Shrimp (18 page)

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Again, needing a how-to manual here.

Autumn said, "Where to begin? There was the Cal rejection letter that arrived today. I still might get in regular admission, but that was my ace in the hole. If I don't get in there, I don't know where I could afford to go that I would want to go. So strike one. Strike two, this girl at my school, we kind of got together and I thought I really liked her, but now she's going around at school acting like it never happened and all of a sudden she's like practically engaged to some guy she met last summer."

"I thought you told me you weren't going to date this year because of that exact problem."

'And you believed that?" Autumn shook her short mess of hair. "How gullible are you anyway? I might as well tell you strike three. Helen wanted to tell you, but then she kept chickening out because of your Madonna/whore man tirade. She's been having this sort of... can't call it 'relationship,' let's call it 'thing'... with Aryan. You know, he gets her alone and lets her do the deed, but then he doesn't acknowledge her when they're around other people, acts like there's nothing more between them than just being acquaintances. She likes him so much, even though she won't admit it. He's a great-looking guy, yeah, but I think he's a jerk myself. He's no Shrimp, that's for shit sure. Helen knows I don't like him and that I think she's making a fool of herself over him. I mean, you want your friends to be with someone who deserves them, right?" I nodded. Right, yeah, that's how it works! "So then, just now, Aryan asked me out on a date for this weekend, right in front of Helen. End of scene; here we are."

My first order of business was to pull out my cell

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phone and send a text message to Helen inviting her to dinner at my house. Frank Day celebration with Helen's false idol, Mrs. Vogue, might cheer her up, and I would use the occasion to get Helen alone in my room to talk about the Aryan situation. While I had Helen there, I could pull out the dictionary and make Helen read aloud the entry for reciprocity (rSs'
3
-prCs"i-t£). I may also force her to tune in to Dr. Phil or Dr. Ruth or just simply Dr. CC until she acknowledges that oral sex is the same as sex and, stop blushing, Helen, don't do it and think it doesn't count, because it does.

Next I told Autumn, "You're going to get into Cal. I know it. But maybe this is the universe sending you a message not to limit your options. There's a big wide world out there, and Berkeley is just across the Bay. Maybe the universe wants you to spread your wings a little and think of this rejection as an opportunity instead of a defeat." From the picture on the cover of the book resting on Autumn's lap, the Dalai Lama appeared to be nodding at me, congratulating my wisdom and empathy. "I will have a talk with Helen about Aryan and set her straight. It's not your fault Aryan asked you out in front of her, but it is your fault if you haven't made it extremely clear to him that you are one hundred percent gay. He probably knows about your Shrimpcapade, so maybe he thinks he's got a shot with you. Don't let him hold out some unrealistic expectation about getting together with you, especially if you know Helen is interested in him. And have you even come out at your school? Because I don't remember you telling me you have, so maybe the girl you like at school is getting mixed messages from you as well as the ones she's giving herself." This time I gently rubbed instead of bang-patted Autumn's

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back. 'And lastly your hair looks great, but if you don't like it, remember it's not Barbie hair--it does grow back." I could feel the need for a nap coming on; this pep-talk business was exhausting. "Now it's time for me to go home. My mother has turned unexpectedly reasonable, and I need to make up with her for a fight this morning."

Autumn smiled her impossibly perfect, big-toothed, full-mouthed grin. She stood up. "You're not so bad at this," she said as she walked back to her station at the front counter.

'At what?" I called out after her.

"You know what!" she called back.

I got up to leave, but from the corner of my eye I saw an arm signaling me in its direction. I walked to the side of the store with the supply closet to find Shrimp standing inside it, a mischievous grin on his face. He raised both his eyebrows at me playfully--he looked like a surfer Marx Brother--and he gestured for me to join him inside that same supply closet where we used to make out during breaks when we both worked at Java the Hut.

I didn't go inside. I said, "We still haven't had that official talk, pal."

Shrimp's mouth turned down into a sad clown face. A little nookie doesn't always come without strings, buddy. I left Java the Hut to catch the bus to take me home.

Next year on Frank Day I am not going as Ava Gardner. I will be a saint.

