“I’ll tell you what,” Norah says. “You give us a ride, and I’ll give you two extra minutes on your original offer.”
“Seven’s my lucky number,” I tell her.
And she just looks at me. Y. p. s.
“But really,” I say. “How do you know Tris?”
“I f**ked up her Barbies in fifth grade,” she tells me. “And that’s the way it’s been ever since.”
“You’re from Englewood?”
“Englewood Cliffs. Englewood is the one with reasonable houses.”
She’s pushing through the crowd now, and I’m following.
“She was just here a second ago,” she says.
“Who?”
“No one. Caroline. I mean, just shut up for a second so I can think, okay?”
Like if I’m quiet, she’ll suddenly be able to hear every f**king footstep in the club.
While she’s peering around, I make the idiot move of looking behind me, and see Tris and the new model making out. She looks so hot in her Ramones shirt and the gold stockings I always asked her to wear because they make her look like something out of a Marvel comic. I remember taking that shirt off of her, those stockings off of her—her yelling careful, careful! as I started to get past her thighs. And now it’s some other guy’s hands that are thumbing their way over Joey’s face and down Dee Dee’s chin and—oh, f**king hell—dropping down between the A and the M, going right for the V under the H&M-meets-S&M miniskirt.
And she’s looking at me the whole time. I swear she’s looking at me.
I turn away and Norah isn’t there, but luckily she’s only a few feet away. And the girl she’s diving for looks kinda familiar. Not in a Didn’t We Go To Camp Walla Walla Together? way, but more like, Didn’t I Step Over You To Get To The Men’s Room Last Night? Right now she’s hanging on to the guy from Are You Randy? like she’s auditioning to be a pocket on his jacket. And I can tell he’s about ready to sew her on. Only my Seven-Minute Girlfriend stands in the way. She’s saying Caroline’s name like an older sister would say it, and from the resentment that flashes back in Caroline’s eyes I’d believe they were sisters if Norah hadn’t already called Caroline her friend. I also think for a millisecond that they might be a couple, but something in Norah’s expression makes it clear that they’re friends without benefits.
Caroline’s about to say something really harsh, but suddenly Hunter and Dev launch into a f**king Green Day cover, and we’re all seven years old again and dancing like we spit out the Ritalin while Mom wasn’t looking. We become this one flailing paramecium mass, fever-connected as the guitarist riffs electrons. Even Tris must be a part of this, and if we’re both a part of it, then that means we’re still in some way connected. Everyone in this room is connected, except Norah—she’s the kind of statue they don’t ever make, a statue of someone totally defeated. Caroline’s dancing against the guy from Are You Randy? like God or Billie Joe Armstrong meant her to do it. I try to obliterate myself in the song, but there’s something in me that just won’t combust. I think my seven-minute girlfriend is standing on the fuse.
“What’s up?” I shout. And she looks at me like she’s forgotten that I exist. This means she’s also forgotten to guard herself from me, so I have a moment when I see the sentences behind her eyes. I can’t do this. This is too f**king hard.
I change my question. I say, “What’s wrong?” And just like that, her sentences are shut behind a screen. But I’m curious. Yes, I’m damn curious.
“Not a f**king thing,” she says. “And I think maybe our time is up.”
“You don’t need a ride anymore?” I ask. I’m not above using my wheels to angle for some more time with a complicated girl.
“Fuck.” The song’s ended now and everyone is cheering. I barely hear her shout, “Wait right here.”
Dev and Hunter take their bows like they’re already spooning, Dev curved over Hunter’s back as they dip in unison. While the guy from Are You Randy? uses his hands to clap, Norah puts her hand on Caroline’s shoulder and leans in to shout in her ear. What follows is one of those ropeless tugs of war, measured in centimeters of pull and pull away. I can’t hear any of it until Caroline screams, “I am not trashed!” which of course means she is, because who the hell else would use such a completely wasted phrase? The guy from Are You Randy? is starting to catch on and is trying to catch up by catching hold. But his instinct totally defeats him, because his hand swerves somewhere near her breast, which isn’t really the terrain he needs to keep his ground. Norah’s yank trumps his hairy palm in this contest, and Caroline is soon stumbling in my direction.
Before I really know what’s happening, Caroline’s tilting into me and I’m catching her. Then she’s heaving down, and I’m sure she’s about to puke all over me, but instead she rises and looks at me and says, “You have really ugly shoes.”
Norah’s next to me now, saying, “Let’s go.” She leaves Caroline there for me to carry as she yells, “Get the f**k out of my way” to people, uncrowding them with her snarl. My heart understands the direction we’re going in, because it starts pounding like it’s got something really damn important to say, and by the time I’m out of my head enough to really use my eyes, there’s someone in our way, and that someone is the girl who took the key to my heart and swallowed it with a smile.