The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To (14 page)

Christine definitely looks like she thought about what to wear before she left the house.

“He's an asshole,” Christine says to the girl. “Bottom line.”

The girl nods. “Thanks,” she says, and Christine and the girl hug. I grab for a napkin to make sure my face is clean. The girl heads for the living room. Even having just gotten done crying she is more ready to dance than I am.

“Hey!” Christine says. “You made it!”

“Hey,” I say, “yeah.”

“Thanks for coming,” she says. “These parties are getting really same-y, I thought I'd spice things up.”

“Same-y?”

“Yeah, like, the same thing every time. They can be pretty fun, I guess. They're not like stupid football parties, with, like, jocks and beer and misogyny.”

I don't know how she thought I would spice things up. I don't know where she got that from. It seems like to spice things up you bring a hardcore band to a party full of museum donors, or a hooker to a Vatican function. Bringing a quiet nerd to a party full of loud theater dorks does not seem like spicing things up. But I don't complain. Or say anything. I should say something.

“How are you?”

“Great! Really great. Sorry if you had to wait around in here. Must've been awkward. I had to help Becca … she just broke up
with Mike. The DJ. He played Nathan Detroit in
Guys and Dolls
and he got a pretty big head.”

“Yeah, I could see how that could happen.” I don't see how that could happen. I don't know who Nathan Detroit is. In the other room, the song about butts reaches its conclusion and cross-fades into a song that was popular when all of us were in middle school. The cross-fade is courtesy of Mike who got a big head when he played Nathan Detroit, which you will agree is inevitable if you know anything about who Nathan Detroit is.

“So, Darren! What's your story?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, what's your deal? What do you DO?”

I go to school, I want to say. What do any of us do? But I don't think that's the answer she's looking for. And the actual answer, that I am developing what is now a TV series culminating in a movie trilogy interspersed with books and graphic novels with any remaining holes in the epic filled in by a massively multiplayer online game, and my partner in this is my best friend who can't sleep and never has to—that answer I'm not ready to give yet.

“I, uhm. I read? And draw.” I don't want “I draw” to read as “I doodle” so I think maybe I should say “I'm an artist” but I don't want to say “I'm an artist.” I do think of myself as an artist, and I also think of myself as a science-fiction visionary and I also think I'd make a great boyfriend but I don't want to say any of those things out loud to anybody. “I draw, and—”

“RIGHT!” she says. “I have a confession to make. I like, looked at your profile for a while after I sent you the message about the party. And that profile picture … did you draw that?”

“Uhm. Yeah.”

“Oh my God. It's. Amazing.”

“Really?”

“Yes! Are you kidding? It's so good and accurate and I don't know…. You're a brilliant artist. If the rest of your stuff is even half that good, I'm jealous, because that means you're a brilliant artist.”

“Geez. Thanks.”

“Don't thank me! And you like Leonard Cohen? I thought nobody liked Leonard Cohen except for me and my mom.”

Leonard Cohen is one of the artists I put on there to seem eclectic. I know about him because of my brother and my brother doesn't even really like him, but his ex-girlfriend who was a couple years older than him and broke up with him when she went away to college burned him a Leonard Cohen CD before she graduated. The only time I ever heard Leonard Cohen or saw my brother listen to Leonard Cohen was after she'd left when we were driving to the movies and he put in the CD and started crying and then made a U-turn and drove out into the desert so he could shoot the CD with a paintball gun. I try to remember what it sounded like.

“Yeah, he's so … quiet. You really have to listen,” I say. “And the lyrics.”

“I know, right?” Christine says. “Oh my God, you must think I'm some kind of stalker or something.”

“No I don't,” I say.

“Well, good. And didn't it say you'd only had a profile for like a day?”

I am found out. The beat of the song from the other room is so loud it's almost like a physical thing, so I think about trying to hide behind it until I can escape. She will think about how weird it is that she saw me at IHOP and then again on Monday and how I didn't get a Namespot profile until I told her I had one and how the stalkers she's joking about are real, and she's looking at one.

“Did your profile get hacked or something? That happened to Claire one time.”

