by Blake Nelson
“You are so nasty!” was Rebecca’s reaction when I told her. I guess it was true but the thing was I loved Todd so much I didn’t care. And when he went back to Seattle I wasn’t even sad because I knew I was in his heart and he was in mine. And I didn’t care if we weren’t officially boyfriend and girlfriend or if he lived with Carla or if he hung out with other girls because my feelings were beyond possession and whining and the usual girlfriend stuff. And if I was sad sometimes it was the best kind of sadness, just lying in your bed and dreaming of someone or imagining he’s sitting with you on the bus or talking to him in your head while you’re going through your day. And it was true I was totally in lust and we were pretty nasty but it was love too and love was like that and made you desire with all of your being. And anyway it wasn’t like you could be with someone like Todd every day. He wasn’t that type of person. And I mean, even if it was bordering on groupiness, that was hardly an excuse to give up the funnest person you ever met.
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And then at KBAN Jamaal was bugging me if I had a boyfriend. I said sort of and I told him about Todd and how he was a musician and a free spirit and then Jamaal dedicated a song to “Andrea and Todd” and it was this woman with this super deep voice and it made you think you were in a smoky train station and your lover was leaving forever and how the world was so full of tragedy and sweet sadness. And then Jamaal sent me across the street to get iced coffees and when I got back Ms. Caliban was there and she was being such a priss and asking me if I vacuumed yet and I had but obviously it wasn’t good enough. So I got out the vacuum and turned it on and then she yelled at me to turn it off because she was on the phone. Fortunately I hadn’t done the waste-baskets yet and so I did that and when I was done she was still in my chair so I went and sat with Jamaal and he showed me how to turn the dials to fade out the music.
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When Fiona first joined of our Fathers, she said she didn’t do drugs that much. But that didn’t last long. She and Matthew were smoking pot every second. And also drinking. Greg was still totally straight, except for his addiction to hair dye, and so the band was starting to divide between him and Cybil on one side and Matthew and Fiona on the other. Cybil didn’t seem too worried about it though, the real complainer was Rebecca, who would say how much she hated pot and drinking beer all the time but when she was around Matthew she would always do it. And she still liked Matthew but she was so afraid of Fiona she wouldn’t try to challenge her or ask Matthew about it and everybody was beginning to suspect that Fiona and Matthew were doing more than just bong hits in his basement after practice.
Then Greg got a girlfriend. Her name was Barbara and she was this trippy girl from Outer Limits and she had hair extensions and a nose ring and she smelled like incense. And she came to every practice and smoked cigarettes and wouldn’t talk to anyone. And Cybil said how weird she was and one time me and Rebecca tried to ask her questions but she wouldn’t answer and she acted like she was too cool for us and she seemed sort of pathetic. And then one day she didn’t come and Matthew said they had broken up and even though nobody liked her that much we all felt sorry for Greg.
But at least he got laid. I guess sex was all anyone thought about during the summer. I know it was all I thought about. And every day I went downtown to the Metro Mall after work or hung around Scamp’s or sometimes sat at the tables outside Kruger’s Department Store. And everywhere I went boys looked at me and tried to talk to me and sometimes I would be tempted but they were always boring or on some ego trip or something. Todd was really the only person I could think about. And I’d sit outside Kruger’s and write letters to him or poems or just little notes and sometimes I would draw him or I’d make a chain across the page with “Todd Sparrow” on one end and “Andrea Marr” on the other.
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And then one day I saw Luke at Metro Mall and he said they were all back at Carla’s. I talked to him for a while and then gave him my number really casual-like in case Todd wanted to call. He did. That night during dinner. And he sounded so weird on the phone, really raspy and far away. And the conversation was awkward because my dad was yelling at me to get off the phone because he gave somebody a root canal and their face was supposedly exploding. I pulled the phone cord into the next room and tried to ignore him. And poor Todd, because their van got towed and everyone was sleeping on the floor at Carla’s and he was calling from a pay phone and they were all broke and everything was going wrong. And I tried to be there for him and make him know how much I loved him without actually saying it. And I guess it worked because he started talking really sexy and I said things and I could tell how horny it was making him. And when I hung up I was blushing and my dad grabbed the phone and hung it up but then the root-canal guy didn’t even call.
The next day Todd called me at work and wanted me to come over. I was lusting so bad. And as soon as work was over I jumped on the bus and went to Carla’s and buzzed her apartment. Todd came down and we snuck into the basement to this little storage room. We got inside it and Todd locked the door and he didn’t say one word, he just backed me to the wall and kissed me and reached under my dress for my panties. And he was feeling me in this really aggressive way and then he lifted me up against the wall and put it inside me and started doing it and all this dust was getting on me. After that we laid on these old rugs and he was being really quiet and it was weird. And then we started kissing again and making out and I kept trying to look in his eyes but there was all this dust and stuff and he kept sneezing and then we did it in this sideways position and I couldn’t really tell what he was thinking. And then he had to go back upstairs and I started to leave but then he called me back and gave me a hug. But it was weird because it wasn’t a happy hug, it was sort of sad and desperate and like trying to hold on. And then he seemed embarrassed and he tried to smile and I just left really fast and walked to the bus stop. And my mind was racing and I kept telling myself that everything was okay but it wasn’t okay because I was just craving Todd and loving him more than ever and I was getting in such a panic I had to stop and sit down and take ten deep breaths.
