Anything to Have You

“As I was saying, if you could not interrupt—everyone’s all about you, and you ignore them and don’t do anything. People still ask where you are at parties. How many events do you get invited to that you don’t deign to go to, or that you instantly decline on Facebook?”

She pulled onto a street a few blocks from “our” Chinese restaurant and parallel parked.

I watched the tires in the side view mirror. “What is your point exactly?”

“My point—oh, shit—” she rolled up on the curb and then fixed it “—is that everyone knows you’re awesome. What girl in her right mind doesn’t bother using her popularity?” She turned off the engine and stared at me.

“I’m not into the partying stuff so much, and that’s all anyone does anymore. I’m sorry! I know you like it, but...hanging around drinking disgusting beer that tastes like sewer water and taking shots of raspberry-flavored nail polish remover while someone’s mom is out of town is not fun to me. Neither is sitting in someone’s basement watching a bunch of guys in knitted hats smoke weed, or getting hit on by scumbags who aren’t even sure what I just said my name was.”

“First off, everyone knows your name. But...you know what, you’re right in a way. I’ll admit it can be like that on occasion. But it can also be really fun. And when it is, it’s worth it. I have some fairly epic stories. And, yes, Nat, you are happy. But you won’t have anything crazy to look back on if you carry on like this. When I’m old and haggard, I’ll have so many ridiculous stories. I’m afraid of your biggest regret being that you didn’t live it up.”

We got out of the car and—no surprise to me—she was distracted from her bad-influence-best-friend monologue by a cute guy playing a guitar under a heater.

“Ooh!”

He looked a couple years older than us and was Urban Outfitted from loose knitted hat to moccasins. His case was open and filled with the pocket change of passersby. Brooke snaked her way to the front of the small crowd shivering around him.

“And you were so cold a minute ago!” I yelled after her. I groaned and then followed her.

The singer’s eyes locked on hers, and he smiled as he sang the next few lines directly to her. She smiled coyly back, looking from his puppy-dog eyes to his khakis and back again. Good ol’ Brooke. She turned and gave me an excited shrug. She pulled a twenty from her purse and tossed it into his battered guitar case before walking demurely back to me. What I would give to have a twenty-dollar bill I didn’t mind tossing to the wind.

“He’s really hot, isn’t he?”

I looked at him. He was cute. But it was cuter that she thought he was superhot. Something about him wasn’t mainstream attractive.

“Come on, Miss Casanova,” I said, looping my arm through hers. Brooke was, as my dad put it, “boy crazy.”

“Thank you, you’re gorgeous!” he shouted after us—well, after Brooke—as we made our way down the street face-first into a gust of chilly, wintry wind.

“Do you think I was meant to meet him? Like fate and all that?”

“Him? My God, Brooke.” I laughed. “No, no, no. Let’s go get our food.”

“Fine. But he was really cute. And so good!”

“Yes, he was practically Paul McCartney.”

She sighed, her attention and gaze already moving on to another subject. “I want to be twenty-one.” She gestured at the people sitting in a nearby bar. “Look at them all—drinking and hanging out, not a care in the world. No school.”

My ADD best friend. She wanted one thing badly, then wanted another even worse two seconds later.

“Uh-huh. Because as everyone knows, drinking is the universal sign for not having any troubles.”

“Whoa,” she said, halting completely. “Is that...Reed in there?”

We both stepped closer and peered through the window. “God.” I shook my head. “I can’t think of someone to better demonstrate my point.”

James Reed was our local bad boy. There was something about him that made seemingly sane girls lose their minds. He was good-looking and extremely charming when he wanted to be. But he was also an obnoxious and contemptuous, self-obsessed douche bag. Here are the top things said about James Reed:

1. “I thought he really liked me!”

2. “One minute everything was fine, and then I never heard from him again!”

3. “Fuck him! No seriously, fuck Reed.”

4. “What a jerk. I wonder if he likes me.”

Here are the top things said to James Reed:

1. “I hate you, do not ever talk to me again.”

2. “You’re an asshole.”

3. “Fine, one more time, but that’s it.”

It could be argued that I was biased, since I might have been one of those seemingly sane girls that fell for a charming line and a boyish dimple. I’m a smart girl, but I wasn’t smart enough fast enough to escape his grasp unscathed.

“Look at him, leaning on the bar, surrounded by dumb girls,” said Brooke. “Of course he’s doing that. Of course he is.”

She bit her lip, shaking her head but still staring at him.

I sometimes feared that she was one bad choice away from becoming another girl burned by him. I didn’t object on a jealous level, just because I had hooked up with him. Once I was away from him, I never again was able to see why I had been fooled by his whole shtick. I cared because he would burn Brooke, and she would be humiliated. And then I would probably have to kill him.

“How did he even...like, does he have a fake ID or...”

“Probably,” I said. “Whatever, it’s his felony.”

“I bet we could get in. I look like I could be twenty-one, don’t I?” She adjusted her clothes. “We should try.”

“I am in leggings and a sweatshirt, and I’m wearing my glasses. For one thing.”

“Exactly! You’re being...ironic. And you’re wearing thick-rimmed tortoiseshells! You will blend right in with all the hipsters! You’ll snag some guy who would probably be cute if he didn’t have a handlebar mustache, and I’ll kick Reed in the balls for you. It’ll be fun!”

“I’m wearing these so I can see, not so I can look trendy. And no need to kick him in the balls. I’m pretty sure someone else will do that for us tonight. Come on, let’s go order our food.”

She let me lead her away, her focus stuck back on me.

“I think I’ve got something here, though. That’s who you need—a slightly older guy who can understand your love of the Mamas and the Papas and who will watch your Hitchcock movies with you. That—” she pointed back at the hipster bar “—is where those guys are! Them, and a couple of skeezeballs like Reed, who somehow finagled their way in.”

“I don’t need a guy to do those things with!”

She threw her head back and groaned. “Okay, you’re right. You don’t need a guy who can necessarily do that. But you need a boyfriend, Nat. Or a boy toy at least. You are seventeen and hot, and you haven’t done, like, anything.”

“Shh!” I looked around.

“Exactly! It’s embarrassing. You should be embarrassed.”

“I’m not a virgin, Brooke,” I whispered.