“But . . . she really liked you.”
“No. That’s not true. I don’t know.”
A jet plane left a long white mark on the sky. “It wasn’t fun. None of this is any fun.”
He doubled over, dropping his head into his hand. “It’s like a math problem. How do we make it fun?”
“I have no idea. You only get these tiny, brief, infinitesimal moments of fun. And then, no fun. The fun disappears.”
“We don’t have to do this. We could just ignore it all.”
“Yeah. . . .”
Dave looked up at me. “You’re not convinced.”
“I don’t know, dude. Those moments, though . . .”
His eyebrows crinkled. “What? What’re you thinking about?”
“Dave, you’re supposed to just let people trail off into silence.”
He rolled his eyes. “Come on. Talking to you is like the only excitement I ever get in my life.”
“Well, I don’t know, I had this weird moment. . . .” I told him about the girl running the brush through my hair on the beach. As the words came out, I saw details I hadn’t noticed at the time, like the way her eyes, seen from below, were so watery and insubstantial.
“And you didn’t even ask her name?”
“No. I didn’t want it.”
“Maybe you’re turning into one of those awkward-cool guys.”
“What?”
“You know what I’m talking about?” he said. “Those guys everybody loves. Like, umm, umm, Greg Sarbanes.”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“Or Hyram Willendowski.”
“Who?”
“Niko Diamandis?”
“The kid who wears a fanny pack?”
“He never makes any moves, but all the girls love him. It’s kind of amazing to watch. This is our idol, Nandan.”
“Whose idol? Not my idol.”
“He’s an idol for nerdy guys. Like, you guys—nonawkward guys—have Pothan. We have Niko. He’s completely oblivious to everything and everyone. And he talks alllllll the time about how terrible he is with girls, and you can see them just looking at him and being like, But you’re so hot, you’re so amazing, except maybe you don’t know you’re hot. Maybe you need my help, my sexual help, to get over your awkwardness.”
“But he wears a fanny pack.”
“I’m telling you, dude.”
Now I laughed. “Okay, so go to Niko for advice.”
“You think I haven’t tried?” he said. “The thing is . . . ninety-nine percent of cool people—basically all of them, aside from you—are incapable of being honest.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know!”
“You’re not making sense, dude.”
He rubbed his fingers together. “I mean I’m not Holden Caulfield. I think being a fake is great. I wish I was a fake. But you have to let people behind the mask sometimes. Niko never does. If I was like, ‘How do I get with Mari?’ he’d be like, ‘Why are you asking me? I’m so terrible with girls. I’m suuuuuch a geek.’”
The way he said that, all nasal and drawn-out, made me laugh, and I ruffled the swoop of his hair.
“Hey!”
“No, but I believe you,” I said. “About Niko. The thing is, there are people like him, who’ve got the magic, and people like us, who need to fake it.”
“You don’t fake it.”
“I’m in so over my head. Pothan’s trying to turn me into”—I thought of trying to hook up with some random girl, maybe tonight, maybe over by the rocks, and my stomach lurched—“into a completely different person. But the crazy thing is: I want to be that person.”
Dave brushed sugar crumbs off his fingers. “Well, to be honest, I’d prefer not to change completely just to get a girlfriend.”
“I don’t know, though,” I said. “There’s so much shit that nobody teaches you. I’m talking about all that garbage that Pothan and Ken believe in, stuff like how you’ve gotta sack up and be a warrior and never show fear. That’s all true. It’s all really true. Because without that you’re just nobody.”
Dave tipped up his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose, and the air whipped his fine hair off to the side.
“I’ve just got to make a move on Mari,” he said. “I’ve got to make a move.”
I nodded. “Pretty much.”
My phone buzzed again.
Pothan: What the hell, where are you?
The sun kissed the ocean, and all the heat seemed to sizzle out of the sand. I pulled my hoodie closer and said, “Hey, you want to come hang out?”
“I’ve gotta go back to work.”
“What about after? You could invite Mari! Give it another shot, seriously, dude.”
He looked down; then his eyes went back to me. “Sure. I can give it a try.”
“Do it!” I said. “We’re gonna make this happen.”
I got up, nodding my head, and left with a big smile.
While I was gone, Pothan and Ken had regrouped at the car. They handed me another forty, and after I’d gotten a third of the way through, they told me to lean back against the door, and Pothan put out his hands.
“Now don’t freak out,” he said.
“All right. . . .”
“But we invited Avani to come down.”
“Dude,” I said. “She’s not gonna come. She’s done with the beach scene. That’s why she asked us to the lake house.”
“She’s on her way, dude.” Pothan held up his phone. “I just got the text.”
My heart quivered. “Oh.”
I must’ve looked anxious, because Pothan grabbed my neck. “Whatever, dude, just be cool.”
“No, it’s really not a problem.”
“And no hanging around her. Stick with us. You’ve gotta be cool.”
Pothan shook his head, and now he used a finger to tip the bottle in my hand, trying to get me to drink up. A rush of foam surged onto my face, and the bottle fell to the pavement and shattered in a spray of beer and glass.
2
AVANI WAS STILL A HALF hour away, so we hung out in Ken’s car. Nobody talked about their feelings or anything at all real, but it wasn’t unfun. At one point the cops buzzed past, and we hit the floor, and fifteen minutes later we were still crouched in the back and in the wheel wells, passing the two remaining bottles between us, laughing and pressing up against each other. Pothan got on top of Ken, humping him, and Ken rolled his eyes back, pretending to enjoy it.
Ken made fun of me for being weird around Avani.
“Dude,” I said. “I’m happy she and I are broken up.”
“Except you were never together.”
“Then why did we have a breakup conversation?”
“That was all you. Nobody thought you needed to do that.”
“I just wanted to stay friends.”
“LOL, you regret it, dude,” Ken said. “No shame in that. Just admit you regret it.”
“But I don’t.”