"

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"Tom Richmond is
not
an acne-ridden dwarf."

"I almost drowned on his saliva,"
I nearly shouted. "What are you not understanding?
He endangered my life."
A woman sitting nearby looked up from what she was reading and stared at us.

Rebecca lowered her voice almost to a whisper. "Here's the question you should be asking--why must you insist on pursuing high-school boys?"

"I'm
not pursuing
them. They're
pursuing me," I hissed.

"Come with me to this party tonight. We need to find you an older boyfriend." She mimed taking a drag of an imaginary cigarette and adopted a French accent. "You are
much
too sophisticated to party with zeez silly children, dahling."

Let's see: cool party full of older guys with Rebecca Larkin; It Girl. Or night at home with Mom and Dad Miller; Losers. As you can imagine, I agonized over my options.

Brian's friend's apartment was in a fancy building on Central Park West. While we rode up in the elevator with the elevator man (not to be confused with the doorman), I started to get nervous that everyone was going to be really old and wearing suits and stuff, but the host (or the person I assumed was the host, since he opened the door for us) was wearing a blue button-down and a pair of khakis, and he looked like he was probably in his early twenties. He was also extremely cute, and I was glad I'd let Rebecca convince me to take the see-through top out

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for another spin. Maybe Rebecca was right. Maybe my whole problem
did
stem from being too sophisticated for high-school boys.

The guy, whose name was Joel, led us down a long hall, past the kitchen and into the living room, where he called, "Hey, Brian," and a cute guy with dark hair, who was
also
wearing a pair of khakis and a blue button-down shirt, came over. As I looked around, I realized almost every guy in the room was wearing some variation on the blue-shirt-and-khakis outfit. The women were mostly wearing black pants and different-colored tops. The apartment looked exactly like a spread in the Pottery Barn catalog.

"Hi," said Brian. He looked Rebecca up and down and whistled softly at her backless dress. "You look great." He kissed her on the cheek.

"This is Jan," she said. He shook my hand.

"Nice to meet you," he said. "I'll introduce you around."

After being introduced to four or five identical-looking people, I stopped even trying to remember who was who. As far as I could tell, all the guys looked just like Joel and all the girls looked just like Joel's girlfriend, Diana. There were about fifteen Dianas and twenty or so Joels, though I might have been counting some people twice and missing others. The only person who didn't blend into the crowd was a guy named Ken, who, in addition to obviously being gay, was wearing jeans and a black turtleneck sweater. He was very handsome, and he kept looking around the party like he couldn't believe how boring it

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was. He was talking to a woman whose long, curly hair made her slightly different from all the other straight-hair Dianas.

Brian was nice about trying to stay close to Rebecca and me, and he was working hard not to make me feel like a third wheel. Unfortunately that meant he kept asking me questions about myself, each of which threw me into a panic since I don't know nearly as much about NYU as Rebecca does.

"We had one of your film professors visiting my freshman year. I didn't take a class with him, but I heard he was great. I think his name was Moser or Muller? I can't remember. Did you ever take a class with him?"

I had an olive pit in my mouth and wasn't sure what to do with it. "Um, no, I haven't, ah, taken any film. Where did you go to college?"

"I went to Brown."

"Oh, really? That's where Rebecca--" Miraculously I stopped myself from finishing my sentence.
Oh, really? That's where Rebecca applied early.
Rebecca and Brian were both looking at me, but his was a look of curiosity and hers was one of horror. "Um, that's where Rebecca wanted to go."

"Really?" asked Brian. "You didn't tell me that."

"Well, you know," said Rebecca, glaring at me. "Sour grapes."

"Don't take it too hard," said Brian. "I'm sure you'll manage to cobble together a life that isn't
too
horrible."

"Thanks," said Rebecca. "I'll try to hold on to that."

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He took our glasses. "I'll get you guys some more wine."

More people kept arriving, but it was hard to tell the new ones from the old ones since everyone looked the same. All the wine I had drunk wasn't helping, either. A few times I thought about trying to get involved in a conversation, but each group Brian introduced us to seemed to be arguing over something I knew nothing about. At one point, when Rebecca went to the bathroom, I drifted by three people who were talking loudly and gesturing a lot. As soon as I got near them, one of the guys turned to me and said, "Quick: Who do you think more people have heard of, Henry Kissinger or Madonna?"

