“Okay,” Isabel a said. When he left, she pul ed one of his pegs out and laid it down right next to his car.
The dead-peg rule had always made Isabel a cry. Somehow, her little pegs never seemed to stay put, and they always popped out. “That’s the rule, Izzy,” her brother Marshal always said to her when she tried to protest. It was so rotten, Isabel a thought, the way that everyone squealed and laughed when someone’s peg fel out, the way they al clapped at that person’s misery and misfortune. Mol y would always pat Isabel a’s back when this happened and say, “If you can’t fol ow the rules, then maybe you shouldn’t play.”
Ben came back inside, but he didn’t notice his dead peg.
Isabel a went to the bar and ordered shots for herself and Mary. “Here,” she said, handing it to her. “No excuses. This is a time of mourning.
We’re never going to live together again.”
“Don’t say that,” Mary said.
“It’s true,” Isabel a said. She could feel herself getting sentimental, which she always was. Sometimes she missed people before they even left her, got depressed about a vacation being over before it started.
“Wel then, cheers,” Mary said. They clinked the glasses, touched them to the counter, and drank.
“You’re going to miss me,” Isabel a said. “There won’t be anyone to blame for the dirty dishes in the sink.”
“I don’t leave dirty dishes in the sink,” Mary said.
“Exactly,” Isabel a said.
Ben and Mike came over and suggested another bar. “This place is beat,” Ben said. He leaned back and stretched his arms.
“We can’t go anywhere,” Isabel a told him. “We stil have to finish packing. The movers are coming early.”
“Okay,” Ben said. “Talk to you tomorrow.” Isabel a noticed that he didn’t offer to help her move, but she didn’t say anything. She and Mary had another drink and headed back to the apartment, which was ful of boxes and stil had stuff al over the floor.
“What is this stuff?” Mary asked.
“Crap,” Isabel a said. “It’s just al crap.” She kicked at a pink hand weight. “When have either of us ever lifted weights?” she asked.
“I think I bought those thinking I’d lift weights in my room,” Mary said.
“How did that go?” Isabel a asked.
“Not great,” Mary said. “I think that’s why they were underneath the couch.”
“Here,” Isabel a said. She reached into her pocket and took something out. “I stole these for us.” She opened her palm and showed Mary two pink peg people from Life and two pigs from Pig Mania. She handed Mary a peg person and a pig. “They’re us,” she said. “Roommates always.”
Mary laughed. “Who’s the pig?” she asked.
In her new apartment, Isabel a glued the pig and the peg person on a piece of cardboard and hung it in a frame by the door. People always commented on it when they walked in. “Hey, look,” they’d say. Sometimes they recognized the peg from Life, and some people even knew where the pig was from, which usual y made them laugh. When the glue wore out and the peg person or the pig fel down, she didn’t throw them out.
Instead, she glued them right back on and said a silent prayer that they were the only critters in her home.
O ur friend Elen dates ugly boys,” Lauren used to say. She said it al through colege. She said it to warn attractive boys who were interested in El en. “You’re not her type,” she’d try to explain. “It’s weird, I know, but you’re far too good-looking for her.” Most of the time, these boys didn’t listen.
They’d just nod and keep staring at El en, thinking about how they were going to approach her, as Lauren insisted in the background, “Our friend El en dates ugly boys.”
Al of El en’s friends accepted this. They weren’t surprised when she introduced them to boys with receding hairlines and mild cases of rosacea.
They didn’t laugh when she picked out the one guy in the bar with braces and said, “Look at him!” When she got breathy and excited about someone new, they al mental y prepared themselves to meet a guy with a creepy carnival mustache and a mean case of dandruff. Even in first grade, when the only acceptable boys to like were Jon Armstrong and Chris Angelo, El en announced that she liked scabby Matthew Handler. It was just who she was. El en dated ugly boys.
It was surprising, mostly because El en was pretty—and not just your average, wel -groomed and wel -dressed kind of pretty. She was the kind of pretty that people noticed, the kind of pretty that made people watch her walk by. She had long eyelashes and skin that didn’t seem to have any pores. There was a glow about her, something that always drew boys to her side. If she’d been anyone else, Lauren might have been too jealous to be her friend. But it never mattered, because El en would look at al of her admirers gathered round, and point to Mr. Fatty and say, “I choose you.”
Lauren got to keep the rest of them.
Some friends are gossips and some are sloppy drunks. If you like them wel enough, you ignore this trait and continue to be their friend. And that’s what they did with El en—they tolerated her taste in men.
Once, in col ege, El en kissed a guy who lived down the hal from them. They cal ed him the Wildebeest because he was portly with wild curly hair and he snorted when he laughed. He was the guy who got drunk at parties, stripped naked, and did the worm on the floor in a pool of keg beer.
They al knew him. They al liked him wel enough. And they were al shocked when El en announced that she’d kissed him the night before when he’d walked her to her door.
“Hold on,” Isabel a said. “Please back up. You made out with the Wildebeest?”
El en shrugged. “I didn’t plan it,” she said. “He offered to walk me home and he’s so funny.”
“Of course he’s funny,” Lauren said. “He’s a Wildebeest. Wildebeests are supposed to be funny. But Wildebeests are not for making out with.”
El en was unashamed. She just smiled and shrugged and went back to her room. Al the girls stared at each other and shook their heads.
“Making out with a Wildebeest,” they whispered to one another. “What wil be next?”
For the most part, El en’s boys were harmless. That’s not to say that they al had sparkling personalities or quick wit to make up for their appearance. No, some of them were truly blessed with nothing. But stil , the girls never real y objected to El en’s choices. “Different strokes for different folks,” their friend Mary always said whenever El en brought home another one. And they al laughed and let her be. “What harm could it do?” they asked each other. And so they let El en have her ugly little fun.
But then she met Louis. And Louis was awful.
Louis weighed about ninety pounds, had soft, wispy blond hair, and wore the same pair of rust-colored corduroys their entire junior year. He was pretentious and social y awkward and El en was crazy about him. Louis sat in their apartment and chain-smoked cigarettes while he ignored al of them. Once, when Lauren asked El en for an opinion on which shirt she should wear out that night, Louis weighed in. “It can be dangerous to care too much about clothes. It makes you shal ow,” he said. Then he reached into his pants pocket, took out a paperback copy of Why I Am So Wise by Nietzsche, and started reading.
“I hate that guy,” Lauren said later that night. “He’s such a dick.”
“Relax,” Isabel a said. “It won’t last. They never do.”
The first time Louis dumped El en, they silently cheered. But a week later, the couple was back together, and Louis showed up again in their apartment, smoking cigarettes and making comments about how sil y girls were in general. Louis broke up with El en over and over again, and she kept going back to him. None of them understood it.