Two-way Street

125 Days Before the Trip, 9:43 p.m.

Tonight I’m going to tell my friend Lloyd that I’m in love with him. Important things about Lloyd:

He’s been my best friend since the seventh grade, when we got seated near each other in every single class because of our last names. It seemed like every teacher was doing it alphabetically, so since I’m McSweeney and he’s McPeak, we were always together. When we got to high school and ended up being able to choose our own seats, we still sat together. It was like a rule.

Ever since the first day of seventh grade, I’ve been in love with him. My friend Jocelyn says that you can’t be in love with someone if:

they don’t know it

they don’t feel the same way

you’ve never kissed them, held hands with them, or done anything more than be friends with them.

But that makes no sense to me whatsoever, because, hello, it’s called unrequited love. Look at people in movies. They’re always saying “I’m in love with you” when they haven’t done anything physical with the other person. Physical is just physical, it doesn’t mean anything.

Besides, I am going to tell Lloyd how I feel. The reason I haven’t up until this point is because I don’t want to ruin the friendship (i.e., I’m deathly afraid of rejection). But lately, there have been signs. Lloyd has been calling me every single night—definitely more than usual—and talking on the phone with me for hours. And he helps me with my math homework, even when I get totally confused and it takes us twenty minutes to do one problem. He never gets impatient with me.

I have to make my move soon, though, because Lloyd is going to school in North Carolina and I’m going to school in Boston, so we’re going to need to be dating for a few months before we leave for college. That way we’ll be all set up for a long-distance relationship. Which is why I plan on telling him. Tonight. After the party. That I want to be more than friends.

I’m even wearing my “I’m going to tell Lloyd I want him” outfit, which consists of a very short jean skirt and a tight white shirt. Which is not the kind of thing I usually wear. But I need to get Lloyd to stop thinking of me as a friend and start thinking of me as someone he wants to date.

So far, the night is not going as planned. First, Lloyd said he would be at this party, and so far, I have not seen him. Second, my friend Jocelyn (who I drove here with), is off talking to this junior guy she has a crush on and has left me standing here by myself. This is not her fault, because I told her I would be fine, since I thought Lloyd would be here soon, and I would be so busy seducing him that I wouldn’t need Jocelyn to hang out with me anyway. Third, and definitely the most upsetting, is that right at this moment, there is a guy dressed like a leprechaun with his arms wrapped around my legs. I’m scandalized by this, but I’m trying to be nice, because I think he’s drunk.

“Oh, um, hi,” I say, trying to push him away gently. “You’re, um, a leprechaun.” This is why I don’t go to parties. Because stuff like this always happens to me. I’m always the one standing in some corner, by myself, with a guy dressed like a leprechaun drooling on my leg.

“I am not,” he says, looking up at me. “I’m a midget.” I get a good look at his face and realize it’s B. J. Cartwright. Great. The craziest guy in the senior class is wrapped around my leg. B. J.’s done some pretty insane stuff, including burning our class name and year into the lawn outside the front doors of our school. He almost got expelled for it, but the school board relented since no one got hurt. B. J. put condoms in all the teachers’ mailboxes on Safe Sex Awareness Day, rigged the school penny contest so that our class would win, and showed up on Halloween as Hannah Baker, a girl in our class who got arrested over the summer for prostitution. He wore balloon boobs and everything.

“A midget,” I say, trying to disentangle myself from him again, but he has a viselike grip on my leg. “That’s, erhm, interesting.”

“You’ve always wanted to do it with a midget, haven’t you, Britney?” he asks, licking his lips at me. Oh, my God.

“My name’s not Britney,” I say, hoping maybe he’s looking for someone specific, and once he realizes I’m not her, he’ll take off.

“I know it’s not,” he says, rolling his eyes. “But you look like her.”

“Like Britney?” I ask, confused. His hands feel sticky against my bare leg, and I curse myself for wearing a skirt.

“Yes,” he slurs, leering at me. “You look like Britney Spears.”

“Really?” I ask, pleased in spite of myself. Then it occurs to me that Britney’s gone through several stages of attractiveness, and I wonder if he means I look like Hot Britney, or Not So Hot Britney, I consider asking him to clarify but I’m not sure I could handle the answer.

