Those Girls

by Lauren Saft

  God, what would Veronica be like with an actual boyfriend? Would she be able to accept adoration and attention from only one guy for an extended period of time? Would she be able to handle it when the adoration and attention stopped and she’d have to come up with legitimate things to talk about? Or would her head spontaneously combust if the entire world wasn’t gawking at her at all moments? I admit, I was somewhat curious to watch her crash and burn.

  “We’ve literally just made out,” she said. She perched on her stool, admiring her nails, having apparently given up entirely on even pretending she’d help with the lab.

  “I’m just saying, had I flashed my cleavage and put out for Sam right away, I’m not sure we’d be what we are today. If you want a real relationship, you need to work for it. Play the game. Boyfriends don’t just pop out from your Bunsen burner the second you decide you’re in the mood for one, and boys don’t date girls who put out on the first date. Fact.”

  “Thanks, Dr. Phil,” she said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Fine then, whore. I’m just trying to help.” And I pushed my notes over to her so she could copy them.

  “I guess you would know more about relationships than me,” she said in a tone I didn’t appreciate.

  “I never really pictured you with a guy like Drew,” I said.

  “Trust me, me neither,” she said as she shrugged and begrudgingly copied my answers.

  “So why Drew, then? Why now?” I couldn’t figure out her game here, if she was really into Drew or if she was doing this to mess with Alex, to prove a point. I looked at the clock and nudged her to get a move on the lab copying.

  “Because he likes me, and keeps calling me and wanting to hang out, and that’s more than I’ve gotten from the ’Zu guys. I figure I should mix it up and hang around someone who actually likes me for a change.” She became distracted from the answer copying and began poking the tip of her pen in the fire from the Bunsen burner.

  “What the fuck!” I yelled, snatching the hot, bubbling blue plastic from her grip.

  “Sorry!” she yelled back. “I like the way it smells when it burns.”

  ALEXANDRA HOLBROOK

  I sat on my bed staring at my calculus textbook, unable to think about anything but Drew and Veronica. I thought about what they were doing; if they were talking, kissing, more than kissing; what they were saying; how they were saying it; if they were different around each other than they were around me; if they talked about me; what they thought of me; if they made fun of me, lauded me, pitied me.

  It was all downhill after Halloween. They weren’t calling themselves boyfriend and girlfriend or anything (yet), but they went out to meals together, went to the movies. He started driving her home from things—her and not me, like I didn’t still live down the street and it didn’t still make logistical sense that we consider the environment and carpool. He hung out at her house on school nights instead of mine, and when he stopped telling me about what happened there, I knew it was really over. For the first month, I oversaw and edited every text, choreographed every hangout, but by Thanksgiving, preambles like Veronica told me and Drew and I saw were followed by information that was news.

  Drew and I still talked, but not like we used to. We still went on our smoke ’n’ drives (sometimes) and watched our movies (less), but something was different. Something that left earlier and came later. Something that drove us to say hey, stranger when we saw each other, even if it had been only a few days since our last encounter. They’d try to not be awkward around me and invite me to meals and movies, and to play mini golf—and I went to show them how secure I was with myself and how supportive I was of this whole miserable fucking thing. Seeing her all over him, watching him try to be funny for her—it was excruciating, but I grinned and bore it—after all, I had no one to blame but myself. I let this happen. Fuck, I practically made this happen.

  I stared at that calc book: the x and the a and the square root sign and the silly blue graphs in the top left corner of the glossy paper that, as far as I could tell, had nothing to do with either the x or the a. I saw their faces close to each other’s, heard them whispering, felt them smiling; her all gussied up at the prom in some boob-baring, exorbitantly expensive techno-colored number holding his flowers and slow dancing to sad Beyoncé songs with her face in his neck. I slammed the book shut.

  I went downstairs. I opened the refrigerator, but I wasn’t hungry. I turned into the living room and saw the piano.

