“What?” I asked.
“It felt so weird and unromantic, so I panicked, and said something like ‘Hey, my parents really want to meet you’ and, I’m not kidding, guys, his entire face dropped. Like I’d announced I was the secret love child of Hitler or something. He…he…just pulled up his fly and said, all posh and blustery, ‘I think you’ve got the wrong idea here, Lottie.’”
Amber’s mouth gaped open. “What? Just like that?”
Lottie nodded, more tears spilling. “He looked so shocked, and then he started apologizing. Which made it even worse I think. ‘Oh, Lottie, sorry, you’re a great girl but…well…I thought it was just a bit of fun. I thought you agreed. Oh, I’m so sorry.’ I felt like a charity case! I’m so stupid. I was really falling for him, you know? Argh, Christ, I’m such a bloody girl. I’d even practised telling people how we met – ‘Oh, he spilled drink down me’…it all seemed so romantic.”
“So what happened then?” I asked, returning to rubbing her back.
She sighed. “Well then, of course, I went stark raving mental. I started yelling at him, all drunk and totally unladylike, screaming, ‘What? Are you serious? What? You arsehole, you led me on.’ I swear the whole party heard. And he just apologized even harder, coming up with all this stupid crap, about how we never said it was anything official, and that he liked spending time with me but… And I was like, ‘But what? BUT WHAT?’ I was chasing him out onto the street by then, like a rabid dog, screaming. I just remember yelling, ‘BUT WHAT?’ I didn’t get it. I still don’t get it.”
“Did he answer you?”
Lottie sat up suddenly, and wiped her curranty eyes. Her face morphed from grief into anger, like someone had pointed a remote at her. “He said he didn’t understand why I was so upset. That we were just seeing each other. And why would he want to be tied down at sixteen anyway?”
Amber and I went to the local corner shop. Chocolate was purchased.
“I’m such a cliché,” Lottie told us on our return, half a Dairy Milk hanging out of her mouth. “I’m eating chocolate and moaning about men.”
“Sometimes clichés are helpful,” I offered.
“I hate how he’s made me do this. I hate how much chocolate is genuinely helping.”
I broke off another square of the Whole Nut and passed it down to Amber, who leaned against Lottie’s bed, her long legs sprawled out on the carpet.
“I just can’t believe he said that,” she said, taking the chocolate and popping it into her mouth. “I don’t want to be tied down. I hate that. That they think girls are just obsessed with having relationships. What do they want us to do? Shag them but not expect anything in return?”
“Er, yeah, basically,” Lottie answered.
“No, that’s not right either,” I said. “They call those girls sluts.”
They nodded in agreement.
“So we’re damned if we do, damned if we don’t, basically?” Amber looked utterly depressed.
Lottie stood up on the bed, slipping a bit in her fluffy socks. “No, there’s another way. We can pretend to be a Manic Pixie Dream Girl.”
“A whatta whatta what now?” I asked.
“You know? A fraud. A boy’s dream. Especially the indie boys that we hang out with.”
“What’s a Manic Pixie Dream Girl? Why do you know all these words all the time?”
She sat back down, and scrolled on her phone, pulling up a few movie stills on Google. Zooey Deschanel came up. And Kirsten Dunst. And this indie film I really liked called Ruby Sparks that came out a few years ago. “Voilà,” she said. “Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Or MPDG if you wanna sound, like, so four years ago.”
“Huh?”
Lottie jabbed at the screen. “She’s like this invention in men’s imaginations, but girls pretend they’re real. It’s all basically a recycle of the Madonna-Whore complex, but with vintage dresses.”
“The Madonna whatnow? Seriously, you know all the words,” I said, my head spinning.
Lottie ignored me and just explained. “The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is pretty but she doesn’t really know it. She’s kooky and makes you feel alive, but she knows when to shut up and just let you watch the football. She drinks whisky or beer and doesn’t ask anything of your relationship because she’s too busy doing whacky leisure activities or at band practice. She likes casual sex, but just with you, not with anyone else.”
Amber twisted around and grabbed the phone. “Oh, I SO know what you mean.” She turned to me and helped explain. “I did a whole topic about Madonnas for my art GCSE, it’s basically paintings of the Virgin Mary. The Madonna-Whore complex is this idea Freud came up with that men get all sexually confused because they want us to be virginal Madonna types they can bring home to meet their parents…but they also want us to shag them like we’re insatiable whores. They can’t make up their mind which one they want. Ideally both, because, you know…” She shrugged. “Because boys. I made up my own phrase for the ideal combo of both,” she said proudly. “For modern times. I call it The Girl-Next-Door Slut.”
Lottie cackled. “LOVE it! The juxtaposition of two feminine ideals, i.e. a complete lose-lose stereotype.”
I pulled a face. “And you think guys want this?”
“Sure,” Lottie took back her phone. “I swear the only way you get a boyfriend these days is to pretend you’re a Girl-Next-Door Slut.”
“Pretend how?”
“Oh, you know. Say stuff like ‘Do you mind if we keep this casual, I kinda get freaked out by the whole commitment thing?’ It drives me mad. Boys always think I’m like that because I’m quite sexual, I guess…” Lottie didn’t look sexual right then. She had melted chocolate all round her mouth. “But then they realize I sort of want them to only put their organ into my body, and nobody else’s, and maybe even have a chat about our feelings and stuff in-between and – bam – they get all jumpy and moody, like I’ve let them down.”
I pulled a face. “Aren’t you being a bit sexist? Boys aren’t all like that.”
“Yes they are,” Amber said.
I thought of Guy, and how he always picked me up on it when I got double-standardy. Thinking about him felt good… “You can’t just lump all boys into the same turd lump.”
“Why not?” they both asked.
“Well…look at Jane and Joel. He’s not cheated on her, has he? He seems to really love her.”
“He loves a lie!” Lottie stood up again. “Jane is totally playing the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Didn’t you say she’s changed loads since they got together? That you feel she’s made herself a product? A girlfriend product?”
“I guess…”
“I swear to God, if she pulled out her clarinet and started saying ‘I’d rather you not blow me off for band practice at the last minute’, Joel would up and leave.”
“I…guess…”
Amber came and joined us on the bed, flopping down and making ripples on the mattress. “Sometimes I don’t care if I am sexist, you know? We have to deal with it all day every day, why not fight fire with fire?”
“Girls should rule the world,” Lottie said.
“Totally.”
I always felt I learned something when I was with them. They had such strong opinions, such high opinions about being a girl and how it’s amazing, it was hard not to get swept up in it. Especially with Einstein Lottie teaching me all these new thoughts and words. I did feel a bit glowy about girlfolk. I mean, we are really cool, aren’t we? And the world is, like, totally against you if you have a fanny, isn’t it?
“Shall I tell you what annoys me?” I asked, wanting to join in. “About Tim?”