The next day Rebecca called me at work and she was hysterical. She had been talking to Matthew and he had casually mentioned that he’d had sex with Fiona. And she was so shocked and I tried to tell her it was pretty obvious but then she started yelling at me like, why didn’t I tell her? How could I let her be so humiliated? I tried to explain that maybe Matthew hadn’t considered her his girlfriend and that really set her off. She wasn’t some dumb slut! She wasn’t some groupie! I said of course she wasn’t though she was in a way. We all were. Except Cybil. And then she said that Matthew was only a junior and we were seniors and how dare he! And that was funny because it made me realize that high school did not matter anymore. Now that we were seniors, now that all the high school rules worked in our favor, we had transcended them. And I was trying to calm her down but all the time I kept thinking about Todd and what I could do to prevent this from happening to me.
What I did was, I started rationing Todd. Or at least I tried to. I had a big desktop calendar at work and whenever I saw Todd I put a “T” on that day and if I had sex with him I put a circle around it. If I called him I put a T with an arrow pointed toward it. If he called me I put a T with an arrow pointing away from it. And I made up rules like I would never call him three days in a row. And I would never call him the day after we had sex. And if he called me I could call him back if for some reason we hadn’t talked enough but I never invited myself over or suggested we go out unless he had called me or unless two days had gone by since we last had sex. And after only two weeks I had this huge chart and all these rules diagrammed out like math formulas. And naturally all of this was a secret but then Jamaal saw me working on it and he started bugging me to explain it. So I finally did and he cracked up and said how white people always had to organize everything into charts and graphs, even their love lives.
And all this time Jamaal was getting m
e addicted to iced coffee and I would always have one with lunch now and they were so delicious, especially when it was really hot. I had finally made friends with the lady at the store across the street. Sort of. I think she was prejudiced. Not just against black people but against everyone at KBAN. Probably Sondra Caliban had given her a hard time. But I would be really sweet and I would trick her into talking to me by asking her really stupid questions and then agreeing with everything she said. Her favorite thing to talk about was the horrible Mexicans who were always sleeping in her doorway and going to the bathroom on her garbage cans. And one day it was like 102 degrees and I was getting iced coffees and her fan was broken and she was sweating and her perm had totally fallen over. And she tried to give me some gum that was melting and she seemed sort of crazy and it was so depressing because she was old and she had no friends and what could she possibly have to look forward to?
And then one day Todd called me at KBAN and asked me about Sins of Our Fathers and if they were any good. I was like, “Sins of Our Fathers? They’re the best!” He said he saw them a long time ago but they didn’t have a bass player and he thought they were pretty bad. So I told him about all the changes they had made and they were a totally different band and they were really heavy now and Fiona was the bass player. Todd said, “Fiona Carlisle?” I said yeah and he laughed and I said what’s so funny and he said she gave Luke herpes. I was like, what? But he just laughed. And then he said everyone was talking about Sins of Ours Fathers lately and he was going to give them a shot at opening for his band in August at this big show. But that made me mad and I said, “Give them a shot? Don’t you even know who Cybil is?” And then I told him about when Cybil shaved her head for him and how he was a legend to us for years because of Cybil and he had never heard any of this and he was like, “No shit?”
I hung up and immediately called Rebecca. I told her that Fiona had herpes and she about died. She started inspecting herself while we were on the phone and she was like, “What does it look like?” I said, “How would I know?” She said she always used a condom with Matthew and didn’t that protect you? But I didn’t know and so she called some other people and I called Cybil and she said herpes was no big deal but still don’t tell anyone because it would make the band seem sleazy. So then I told her that Todd wanted to play with them but Cybil didn’t seem that impressed. She said, “Tell him to call Matthew.”
Todd didn’t have to. Matthew called him. And they set it up. So then everyone was getting all excited about the big show of Color Green and Sins of Our Fathers, especially Matthew. Meanwhile Rebecca didn’t get herpes and she forgave Matthew and she wanted me to corne to a practice with her. So I did and we hung out and it was really loud and Cybil was screaming her brains out and Fiona was really cool the way she head-banged like a boy. Afterward we all drank beer and I even smoked pot because I had made a pact with myself that I could smoke pot a couple times during the summer but not during the school year. And Fiona told dumb-blonde jokes and smoked cigarettes and then Greg came over and asked me about Todd Sparrow and what he was really like and I was so stupid from the pot I just laughed at him. But then I noticed that everyone was waiting to see what I’d say about Todd. Matthew especially and Cybil and even Fiona leaned toward me and waited to hear. It was so weird. And I was too high on pot and I was getting paranoid and I told them all to stop staring at me.
