And I’m thinking: She’s fighting over me. Tris is fighting over me.
But for some reason it’s Norah who’s putting her arm around me and putting her hand in my back pocket.
I’m about to shudder her off, but then Tris says, “Come on, Nick—we’re really late and need the car. I’ll pay you back for the gas.” And I know right away that I’m not a part of her “we.” I’ve been f**king exiled from her “we.”
“I’m going to find Randy,” Caroline decides.
“Hell, no, you’re not,” Norah says, taking her arm from my shoulder and linking it around Caroline’s elbow. Which leaves us in this weird we’re off to see the Wizard pose, with Tris blocking us like the Wicked Witch of the Past.
She could have me so easily. But instead she snorts and says, “You can take him. I only wanted his car.”
And with that, Tris leaves me for good. Every time I see her, from now until I die, she will leave me for good. Over and over and over again.
Norah takes her hand out of my back pocket and steadies Caroline with her full body. It’s my turn to lead now, and I can barely do it. It’s not that I’m drunk or stoned or spiraling high. It’s just that I’m defeated. And that’s impairing all of my senses.
There’s only one hopeful chord in this cacophony, and it’s this girl I’m following. I know I could tell her to get a cab—I have a feeling she can more than afford it—but I like the idea of leaving with her and staying with her. She says good-bye to the club manager as we reach the door and are released onto the street. The sidewalk is full of smokers, talking or posing their way to ash. I get the nod from a couple of people I vaguely know. Ordinarily if I left with two hot girls, there’d also be some looks of admiration. Maybe it’s because of the clear anger between Norah and Caroline, or maybe it’s because they all think I’m g*y—whatever the case, I get no more congratulations than a cabdriver does for picking up a fare.
I know I should offer to help Norah propel Caroline forward, but the truth is that I don’t feel like I can carry anyone but myself right now. The streets are empty. I am empty. Or, no—I am full of pain. It’s my life that’s empty.
I stumble for my keys. Tris will not be waiting for me inside the car. Tris will not be waiting for me ever again.
I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have been anywhere that she could find.
We’re at my car.
“What the f**k is that?” Norah asks.
I shrug and say, “It’s a Yugo.”
4. NORAH
So this is what my promising life has been reduced to. The Jewish princess from Englewood Cliffs, f**king valedictorian who chose a Catholic girls’ high school to accompany her best friend through the experience, who chose to turn down Brown, the girl whose possibilities now that she’s about to be let loose upon the world should supposedly be infinite, is sitting through the middle of an April night in the passenger side of a Yugo that smells like Tris’s patchouli aromatherapy oil. Perhaps it’s only the vehicle that won’t start, but it feels like it’s my life that won’t start. Yes, this Yugo with the passenger-side seat metal coming through the torn seat fabric, scratching against the back of my thigh, this Cold War relic that won’t respond to Nick’s turn of the ignition key, is like a f**king metaphor for my sorry-ass life: STALLED.
Nick might be a bass god but he’s also a parking god because he scored a spot right in front of the club, the unfortunate consequence of which is that now my stalled ears are receiving the listening benefit of the band playing inside the club and they’re really f**king good and that’s really pissing me off. I’m not sure if I backed into my life by getting into this Yugo with my new almost-boyfriend, or if I backed out of it by leaving the club to save Caroline once again, but whichever end it is, I’m left wanting more music. It’s still Hunter on the stage but now I can hear that the Dev dude is singing some strange harmony with Hunter on another Green Day cover, “Time of Your Life.” Hunter Does Hunter have accelerated the lite-FM classic song (because how much more punk can you go than producing an elevator song staple—bless you, Billie Joe) up to Parliament tempo and I swear there’s a DJ mixing a sample of that Michael Jackson freak moaning about how Billie Jean is not my lover, the kid is not my son into the groove. How is that possible and why does it sound so damn good and if the Yugo doesn’t start within one second I am outta here, I don’t care how tempted I am to try for another seven minutes of being Nick’s girlfriend after we’ve got Caroline back to my place. For a poor schmuck, he’s temptatiously f**king cute.
“Do you hear that?” I ask Nick.
“What? Is the engine starting?” The poor schmuck is not only cute and a great head-bob thrash-dancer, he’s probably a good guy. At least he proved deft at maneuvering a drunken Caroline goddess into the backseat of a freakin’ Yugo and making her think it was her idea. Let’s not forget the part about him being a great kisser. He deserves better than a Tris—and a Yugo.
I tell him, “No. Dude. Listen up, that rhythmic banging inside the club? It’s called drumming. It’s, like, famous as an underlying staple of sound since primitive cultures.” I play drums on the glove compartment of the Yugo. The compartment pops open from my banging. A Polaroid of Tris is taped inside the compartment. I rip it out. Bloody hell! Caroline isn’t paranoid—Tris really did swipe Caroline’s vintage cutoff white T-shirt with Flea’s autograph over the left breast area. I toss the picture out the window and turn to face Nick. “Your f**king band needs a drummer. I saw you grinding to Hunter’s earlier Green Day cover of ‘Chump’ back in the club. I know you feel rhythm more than just your heart-attack-inducing bass skills. Think about it. What would ‘Chump’ have been without Tres Cool? Get a drummer for your band, guy. Really.”
