Casey Barnes Eponymous (9 page)

“Is everything okay?”

“Sublime.
 
But
inquiring minds want to know…”

“No.”

“Right.” She hung up and went back out.

“All good?” he asked.
 

She sat.
 
“Amazing.”
 
They began to
make out again.
 
He started to take
off her underwear.
 
She stopped
him.
 
“The thing is--”

“You’re a virgin.”

She cocked her head to one side and made a face.
 
“Why, I mean, no.
 
Me?”
 
She laughed.
 
“That’s funny.”

He smiled.
 
“So
you’re saying you get around?”

“No.
 
I’m just
saying I’m not a virgin.”

“Well then what’s the problem?”

“I have a friend’s birthday party to plan tonight.
 
I mean like a big party.
 
College kids may be coming.
 
And I won’t be able to, you know, enjoy
it because I’ll just have to go home and figure out how many kegs to buy and
whether we’re gonna smoke pot from bongs or water pipes.”

“Bongs are water pipes.”

“Right but sometimes people get confused so I’ll need to
clarify that for them.
 
At the
party.”

“I hope I get invited to this party,” he said.

“You’ll need to play your cards right in order for that to
happen.”

He smiled again.
 
But then he moved away from her on the couch.
 
“So it’s really like a big deal for you,
having sex with me?”

Casey wanted to kill herself.
 
How could she have shown her naïve and
overtly virginal cards so easily?
  
“Of course not.”

“So if it’s not a big deal why let a party you have to plan
stop you?”

She stared at the guitar ahead.
 
Oh what she would have given for a
little Joan Jett sitting on her shoulder at that moment.
 
Alex Deal was right.
 
Right?
 
It was only sex, and they were pretty
much going out.
 
Plus, who better to
lose it with than him?
 
She imagined
herself at school the next day telling Leigh all about it.
 
She would finally be one of those girls
who made it to the other side of the fence.

He sensed he was making headway and placed a hand on her knee.
 
She looked into his eyes.
 
She started to form the words that would
constitute a yes okay let’s go for it, even if there were some technical issues
she was curious about, such as birth control and AIDS and herpes.
 
She wanted to call Leigh again.
 
But he kept staring at her with those
eyes.
 
And sometimes you just have
to lose yourself in the moment.

13

“Hold on,” she said.
 
She went to her backpack and brought it to the couch.
 
Then she took the list out.

She wrote it the night before after she got back from his house
and told Leigh everything and Leigh ended the conversation by saying, “Oh my
God I bet you guys are gonna, like, go to winter dance together.”
 

The image of that happening had simultaneously filled Casey
with such joy and terror that she realized she needed a soundtrack.
 
Thus as soon as dinner--an event that
consisted of a glaring Yull, a Tricia prattling on about math tutors and cheating
on tests, and a stepfather Jim talking about the stock market, the only part
Casey really tuned in for, mainly because he said “fucking” and that pissed
Tricia off even more--anyway after wading through
that
puddle
of distasteful familial gastronomy, she went upstairs and wrote it.

1. Song 1 - “Asleep and Dreaming” by The
Magnetic Fields.
 
For when she and
Alex Deal had been going out long enough to take naps together and she woke up
and found him looking at her.
 
Because when she heard that song she thought that was what had made
Stephen Merritt write it: some person he loved sleeping next to him.
 
He could barely stand how sweet that
person made him feel.

2. Song 2 - “Atoms for Peace” by Thom
Yorke.
 
Thom Yorke, not
Radiohead.
 
It was off his solo
album.
 
She had no idea what the
song was about.
 
She almost never
did with Radiohead and or Thom Yorke songs and half the time she wondered if
they had any idea either.
 
But who
else was so good the songs could be about eight different things and still always
mean something?

3. Song 3 - “We Have This Place Surrounded”
by The Boxer Rebellion.
 
It was how the
chorus crept in, dynamic and dissonant and haunting.
 
Whoever was inside whatever place they
were talking about would not get out.
 
Alex Deal would feel that way about Casey one day.
 

She handed the list over.
 
“So instead of sex I get another list?” he asked.
 
She stared at him.
 
Every muscle in her body wanted to
respond to his question with the word “Eww.”
 
But no, she thought, this was Alex Deal.
 
“Do you, like, have these floating
around in your bag or something?” he chuckled.
 
She looked down.
 
“I mean, thanks,” he said.
 
He looked it over.
 
“I have
69 Love
Songs.
”
 
That was the
album, box set really, the Magnetic Fields song was off.
 

“Oh.”