Still, no one has told me I look like a celebrity before. In fact, one time Jocelyn tried to set me up with this guy online, and the first thing he asked me was who my celebrity lookalike was. And I told him “No one, I look like myself,” which, you know, was definitely kind of lame. Because even if I DON’T have a celebrity lookalike, I could have made something up, or just given a vague idea, like, “Well, I have long dark hair like Rachel Bilson,” or something. Not that it would have worked out anyway. The relationship with the online guy, I mean. He told me his celebrity lookalike was Jake Gyllenhaal, and I hadn’t even asked him for the information. He just volunteered it. Which meant that he was dying for me to know, which meant that he was totally conceited. I can’t deal with conceited. (Actually, I probably could deal with a little conceit, but I think I was just scared because there’s no way I’d feel comfortable going out with a guy who looks like Jake Gyllenhaal. That would not be good for my self-esteem.)

“Yes,” B. J. says. “You look just like Britney.” He reaches up and pokes me in the stomach. “Except for her abs. You don’t have her abs.” His face falls. All right then.

“Um, Britney’s had kids,” I say. “And so her abs, I’m sure, are shot.” He considers this, nods, and then licks my leg. Gross.

“Okay, you need to knock that off.” I stick my leg out and try to shake him off, but it’s harder than it looks. Even though he’s dressed like a midget, and has been walking around on his knees all night, B. J. is six-foot-four and probably weighs close to two hundred pounds. He’s heavy. I look around for Jocelyn, but I can’t find her anywhere. Typical. She begs me to come to this party, and then leaves me right at the crucial moment, i.e., when I have a midget-leprechaun attached to my leg. “Stop!” I command, wondering if I can stick the heel of my shoe into his stomach without really hurting him.

“Why?” he asks. “I’m helping you with your midget fetish.” He licks my leg again. Oh, eww.

“I do NOT have a midget fetish!” I say, louder this time, hoping that my change of volume will help him get the message.

“Not yet.” He grins up at me, and I’m about to stick my heel right into his stomach, not caring if it causes permanent damage or not, when Jordan Richman appears out of the crowd and picks B. J. up by his elbows.

“All right, Lucky,” he says, removing B. J. from my leg, swinging him around, and placing him a safe few feet away. Oh, thank God. Jordan must be really strong to be able to pick up B. J. like that. Although, once he set him down, B.J. went limp and fell to the ground, so maybe he was so drunk that it didn’t matter how big he was Kind of like when you’re in water, your weight doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s the same when you’re drunk. “I think that’s enough.”

“Whaddup, kid?” B. J. asks Jordan. He grins at him and readjusts the green beanie on his head.

“Nothing,” Jordan says, looking slightly amused, “but you can’t just go around humping people’s legs.” He rolls his eyes.

“I wasn’t humping her!” B. J. says, offended. “I’m a midget.”

“You’re not a midget,” I say, before I can stop myself. “You’re dressed like a leprechaun. And they don’t call them midgets anymore, they call them ‘little people.’” Jordan grins at me.

“I’m a little person, then,” he says, sounding cheerful. “But, really, who cares? I’m so wasted it doesn’t matter.”

“It’s not a costume party,” I point out.

“I know,” B. J. says sadly. “But Madison said she might wear her cheerleading uniform.”

“But she didn’t,” Jordan says.

I don’t understand what Madison’s cheerleading uniform has to do with it being a costume party, but I know enough to realize they’re talking about Madison Allesio. It figures Jordan would be friends with her. There’s this rumor going around that she likes to do this oral sex thing with Kool-Aid. Something to do with, uh, different flavors for different guys. Totally disgusting, which seems kind of like Jordan’s type. Not that I know him all that well. We’re in the same math class, and that’s about it. But one time I heard him in the hall before class, arguing with a girl. Something about how she needed to stop following him around. And then she said he shouldn’t have hooked up with her if he didn’t want a girlfriend. It was actually kind of a math class scandal, because the whole class could hear everything that was going on. Finally, I think he just walked into the classroom while she was screaming. I couldn’t see the girl, but later on I found out it was this freshman named Katie Shaw, and then I really didn’t feel so bad about the whole thing, because I know for a fact she messes around with a lot of guys—including Lloyd, who she went to third base with in a movie theater. Anyway, the point is, I’m not surprised Jordan’s friends with Madison. He apparently likes girls who thrive on hookups and drama.

“I don’t give a shit.” B. J. shrugs. “I’m a leprechaun. And leprechauns. Get. Lucky.” He pumps his hands in the air in a “raise the roof” gesture. “Besides,” he continues, grinning, “Britney liked it.” He grins at me again and then waddles off on his knees.

“Sorry about that,” Jordan says, smiling sheepishly. “He gets crazy when he’s drunk. But he wouldn’t have done anything.”

“It’s okay,” I say, feeling stupid.

“Here,” he says, pulling a tissue out of his pocket and handing it to me.

