Confessions of a Not It Girl (6 page)

"It's possible, but I doubt it. He went back around the terrace, and I went through the apartment so it wouldn't seem too obvious."

"You are so cool," I said.

54

"I know," she said.

"So, are you going to see him again?" I was tracing my initials in the crumbs from the coffee cake.

"Well, when I said good-bye, I slipped him a note. My dad's going, 'We can't thank you enough for coming,' and all that crap and Brian's going, 'Oh, you have such a lovely daughter and such a lovely home--"'

"He
said that?
He
said,
'lovely'?"

"Something like that. I mean, he was definitely all, 'Your daughter is such a sweet child,' and not, 'Thanks for having me, I had a great time feeling your daughter's ass on the terrace earlier.'"

"He felt your
ass?"

"Well, he mostly had his hands on my back, but then a couple of times he was kind of grabbing at it."

"Was it weird?" I didn't think I would like having my butt grabbed. Of course, only King Kong has hands big enough to grab it, so the question is clearly moot.

"Actually, it was kind of cool." She paused for a second. "So don't you want to hear what the note said?"

"Oh, yeah. I totally forgot."

"It said, 'Meet me at The Madison next Friday at ten.'"

"Oh my God!" I jumped up and accidentally knocked over the last of my hot chocolate. "That is
so cool."

"I know," said Rebecca. "Sometimes I amaze even myself."

"What if he has plans?"

"He'll have to break them."

Obviously there are about five million differences between me and Rebecca, but if I had to name the most

55

crucial one, it would be my asking
What if he has plans?
and her saying,
He'll have to break them.
Even if I could imagine seducing someone who works with my dad, which I can't, and even if I had the guts to lure him up to our nonexistent terrace and start kissing him, which seems unlikely given my history of relying on a first grader to make the first move for me, and even if I could think of a cool thing to write like
Meet me at The Madison next Friday at ten,
I would never ever
ever
in a million years be cool enough to leave it at that. If I'd written that note, it would have said
Meet me at The Madison next Friday at ten, or, if that's no good, maybe you're free Saturday at ten. If you'd prefer to meet earlier in the evening, maybe around eight o'clock, that's okay, too. I realize it's also possible you're out of town next weekend, in which case the following weekend would be just fine.
Then it would have had nine million ways to reach me, including e-mail, telephone, mailing address, and emergency contact information.

Clearly this is one of the many things that separates an It Girl from a Not It Girl.

"So how was baby-sitting?"

"It was a disaster." I took a sock and mopped up most of the hot chocolate. The one advantage to my horrible rug is, it never stains.

"Barbie and Ken have a big fight?"

"Josh was there."

"He
was?
Tell me
everything."

"I wish there was something to tell." Compared to hers, my night was suddenly even less
Sex and the

56

City
and more
7th Heaven
than it had been an hour ago.

When I got to the part about Josh sitting down with me on the couch, she said, "I thought you said there was nothing to tell."

"That's the thing--that's all that happened."

"What do you mean?"

I told her about the rest of the night.

"Bummer," she said.

"I know," I said.

"You should have just made the first move."

"You know, I thought about it, but I didn't want him to think I was retarded
and
sexually deviant."

"Making the first move does not equal sexual deviancy."

"Why is it that in the middle of a dinner party you can seduce a guy whose career could be destroyed for life if he gets caught with you, while I am incapable of leaving even the slightest impression on Josh?
Nothing, just hanging out.
That's a direct quote. I can hear it like it was yesterday."

"It
was
yesterday."

"You're hysterical."

"It doesn't mean anything that he said that. A person could say 'Nothing, just hanging out,' in response to a lot of questions besides 'What are you doing?'"

"Name one."

Rebecca didn't say anything for a minute. "Well, maybe he didn't want to
reveal
what he was doing.
Maybe
it was his girlfriend in Seattle, and he needs to break up with her so he can go out with you, only he

57

doesn't want to make her suspicious, so he didn't want to say, 'I'm hanging out with this really hot girl.'"

"With the world's biggest butt."

"Would you please get over your butt, Jan?"

"Maybe I could if I was a pole vaulter."

