Last Stop This Town (5 page)

Next door, in the concrete-floored work room, the stoners were sitting on a ratty old plaid couch passing a bong. The stoner crowd was usually a mix-and-match group of potheads with an occasional “respectable” teen getting high on a lark. Today it was just the core group: Pike, Ned, Suzanne, Olaf, and Diaz.

Suzanne was kind of cute, with scraggly strawberry blonde hair and freckles. You might hook up with her if you were high, and since everyone here usually was, everyone here had.

Olaf was a foreign exchange student from Norway and immediately befriended the group. Back home, practically any gorgeous Norwegian girl would have sex with you just to be polite, but smoking pot, it seemed, was still kind of a taboo. (This confused Ned for the first several weeks after meeting Olaf, because Ned mixed up Norway and The Netherlands.) So, naturally, when Olaf came to the U.S. for the year, he wasn’t as interested in hooking up as he was in getting baked. And he took it as a personal challenge to become the best at it. Which he was.

Whereas Olaf was welcomed with open arms by the other stoners, and frequently provided some of the most hilarious lines when stoned (like the time he said, “Ja man, this bud is sweeter than my mother’s teet.”), Diaz, on the other hand, just kind of latched onto the group without any invitation, formal or otherwise. Truth be told, no one really liked Diaz. He never said anything funny or worthwhile, he mooched off of everyone else and never provided his own weed, and frankly he kind of smelled. Like cheese. Furthermore, he looked like a troll. Pike saw him in the boys’ locker room shower one day and swore he had a tail. But stoners aren’t haters and unlike their violent, aggressive counterparts in the world of teenage binge drinking, everyone was welcome to partake in a bong hit. Even a troll.

Pike took a hit and passed the bong to Suzanne. As he held in the smoke, Pike stared at the work bench with its rotary saw. He exhaled, then slowly looked over at the power tools hanging on a peg board above the work bench. As if a powerful revelation had come to him, he asked the group, “Did you ever really look at all these tools?”

Ned repeated, “Tools,” and guffawed.

But Pike felt like he had hit upon something here. Maybe something important. “No, seriously. I mean, like, think about it. One day some guy just said, ‘I’m going to invent like a
drill
.’”

The five of them thought about it for a second, then burst out laughing like it was the funniest thing they’d ever heard.

In Marco’s parents’ bedroom, Sarah and Noah were making out like crazy. Noah often wondered where Marco’s parents went all the time. Marco’s dad was rich and Marco’s 29-year-old step-mom had just had his half-brother, Jaden. They must take the baby with them on vacation or something. He didn’t spend
too
much time thinking about it though, because at the end of the day he didn’t really care. Still, he wondered if he and Sarah had more sex in this bed than Marco’s parents.

In between kisses, Sarah told Noah, “I’ve been waiting for this all week. I am so stressed out over finals.”

“Why do you care?” Noah reassured her. “Wisconsin isn’t even going to look at these grades.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Sarah replied.

You brought it up
, Noah thought, but then Sarah whipped off her shirt and jeans and hopped on the bed, erasing all prior thoughts from his mind. Sarah did the seductive “come here” finger.

Noah smiled. This was what was so great about having a real girlfriend. No mind games and no mystery, like,
Am I going to get lucky or
not?
Noah knew he was going to have sex and that certainty was comforting to him. He took off his shirt and pulled out a condom before peeling off his pants. On the way over to the bed he turned off the lights.

Noah kissed Sarah with fiery intensity. Then he started kissing her neck while he cradled her head in one hand and expertly undid her bra with the other. Again, an advantage of having a real girlfriend: Noah knew her bra clasps by heart.

Sarah was really getting into it and Noah could tell by her little moans that his kisses were having the desired effect. Time to shift into second gear. He travelled little kisses down to her breasts on his usual flight plan, and his hand moved down to explore under her panties. Her little gasps and moans grew louder and quicker. She reached into his boxer briefs and pulled out his dick. Now it was Noah who was starting to moan.

This went on for a moment or two before Sarah couldn’t take it anymore. “I want you. Now.”

You didn’t have to tell Noah twice. “Yes, ma’am,” he replied.

Noah reached over to the condom and opened it up. He fumbled around with it for a moment. Sarah waited patiently. But this was taking a little too long. Noah was having some technical difficulties getting the condom on. Then,
snap
! Noah screamed!

