by Micol Ostow
I crouched down to assess the damage. My jeans were soaked.
A thick, beefy head poked its way out of the window. “HEADS UP!” he shouted, then retreated back inside.
Thanks, buddy.
“Oh, no,” Charlie said. “Did it get you?”
I extended my right leg by way of demonstration and shook it tentatively back and forth, an impromptu hokeypokey.
“You can’t even tell,” she proclaimed.
“But … what?” Of course you could tell. The entire bottom half of my jeans leg was soaking wet. You would have to be … well, you would have to be not looking to not be able to tell. Or maybe blind.
“Come on,” she said, with finality. “We’re going in.”
Inside, the house throbbed with energy. The walls pulsed with canned dance music, and the lights were either out completely or were dimmed way down. The house seemed to be illuminated solely by the psychedelic glow of a long chain of Christmas lights.
At least no one would be able to see the stain on my jeans.
“Oh, look, there’s Raegan,” Charlie said with a squeal. She gestured in the general direction of a tall redhead in the distance. “She wants us to come over!”
I could see no evidence of the fact that Raegan actually did want us to come over (I could barely see Raegen, for that matter) and, more to the point, I couldn’t see any easy way over there. “Ill just wait for you here,” I said.
Charlie didn’t like this plan one bit. She knit her brows together, thinking. “Okay,” she said finally. “You can stay here.”
“Mother, may I?” I asked, half-joking.
“Yes,” she said, either missing my sarcasm completely or deliberately choosing to ignore it. “On one condition.”
“Which is?”
“That you talk to someone. Anyone.”
“Huh?” I asked.
“It’s simple, Claud. I’m going over there to talk to Raegan. Now, ‘over there’ is far away and it’s kind of crowded, and given that you aren’t really interested in rushing—this semester—I’m going to grant you that maybe there’s no real reason for you to come with me. But if you’re going to stay here, you’re going to practice being social.”
I stared at her in disbelief. “Do you think I am, um, socially challenged?” I asked carefully.
She shook her head emphatically. “I don’t, sweetie. But you do. At least, tonight you do. So maybe you need a little … what’s that they call it—ah, cognate behavior therapy!” She raised a finger triumphantly.
Her father was a celebrity shrink, I knew. But that didn’t mean his training had rubbed off on Charlie.
“You know, when you deliberately behave in a certain way and then, soon enough, your brain follows.” She smiled.
“I’m not sure that’s the exact scientific definition of the term, Charlie,” I replied. The last thing I wanted was to be her social case study.
She shrugged. “There must be someone here you’re willing to chat with.”
I scanned the immediate vicinity. “There,” I said, nodding my head toward a perky brunette standing a few feet away. “She’s in our dorm. I think her name is Shelley. We were on line together at the yogurt shop the other day.”
Charlie wagged a finger at me impatiently. “Dear, y’all are missing the point. You’re not gonna talk to some girl from our dorm. You can do that any old day. Tonight, you’re going to work on your flirt. Which means that you have to go up to some guy—any guy—and strike up a conversation.”
That sounded suspiciously easy. “Just walk up to any old guy, and say anything?”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded in the affirmative. “Anything you want. It doesn’t even matter if he runs screaming in the opposite direction—”
“Thanks, Charlie—”
“Which he won’t” she continued loudly, cutting me off. “But it doesn’t matter, anyway. ’Cause what we’re going for here is practice. You need to get out of the Drew zone.”
“It’s not the worst idea you’ve ever had,” I conceded.
“Awesome!” she said brightly, scampering off.
Alone, I suddenly felt a lot less sure of myself than I had only moments before. Focus, Claudia. All you have to say is “hi” I reminded myself. I took a deep breath and turned to the boy on my left. He held my gaze for a moment. I frantically brain-stormed a few openers: Have you got a light?: What’s your sign?: Do you know where the bathroom is? and rejected each on its own lack of singular merit (I don’t smoke; way too cheesy; slightly gross). By the time I had come up with one, he was gone.
I shoved my way into the common room to find a few stocky boys in South Park T-shirts playing a game that involved cups of beer and ping-pong balls. They had obviously been at it for a while, and they seemed like they could be good candidates for my mission. I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall, feeling like a groupie.