  I sat on the hard bench, felt the cold wood through my jeans and the slick ivory under my fingers. I ran my nails over the keys like it was my pet. I always felt like I had to greet it, say hello, exchange pleasantries, before I played. That came from my dad. When I was little, we’d sit on that bench and he’d tell the piano what he was going to teach me that day, and he’d ask if it thought I could handle it. I’d laugh to humor him, as I was never the type of child that believed the piano would answer or that Santa fell down chimneys or that wishing on stars or on pennies or at 11:11 made any sort of difference in getting me any closer to anything I wanted.

  I flipped around through some of the sheet music we had, but I didn’t feel like playing any of that. Stevie Wonder: Greatest Hits, The Sound of Music, Beethoven. I started to mess around.

  I played a C chord, just because, then E minor—that sounded eerie and soothing and sad and exactly how I was feeling, so I kept going. I let my fingers run around with the major and minor chords until sound filled the room and I wasn’t thinking about it anymore. I got dramatic and started pounding the keys and really just letting it out; it got angry, then sad and soft, then angry again. I pretended there were little mini Drews and Veronicas under the keys and I was beating them, shoving my notes and punches and everything I wished I had the balls to say down their smug little throats. I kept going. I didn’t even know what I was playing. It just felt good to be making something, changing the sounds in my head—to hear music instead of noise. Fuck the noise in my head, I thought, their faces in mine. Fuck it all. I could push them out, fill my head, change the noise.…

  Fill it with sound. Fill my head with sound, fill the room with sound, fill it with anything but the noise—drown out the noise, turn off the words, black out the pictures… I got up and found a pen.

  Part 3

  THE HOLIDAYS

  ALEXANDRA HOLBROOK

  As a quasi-nonpracticing Jew, I found winter break to be a pretty lonely time. Drew and Veronica had spiraled into coupledom, Mollie’s family was all in town, and the guys in the band celebrated Christmas like normal people, so there wasn’t much for me to do but lie on my bed, listen to Radiohead, and think about how cold and lonely the world could be. I’d been doing this for a few days when Josh knocked on my door and asked if I wanted to get high in the garage; I said okay.

  “So, what’s wrong, big sister?” he asked as he packed his little bowl that I’d bought for him on South Street the week after he got caught with weed in his sock drawer. “You’ve become a complete cliché of teen angst, and I need you to cheer up and be a bitch again, because I’m bored without someone to spar with.”

  I laughed and took the first hit when he offered it to me. “I’m sorry, little brother,” I said as I coughed, then patted him on the shoulder. “The holidays are just shitty and depressing. All my friends have boyfriends.”

  “You’re the lead singer in an awesome band,” he said, forcing a smile. “That’s so much cooler than having a boyfriend!”

  “Gee, you’re right.… Lucky me.” I perched on a box full of our dad’s old albums and patted the box next to me. He obliged and plopped down.

  “I mean, think about it.…” He took a long inhale. “Would you really want to date Sam? The greatest jerk-off in Crawford history? Or Drew, who is, like, practically related to us?”

  I looked at my lap. “No.”

  “Cheer up, Al.” He handed me back the bowl. “I know it seems like having a boyfriend is a big deal, but what you have is
actually going to make you way happier in life. You’re just in high school. You’ll be talented for way longer than they’ll have shitty boyfriends.”

  I looked at Josh and laughed. “When did you get so wise, little one? Aren’t I the older sister?”

  He patted me on the back and laughed, too. “I’ve always considered myself wise beyond my years.” He exhaled and blew smoke rings, like I’d taught him to do.

  “Nice rings,” I said.

  “See, there are still some things to learn from you.”

  “Do you think Dad’s really gonna come visit after Christmas?” I asked.

  “Nope,” he said, still holding smoke in his throat, and handing me back the bowl.

  The garage door started to rumble. We looked at each other in panic, waved the smoke around, and stumbled over each other as we ran back inside.

  FERNANDO AND I HAD kissed four times since our kiss on Halloween: three times after practice and one time we went to a movie and made out in his car when he dropped me off.