Sarah sat up. “What’s wrong?”

“Condom broke.”

Click
. Sarah turned on the night table lamp. Noah examined the condom, trying to figure out if he could salvage it. He wasn’t sure if it was a manufacturing defect or if it had gotten pierced by something in his pocket, but the condom was a goner.

Sarah was getting frustrated. “Don’t you have another one?”

“No,” Noah admitted.

“What happened to the Boy Scout Motto?” Sarah teased.

“I was in Adventure Guides,” Noah replied before throwing the broken condom aside. But Noah wasn’t giving up just yet. He opened the night stand.

“Wait. Here we go,” he declared triumphantly. He pulled out a condom and showed it to Sarah.

“Ewwww. No way.” Sarah was repulsed by the mere thought of it.

“What?”

“I’m not doing it with Mr. Rosenbaum’s condom inside of me!”

“Are you kidding?”

“It’s gross.” She took it in her hand. “And look,” she added. “It’s lamb skin. What’s lamb skin?”

Noah grabbed the condom back from her and quickly examined it. “It says it’s a natural membrane,” he offered, trying his best to sell the idea.

“That’s the kind that gives you HIV.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Noah countered, getting frustrated himself. “It doesn’t give you anything, and besides, I don’t have anything to give you! You’re the only girl I’ve ever been with!”

But Sarah put her foot down. “I’m sorry. We are
not
using this.”

Noah’s frustration turned to anger. “Jesus, Sarah. What’s the big deal?”

But before she could answer, there was a knock at the door.

“We’re in here,” Noah called out.

But to Noah’s surprise, it was Dylan’s voice calling back through the closed door. “Time’s up, home slice.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. Supremely pissed, Noah got off the bed and stomped over to the door, opening it a crack. Dylan was with the cute girl with the “updoc” on her shirt. Dylan whispered, “The baby’s room is empty.”

Noah countered, “Then why didn’t you just go there, asshole?”

Dylan smiled. “Because my friend…”

The cute girl piped up. “Ashlyn.”

Dylan continued, “Ashlyn deserves the best.”

Ashlyn smiled, actually flattered by this.

Noah rolled his eyes. But Sarah was already getting dressed and said, “Come on. Let’s go.” Noah put on his pants but carried his shirt and shoes out of the room with Sarah, as Dylan and Ashlyn entered.

As they passed each other, Noah gave Dylan an evil look reserved only for your cock-blocking best friend. Dylan just smiled.

In the work room, things had gotten really weird really fast. Pike and Ned were now reenacting the light saber duel from
Star Wars,
only they were using a live chainsaw and an electric hedge trimmer. Olaf, Suzanne, and Diaz sat on the couch cheering them on.

Ned spoke with his best Darth Vader voice: “When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the master.”

Pike replied with an English Obi-Wan Kenobi accent: “Only a master of evil, Darth.”

Then the two swung their giant power tools at each other. The blades clashed with a tremendous screech of grinding metal. Almost immediately, Pike’s chainsaw was deflected onto the couch,
ripping into
the cushion
and almost killing Olaf who dove out of the way just in time.

With his weird Norwegian accent, and over the din of the chainsaw still chewing into the couch, Olaf screamed, “What the fuck, Rasshøl?!”

Back in the rec room, Walker and Patience still hadn’t moved off the couch through the entire bulk of Playlist #44, which was now blasting that M.I.A. song from
Slumdog Millionaire
. Walker had an endless supply of open-ended questions, from Patience’s possible college major (“Maybe English Lit”) to whether a private high school education was worth the cost (“Yes”). The conversation was light and superficial, and if this were a talk show, Walker would have made Patience’s publicist very happy.

But it wasn’t a talk show, and Patience was growing restless. “I’m going to France for the summer,” she threw out there. “I’m leaving on Tuesday.”

She leaned in once more with a smile, a last ditch effort at getting Walker to make a move.

But she might as well have been speaking French because Walker merely replied, “Wow, that sounds amazing. I’ve always wanted to see Paris.”

Walker was giving her nothing so Patience simply gave up.

Great
, she thought.
I’m stuck with the one gay guy in the whole party
. She leaned back, disappointed.