“No,” I say, relieved to be given the out. “I've never had one. But then I figured, I guess I should get one. You know … for the art.” I have no idea what I mean by that. “To be honest with you, I think Namespot is sorta shallow.”

“I totally agree with you! It's like, everyone thinks they're so unique, like, people have Namespot profiles instead of personalities anymore, and Namespot interactions instead of REAL interactions,
you know what I mean? And people fight more in real life about what happens on Namespot than they do about what happens in real life. When Claire got her profile hacked … THAT was a snafu,” Christine says. When Christine sent me the message about the party, I went and looked at her profile. I think she put more effort into it than Eric and I put into the entire
TimeBlaze
saga. But she did use the word
snafu
.

The song that was popular when we were all in middle school fades out and another song fades up. A few people filter into the kitchen and start filling glasses with ice and water from a Brita pitcher.

“Hey Christine. Hey person,” says one of the girls.

“This is Darren,” Christine says.

“Hey Darren,” the girl says. “Chris, just FYI, Becca is like, a wreck.”

“I know. We talked.”

“Okay, because she was dancing for like a second and then she went and locked herself in the bathroom.”

“Are you sure she didn't just go to the bathroom?”

“She told me she was going to LOCK herself in the bathroom.”

“Oh GOD,” Christine says. She puts down her drink and looks at me. “I'm so sorry. Drama kids equal drama. We're more obnoxious than we realize. Hang out?”

I nod. I don't know what else I'm going to do. I'm definitely not going to dance. The song is a techno remix of a song sung by an American Idol champion from like two years ago.

“Okay,” Christine says. “Be right back.”

Christine goes, leaving me, the artist with whom she shares an opinion about the vapidity of Namespot, alone. I'm not bothered. I spend a few minutes putting handfuls of pretzels together with handfuls of M&Ms and eating them. It's something Eric and I do. I go to pour myself some Dr. Pepper. I have an unpleasant flashback and pour Mountain Dew instead. I eat more pizza. Eventually, I get bored in the kitchen, and it's awkward being the only person staying in there while everybody else comes and goes for
water or food or to whisper secrets in each others' ears before going back to the dance floor. So I go out to the living room.

Mike is bobbing up and down in front of one of his laptops. His head does not seem especially big but he's wearing a baseball hat so it's hard to tell. He does seem like kind of a cock, just from the way he's bobbing up and down. People start hooting and stop dancing to look at something. Two girls in the middle of the room are making out. People are taking pictures. One of the girls is not really attractive at all and the other one is not
not
attractive. I wonder which is the one with the lesbian switch she can turn on and off. Camera phones click. Eventually that stops and I take a seat on the couch, feeling awkward as hell but not awkward enough to dance. Some of the girls are amazing-looking.

Claire comes out of the crowd and sits down next to me. “Hey, what was your name?”

“Darren!” I have to shout.

“Oh. Your friend was a real asshole to me the other day.”

“Yeah, he's kind of an awkward … he's kind of awkward!” I shout.

“Is he here?” she asks.

“No!”

“Good,” Claire says, “and no matter what Christine tells you, do NOT audition for Hendershaw's ‘theater piece.' It is going to suck.”

“Okay,” I say.

A girl appears next to Claire and whispers in her ear. Actually, she's yelling, but I can't hear what she's saying. Claire giggles. “Yes! Absolutely! Yes! Bye, Darryl!” She and the girl make their way around the dancers to Mike's DJ table and lean over and yell in his ears. Mike nods. Claire and the girl high-five. Mike fades out the American Idol song and a song fades in that doesn't sound like it belongs here, all horns, but not the obnoxious bouncy Muppet-ska kind. The entire room goes nuts and everybody clears the dance floor. Suddenly where I'm sitting is really valuable space as everybody stands around while a few people take places on chairs in the
middle of the room. Girls walk through the center and flirt exaggeratedly with guys. They're doing choreography. The crowd freaks out at every little motion.

As the tempo picks up, girls go into this dance with a lot of kicks, swishing their arms around to indicate what I guess are skirts they don't actually have. The cameras are out again, so that later when people are uploading their pictures to Namespot, images of two girls making out will go right next to pictures of people who are almost college-age kicking and swishing imaginary skirts.

