Getting Over Garrett Delaney (16 page)

Sure, you want to stay friends with
him,
but friends don’t have to listen to every excruciating detail about his new True Love — not when it leaves you a broken, miserable mess on the floor. Set new boundaries for your friendship: nice, solid walls that keep out all news of romance and breakup angst. With a shark-infested moat. And guard dogs. Killer guard dogs.

You may feel guilty, as though you’re being a bad friend. But this is your heart you’re protecting here. It’s worth feeling “unsupportive” to keep you off that miserable floor.

Kayla is working all day and can’t make it, but Aiko jumps at the chance to get out of town for the day, and a couple of hours later, the four of us are packed into Aiko’s car, winding our way through Boston’s downtown traffic, gleaming office blocks towering above turn-of-the-century churches and old brownstone buildings. I look happily out the windows, absorbing the buzz and rush of life on the busy sidewalks. I always love this first swoop into the city, when you’re hit by the rush of energy and confusion: a million people racing along in their own worlds, all in a few square miles. One day, I’m going to be a part of these crowds — here or someplace else — striding along with their certainty, living some extraordinary kind of life… .

“Julian Casablancas,” Aiko muses from the front seat. She has cherry-red plastic sunglasses on and her hair braided into pigtails. “Several times. Then marry Jack White; kill Sufjan Stevens.”

“Really?” LuAnn’s voice is outraged, as if these are serious life choices Aiko is debating, instead of a fantasy FMK league. “I can’t stand that whole New York hipster art thing. Kill Julian, have a wild night of passion with Jack, then spend the rest of my days baking and knitting things with Sufjan.” She breaks off a chunk of scone from the snack bag and chews, happily contemplating her craft-filled future.

“What about you, Josh?”

“No comment.”

“Come on!” LuAnn protests. “If you had to, if someone lined up your family with a gun to their heads and demanded you pick.”

He sighs. “Fine. Kill Sufjan. I dated a girl once who kept playing his stuff — it drove me crazy. Then flip a coin for the other two. Happy now?”

“Ecstatic.” She grins. “Ooh, turn left, just up ahead.” LuAnn leans forward from the backseat. “There are some fun vintage shops on Newbury Street.”

Aiko follows her directions, then pulls over to the side of the street. “Sure you don’t want to come?” I ask Josh as we collect our purses and jackets and pile out.

He laughs. “Trail you guys around dressing rooms all day? No, thanks. I’ll meet you later, for the show.”

“OK!” LuAnn slams the car door. “Call us whenever you’re done being such a history nerd.”

“Geek,” Josh corrects her. “Get it right. We take pride in our geekdom.”

“Sure, you do.” LuAnn laughs. “I bet you have T-shirts and everything!”

LuAnn and Aiko wave him off, jumping up and down and blowing kisses like they’re sending him off to fight in a war, and not just visit old battle sites. “Right.” LuAnn turns back to us, her whole face lit up in anticipation. “Let the wild rumpus start!”

“Somehow, I don’t think this what Maurice Sendak had in mind,” I say later that afternoon, watching LuAnn pull items from the display racks with a whirlwind mix of joy and efficiency. Aiko left us for the record store long ago, and now we’re in yet another vintage place, this one a tiny cave of gleaming curios, velvet drapes, and racks packed with outlandish outfits.

“To each her own.” LuAnn gives me a mischievous grin. “And my own is definitely this.”

I laugh. “Why don’t you try going back to fashion school or something? I mean, it seems like it’s your true calling.”

“What are you talking about?” she asks, a touch sarcastic. “I knew even as a little girl, I wanted to serve coffee for the rest of my life.”

I remember what she told me about following some guy to Sherman. It seems weird, that someone so self-possessed and secure would mold herself around a guy like that.

She holds up a swingy red dress. “What do you think?”

“Cute.” I browse idly, but there’s nothing much in the store for me. All this quirky vintage stuff, with its bright colors and patterns, is made for the other cool, artsy girls digging through bins of fedoras and trying on ’50s-style circle skirts. I watch them, curious: a foreign tribe with their wing-tipped eyeliner and oceans of self-confidence.

“What size are you?” LuAnn eyeballs me, then checks the label in the dress. “This should fit. Here, try it. Ooh, and these too.” She plucks a matador’s blouse and pencil skirt from a heap nearby and holds them out to me.

I shake my head vigorously. “No, I’m good.”

“But they’ll look great on you!”

“No,” I say again, shoving my hands in my pockets so she can’t fill them. “Thanks, but it’s just not my style.”

“So, what is?” LuAnn pauses. “This
normal
thing you’ve got going on? No offense, kid, but it doesn’t say anything about who you are.”

“Maybe that’s the point.” I shrug, getting defensive. I know my style has always been pretty, well, understated, but it suits me just fine. “Maybe I don’t want to play dress-up just to stand out in the crowd.”

“Okaay,” LuAnn backs off. “Have it your way. Be boring.” She grins, as if to tell me she’s only kidding. “But I still think you’d look fabulous with a whole prewar look going on, lashings of red lipstick and pin-curled hair.”