“Thanks.” I wipe B. J.’s saliva off my leg and check my skin to make sure it’s not broken, all the while scanning my brain for diseases that can be transferred by bites. I can’t think of any. Lyme disease, maybe? But I don’t think you can get that from other people, just from ticks. They should totally concentrate on communicable bite diseases in health class, since apparently I have more of a chance of getting bitten than I do of losing my virginity.

“Anyway, it’s Courtney, right?”

“Yeah,” I say, surprised that he’s asking. He should know my name. We’ve been in the same advanced math class for four years.

He smiles at me, his eyes shining. “Sorry, that was lame. I know your name. I was just trying to be smooth.”

I laugh and so does he.

“Are you here by yourself?” he asks, looking around.

“No,” I say quickly, so he doesn’t think I’m a total loser. “My friend Jocelyn is here somewhere, but I lost track of her.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I try to keep an eye on B. J. when he starts drinking, but it’s hard with this many people here.”

“I can imagine,” I say, trying to think of something cool to say. Not that I’m interested in him or anything. I mean, he’s cute enough, but that’s not why I can’t think of anything cool to say. I just have a hard time with small talk. My friend Jocelyn says I’m too quiet. But I’m really not quiet. I just tend to come across that way to new people because I don’t like to talk first. What if the other person doesn’t want to be bothered? I wonder if I should ask Jordan if he knows what kind of diseases can be transmitted through saliva.

“Anyway, you wanna dance?” he asks, gesturing to one side of the party, where everyone is dancing to a top forty remix.

“Oh, no thanks,” I say, trying not to look horrified. There’s no way I’m dancing at this party. If he’d ever seen me dance, he would know why. I am not a good dancer. I like to dance, I’m just not very good at it. I like to keep my dancing confined to my room, where I can pretend to be Christina or Rhianna without anyone watching.

“Oh,” he says, looking confused. Probably no girls have ever turned him down to dance before. He looks at me, and I realize he’s waiting for an explanation, some kind of reason why I can’t dance.

“I would,” I say quickly, hoping he doesn’t think I’m a dork and/or leave. It’s not that I’m loving talking to him or anything, but I don’t want to be the only loser at the party talking to no one. That’s how I got accosted by a leprechaun. “But my leg kind of hurts.” This is a total lie. Besides the fact that every time I think of what just happened, my leg feels kind of slimy, I actually feel fine. I mean, B. J. didn’t bite me or anything. He just sort of slobbered on me. Which was, you know, unpleasant and everything, but didn’t hurt.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Jordan says, looking genuinely concerned. Which makes me feel bad. But I would much rather deal with the guilt of lying about a medical condition than the humiliation of having to dance in front of everyone here. “Do you think you need to go to the doctor or anything?”

“Oh, no, I don’t think it’s that bad,” I say, “but I probably shouldn’t, uh, dance on it or anything.”

“Okay,” he agrees. He keeps looking over his shoulder for something (someone? B. J.?), which is kind of distracting.

There’s a pause, and I take a sip of my soda in an effort to appear busy. I finally spot Jocelyn across the room, where she’s sitting on an oversized leather couch, talking to a different guy than the one she originally left me for. She gives me a look and raises her eyebrows, like, “What’s the deal?” I try to telegraph back, “Absolutely nothing!” But she gives me a “Yeah, right” look back. I know she’s thinking about Lloyd.

“Hey,” Jordan says, looking around again. What is he looking for? Maybe he lost something. Or maybe someone stole something from him, and now he’s looking for whoever took it. Or maybe he wants to make sure his midget friend is okay. “How does your leg feel now?”

“Fine, thanks,” I say without thinking. “Much better.”

“Great,” he says. “Miraculous recovery.” He takes the drink I’m holding out of my hand and sets it down on the table next to us. “Then you can dance.”

“Oh, no,” I say, panicked. “I don’t think I’m ready for that.” Putting on a Destiny’s Child iTunes mix and rocking out in your room while pretending to be Beyoncé is one thing. Actually dancing in front of people from school is another thing. Plus, what if I get all sweaty or fall or something? And then later, Lloyd is like, “You know what, Courtney? I would have gone out with you, except since tonight I saw you looking like a sweaty, clumsy mess. I’m going to have to pass.” I don’t think I’m ready to risk my chance of happiness with Lloyd over one dance.

“Come on,” Jordan says, taking my hand. “You’ll be fine.” He looks at me and smiles, and I hesitate.

“I don’t dance,” I admit, going for the truth.

“I’ll be gentle,” he promises, and before I can protest, he’s dragging me out onto the dance floor.