Where It Began

But she looks as if she’s going to cry and the Must Help Andie instinct kicks in and I go, “Hey, Andie,” given that I don’t have any helpful substances to give her if she goes into her catatonic crying state.

“Why didn’t you call me back?” she says, looking completely miserable.

“Uh, I didn’t know what to say, I guess. Sorry.”

Andie blurts, “I feel like it’s my fault. I just wanted to tell you that. Billy says you don’t want to hang out with us like before,” (which, although I instantly understand why he had to say that, is not the fu

She stands there gazing at me, looking guilty as all hell, which is a new look for inhabitants of Cute World.

“Are you feeling okay?” she says. “Are you still in pain? Do you need anything for it? Maybe I could help you.”

Even the thought of Andie Be

I am nevertheless not entirely un-curious as to where she is going with this.

“So how is it your fault?”

“Gabby!” she says, widening her eyes, as if of course I know, in a sort of “duh” move. “I was supposed to be the designated driver.” She looks down at her hands, which she is kind of wringing in front of herself, as if she could gain comfort from her manicure. “I’m not trying to make an excuse. But Jordie was making those really good margaritas. I mean, who drinks margaritas? But you were drinking them and they looked really good and I guess I kind of started drinking them too.”

This is all just so incredibly stupid and lame, and I am already so completely wigged out, I just don’t know what to say.

I mean, it’s not as if I’m the world’s biggest fan of drunk driving, and if you’d ever sat in the backseat while John careened up the hill from Sunset toward Mulholland, straddling the middle line all the way up Roscomare and scraping the bottom of the Benz over the speed bumps, you’d completely believe me. Because: I don’t have a death wish or the delusional belief that cute drunk boys with car keys who say they can handle it can handle it.

And this, boys and girls, is why God invented taxis and Andy Kaplan’s pool house.

All right, it’s true that occasionally, in a spurt of conscientious zeal, we’d come up with a designated driver, but the only person who ever actually abstained when she was supposed to drive was Andie, which became completely irrelevant when Andy got his Porsche because Andie couldn’t turn it on or shift the gears, which put the possibility of Andie driving the Porsche in the basket with ha-ha-forget-it and impossible.

And, anyway, if you’ve ever wondered why there are no cabs in L.A. late at night, it’s because they’re all ferrying the rich drunk kids from the Three B’s to coed overnights at the houses of whoever’s parents are the most clueless or on location in Cambodia. Or occasionally the sharing caring slobbery kind of parents who think it’s a testament to their grooviness that their kid and her slightly impaired friends are passed out at home and not in some low-class gutter in the Toy District after a rave.

Andy Kaplan’s father is the first kind, which is better; once we ended up in Sasha Aronson’s rec room and her father wanted to rap, leading Billy to conclude that maybe consuming a truck-load of hash in the ’60s really could rot your brain. Andy’s father, on the other hand, leaves us completely alone out in the pool house, presumably so he and the fifth Mrs. Kaplan can play naked freeze tag all over the hacienda without being interrupted by pesky teens padding down the hall in search of a toilet to throw up in. He is so grateful that we are out cold in the pool house, he sends the housekeeper with trays of brunch-like goodies at noon the next day.

The point of which being that Andie screwing up when she was supposed to be the designated driver of a car that Billy would never let her drive in the first place was kind of irrelevant.

“Right.”

I am incredibly tempted to say something really nasty to her.

At that particular moment, it is hard to see a downside to being as nasty as I feel like being, as nasty as I’ve felt like being all day, and even more so after Billy’s hand slipped onto Aliza Benitez’s butt and into her pocket while I was i

What was Andie going to do if I just broke down and went for it, drum me out of Cute World?

Get me on the Slutmuffins’ blacklist?

“I don’t blame you if you’re mad at me,” she says, scratching her right calf with the toe of her left Chanel ballet slipper, proving the utility of really expensive shoes in times of trouble.

“For godsake, Andie,” I say, wanting to be mean but the cute little foot in the cute little shoe is just getting to me and realizing that it isn’t her cute little butt I want to kick. “It’s not like you could have done anything about it. I wasn’t exactly looking for a designated driver at the time. It’s not like you did anything to me.”

Andie says, “It’s not?” She bites her lower lip and sniffles. “You are so nice. I never even realized how nice you are. You’re like . . .” (Try to imagine Andie struggling with deep thought.) “Joan of Arc or something. What you’re doing is totally amazing.”

No, what I’m doing is trying to live through the day so I can come back for more tomorrow. This is probably more stupid than amazing. Or amazingly stupid.

Andie is yammering on and on, goo-goo eyed. She thought she was loyal but I’m the most loyal person ever. I’m like a golden retriever, like her golden retriever Duchess who died but she was really a good dog, like a guy in the army who throws himself on a—what do you call it?—hand grenade for you.

This girl is so sweet and so without brains, it’s pathetic.

Because, truth be told, I am the hand grenade and not the person who throws herself on it. Because if Billy comes near me, his probation will blow up, the shrapnel will rip through his life, and he’ll be in Juvie Hell.

I’m not back at Winston School to grow and change like some sort of life-embracing, leafy vegetation turning toward Ponytail’s imaginary sun. It’s a total fraud.

I’m back because I want everything to stay the same.

My everything being Billy.

Me and Billy.

Because even though I get it, I understand, I’m not brainless, still, my heart does not understand. My body does not understand in the least. Skin, eyelids, fingertips. I want him to play with my hair and the hell with Princeton. Would Romeo give up Juliet for a really good shot at the Ivies? I don’t care if Billy blowing in my ear is some form of felony. I want it and it seems to me as if, if I just hang in there and he sees me and my ear is right there in his face, then he’ll want it too. He did at the castle, so why not at Winston, every day, just like before?

Because I am the grenade is why.

Because if I get too close to him, I’ll mess him up.

I am the grenade and I just have to roll away down the hill and stay away and somehow get by not talking to him or brushing arms with him or holding hands or sitting with him for three more weeks of junior year.

XLVII