And then Todd called me at KBAN and he was going to Seattle to see Buzz Mitchell and he wasn’t going to be back until the show with Sins of Our Fathers. I was at my desk at work and looking at my calendar and it was August 5 and the show was August 14 and when I saw all those blank spaces in a row I couldn’t think of what to say. Todd was trying to be nice and I said, “Couldn’t you just come back for a day in the middle?” He started to say why he couldn’t but I said, “I didn’t mean that. I know you can’t,” or some dumb thing. All I wanted was to get off the phone before I turned into whiny girlfriend. And as soon as I hung up I went and got iced coffees and the crazy lady was there and yakking at me and I didn’t hear a word she said. And then back at the station I sat in the studio with Jamaal and I drank my iced coffee so fast it made my head spin.
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It was so weird when Todd left. For one thing I was walking through Metro Mall one day and this girl I never saw before came up to me and asked me if I was Andrea Marr and was I going out with Todd? I said I was and she introduced herself as Lisa and she wanted to know if Luke had a girlfriend. I started to answer and she said, “I mean a girlfriend in Portland.” She said that she knew they were always going up to Seattle and stuff. And I wasn’t sure what she meant but she smiled a certain way and then I knew. And I was taking the bus home anyway so I had coffee with Lisa and she was weird and her hair looked really damaged like it had been dyed a million times. And then it turned out she went to Camden and she had just graduated and we talked about graduating from high school and she said the whole thing was stupid, it was all this build-up and the next day nothing happens and you’re just hanging around Metro Mall or maybe looking for a job. She was pretty depressing. And then when I went to the bus stop she followed me and she asked me about Todd and had I heard any of the tapes from the new record but I didn’t even know there were any. And she told me about her friend Vanessa and how all her friends had crushes on Todd and they had heard about me and she was really glad to meet me. And I said me too and I shook her hand and then she hugged me and it was extremely weird.
And then Rebecca had this idea that we should all go to Monte Carlo and look for new boyfriends. Cybil was not into it and she hated Monte Carlo because it was just a bunch of girls like Wendy Simpson. But it was summer and there wasn’t anything else to do or any place to go since Outer Limits closed. So we all went and it was Rave Night and everyone was dressed British and trying to be fashionable. We sat in a booth and boys immediately started coming over and asking us to dance and Cybil was being such a snot. But when girls came over and asked her about Sins of Our Fathers she was totally nice to them. This one girl stood there for fifteen minutes telling us about the band she was starting and how great they were going to be. Then Lisa walked in. I hid behind Rebecca. And then Kevin came in with his new girlfriend, Celeste, who was the most beautiful blond hippie spirit you ever saw. And I was trying to be mature and be happy for them but I sort of hated her. And the music was totally pounding and all the boys were jumping up and down like monkeys and Monte Carlo was okay but compared to being with Todd it just seemed like a big waste of time.
Then Carla walked in. She was by herself and Cybil waved to her and she came over and she acted really shy even though she was the coolest person in the whole place. She asked if she could sit with us and we were like, “Of course!” So she got in the booth and then she looked straight at me and said that Todd had been arrested in Seattle and he was in jail. We were all in shock and then she looked at Cybil and said, “You’re Cybil.” And Cybil said, “You’re Carla,” and then they had mutual admiration society and Carla said how much she liked Sins of Our Fathers and Cybil said how much she liked Carla’s fashion ideas. And I told Carla how I loved her apartment and how cool she was to let Todd stay there. And Cybil asked her about her hair and where she shopped. And Rebecca was getting pissed and she finally blurted out, “I thought we came here to meet boys!” And Carla looked around and said, “Are there any interesting ones?” And Cybil said, “No.” And Carla lit a cigarette and me and Rebecca both took one but I was coughing and I couldn’t really smoke it.
Rebecca found a boy. He was from Learning Center and Kevin sent him over and Rebecca danced with him. And Carla turned to me and said, “I don’t know if you know this but when Todd goes to Seattle he stays with a girl named Tori and if you want to call her and find out if he’s out of jail, I’ll give you her number.” I said okay and I took the number and sat back and we all watched Rebecca dance. And all these boys kept coming up to us and it was annoying and Carla wanted to go outs
ide. So me and Cybil went with her and it was a lot better outside because everyone leaned on cars and sat on the curb just like at Outer Limits. And I asked Carla what Tori was like and how old was she and Carla said she was pretty weird and she was twenty-five and she was manic-depressive. And all the time we were talking guys were staring at us and girls too and I remembered Outer Limits and how Carla was always the coolest girl and whatever people were with her were always the coolest people.