Gary the fat kid is sitting next to me, clapping and cheering and telling individual dancers to “GO, Tyra! GO, Ashley!,” et cetera. I look over at him.

“What's this …”

“The HAVANA DANCE!” he screams before I can even get the words out. “From
Guys and Dolls
, only the greatest production in the history of Theater Division!” Everyone outside of Drama Club calls what these kids do Drama Club. Everyone inside of Drama Club calls it Theater Division.

The horns are really blaring and now the dance is a fake fight. Guys I can tell are gay swing on guys who could fool me. The guys who could fool me swing back. There's lots of kicking and ducking under kicking. Some guys are kicking people who aren't there or ducking kicks from people who aren't there: I guess the entire cast of the greatest production in the history of Theater Division could not make it out to Nicole's house.

When I came in and saw a roomful of kids dancing I thought a little bit for a second that it looked like fun. Now I want to beat myself up for being anywhere near something like this. Christine aside I really want to be back in my room playing old video games with Eric quoting Weird Al lyrics because it's honestly less nerdy than this. I look for the kid in the anime shirt so I can ask him for confirmation on that. I let Gary have the couch and go back into the kitchen and then I work up the nerve to go out on the porch and tell Christine I'm leaving.

I slide the back door open and step out onto the back porch.
Christine and Becca are sitting on a pool chair. Christine is rubbing Becca's back. I startle them.

“Hey!” Christine says.

“Hi. Uhm. I think I'm gonna take off.”

“Oh no!” Christine says. “I'm sorry I haven't…”

“Oh God,” Becca says, “I'm like taking up your time, I'm so sorry, I'm such a time-suck, God …”

“No,” Christine says, “you're not—” but before she can finish Becca gets up and runs inside, not crying exactly but not far from it.

“I'm sorry,” I say, since we're apologizing.

“Don't worry about it,” Christine says.

“Do you want to go talk to her, or …”

“It's okay,” she says. “I think Becca's going to cry tonight no matter what happens. Just one of those nights. Anyway, I feel like a complete asshole for just, like, abandoning you to the wolves.”

“Don't worry about it.”

“Claire probably told you all sorts of wonderful things about me.”

“She didn't,” I say, assuming she means “wonderful” sarcastically. “I mean, she told me I shouldn't audition for Mr…. Hendershaw's? Piece.”

“Oh. Do you want to?”

“I'm not sure I even know what it is. And also … not really.”

“Well, it's going to be amazing. But you're already amazing at your own thing. You probably don't feel the need to excel in multiple things.”

“I guess I never thought about it.”

“Anyway, sorry for leaving you. I'm a terrible host. Come sit down! Unless you really do have to leave.”

I don't have to do anything unless it's not watch kids my own age play-fight to swing music. I have to not watch that. I go sit down next to Christine on the pool chair, wondering if everybody who sits there gets their back rubbed.

“I'm a terrible host,” Christine says. “Well, I guess I'm not
really the HOST. I'm a guest. But, I'm like, the host in charge of making sure you have a good time, since I dragged you out.”

“You're the host of our mini-party,” I say.

“Right. Exactly. I promise we won't play any trance music at the mini-party.”

“Oh, man! But if you don't play trance music, nothing at the party will suck!”

Christine laughs. She throws her head back and there is so much of her neck, all white in the moonlight. The moonlight is also glinting off the pool, which is probably freezing.

“Do you guys always eat where I saw you the other day?”

“Yeah,” I say.

It is the last question I have to answer because it turns out if I keep asking her questions I don't have to talk. She doesn't mind talking and I don't mind listening, and it feels like we're out there a long time and not that much time at all at the same time, and we occasionally break from one of her answers to identify a song playing inside by its bass line pumping through the stucco of the house, and then rag on that song. She unapologetically mentions books. It turns out she has two classes with Tony DiAvalo and thinks he's a thoroughgoing d-bag. Her words, “thoroughgoing d-bag,” not mine, but I agree. I realize with no small amount of shock that this is a conversation with a non-Eric person that I in no way want to get out of, that I am just enjoying rather than trying to minimize its awkwardness and length. I am interested on a level I imagine Eric is interested on in the things he gets interested in and learns everything about, learning and remembering with zero effort because I actually give a damn.