Chapter Fifty-Two
ANDREW SITS IN the kitchen and looks at the paper and eats crackers and drinks orange juice. He tells himself he is ready to call Sara Ludlow. He put it off all yesterday, but today he is going to call her. Just needs to get her number. Andrew figures the other kid, Sean, her boyfriend or whatever, is probably out of the hospital by now, so he will call him and get the girl’s number and call her like he is just calling to get his CD back.
A West Indian accent answers the phone and tells Andrew that the young master is asleep.
Andrew switches rooms and drops himself on the couch with the remote. He channel-surfs for a couple of hours, switching between the networks and their sitcoms and Comedy Central and MTV and VH1, on which he watches the Hundred Greatest Artists of Rock and Roll. Where’s Sublime? When the countdown is finished, he calls again and this time gets Sean.
Andrew looks at the number he has written down. Now he has to call the girl. It is absurd for him to feel nervous. He sits down and looks at the paper again and has another glass of orange juice and some more crackers.
“Fuck it,” he says out loud as he grabs for the phone and punches in her number.
“Hello?”
“Sara?”
“Yes?”
“This is Andrew, from the hospital, remember, you borrowed—”
“Oh, that’s right. I love the CD. It’s great. I’ve been listening to it, like, nonstop since I took it from you.”
“Good.”
“So you probably want it back, right?”
“Actually, not really.”
“Well, let me burn it first. I have a friend with a burner who’s having a New Year’s party, actually. You should come.”
Andrew smiles into the phone. “Yeah, definitely. Where is it?”
“Two East Ninetieth Street. Just off of Fifth. It’s this kid named Chris, do you know him?”
“Probably. You sure it’s okay if I just come?”
“Yeah, and bring people. It’s an open house, and he wants a big party.”
“So I’ll see you there?”
“Yeah, I’ll be there. Oh, you smoke?”
“Umm, yeah, sometimes.” Twice, because they said the first time he wouldn’t get high. Twice to see what it was like.
“Have you got any weed now?”
“Oh, yeah, sure.”
“Okay, well, don’t forget to bring it.”
“No problem.”
“Great. See you then. Bye.”
Shit. Andrew doesn’t have any weed. How is he gonna buy weed. Ask Hunter. Hunter’s still in jail. Shit. Andrew tries to remember what those two little potheads in his school used to tell him. About how they had the hookup. Fifty ought to be enough.