“Where the hell have you been?” Robyn yells at me as she gets in my car. Her long blond hair, usually worn loose and wild, is secured in two elaborate braids on either side of her head. Being so petite, this makes her look slightly like an alien, but in a cool way. “I was getting ready to hitch a ride. You said ten thirty!”
The reason Robyn is Joel’s and my unofficial third best friend is because she’s a bit of a free spirit and usually off doing her own thing. Luckily, tonight she decided to do our thing and I won’t have to hang out by myself all night while Joel is once again preoccupied with Lily and likely to forget me.
“Sorry, I fell asleep,” I tell her. Which is true. But I don’t tell her that I woke up hours ago, that I’ve been in bed trying to figure out a believable way to bail out of this. Or that it took great effort to convince myself to get ready and drive to her house.
She looks me up and down. “Well, I see you at least put in a little effort,” she says as she opens the visor and applies more of her signature berry-berry lipstick.
“Uh, thanks?” I say.
“No, seriously. I love when you do that smoky eye makeup. It looks so good with your dark eyes. And I mean, no offense, but you’ve kind of been looking like a scab lately.”
“And you mean no offense by that, right?”
Robyn puts away her lipstick, then turns back and studies me thoughtfully. “You know what I think you need, Frenchie? You need a guy.”
“What?” I ask.
“A guy. You seriously need one.”
“God, Robyn.” I shake my head. “I cannot even believe you said that! Don’t tell me you think that a guy is like, the solution to a girl’s problems. That’s so . . . I don’t even know . . . man, Robyn.” If I didn’t know her better, if I’d just met her tonight and she said something like that, I would seriously push her out of my car.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Relax, French. Of course I don’t think that! Give me some credit. It’s just that in your particular case, I think maybe some . . . how do I put this?” she says while focusing in on me. “I think you need someone to thaw out that cold little heart that’s barely beating inside your chest. You need someone who warms you up, French, that gets you hot.”
“You’re disgusting, you know that? Seriously, please stop,” I say and start wondering if I could reach over and open the passenger door.
“I know you’ve always been a bit rough around the edges. And I suppose you could say that’s part of your charm. But lately you’re even more . . . ,” she says and makes a face. “I don’t know. . . .”
“What?” I say. She shakes her head like she’s not going there. “Come on, go ahead. Just say it,” I tell her.
She taps her lips and searches for the right word. “You seem even more . . . dreary, warped, tragic. . . .”
“Tragic?”
“Cold . . . prudish . . . uninviting . . .”
For someone who couldn’t find the right words, Robyn is suddenly spouting them out quite easily.
“Bitchy . . . snarky . . . evil . . .”
“Okay, enough!” I yell.
Robyn laughs. “Oh fine. Lighten up. But you see what I mean? You need to have fun. And guys? Guys can be lots of fun, French.” She grins, because if anybody knows how to have fun with guys, it’s Robyn.
“I am not tragic. Or evil,” I tell her.
“Come on, French, when was the last time you actually fell for someone?”
When Robyn says this, I realize how people can forget. Because if Robyn really thought about it, she would remember that the last time I absolutely fell for someone was in ninth grade. That I fell and kind of stayed fallen all through ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade for the same guy. That at the start of every year, I would search each one of my classes for a glimpse of what would make that class worth going to.
Not that Robyn is some kind of horrible, insensitive person. Despite her seemingly brash personality, she actually has a good heart. And in all honesty, I had only mentioned Andy Cooper a handful of times to her, and that was probably three and a half years ago. And it was more of a “Oh yeah, he’s a cool guy” than a “this guy makes me forget to breathe” kind of mention. I didn’t tell Robyn because I didn’t want to admit I had unwillingly become the girl who was so hung up on a guy that she would never have the chance of getting. Or that the kind of day I had usually depended on whether or not I fulfilled my quota of Andy sightings. Because, you know, that would be kind of . . . tragic.
“You’re not giving me any credit,” I say to Robyn. “What about Trey Sumpter? At the end of ninth grade, remember?” Not that Trey and I exactly dated. It was more like we exchanged notes for two weeks before summer. And then when we came back to school, I saw him kissing Trisha Clove.
“That was like three years ago,” Robyn says. “And did you guys even actually talk?” I pretend her question doesn’t register because she’s right. I’m not sure Trey and I actually did talk. Maybe we never went out. Or worse, maybe we’re still going out.
“What about Simon Kurts?” I say, but immediately regret bringing him up. Now that I think of it, nothing exactly happened there either.
“You hooked up with Simon Kurts?” Robyn asks. I think back to how Simon called me almost every night in the eleventh grade, only to ignore me at school the next day.
“I guess not. I mean, I don’t know,” I tell her. I’m confused and this conversation with Robyn has only made it painfully obvious that I’m hopeless when it comes to guys. I guess this is why I don’t know what the whole thing with Andy meant. And now I never will.
I look over at Robyn. “The guys at our school were jerks,” I say.
“The guys at our school were scared of you,” she says.
The car is filled with silence, except for the steady sound of my turn signal as we wait at a stop light.
“You freak guys the hell out, French. The only one you ever talk to is Joel, and I have no idea how he managed to get on your good side.”
It wasn’t that remarkable actually. Joel had been the new kid who walked into my eighth-grade math class wearing a Vinyls concert T-shirt back when nobody else knew who the Vinyls were. The shirt and his moody disposition (which I later learned was because it was the year his parents split) had been the beginning of our friendship. But we quickly became best friends and soon he was spending more time at my house than his own.
“But other than him,” Robyn continues “you think all other high school males are so intellectually challenged. You don’t even give them a chance. And you snarl. I’ve seen you snarl at guys.”
“That’s stupid,” I say as I make a right turn.
“It’s true. You need to lighten up a bit. You’re in serious need of some kind of intervention. Gloom intervention.” She nods like she’s confirming a diagnosis.
“There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m good.”
She looks at me doubtfully.
“I’m good, okay?” I try to smile to make my point.
“Is that supposed to be a smile? You look like you’re in pain.”
“Just drop it,” I tell her.
Robyn rolls her eyes and sighs. I think I baffle her. Which is understandable. Seeing as I baffle myself.