After one more round of what looked like people trying to slam ping-pong balls into half-filled cups of beer with paddles (soggy, drunken variation on a carnival game?), a tall, lanky boy with dark hair was proclaimed the winner. “VICTORY SHOT!” he shouted, raising his arms above his head exuberantly and ushering his teammates through the doorway toward what I presumed was the kitchen.
I ran to the bathroom to regroup for a moment. I waited in line briefly. When I was up I locked the door and collapsed against it from the inside. What was wrong with me? This was a party, for pete’s sake, not a job interview. There was no reason to freak out. Okay, so, maybe it had been a while since I’d been in a party-type environment without Drew surgically attached to my arm. Back in high school we had a system worked out where we separated at parties so that we could mingle with our friends, but we always checked in every half hour or so. Who would I check in with tonight?
Then again, that was a large part of why we had decided to break up. We needed to take some time to figure out who we were.
Apparently, I was a socially inept barf machine with stained jeans.
I stood and splashed some cold water on my face. My hair was behaving and, despite the tropical climate inside of the Sigma Nu house, my makeup was pretty much intact. I wasn’t the Elephant Man or a refugee from the “before” part of Extreme Makeover. I was a pretty cute girl who, unfortunately, had drank a little too much a few nights before. Duh. Isn’t that par for the course for college?
Well, I had managed to give myself a decent mental pep talk when I realized that, for all of my faux-confidence, I was still you know, hiding in the bathroom. So I popped a Tic Tac and made my way back to the party.
I found the kitchen, which wasn’t too difficult (I just followed the sticky beer trail), where Victory and his friends were vigorously attacking a keg. Improvising, I grabbed at a plastic cup and sidled closer to the keg. “Hey,” I said, smiling at Victory and holding out my cup. “Can you hook me up?” I had no plans to actually drink the beer, of course, but I needed a prop.
“Be glad to,” he said, grinning right back at me. He was, at least, pretty cute. He had bright green eyes and thick, sandy brown hair, and even underneath an oversize T-shirt I could see that he was in spectacular shape. I remembered that Sigma Nu was known as “the football frat.”
I’d never dated an athlete before—Drew was a total do-gooder/school nerd/student council darling—but reminded myself that the point of this endeavor was just to get the rust out of my system. All I really had to do was talk to him—which, hey! Mission accomplished. Everything from this point on was just gravy.
Once my cup was full, we headed back to the common room. “You wanna sit?” my new boyfriend asked.
I settled myself on the couch, and Victory sat down next to me. Actually, he was essentially sitting on me. I laughed nervously and scooted a few inches back.
“So, you’re a freshman?” he asked, leaning into my personal space. I did another small shimmy backward.
“Um, yeah! Well, freshperson.” I giggled. How was it that he was back in my lap again? I slid ba
ckward. We were playing some weird game of reverse Twister.
“What’s your name?” I asked, stalling for time.
He put his hand on my knee. “Kris,” he said. He wrapped his free arm around me. We were seriously starting to cross some boundaries here.
“I’m Claudia,” I said, holding out my hand to shake.
He looked at my hand, laughed, and pressed it down onto his leg. “Sure,” he said, sounding distracted. He leaned his face forward.
Now, Ellen, I may have lost my flirt, but it was plain to see that he was entering the kiss zone, which was totally out of the question.
“Oh, look!” I said brightly, pointing off into the distance at an imaginary acquaintance. I jumped up from the couch. “There’s my friend Shelley! I’m coming, Shelley,” I shouted, waving into thin air.
Kris shrugged and turned to the girl who was sitting on his opposite side, asking to bum a smoke. I guess I’m pretty easy to get over.
I needed to find Charlie and let her know that I was leaving, mission accomplished. I had nothing left to prove and, to be honest, I was tired.
“Easy come, easy go, huh?”
I felt a hand on my shoulder and I spun around quickly. “Huh?”
All of my frustration melted away. It was Gabe. He was the last person I expected to find at a frat party. “I saw the way you handled that guy. Classic.”