"YAHN!"

"If he's going to break up with her, why did he spend the rest of the night on the phone?"

"Maybe he was breaking up with her
last night!
Maybe he was breaking up with her the whole time just so he could be free to ask you out at Richie's party."

I thought about it. "I want to believe you."

"I know."

"Yet I feel I must keep at least a minimal grip on reality."

"I wouldn't bother. Reality can be very upsetting." I had to agree with her there.

We decided Rebecca would come over to my house in time for us to arrive fashionably late at Richie's, even though I knew leaving from my house instead of hers could mean a major battle with my parents. They've always been vaguely suspicious of high-school parties, and now that I'm a senior they're completely convinced that every social gathering is destined to be a den of iniquity, complete with alcohol, illicit drugs, and sexually experienced guys eager to do unmentionable things to my body.

Here's hoping.

58

CHAPTER SIX

Even before I discovered Mandy and Josh alone in a dark corner at the back of Richie's garden, my night was teetering on the edge of disaster.

It all started a little before nine o'clock, which is when I suddenly discovered I had nothing to wear. I couldn't believe it, and neither could Rebecca, since she's always the one running around her room half dressed complaining that she hates all her clothes right when we're supposed to be walking out the door. In the history of our friendship I doubt if she has once waited for me to get ready.

But it turns out you don't need a walk-in closet the size of Texas to have a fashion crisis.

"What about jeans and a T-shirt?" Rebecca was being really patient, considering I'd insisted she get to my house by eight forty-five so we could leave at nine on the dot.

"I wore that baby-sitting. He might remember." I was standing in the middle of the room wearing the huge SLC Olympics 2002 T-shirt I sleep in.

"How about the skirt you were going to wear babysitting that I told you not to wear?"

"It's in the laundry."

She got up off my bed and started going through my

59

closet, something that takes about one minute from start to finish. "What about these?" She held up an old pair of cargo pants.

"Makes it look like my butt gave birth to a second butt." I sat down on the floor and pulled the neck of the T-shirt up over my head. Originally I had planned on wearing this really cute pale blue sundress, but all day the temperature had been dropping until it was way too cold for a little sundress no matter how cute it was. "This is so symbolic. Everything I plan is a disaster." I curled up on the floor, keeping my face hidden by my T-shirt. "If my life were a Broadway play, it wouldn't even make it to Broadway. It would close in New Haven."

"Don't panic," she said. She thought for a minute. "Okay, here's the plan. First: I smoke a cigarette. Second: we find something in this house that makes you look
totally
hot."

"You mean like a different body?"

"Ha ha, very funny, Yahn," Rebecca said.

I put on my dad's long parka over my shirt and listened while Rebecca, who was wearing a pair of tight black jeans and a stretchy black shirt, explained her theory that I was only fixating on what to wear because I was nervous about seeing Josh and was neurotically seeking to control a situation that was, by definition, beyond my control.

Sometimes it's helpful to have a best friend who took a psychology elective. Other times I wish she had signed up for photography instead.

I finally ended up in a pair of jeans and this really nice black cashmere sweater of my mom's. She used to be pretty

60

cool about letting me borrow her clothes until last spring, when I spilled an entire can of Diet Coke on her brand-new suede jacket. Now I'm supposed to ask before I borrow something, but was it my fault if she and my dad were out for dinner, and I couldn't reach them because they refuse to embrace twenty-first-century telecommunication, i.e., the cell phone?

Even though I kept telling myself not to get my hopes up, the whole subway ride I couldn't help thinking about what Rebecca had said.

JOSH: Sorry I had to take that call last night, but I needed to break up with my girlfriend so I could tell you how I feel.

JAN: How do you feel?

JOSH:
(Taking her in his arms.)
I feel like this.
(Kisses her.)

CURTAIN

By the time we got to Richie's block, my stomach was in knots. Life would be so much simpler if guys were like mood rings, and they changed color when they liked you.

"Jan, you have to slow down," said Rebecca. "This is not the fifty-yard dash."

She was right; I was practically sprinting. "Sorry."