  I was acutely self-aware when I was around him, always looking at myself through his eyes—trying to figure out how he saw me; what he was thinking about what I was wearing; how I was standing; how I was singing, playing, acting, coughing, laughing; and what he thought that all meant. He knew so little about me, saw such a small part of my life. I was curious as to the conclusions he drew about the little glimpses I chose to give him. It was exhausting. I was trying to enjoy it, but I couldn’t. I just kept waiting to fuck it up, for him to get bored or annoyed or grossed out, or to find out that he lost a bet or something. I knew it was only a matter of time before it all went away and things went back to the way they were. Me, Alex, the bud, boyless—that was the way of the universe—me having a quasi-boyfriend/boy I sometimes made out with had to be throwing off the whole balance of the cosmos. Somewhere in the world, the sun had to be rising at night and puppies were dying and red meant go and green meant stop. Something had been thrown off, and surely there were going to be repercussions.

  Every time we kissed, there was a solid chance that it would never happen again and order would be restored. I kept waiting for him to initiate some sort of what are we conversation, or to acknowledge with actual spoken words that we were something more than buddies and bandmates, and that I could start to assume we’d kiss every time we saw each other, but he didn’t. We never actually spoke of our rendezvous, just the band, the weather, music, what we did that weekend. It was like starting from zero every time. Every time we kissed I was surprised, like it was the first time, like it happened by accident. How many times did we have to kiss before it was expected that we would?

  I wondered if this was how it always was with these things or if this was just how it was with me, if I was doing something wrong and screwing this up, perpetuating my own self-fulfilling prophecy. Like, when did Mollie and Sam start actually dating and telling people they were boyfriend and girlfriend? I couldn’t remember. She met him at some party at the ’Zu that I wasn’t invited to, told me she actually spoke to the famous Sam Fuchs, but that he was an asshole and Veronica threw herself at him. Next thing I knew, he asked her to homecoming, they went to homecoming, and then they were boyfriend and girlfriend. That was probably normal. This was probably not normal. The fact that we didn’t kiss or touch or flirt or act like we were anything more than friends in front of Ned and Pete (except for that first time at Battle of the Bands, which I’m pretty sure they didn’t even see) probably meant that he was embarrassed by our “relationship” and didn’t want them to know about it. Didn’t want anyone to. I guessed I was fine with that. Better to have a secret make-out buddy than no make-out buddy at all. Plus, it was something for me to talk about (and slightly/grossly exaggerate) when Drew talked about Veronica.

  The night of our last practice before the holidays, Fernando and I walked out to our cars together. That happened only sometimes. Sometimes he stayed at the Farbers’ after practice to write with Ned. Sometimes when we walked out together, he kissed me; sometimes we just hugged good-bye and smiled at each other knowingly. I pretended both were totally cool and normal and neither action on his part resulted in either glee or disappointment on mine.

  It was bitterly bitingly freezing cold, and my heart beat sharp and hard, wondering which way it would go that night. The naked trees stood petrified against the white ground and navy sky, and our slow clouds of breath seemed to be the only thing warm enough to move in the silent, frozen world.

  I opened my car door, and the sound echoed against the cavernous night.

  “Well, good practice tonight. See you tomorrow?” I stuttered through chattering teeth.

  The sleeves of my puffy jacket crunched and shushed as he rubbed his mittened hands up and down them in the silence of the snow.

  “Your songs are really good, Alex. I can’t wait to sing them.” His teeth knocked, too, and the words blended together on his thick tongue.

  I smiled.

  “Really?” I said. “They’re not stupid?” My teeth chattered some more, feeling like foreign objects behind my numb lips. If this was pre-make-out nonsense talk, I wondered how long it was required to last before we could just cut to the chase, because it was fucking freezing.

  When he leaned in to kiss me, I couldn’t even feel his lips on mine. He pulled back and smiled. I smiled back.

  “What’re you doing for New Year’s?” he asked.

  Suddenly, an unexpected warmth.

  “Not sure yet.”

