That f**king letter! Shit! I was like Saddam Hussein in the South Park movie, professing to Satan, I can change! I can change!
No. I can’t change. I shouldn’t change.
Caroline may be a lush and a slut but she’s not a complete moron. She begged me not to post the letter, but I wouldn’t listen to her. “What the f**k do you have to change for?” she said. “He should f**king change, uptight bastard. Why are you doing this? If you need some end-of-adolescence protest, couldn’t you like just wreck your dad’s Jaguar on the Palisades Parkway or something? Are you really going to put us through you and Tal, the nightmare couple, one more time? And lose out on Brown for it? Norah, you know you’ll meet someone else, don’t you?” Only I didn’t believe her—until tonight.
What good is Caroline now, passed out in Nick’s friend’s van? I wonder if her cell is turned on. I need to tell her Tal is back! And I f**ked up but now I have officially woken the f**k up.
“Norah?” the Playboy Bunny bouncer responds to my pronouncement of oh f**k, which is no small relief because I don’t have a fake ID. When your dad is the well-known head of a major record label, it tends not to be necessary at most clubs in Lower Manhattan.
“Toni?” I say. S/he grabs me in a hug. Toni interned for Dad last year while deciding whether s/he wanted to pursue a career in the music industry; s/he was also my biggest advocate in my futile campaign (thus far) to convince Dad to produce an all-punk band tribute album to the Spice Girls. “Still working on that demo?”
S/he pulls out a CD strapped inside the bushy tail at her back. “Just finished it! Will you pass it on?”
“Sure,” I say, hoping Nick will not interrogate me about who am I, some eighteen-year-old flannel-shirt-wearing B&T girl, to be passing on demos.
“Go right on over to the VIP area,” Toni says. “I’ll make sure your drinks are on the house.”
“I don’t drink,” I remind Toni.
“Oh, live a little,” s/he says, bumping me at the hip. “Miss Straight Edge, bend ’round the corner for once in your life.” Toni turns to Nick. “Illinois? Twenty-three years old? Give me a f**king break. But have fun, kids.”
S/he gives Nick a playful slap on the ass as we walk in and Nick doesn’t react like Tal, who would have pounced back at a drag queen daring to touch him. Instead, Nick laughs and turns back around to return the gesture on Toni’s ass. S/he gives him a butt shimmy dance in return. “I like this one, Norah!” s/he says. “Big improvement. Good egg.”
As opposed to what—nasty, fermented egg, the kind one naturally would assume Tris would pass off?
We sit down at a small table that miraculously vacated of bodies as we approached it. For f**k’s sake, my heart actually flutters for a moment when Nick pulls out the wooden chair for me. Who does that? And why does that simple gesture for a moment make me forget I am REALLY PISSED OFF and MY LIFE IS OVER. I am distracted from my Tal malaise by the nuns making out to “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” on the stage, and find myself chuckling, all of a sudden having a mental image of me and Nick in a threeway with E.T. I feel the crack of a smile on my lips and a non-frigid buzz spreading through my body. In the flashing neon lights, and with the distraction of the stage show, I finally have the opportunity to truly appraise Nick. I admire his vintage gas station attendant jacket with the name “Salvatore” stenciled under the Texaco logo, and I admit to wanting to run my fingers through his mod mess of shag hair. He seems to have an ironic but sweet half-smile stenciled on his face, despite his Tris hangover.
Nick waves thanks in Toni’s direction at the door. He says, “Nice seats your friend hooked us up with. I have to admit, between your drunk girlfriend and your Yugo-insulting ex-boyfriend, it’s a relief to see you have some nice friends.” He winks at me and why won’t that kind smile leave his face because I know if we are ever going to make it through this night/morning/whatever we have going, eventually I am going to have to tell him about Tris and that smile will be gone and I don’t want to be the person responsible for killing it.
I don’t owe him an explanation or anything but I do say, “I’m sorry about Tal.” Only what I’m really sorry about is what I said about Tris, but I can’t find it in myself to speak that apology. Yet.
Nick tells the cocktail bunny who approaches our table to please bring us drinks with little umbrellas in them, we don’t care what, we’re from Jersey, we won’t know the difference anyway. He says to please just make sure the drinks are of the virgin variety.
Then he turns to me and says, “I don’t drink. I’m pretty straight edge. I hope that’s not a problem for you.”
I’m only “pretty” straight edge myself. I mean, I don’t drink or smoke or do drugs, but I’m not over the top about it like some of the straight-edge breed who also don’t eat meat or have sex, either. My straight-edginess is rather like my Judaism: firm, but reform.
I mean to answer Nick with, “It’s not a problem for me. It’s a f**king miracle.” But I think I end up just doing some inane yes/no head-bob of shock.
Whoa! Tris dated a straight-edge boy, and one who says please? How did he survive her without being drunk or stoned, like the rest of them? I’m not sure whether to admire or pity Nick for being a fellow straight edge, but I am stoked, too. I’m on a date with a guy who can have a good time without trying to get wasted? The universe is full of surprises. Respect to Tris.