“Right,” I reply dryly. “Well, you’ll just have to do it up for the both of us.”

Arms laden with bags — all of them LuAnn’s — we head to meet Aiko in the record store. It’s full of older, bearded men and younger guys in Sonic Youth T-shirts and horn-rimmed glasses, but we find her in the back, flipping through old vinyl and humming along to The Smiths.

She takes in the sight of LuAnn’s bounty and laughs. “Wow, you guys really went to town.”

“It’s all mine.” LuAnn drops her load on the ground and I follow suit, creating a great heap of packages that still somehow came to less than a hundred bucks. “I did my best, but she wouldn’t let me try a thing.”

“Smart girl.” Aiko applauds me. “I gave in once, and she had me dolled up like a mod girl from 1962.”

“And she looked amazing,” LuAnn adds before turning her attention to a bargain bin of battered old CDs.

“So, you like The Smiths?” I ask Aiko. The cases hit each other with a rhythmic clacking sound as I methodically flip through the stands.

“Hate them,” she replies cheerfully. “Overwrought pretension for teenage boys who think that just because they’re old and British, it makes up for all that emo self-indulgence.”

“But this album is a classic!” I protest, shocked.

“And?” She shrugs, seemingly unconcerned by the musical sacrilege she’s just committed. Aiko sees my expression and laughs. “Just because people say something’s great, it doesn’t mean you have to agree, not if you don’t actually enjoy it.”

“Well, it’s not that I
enjoy
them,” I admit, because seriously, those aren’t the most uplifting songs in the world. “But still, there are some things you should listen to. You know, like reading great literature or watching classic films. You just should.”

“Why?” LuAnn looks up.

“Because!” I splutter. The question of why has never come into it for me, but now I scramble for an answer. “Even if you don’t like them, they’re still important.”

“Says who?”

“People!”

LuAnn laughs. “Easy there, kid. I’m not saying you can’t be into that stuff if you genuinely like it. I just mean, your argument kind of dooms us to spend all this time on books and movies and music that we don’t actually like.”

“She’s right,” Aiko adds, her arms full of vinyl selections. “What was that book you were talking to me about the other day? That Russian one you’ve been reading forever.”

“Crime and Punishment.”
I gape at them. “You can’t tell me that’s not a great book.”

“Great with a capital
G
great?” Aiko asks, head tilted to watch me. “Or great because you found it moving, and inspiring, and it made your life better somehow?”

I don’t answer for a moment. Sure, Dostoyevsky is no picnic, but he’s not supposed to be! And yes, I spent the better part of a year trying and failing and trying again to finish that lump of a book because it was so unbearably dense and depressing, but that’s not the point.

“Isn’t Garrett the one who introduced you to this stuff?” LuAnn asks meaningfully, before I can answer. “Maybe you just think it’s great because he said it was?”

I tense. “So, you’re saying I’m just some sheep, doing everything he says? Gee, thanks.”

“Sadie,” Aiko says, trying to placate me, “we’re just trying to help.”

“How is this helping, to say I’m some pathetic girl with no mind of my own?”

“You know that’s not what we mean.” LuAnn puts down her CDs. “But it sounds like this guy has been the center of your entire universe for way too long. Believe me, I’ve been there! That’s why I just want you to think about it.” She looks at me dead-on. “How much of your life do you choose because it’s what
he
likes?”

I snap. The pity in her expression is too much to take. “I’m not one of those girls who gives up everything for a guy,” I tell them, my voice rising. “I’m not! And just because you threw away your life on someone and it didn’t work out, it doesn’t mean I’m doing the same thing!”

Silence. LuAnn’s face tightens, and right away I feel a wash of guilt — but not enough to take it back or apologize. Not after what she said.

For a moment, nobody moves. A boy in skinny jeans and a plaid shirt edges past us to reach the vinyl. Up at the front counter, a trio of tweens in brightly colored vests demands the latest album by Justin or Jason or Jared.

“OK,” Aiko says, looking back and forth between us. “Time out. Let’s go get some ice cream and calm down.”

Neither of us replies.

“Gelato?” she tries. “Fro-yo?”

“No, thanks,” I answer shortly. I hoist my bag onto my shoulder. “Look, I’m just going to take a walk, get some air. I’ll meet back with you guys later.”

“Sadie —”

I hear Aiko call after me, but I’m already striding away. I push past the giggling tweens and out onto the street, not once looking back.

Admit it: you’ve been shopping for
him
all this time — hunting the sales racks in the secret hope that yes,
this
low-cut shirt is the one to make him see you in a whole new nonplatonic light,
those
skinny jeans will spur a blinding epiphany, and
this
raspberry lip gloss will finally make him fall hopelessly in love with you.

Forget raspberry gloss. You like plain lip-balm better. And forget low-cut shirts and skinny jeans, too. Forget everything you wouldn’t choose without his opinion in the back of your mind. When you look in the mirror, what do you want to see: yet another reminder of your hopeless attempt to be the girl of his dreams, or you?

The answer should always be you.