"Ah, Madonna?" I answered.

He turned back to the other two, who'd also been waiting for my answer. They groaned as soon as I said, "Madonna," but he laughed triumphantly. "Told you!" he said to them. Then he turned back toward me. "Thanks," he said.

"No problem," I said. He was kind of cute. I tried to think of something flirtatious to say. "So who's this Henry Kissinger guy?"

He looked confused. "Wait, are you serious?"

I shook my head no, and he went back to talking to his friends.

Why is it that I attract people I want to repel and repel people I want to attract?

My search for the answer to this troubling question led me to the bar, which may have been why I started to get pretty drunk. At high-school parties it's understood that

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your goal is to chug down as much as possible as quickly as possible (since everyone else is trying to do the exact same thing). I was on my third glass of wine when I realized all the other guests were sipping their drinks without the same sense of panic that was driving me.

"If you keep drinking wine like that I'm checking you into the Betty Ford clinic," Rebecca said after I'd come back with my fourth full glass.

"What's that?"

"It's where the stars go to rehab." I nodded. Surrounded by stars--that didn't sound so bad.

I was feeling a little dizzy, so I handed Rebecca my empty wineglass.

"What's more likely to blow our cover?" I asked her. "Throwing up, or a pithy anecdote about the college application process?"

"I think you'd better get a glass of water," she said. I was starting to get the feeling she regretted bringing me.

I went into the kitchen, where Ken was talking to one of the Joels.

"Well, hello there," he said. "Emerging from the lion's den, I see?"

"Ken, right?" The refrigerator was the kind with water and ice on the door, and I filled a glass and drank it. "Good for you. Nice memory."

"Not really," I said. "You're the only one who's not wearing khakis."

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He laughed. "Yes, it's a
tad
'Still Life with Dockers' out there."

His friend laughed, too, but then he said, "Hey, wait a second!" and pointed at his khakis. He wasn't very tall, but there was definitely something cute about him.

Ken looked at me carefully. "It's none of my business, but isn't your friend a little young to be playing with grown-ups?"

Focus, Jan. Focus.
"She's twenty-one," I said, trying to remember if that was the age we'd agreed to say we were.

"Darling," said Ken, "if she's twenty-one, I'm Donatella Versace."

"Well, Donatella, what makes you so sure she's underage?" I aimed to convey amusement rather than panic.

"A woman knows," he said, and he and his friend both laughed.

"Okay," I said, thinking,
Whatever.
"Don't worry," he said, smiling at his friend. "I'll never tell."

"How old are
you?"
his friend asked me.

"How old are
you?"
I countered smoothly.

"She's feisty," the guy said to Ken. Then to me he said, "You're cute."

"Thanks," I said. The four glasses of wine I'd chugged may have been responsible for what I said next. "You're cute, too."

"I'll leave you two to chat," said Ken. He winked at me and then he left.

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"So," said the guy.

"So," I said.

"I'm Alex," he said. He had reddish hair and tiny glasses. I don't normally go for redheads, but he had nice blue eyes.

"I'm Jan," I said.

"Are you twenty-one, too?" he asked.

I shrugged, hoping to convey I was an international woman of mystery rather than a drunken teenager. Alex walked over to me, and I could tell from how he held himself that he was even drunker than I was. He stopped about three inches away from my face.

"What year were you born?" he asked. I could smell alcohol on his breath and see the slight stubble of his beard. Not counting my dad, I'd never stood this close to someone who needed a shave.

"What are you, the bouncer?" I asked. My heart was pounding.

He didn't seem to be listening. "You are
extremely
cute, you know that?" he said.
"Extremely
cute." He leaned toward me and whispered in my ear. "You're cute enough to eat," he said. "I'd like to take you home with me and gobble you up."

How are you supposed to respond when a perfectly normal-looking guy suddenly starts talking like Hannibal Lecter?

"Um, thanks," I said.

He rubbed his cheek against mine. Stubble may look sexy, but it feels terrible.

"What do you say, little girl? Do you want to be

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