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*** Chapter 22

Bay Area drivers,
beware: CC is on the loose, officially licensed by the Golden State to operate a motor vehicle. If I had realized earlier the freedom a driver's license bought me, I would have jumped on the to-hell-with-the-environment-let's-drive-everywhere bandwagon the day I turned sixteen. After I passed the test Sid-dad wanted to give me a new car, but I said, "No, thank you, may I just use the car Leila left behind, the tiny, ancient, electric blue Geo Metro that looks like it could be Betty Boop's car?" Nancy said, "We were going to donate that car to charity since your dad still refuses to hire another housekeeper. You don't want that car--take the Lexus." I said, "Please, it's embarrassing enough being in this family without that badge of motor monstrosity distinction. Pass those Betty Boop car keys on over and I am the happiest girl in The City."

A Betty Boop car that's practically a relic qualifies as a legacy car, in my opinion. If I am going to be a proper California girl--or, more importantly, the past and future girlfriend of a certain Cali boy surfer-artist--a legacy car is a serious step in my identity evolution. Shrimp drives his brother's old car, this Pinto from the seventies that used to be their uncle's car. The Pinto is painted the color of a lima bean and has furry dice hanging from the rearview mirror, and Wallace gets tears in his eyes sometimes when he looks at that car, remembering how he loved fixing it up and then

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passing it on to his younger bro when too many girlfriends complained about it breaking down on the freeway. Shrimp's Pinto legacy car looks like a vehicle that some sixty-year-old woman who smokes Winstons and goes to the grocery store with curlers in her hair would drive completely without irony, yet the Pinto so clearly belongs with Shrimp, like a mangy dog at the pound that just jumps in your arms and that you know is meant to go home with you. Although psycho Leila was close to last on my list of idols and the memory of her frightening Celine Dion accent alone was almost enough to make me fear the karma that might not yet have dissipated from her Geo Metro legacy car, the fact is Leila made extremely good pancakes. I would like to one day make good pancakes, so taking over Leila's car is not necessarily a legacy meaning I want to be like Leila so much as an expression of my desire to accumulate cooking karma during my driving time. Hey, it makes sense to me.

I celebrated taking over Betty Boop legacy car by picking up passengers for girlz night out. Since H&A haven't been speaking to each other in the week since their meltdown incident on Frank Day, I decided not to let them know that they were both included in girlz night out with Sugar Pie. Helen was trapped in the backseat with no leg room, so it's not like she could really physically protest when I pulled up in front of Autumn's place in The Sunset. Autumn herself appeared to hesitate when she glimpsed Helen through the car window from where she was standing on the sidewalk, waiting for the pickup. I stopped the car, hopped out of the driver's seat, lifted the lever for Autumn to get into the backseat alongside trapped Helen, sitting behind Sugar

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Pie, and said loud enough for both H&A to hear, "Holding grudges like you two have been doing since the Aryan incident is a prime reason why I have not made friends with chicks in the past, so could you please just be like dudes-- buck up and get over it?"

Autumn's chopped dreaded hair was pulled back in a turban so her big eye roll was very apparent, but she did step into the backseat. Then she smushed herself against the side window, as far away as possible from Helen, who then smushed herself against the opposite side, and each of their faces wore identical pouts. Being at opposite ends of the backseat of a Geo Metro, though, meant there were like two centimeters that came between their bodies, so really all the sulking and separating their bodies away from each other was a big waste of time.

I got back into the car and Sugar Pie went to work with the next part of my plan. If there's one thing I have learned in my seventeen years on Planet Earth it's that chocolate is the great equalizer, and after Sugar Pie had passed back the plastic pumpkin filled with chocolate treats, it only took two mini Butterfingers apiece to get H&A to both mutter "Sorry" and then one Reese's cup to get H&A past the soreness over the Aryan incident and into sugar-high chatter. Phew.

I wanted to go to the dive-through restaurant on Geary that's this great burger joint situated in a train car in this kinda seedy neighborhood, but Sugar Pie wanted fancy and also to check up on her true love's godson, Alexei, so that's how we ended up going to Lord Empress Kari's restaurant for dinner. Since my work-study will be over at the end of the semester, Her Majesty has invited me to continue

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working at the restaurant after Christmas, and I could even work in the kitchen if I want since that seems to be where I always end up hanging out, but I have come down with a big case of senioritis. I have decided to be a big slacker after the New Year and not have a job at all for my last semester of high school. Yeah, that'll mean more school time, but said plan should also allow for more Shrimp time.

