Other than school, though, all I had done was go to work and go to Victoria’s house to eat greasy Chinese food and watch late-night videos on MTV so we could make fun of them. I couldn’t help but notice that the Scooper Dooper was getting more crowded with each passing day, mostly with girls my own age who had this slightly dazed look in their eyes and kept staring at me. And I don’t think they were just admiring my hair. They came to see me, which could bring them one step closer to Evan. “What, do you think he’s going to drop in here?” I wanted to shout at them, but instead I just gave them really wimpy cones.
James, who—let’s just be honest here—isn’t great with girls, was suddenly all thumbs and could barely handle the soft-serve machine whenever it got crowded, much less the cash register. Which was kind of cute.
But I digress.
So yeah, the day of a concert has a certain electricity. I’m not one of those girls who wears tiny shirts and heels to a packed club show, but I like to look nice. Okay, hot. I want to look hot while I’m dancing around. If you’re going to see a band called the Lolitas, you’ve gotta bring your A-game, know what I mean? However, when you’re a laundry avoider, it can be difficult to pull something together at the last minute.
I was forced to forsake jeans, since my cleanest pair were too long to go with the boots I wanted to wear, which sent me into a crisis until I found a miniskirt that wasn’t too short or too long, and a pair of black tights to wear underneath them in case I had to get pulled out of the pit. (I wasn’t looking to give the whole theater a free show up my skirt.) Then I had a minor laundry miracle when I found a plain black T-shirt buried in the back of my bottom dresser drawer, and I ironed it with one hand while pulling on my dark red riding boots with the other. That still left the problem of my arms. It was late November and definitely cool out, but I didn’t want to have to take a jacket, because then I’d have to carry it, or worse, tie it around my waist like a preschool dork.
And then I had an epiphany: tube socks.
Five minutes later, I had snipped the toes off a pair of my dad’s socks and pulled them up over my arms so that only my fingers and upper arms showed. I wasn’t sure if it was genius or a sartorial disaster, but I figured that Victoria would be quick to make the distinction.
When she and Jonah pulled up at four o’clock, I was ready. “Hi,” I said, breathless as I fell into the car.
“You look hot!” Victoria replied, her eyes lighting up to see me. “Doesn’t she look hot, Jonah?”
Jonah just laughed through his nose and backed the car down my driveway. “You’re a lunatic if you think I’m telling you that your best friend looks hot.”
“Hi, Jonah.”
“Hey, Aud. Cool boots.”
“I was there when she bought them!” Victoria said, leaning over the front seat so she could face me. “Are those socks on your arms?”
“Too much? I was trying to stay warm and be original at the same time.”
“No, it looks good. It’s like the girls’ hockey team ran over Green Day.”
“Um, thank you?” I decided the socks would stay on.
“Enough about socks. I’m already bored. Let’s talk about you! You’re actually leaving the house, this is so exciting!”
“I’ve left the house plenty of times,” I protested. Jonah braked hard, apparently forgetting there was a stop sign at the end of my street, the same stop sign he’d stopped at hundreds of times before, and I reached for my seat belt. “I’ve been to work and to school.”
“Those are required subjects,” Victoria said. “You haven’t been doing any electives, so to speak. You need some balancing out. A little yang in your yin.”
Jonah grumbled a little in the driver’s seat and Victoria rolled her eyes at him. “Jonah doesn’t want to go tonight.”
“Why don’t you want to go, Jonah?”
“Because it’s a chick show,” he said, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. “It’s gonna be all chicks.”
“How lucky am I?” Victoria grinned. “My boyfriend’s upset that he has to stand in a roomful of women tonight. He’s the best!” She planted a wet kiss on his cheek with a hearty “mwah!” sound.
I swear, if they spent the entire freeway ride making out while we sat in traffic, I was going to throw myself under the wheels of the car. “A-hem,” I said. “Audience of one back here.”
Victoria kissed him one more time, then turned her attention back to me. “So now I want to hear about James.” She had this way of saying his name like it was a super-special secret, all hushed and excited. “Did you work with him yesterday?”
I thought about what to tell her. Yes, we had worked. Yes, he spilt vanilla soft-serve and burned a whole batch of waffle cones. Yes, he had stood right next to me while I was ringing up customers, close enough that I could smell what laundry detergent he used.
But all I said was, “He spilt the soft-serve. It took forever to clean up.” Then I started digging in my bag for my makeup kit, since it had taken so long to get dressed that I had no time to spruce myself up. “Here, tilt the mirror so I can see myself,” I said as we merged onto the freeway. “Mommy needs to put her face on.”
“Like this?” Victoria moved the rearview mirror, which reflected a sunbeam and nearly zapped Jonah’s eyes out of his head.