Chapter 6 Both Back in the Day
The smell of weed permeates. The air—if there is any remaining—is cloudy with smoke. The room, a hotbox.
Though it’s the middle of the day on a Saturday, the space is dark, shades pulled down to block out the sun.
Nellie has only tried pot once before, with a camp friend on the girl’s family farm in Wisconsin. There, they’d been perched on grassy knolls surrounding a placid lake in summer. Dandelions abounded at crooked angles in place of people. It was peaceful, serene, silly.
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 and Star Wars figurines.
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 in True 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, mad real, 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. Really wants 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. Literally ever.
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.
So, she brings her lips to the bong’s damp hole, trying not to think about the number of teenage mouths that have been there before. Ignoring the dank stench of the water inside, she lets this boy bring his lighter to the bowl. It blazes orange, sizzling with heat, as she inhales an enormous hit.
Too enormous. Like by a lot. So that she fears for a brief moment that her lungs might collapse. Instead she launches into a deeply unsexy coughing fit, as Sebastian looks on encouragingly.
“When you cough,” he says, “it makes the effects stronger.”
This is what it takes to make him smile?
She nods vigorously, like she is totally fine with coughing up a lung and trying to ignore the searing pressure in her chest. Also: Stronger? Is that what she wants?
And nope. Nope, it isn’t. Because within minutes what was previously dull but benign feels horribly conspicuous and awkward as she slouches against the wall and wills the high to end.
No wonder Sebastian can’t form a coherent sentence. Now that she’s high, she can’t form any sentence at all.
This isn’t at all like lounging on the banks of the Door County river. This isn’t at all like running her bare feet through the grass, a sense of freedom and abandon as she stretched out and shut her eyes against the breeze.
Nope.
This feeling is more akin to being trapped in a middle seat in a miniature airplane during apocalyptic turbulence.
She is dying to turn to Sabrina and tell her what’s up—to beg for help—but her bestie is embroiled in some deep conversation with this other artsy girl, Chloe something, with lots of tongue pierces and black lipstick.
And as a now socially inept human, Nellie can’t figure out how a normal person would interject.
The back of her neck flashes hot. Her heart is pounding. Full panic descending.
Are the boys in the room multiplying like bacteria? The space feels like it’s shrinking.
And, oh, no! On top of the high from the bong hit, is she getting an exponential contact high from the smoke in the room?
“Hey, I remember you!” booms a voice from above her, interrupting her spiral. She looks up to find that blond kid, Damien, standing over her, his palm outstretched.
Oh, God. Not this guy. Not now.
“What’s up, Nellie?”
He says her name like she should be impressed that he knows it.
Given no other option, she manages to unfreeze and make a feeble attempt at a pound. But she doesn’t answer audibly. Words are not an option.
His hand is sweaty.
“What’s up, dude?” he says, examining her face from above, his sharp features venturing closer to her own. “Cat got your tongue? Or whatever the fuck that expression is. Is that right? Cat got your tongue? It sounds weird now. Cat. Got. Your. Tongue.”
It does sound weird. But not as weird as Nellie is feeling. She has to get out of here. Immediately.
With Damien distracted by this linguistic brain teaser, she pushes to standing and, wobbly, chances a glance down at Sebastian.
“I’ve got to…” She never bothers to finish the sentence.
Instead, she tiptoes her way out of the room, careful not to trip over outstretched legs or strewn backpacks.
Having thus escaped into the foyer, she scans the area for the kitchen, crosses to it, and finds it blessedly empty.
Phew. She is not saved, but this is something, at least.
She finds and fills a glass to the brim with cold water, chugs it, and then tries to catch her breath.
Okay. She is okay. She will be okay.
This will end.
Right? Oh, God. What if it never ends? What if she feels this way forever? What if the pot is laced with acid and she is eternally altered like that boy she’d heard about who thought he was a glass of orange juice and spent the rest of his life afraid he might spill?
Her gaze drifts to the window with a view of Riverside Drive—the familiar stone wall, the collage of tall trees in the park, goofy with overlapping leaves like giant green sheepdogs. All she needs to do is get herself out there in the sunlight and away from all these people. All this smoke.
But how? First thing, grab her stuff. Second, make an excuse.
I feel sick? No. Too much fuss.
I forgot I need to get home. Maybe. It’s believable. Her mom is on the stricter side.
Third, find the elevator, press the button, pray not to get stuck, act like a normal human around any other tenants, exit the building with an awkward nod to the doorman.
Then burst into fresh air, blissfully alone.
She can do that. If she can move from this safe spot back into the other room. The other room. She rotates toward the sink and fills the tumbler with more water. Then she leans over, propping her forearms on the edge and her head in her hands, and groans.
“Um, hey, are you okay?” A voice from the entrance. Gravelly, low.
She looks up. Blinks. And it’s him. Noah of club and sidewalk fame.
Oh Lord. Not him. Not now.