I ran my fingers through my hair, tense. “I swear, my sex appeal must be totally on the fritz,” I grumbled.
“Oh, uh …” Gabe frowned and stammered at me. He looked left, then right, then down at the ground, as if he couldn’t decide where to settle.
Oh, god, I thought. Awkward-moment alert. Abort! Abort!
Color flooded into my cheeks. “Never mind.” I exhaled sharply. “God, I am such a dork. That whole scene was a complete cliché.”
Gabe burst into nervous laughter. After a moment, he regained his composure. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“My roommate wants to rush. So one of her sisters—well, would-be sisters—invited her. You know, to check out the scene.” I shuddered involuntarily. “It’s fun,” I said, a shade too enthusiastically, feeling a wave of loyalty to Charlie. “I mean, I didn’t have any cool concerts to review tonight, anyway,” I said.
“Yeah,” Gabe agreed. “You should come down to the paper tomorrow. I’ve got a bunch of new stuff in. That is, if you want to write again.”
“I definitely do. I mean, I will. I mean—” I stopped myself. “What about you, anyway?” I asked. “What are you doing here? I thought you hated the Greek scene.”
I gave him a quick once-over. He did look vaguely out of place in this setting. His hair was hat-free and carefully mussed (there was definitely some “product” action going on, I decided), and he wore a tight ringer T-shirt that said, VIRGINIA IS FOR LOVERS. His cords were frayed, and his Pumas were two-toned.
He was the anti-Drew, and I loved it.
“‘Hate’ is a strong word, Claudia,” he said, breaking me out of my reverie. He pointed at his shirt. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”
Mmmm, I hope so, I thought. I straightened, trying to banish all inappropriate thought from my mind. “Uh-huh!” I said brightly.
He shrugged. “Anyway, it’s Kyra’s scene. You know, she was, like, a legacy. So she’s Greek. And I’m the moral support.”
The words hit me like a punch in the stomach. He was here for Kyra. He was her moral support. He wasn’t mine. He wasn’t even on the market.
“There she is!” Gabe said, busting into my big, deep thoughts.
He doesn’t have to sound so freakin’ pleased about it, I thought sullenly.
But yes, there she was. She wore a sleeveless printed top that on anyone else would have looked like Grandma’s curtains. Her jeans were soft, faded, and stain-free. Her hair was twisted up on top of her head in a style that would have taken me hours to perfect, but for Kyra, I’m sure, was effortless. She probably slept with her hair that way. She was talking to another girl, someone equally casual and good-looking and, from my vantage point, it felt as though I were watching the scene unfold on-screen. It was a movie, and Kyra was the star. But of course, it wasn’t really a movie. It was my life. Kyra was the star of the movie of my life? When had that happened? It was so unfair.
He grabbed at my wrist. “Come on, let’s go say hi. She’ll be glad that you’re here.”
I had no idea why Gabe thought that Kyra and I were destined to be fast friends. The girl was friendly to all, including stray animals, and therefore she’d always be pleasant to me. I mean, I’m sure I wasn’t the first chick to crush on her guy, and even if I were, she obviously didn’t have any reason to feel threatened. But that didn’t mean we needed to be bosom buddies, braid each other’s hair, and tell secrets at frat parties. Especially on a night like this, when I was already feeling flattened. No way was I going over there to watch Gabe fawn all over his Answer Goddess.
I was out of there.
Anyhoo, that’s my story. But no sense in dwelling. Gabe can’t possibly be the last living sex god, can he?
Can he?
—xx
“I can’t believe you just went home,” Charlie said.
It was the evening after the frat party and we were sitting in the dining hall picking at dinner and rehashing the events of the previous night. Or, rather, I was listlessly picking away. Charlie was wolfing down her sandwich with gusto. Shelley, who was eating with us, was frowning into her salad. The tomatoes weren’t looking very promising.
Charlie swatted at my hand as I reached for another fry.
“Hey!” I protested.
“I’m hungry. There are plenty more fries over at the steam table.”
I shook my head. “Not gonna happen.” I sunk lower into my seat and zipped up the front of my hoodie. “Tired.”
She nodded. “Well, you had a long night,” she agreed. “And with a sad ending.”