  “Well, let’s do something,” he said. His mouth was now purple and he was still clasping my puffy jacket sleeves. I breathed hot and wet into my wool scarf.

  “Okay,” I said. I wasn’t sure if this was my chance to ask if this meant that we were dating and if this meant that we could kiss in front of the other guys in the band and my friends and at midnight on New Year’s—if I could tell people I had a boyfriend, if I could tell Drew I had a boyfriend, if Drew, Veronica, Sam, Mollie, Fernando, and I could start going on triple dates.

  “Okay,” he said. “Get home safely.”

  “Okay,” I said, and I got into my car. Face still frozen in a smile, I called Mollie to ask her what she thought the New Year’s thing meant.

  VERONICA COLLINS

  By Christmas vacation, Drew was, like, officially my boyfriend. Me, with an actual boyfriend—I had no idea how I’d pulled that off. All of a sudden it was December and we were holding hands in public, going to winter formals together, and making New Year’s plans. Yay, Veronica! Merry Christmas to you.

  My New Year’s resolution was to stop sleeping with Sam. Yeah, it had happened only a few times, but I knew even once was too many. I don’t even know why I kept doing it. I tried not to think about it, and honestly it had worked. I was amazingly talented at talking myself into things. And he was so hot. How could I have said no to a chance to bone-dance with Sam Fuchs? Thirteen-year-old Veronica never would have forgiven me. And Mollie was such a self-righteous bitch; it’s not like she was even making it hard for me to not feel guilty.

  The first time after that time at my party was when we were having a cigarette outside Alex’s Halloween concert and neither of us had a lighter, so he somehow talked me into going to his car to get one. Getting a lighter from his car quickly escalated to doing it in the backseat. I don’t even remember how he got me to agree. I don’t even know why I wasn’t totally weirded out when we both had to get into the backseat to look for the lighter in the first place. I know I said no at first. (I wasn’t positive I had at my party, but I know I did the second time.) Maybe it was because of the football uniform. Maybe it was because of that night freshman year when Steph Black told me he was going to ask me to homecoming, but then he mysteriously asked Mollie instead. I heard later it was because Mollie had told Steph that I had chlamydia (which I totally freakin’ didn’t—it was just a yeast infection). Maybe it was what a bitch Mollie had been to me lately. Whatever it was, it was wrong, but it’s not like I was getting any from Dr
ew, which was starting to concern me a little.

  When Drew and I first started hooking up, he tried and I told him I thought we should wait, because I was trying to be all new boyfriendy wholesome Veronica and that’s what Mollie told me I was supposed to do. He, of course, being Drew, stopped immediately and said he was happy to take it slow. But it had been three months since then, and I was starting to worry that he wasn’t even interested anymore. He knew me now so that probably ruined it—he didn’t think I was hot anymore or something. He never tried again. They always try again. You always say, No, I can’t, and they say, Aw, baby, but I want you so badly, and you say, No, I shouldn’t, and they say, Oh, come on, and you give in and that’s how it’s done. No never means no. No means try a little harder, right?

  For the first time in my life, I was in town for Christmas vacation. My dad had basically relocated to the Far East, and my mom and I were supposed to go to St. Barts like we normally do, but then she invited Roger, the greaseball trainer with too many rings and too much chest hair who she met freakin’ online. I told her I’d rather kill myself than go away with her and Roger, and she said fine, then don’t come. So, I didn’t. So fuck her.

  So Drew invited me to his house for Christmas Eve. I’d never met a boy’s family before. Not even, like, a guy friend’s family. I’d maybe seen a mom or dad in passing at a Bar Mitzvah or Sweet Sixteen or something, but I had never actually sat down and had a meal and conversation with the parents of a member of the opposite sex. Marcia, his mother, was a hefty little nugget who ran around in kitten heels and a flour-covered Santa apron. She waddled on a constant loop between the dogs, the kids, and her husband, filling and refilling water bowls, cheese plates, and scotch glasses. She kept telling me how much she loved my outfit and how glad she was that I wouldn’t have to spend Christmas alone.