1
THE MUSIC IN THE CAR was so loud that my teeth vibrated. I couldn’t hear words, just a raw, brutal wall of noise. I didn’t cover my ears, since you shouldn’t ever show that kind of weakness around Pothan and Ken, but half an hour into the ride I leaned forward and shouted: “Are we going to the lake house?”
“What?” Pothan yelled.
I reached for the volume knob, but Ken swatted my hand.
“Are we going to the lake house?” I shouted.
“What?”
“Are we going to the lake house?”
“What?”
This went on absurdly long, until I realized Pothan was toying with me. I slapped the back of his head, and he jerked the car into the next lane.
“Holy shit!” I yelped.
“Don’t mess with the driver.”
“You did that on purpose.”
Ken sat quietly in the front passenger seat, his face lit up with a sideways smile. Ken had really dense eyebrows and a broad neck. His arms and shoulders were huge, but his legs were puny, and Pothan loved to call him chicken legs. Ken always said legs didn’t matter; girls didn’t go for legs, but I was sure he regretted his gym choices—he never, under any circumstances, wore shorts. The problem was that if he suddenly added a leg day to his workout, everyone would know Pothan had gotten to him.
When they missed the exit for the lake house, I was like, What the fuck?, but Pothan pretended not to notice.
“Hey, where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
“Umm, didn’t Avani say to meet at the lake house?”
“Nandan, this is an intervention. You cannot keep trying to hang out with her.”
Part of me wanted to force Ken and Pothan to let me out and let me make my own way to the lake house. But if I showed up by myself, empty-handed, without a party in tow, it wouldn’t be fun: it’d be stilted and awkward.
I wasn’t like Pothan. I didn’t have that indefinable extra something that marked a person as a leader. A party isn’t an end in itself; a party is just a container for exciting things. It’s a place where you bring together lots of people and heat them up and see what will happen. But in order to experience the magic and grandeur of a party, you need to hang around the right people. My presence brought nothing extra to a party, and I’d resigned myself to this. I was a follower.
We ended up at the beach, in Santa Cruz, where Pothan and Ken made me gulp down a forty before letting me out of the car. I was ambling across the boardwalk, grinning goofily, when Pothan jabbed my side and said to look for a rebound girl.
I rubbed the sore spot on my rib and looked for an opening to hit him back, but he was already out of arm’s reach.
“Avani made you lazy,” Pothan said. “She was a decent start, but you got lucky, bro. Admit it, you got lucky.”
“I freely admit she was out of my league,” I said.
“Nobody’s out of your league, dude. That attitude is exactly the problem. You act like you’re not good enough, and the problem is that doesn’t work. If you’re not confident, most girls can smell that, and they stay away.”
We ate hot dogs at a table on the edge of the boardwalk. To our left, tourists spilled out of a Ripley’s, and on our right, the ocean was lit by the setting sun.
A dozen feet away, a group of three girls burst into laughter. I fought to catch the nearest girl’s eye, and she smiled back with that nervous, automatic smile that’s a girl’s first defense against a strange guy.
“Should we talk to them?” I said.
“Who?” Pothan said. “Them?” He jabbed a thumb at the trio, and over his shoulder I saw them notice his gesture. “No. Of course not.”
Ken looked up from his phone. “The blind spot should be pretty good today.” They were talking about the part of the beach, out past the rocks, that you couldn’t see from the boardwalk.
“Yep. The blind spot,” Pothan said.
I compacted all my food trash into a ketchup-covered ball and tossed it into the garbage can. The eyes of the girls tracked us. Ken tossed a brutal “Hey” in their direction, but we were gone before they could respond.
“Uhh, maybe I don’t understand the plan here,” I said.
“Dude,” Ken said. “You’re gonna hook up today. Those girls? They would’ve laughed and smiled and maybe followed you online, but here and now nothing would’ve happened.”
Pothan clapped a hand onto Ken’s shoulder. “Hey, there’s nothing wrong with planting seeds for later.”
My neck was tense. I was actually fine with later. Somewhere out of sight. Hooking up in the blind spot, with the whole beach nearby, sounded incredibly nerve-racking.
We climbed over the rocks and came down near a group of kids sitting on the other side. They wore dark colors, and many had dyed hair. Leather jackets were in evidence. You know, it’s weird: you watch old movies and the alternative kids are always wearing the exact same shit that alternative kids wear today.
They gave us blank, guarded looks, but Pothan jabbed his chin at them, and although my stomach squawked, I knew this was a test of whether I had the balls to approach.
“Err, hey.”
I spoke to the group in general, but my voice was quiet and the surf was loud, and only one guy, a dude with three earrings through his left ear, looked at me.
“Hey,” I said again.
“Yeah?”
“Umm, what’s up?”
“Nothing, ‘bruh,’” he said. “What’s up with you?”
One of the girls looked me over and turned away. Then Pothan came in, with his back hunched, his arms hanging down like a crazed monkey. “Yo,” he said. “You guys have any rolling papers?”
The guy shrugged. Then there was a general rooting-through of bags until a pack of rolling papers appeared. Taking the little cardboard package, Pothan said, “Cool. Oh, anyone have something I can use for a filter?”
Ken, to my side, started snickering.
A longer wait while a girl tore off a little bit of the cover from her notebook. “Great, great,” Pothan said. “Now anyone got any tobacco?”
A pouch was produced. By now half the group had figured out the joke, but their leader, the guy with the earrings, was still huffing and puffing and shaking his head, as if to be like, Okay, fine, now it’s time for you to leave.
I jumped in. “Let me do that.” I took over the spliff-rolling operation while Pothan made small talk with the leader.
“Umm,” I said. “Anyone got any weed I can put in here?”
There was open laughter. The nearest girl, thank God, took out a little grinder and sprinkled some onto the paper. I gave her a big smile. Her hair was pink, but it’d grown out, showing her dark roots. I scooted close, sitting cross-legged with the paper on my lap.
“Hey,” I said. My heart was beating so hard, and for once not just from anxiety, but from excitement too. “Help shield me from the wind.”
She put out her hands. “You guys are ridiculous,” she said.
“Believe me, I know.”
I blinked a few times and looked at the little mass of weed and tobacco lying on the paper.
“Anyone have . . . ?” I said.
The whole group stopped talking.