I stabbed my fork toward my salad, chasing a cherry tomato around the bowl. “It was stupid to think South Park could replace Drew.”
“Maybe it’s too soon to be looking to replace Drew,” Charlie offered carefully. “If you’re feeling like your sex appeal is on the fritz, maybe you need to get more practice in. South Park might have been a dork-wad, but talking to him did loosen you up. Baby steps.”
“So what am I supposed to do, talk to someone new every day?” I grumbled. “File a report with the flirt police?”
“Yes! Well, I mean, not quite,” Charlie said, sounding thoughtful. “You don’t have to file a report. But you should do that. One guy a day. For thirty days. You know, ‘thirty days hath September.’ It could be your September thing.”
“That’s a lot of days,” Shelley pointed out.
“And it’s September third. We’re already behind.” I was not liking the sound of this.
“Whatever. It’s a good, round number,” she said. “Don’t get grouchy. You’re the one who feels ‘rusty,’ or whatever you were saying before.”
“Does last night count?” I asked. I was intrigued, I have to admit.
Charlie looked thoughtful. “Yes,” she decided, after a moment. “Because you were acting on a specific directive when you chatted up Kris.”
“Yes, yes I was,” I agreed smugly. “One target down, twenty-nine to go.” I pulled my hair out of its dirty ponytail and efficiently wrapped it right back up again, trapping any stray hairs that had emerged during my vehement protest of this plan.
“Target?” Charlie asked.
“You know, like, ‘target practice.’ You pick a target, aim, fire. That’s me.” I explained.
“I love it,” Shelley said, laughing. She furtively crammed a french fry into her mouth.
Okay, so, so far, the most promising guy on campus—Gabe—wasn’t a target. Gabe was, hopefully, a friend, an editor, a mentor—albeit an extremely hot one. But he had Kyra. And I had to move on to flirtier pastures.
Me? I may not have had a hi
gh tolerance for beer, or Greeks, or even adequately functioning feminine wiles, but I did have one thing going for me:
As of that very moment, I had “target practice.”
Four
9/6, 9:58 p.m.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected], [email protected]
re: Welcome
… to the first official recap of my “target practice.” The good news is that I have been able to target as discussed, one new male a day. The bad news is that I believe my comp sci grade has already been compromised. Curious? Of course you are. Without further ado, then:
(ahem)
The Targets:
•#1: Kris the Sigma Nu creep. (Remember, I met him after midnight, so technically that was Sunday, the first official day of “target practice.” Ha-ha.)
•#2: The random boy standing behind me at the movies Monday night. I reviewed that new Bond flick for the Chronicle, remember? The one I e-mailed you both before it printed? That you promised you’d read and in fact claim to have “loved”?
Right, I thought so.
Anyway, I asked him where the restroom was. He pointed. To a huge sign marked LADIES, which was directly to my right.
Embarrassing.
•#3: Cute soccer-type perusing the “Local Authors” section at the bookstore on Tuesday.
Me: “Oh, are you taking intro to child psych?”
Target: “Huh?”
Me: (gesturing to the books in his hand) “’Cause of how you’ve got the intro to child psych book in your hand.”
Target: “No, you’ve got the intro to child psych book in your hand. I’ve got the criminology 101 book.”
Which, to be honest, he did. It’s just I hadn’t had such a close look. But really, there’s no reason for such hostility. I mean, we’re all just trying to get along, right?
Hmmph.
•#4: My new comp sci cutie, whose name is Jesse. Built blond, caffeinated Jesse. Also known as the reason I may fail this class. I arrived late for class, you see—not particularly auspicious on the first day. I tried to slink as inconspicuously as possible to the back of the room but, in the process of shimmying into my seat, managed to catch poor Jesse’s cup of coffee on my festive, if inappropriately wide, “first day of classes” skirt. My professor stopped the entire lecture to bawl me out. I didn’t have a mirror handy, but I’m pretty sure my face turned the exact shade of that pink skirt. I whispered a quick apology to Jesse, who, I must say, took the whole thing in stride. Given that he had little dregs of coffee grounds nestled in the ridges of his corduroys.