Maybe Sugar Pie is now on my parents' payroll, too, because as soon as we were all seated at a table at the restaurant she said, "So how are those college plans coming along?" I didn't have to bother with the Don't Start with Me look, because H&A both jumped in with their plans. Autumn wants to do a double major in psychology and women's studies when she goes to college, and Helen just wants to get the hell out of her mother's house--she doesn't care where she ends up, as long as the place has an art program and is as geographically far from Clement Street in San Fran as she can possibly go. Maybe it was the oyster appetizers, because Sugar Pie's next wave of interrogation involved this question: "Where are you girls standing on the issue of true love these days?"

Autumn said, "I'm outta that game. Love is for suckers."

I'm almost inclined to agree. My half-bro Danny had called me just this morning and told me that not only is his business, The Village Idiots, closing and he's like practically in bankruptcy, but Danny and his true love, Aaron--the true-love couple you can always count on, no matter how bleak the state of love is looking--are on the outs. The thought of Danny and Aaron not being together is just too horrible to think about, though, so I won't, because I know Danny and Aaron will work things out. They always do.

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Helen agreed with Autumn. "Yeah, fooling around is one thing, but true love is a lie. Not that fooling around doesn't count." Helen looked in my direction, acknowledging our Frank Night conversation on said topic, and I looked in Autumn's direction so she would know: case covered. Helen added, 'Anyway I have no faith in true love. Think about Tim Armstrong and Brody Dalle. I mean, if ever there were two people who seemed so obviously true-love destined to be together, but D-I-V-O-R-C-E..."

Autumn said, "Who the hell are you talking about?"

Helen said, "Dude, the Mohawked guy from Rancid who used to be married to the singer chick from The Distillers."

Sugar Pie said, "Brody's a good singer, but she'll never match Tim Armstrong for musicianship."

We all spun our heads in Sugar Pie's direction like,
Huh?
Sugar Pie said, "My next-door neighbor, his grandson listens to that punk rock music and he makes me CD burns to listen to on my audio player while I'm on the chair at dialysis." Sometimes it's beyond comprehension how much cooler Sugar Pie is than 99.9 percent of the population. "So, listen, I have a lot of time on the dialysis chair to think about these things, so here's today's old lady wisdom: True loves may come and go in your lives, but your best friends, those are the people who will be with you throughout your lives, the ones who will stay with you."

Helen, Autumn, and I kinda squirmed at the table, and focused intently on eating our appetizers. I think that we three are bound in some unspoken but implicit agreement to never--EVER--get into some sisterhood covenant where we like vow to be friends for eternity and bridesmaids and

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godmothers, and we'll never be friends who like "do lunch" and have girly spa weekends where we catch up on one another's lives. H&A and I are just gonna...
be.
Simple friends, no complications, and end of this school year we'll figure out then how/if we'll stay in touch once we go in our different directions. Shrimp and I will probably be so back in love and lust by that time that I'll barely notice that H&A are away at college.

None of us had to worry about further gushy sentiments, because the rock-hard body of Alexei stood at our table, holding a complimentary bottle of overpriced sparkling water in a pretty cobalt blue bottle. "Ladies," he said, "compliments of the house." He had a napkin over the bottom part of his arm, all formal and shit as he poured the water into our glasses. Sugar Pie could not help but beam at her true love's godson, like,
My Fernando is partially responsible for how that boy sure did turn out right!

On the down low, the thing about Alexei is, he wears suits really well. Honestly, he does. He must go to a professional tailor to get his suits altered so that they cling to his body just right. Alexei is like the boy next door who pulled your bra strap when you were kids and now you look at him and go,
Good God, man, how did you get to be so hot?

Alexei focused his attention on me. "Nice you brought your friends to class this place up. But listen, Princess. Next week, when I'm staying at your house for Christmas, please save the Little Hellion antics."

Alas, while I may acknowledge the hotness that is Alexei, that doesn't mean he's not still a Horrible in personality.