“Boxer Rebellion?”

She perked up.
 
“It’s a great song.”

He smiled, only that time it seemed forced.
 
He placed the list down and gave her one
last expectant look.
 
She
froze.
 
Just go for it, she told
herself.
 
But then she remembered
Yull’s voice the night before.
 
A
moment passed.
 
“I really gotta get
home and start planning this party.”

He nodded.
 
The
stiffness had returned.
 
“Right.
 
Well I guess…I mean,
I’ll drive you home.”

He did not say much on the ride.
 
She tried to get a conversation going
about guitar pedals.
 
Surely it was
impressive that she knew D’Addario made great ones.
 
Melanie Corcoran probably never spoke to
him about that.
 
When they got to
her house a long moment passed in which neither of them spoke.

“Guess I should let you get to your party planning now,” he
said.

“Okay.”

As she walked up to the house she saw a figure move away from a
window on the second floor.
 
She
groaned.
 
Sure enough, as soon as
she was inside, Yull appeared at the top of the stairs.
 
She made a beeline for the living room.

“Just listen to me,” he said.
 
She turned the television on, blasted
the volume all the way, went into the adjoining kitchen and took a soda out of
the refrigerator.
 

He followed her.
 
“Don’t let him pressure--”

“I didn’t ask for your advice.”

“Don’t--”

She placed her hands over her ears and began to sing “Purple
Rain” loudly.
 
Yull went to the
counter, grabbed a pen and paper, and scribbled
Do NOT sleep
with Alex Deal
on it.
 
Casey took the paper from him, read it, and crumpled it up.
 
He sighed and threw his hands up in the
air.
 
“Don’t blame me when he breaks
your heart.”
 
He began to leave the
kitchen.
 

When he reached the door she spoke.
 
“Why did you tell me not to let him
pressure me?”

He turned and folded his arms over his chest.
 
“So he has been?”

“I didn’t say that.
 
I just wanted to know why of all things
that’s
what you chose to say about him.”

Yull walked back to the counter.
 
“Because he has a reputation, that’s
why.
 
And it’s not a very nice
one.”
 

She frowned.
 
Oh come
now Yull was just threatened by the thought of Casey getting to be as popular
as he was by way of dating Alex Deal.
 
He did not know Alex Deal the way she did.
 
What they had was…“What?” she asked.

He sat.
 
“What
what?”

“What’s his reputation?”

“That he likes to play it all nice and indie rock but in
reality is into getting as many notches on his belt as possible.”
 

“But he likes The Ramones.”

“Ask Melanie Corcoran if you don’t believe me.”

“She’s a slut.”

“No she’s not.
 
She’s really nice.
 
She
dumped Alex because she felt like he pressured her to have sex right away and
then was always checking out other girls when they were in public.”

“Did she?”

“Did she what?”

“Have sex with him.”

Yull nodded.
 
“Did
you?”

“No.”

“Be honest.”

“I am being honest.
 
I didn’t.”
 
She turned the
T.V. down and went over to the fancy china cabinet.
 
Tricia kept junk food there.
 
The theory was that if she kept it away
from the main food stores household members would not eat it on a frequent
basis.
 
The theory did not hold
true.

She took out a box of double stuff Oreos, brought them to the
kitchen table, and began eating one in the only manner any human should ever
eat a double-stuff Oreo: by licking out the white stuff and tossing the
half-eaten chocolate bits in the kitchen sink.
 
Yull joined in.
 
“Do you want to talk about it more?” he
asked.

“Remember those things Hostess used to make that were pink and
coconutty?”

“They had cream in the middle, right?”

“They were made by
Hostess
,
Einstein.”

“Snoballs.”

“Right.
 
You never
see those in stores anymore.
 
Why’s
that?”
 

He shrugged.
 
“Beats
me.”

“Think you can buy them online?”

“Probably.”

Casey nodded and dug into another Oreo.
 
A moment passed.
 
“Do you think maybe he just hasn’t met a
girl who understands him yet?”

“You mean like one with dirty hair and Kurt Cobain T-shirts?”

“Don’t ruin your indoctrination of me into the fag hag
sorority,” she said.
 
He gave her
the finger.
 
“There’s something I never
told you.
 
About him,” she added.

“What?”

“We had a thing for a couple of days at the end of the summer,
when you and Mom were away looking at colleges.”

“What kind of ‘thing?’”

“We saw a movie and went to the beach and ate funnel cake and I
slept over.”

Yull looked strange for a moment, as if he was realizing
something.
 
“This was right before
Labor Day weekend?”