Caroline has yet to reach her warm-cuddly drunk stage, post-heave and pre-slumber, which would put her in inquisitive stage about now, and right on schedule, from the backseat, she interjects, “Really,” because Caroline is always picking up sentences where I leave ’em off. “Driver person. Hey!” She taps Nick’s shoulder from behind him. Nick looks around to her but quickly turns back around to face me. Such a pretty girl, such rancid tequila breath. Caroline wants to know, “Why would you wear such ugly shoes? Answer me, driver person. Please?”
“The shoes go with the car, Caroline,” I tell her. “Yugo drivers are required to wear torn-and-graffitied hi-top Chucks shit on their feet. It’s like a rule. It’s in the manual.” I pull the Yugo car manual from the glove compartment. A chewed-up wad of gum extends from the manual back to the compartment. I take the McDonald’s napkin stuck inside the compartment and wipe the gum away from the manual. Fucking Tris and her Bubblicious. I throw the manual into the backseat for Caroline’s perusal.
She ignores the Good Book. “Are you Yugoslavian, driver person?” Caroline asks Nick. “Norah, is that why’s he’s driving us home? He’s the taxi driver, right?”
“Sure,” I tell her. He’ll be the taxi driver as soon as his Yugo-cab will f**king start. We’re operating on a limited window of opportunity here. It took ten minutes just to get Caroline into the backseat. I can see Randy now, loitering outside the club, smoking a cigarette, talking up Crazy Lou but glancing toward the Yugo, ready to pounce on Caroline again, I’m sure, if this Yugo doesn’t blow outta here soon.
“Is there such an ethnicity as Yugoslavian anymore?” Nick asks. “Now that the country’s all broken up? That was some bad shit that went down there in Serbia and Croatia, right? Damn shame.” He shakes his head and his hand idles on the ignition key, as if he’s given up. He knocks his head against the wheel, then slams his fist against the stick shift. He’s done. Can’t take it anymore. This car ain’t going nowhere. He looks so depressed and defeated, I don’t have the heart to slam him for acting like he’s grieving for Yugoslavia when it’s so obvious he’s really grieving for Tris.
Caroline informs us, “I’m part Yugoslavian, you know. On my great-grandpa’s side.”
I tell her, “You’re part Transylvanian, too, bitch. Be quiet. I need to think.” How the hell are we going to get home now? And why do I have to get Caroline home, anyway? There’s a hot guy sitting next to me, even if he is a Tris pass-along, but he’s got potential to be molded. Here I am in Manhattan, like Dad’s favorite Stevie Wonder song goes: New York, just like I pictured it—skyscrapers, and everythang. Shit is supposed to be happening here, not stalled Yugo shit. Through the car windshield, I can see the Empire State Building, lit up in pink and green for Easter. I am reminded that Jesus died for Caroline’s sins, not mine—I’m from a different tribe—so why am I saving her ass again when I could be outside this Yugo getting some life-living going on? I never properly used up those two add-on minutes of being Nick’s girlfriend.
Caroline says, “You’re not the boss of me, Sub Z.”
It’s basic instinct, I can’t help myself. I turn around to face Dragonbreath and snap, “Don’t call me that!” She giggles, satisfied to have gotten a rise out of me.
Caroline’s giggling mercifully transforms to dozing. In the reflection off the passenger-side mirror, I see that Caroline appears to be falling asleep, her cheek pressed against the backseat window. I’ve never seen her pass out without heaving first. Nick and his Yugo may have magical properties, after all. Please, let it last till we can make it back to Jersey.
A heave-snore from the backseat announces that Caroline is indeed out. YES! Sweet Jesus, thank you—for this temporary stay, and hey, I’ll throw in thanks for the dying-for-my-sins thing, too. You ROCK, J.C.! I’m totally gonna not stress on the fact that once I get home, I’ll have to sleep next to Dragonbreath to make sure she doesn’t choke on her own vomit in her sleep. Again.
“That’s one problem solved,” I tell Nick. I place my left hand on his right hand, which is clutched around the stick shift. “Now, what are we gonna do about this other one?”
He flinches a little at my touch and pulls his hand away to turn the ignition key again. Don’t know why I placed my hand on his anyway.
He wants to know, “Why would you f**k up Tris’s Barbies?” and now I’m like, Shit, is this the price of the sacrifice for Caroline passing out unexpectedly early—that Nick has taken over the melancholy stage that usually follows Caroline’s inquisitive one? “I have three sisters and I know that’s some serious business, messing with another girl’s Barbies.” Okay, maybe he’s not being melancholy because his sarcastic smile lets me know he’s back to being standard-issue band-boy irony creature. Damn him that it somewhat makes me wanna jump his bones.
Still, I can tell he’s looking for information, but I am not going into the Tris thing with him. I just can’t. Sub Z can only do so much damage to the male psyche in one night.
On the other hand, perhaps I could make a project out of Nick, detox him from Tris, rehabilitate him, put him through a good-girlfriend immersion program. I like sevens—we could go steady like all sweet and nice, for seven days instead of minutes. Then I’ll set him free, less the Tris baggage, molded and perfected into the great guy I know he is under those Tris-heavy eyes. He’ll be my gift to womankind, an ideal male specimen of musicianship and making out. I’ll send him back out into the world thoroughly cleansed of irony, no longer holding all females in contempt as potential Tris suspects. Now who rocks, J.C.?
A white van barrels down the one-way street in the wrong direction, stopping in front of the fire hydrant directly ahead of the Yugo.