Richie lives about five blocks from Lawrence Academy in this enormous townhouse. It's right on the promenade, which means spectacular views of the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan skyline--the perfect backdrop, in my humble opinion, for my big love scene with Josh.

61

We passed a group of people sitting out on the front steps, but Josh wasn't with them. He wasn't in the living room, either, where about ten people were standing around drinking beer. All I really wanted to do was find him, but racing around the house asking
Has anyone seen Josh? Has anyone seen Josh?
ran counter to the image of myself I wanted to project, so I calmly followed Rebecca into the kitchen.

As she grabbed us two beers from the fridge, I thought I got a glimpse of Tom Richmond heading down the back stairs. My heart started racing, and I quickly turned so I was facing away from the stairs--a girl, like an algebra problem, can only handle so many variables. The last thing I was equipped to do was talk to the person I used to like better than the person I now liked better than I liked him.

Just as I was worrying that Tom might recognize me from the back, Rebecca spotted Drew, Richie's brother who graduated last year. He was out back smoking with some other people from his class. She waved to him and he mouthed, "Come here!" so we went out on the deck. He gave Rebecca a big bear hug, and then he grabbed me and gave me a hug, too. And that's when I saw them. Mandy and Josh standing by a tree, T-A-L-K-I-N-G.

At first I wasn't even sure it was Josh, since it was pretty dark in that corner of the garden and his face was shadowed. But then he moved slightly, and I saw the sleeve of this fisherman's sweater he wears sometimes. He was facing the deck, and as soon as Drew let me go, I stepped to the side so I could see Josh but he couldn't see me.

Rebecca started asking Drew all about school, and soon

62

they were involved in this incredibly boring conversation about how great Brown is, and how much Rebecca wants to go there, and how if she gets in he'll show her around so that she won't waste the first few weeks hanging out with losers. I was pretending to follow their conversation, but really I was just watching Josh and Mandy.

Mandy was doing most of the talking. She was gesturing a lot and flipping her hair all over the place as per usual. I swear, someday she's going to give herself whiplash. Josh wasn't saying much, but he was listening intently, like he really cared about what she said. At one point she got him to stand up straight by kind of pulling him toward her; then she drew a line at about his chin to illustrate something. He kept nodding and nodding, and then she said something that made him burst out laughing.

Could
Mandy
be the reason Josh had broken up with his girlfriend last night?

JOSH:Mandy, I must tell you. Even though you laugh like a hyena, I love you.

MANDY:
(Laughing like a hyena.)
You do?
(Hair flipping ensues.)

JOSH:Yes, Mandy. It is inexplicable, given that you are the stupidest slut in the universe, yet I cannot deny my feelings for you any longer.
(They embrace.)

CURTAIN

Just as I turned my back to Josh and Mandy, a couple of junior girls came out on the deck and ran screaming at

63

Drew like he was the Bachelor. I thought I saw Josh look up when he heard them, but I couldn't tell if he saw me or not. Richie said something to the girls like, "How're my ladies doing tonight?" and Rebecca said, "Let's go in, I'm getting cold." I followed her.

More people had arrived while we were outside. Someone had put on an Ozomatli CD, and half a dozen people were sitting around the dining room table playing quarters. All the excitement I'd felt earlier was gone, and I was considering trying to convince Rebecca we should just go home and rent a Jennifer Aniston movie.

"I'm surprised Josh isn't here yet," said Rebecca. We were standing by the fridge drinking beer. There were at least twenty people in the kitchen, which was hot and crowded.

"He's here. He's in the garden."

"He
is?"
Rebecca looked confused. "I thought we were looking for him."

"He's talking to Mandy Johnson," I said.

"That
slut,"
said Rebecca.

"You read my mind," I said.

"Well, this night is sucking just as much as we predicted," said Rebecca, holding her beer bottle up to mine. "Here's to no more high-school parties."

I clinked my bottle against hers. "I'll drink to that." Right as I took a swig of my beer, I saw Josh's sweater out of the corner of my eye. I half turned my back to the door and faced Rebecca.

"Incoming at two o'clock," she said.

"I saw him," I said. My head felt tingly, and I forced

64

myself to focus on the cabinets on the opposite wall of the kitchen.