Page 24 of Backslide
Even the pot, which came from her friend’s father’s stash, seemed somehow wholesome.
Though urban legend says you never feel high the first time you smoke, they’d shared a whole joint and Nellie definitely got stoned. What else would explain why—when after a while they had to push to standing, brush the grass off their shorts, and make their way back to the family home for early dinner—she literally couldn’t stop laughing?
But even that felt fine, if mildly out of control. Mostly Nellie recalled the warmth of the waning sun on her shoulders as they dug into the world’s most delicious pasta salad and hot dogs around a picnic table by a vegetable garden.
This. Today. At some kid’s apartment who she doesn’t know—the short, stocky sweet one whose name she can never recall (Ben? Benji? Bill?)—feels totally different. For one thing, there are no dandelions. Only disheveled teenage boys in every direction, in clothes so oversized on their wiry frames that they evoke laundry piles. In the dim bedroom with too many lava lamps (is there such thing as too few?), they slouch in corners. On an old couch below Wu-Tang Clan and Knicks posters. On the floor by a collection of still-boxed action figures andStar Warsfigurines. In a desk chair that swivels as one boy keeps spinning in it.
Brain trust.
There are girls here too, but only a few. Nellie, Sabrina, and Lydia (who Cara left them to babysit when she ran to her model U.N. meeting). And a couple others from Sabrina’s school, whose names entered and exited Nellie’s consciousness within seconds of hearing them. Jen and Jenny, maybe? Jess and Jessica?
Nellie is sitting on the floor against one wall next to Sebastian, a boy Sabrina has wanted her to meet. The reason Sabrina dragged her here.
Even now, Sabrina, who sits on her other side, keeps nudging Nellie and raising her eyebrows like,what do you think?
Why doesn’t Sabrina date him herself?
He is more grunge than hip-hop. More flannel than Fubu. Supposedly a sensitive boy, full of poetry and pain. His tattered skateboard—laden with stickers and tags—leans up against a nearby wall.
He’s not Nellie’s type, but he’s definitely good-looking, with scruffy auburn hair and chiseled, almost pretty features that remind her of Brad Pitt inTrue Romance.
And that almost,almost, makes up for the fact that he’s boring as hell and has a resting expression like someone just murdered his puppy.
“So, like, do you like music?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Nellie says. “I like music.” Because she is human. And humans like music. And food. And air (preferably not polluted like a head shop).
“My favorite band is The Smiths.” He frowns with what she imagines is enthusiasm. “?’Cause they’re, like, madreal, you know?”
Nellie nods. She does know. The Smiths are in fact a real band.
“Um, you’re in your own band too, right?” Nellie tries, searching for common ground.
“Word. Yeah. I’m in a band.”
“That’s cool. What kind?”
“What kind?” His brow creases. This question has stumped him. “What do you mean?”
“Like, what kind of music do you guys play?”
“Just… kind of like the Smiths. It’s hard to explain.”
Is it though?
Sabrina nudges Nellie again. Scoots closer to her, so that Nellie is forced to press her other side right up against Sebastian’s arm and hip. She glances surreptitiously over and assesses him—his trucker hat and Carhartt jeans. The wallet chain that hangs between his back pocket and his belt.
Ugh. The dreaded wallet chain. Has the world ever seen a more hard-trying accessory?
She tries to ignore it.
She wants to like this dude.Reallywants to like him. ’Cause he is very hot. And also, she is mired in a dry spell of roughly… her whole life. But he is making it very difficult to like him. Because he has the personality of wet cardboard.
It will take her years to understand that this brand of skater boy is her diametric opposite on the spectrum of human personality, a type to whom she can never connect. Literallyever.
Now, the bong makes its way back around to them and, like last time, she readies to pass it along without partaking. She liked her one pot experience, but she doesn’t feel like she needs to relive it socially, alcohol being so much more predictable and loose. But then she looks at Sebastian and he looks blankly back at her and she realizes his eyes are intensely bloodshot and she thinks,Huh. Maybe if I smoke pot too, we’ll be on the same wavelength?
Maybe she can smoke her way into his heart—or at least his pants.
