“I hate this song. Because everybody thinks it’s about a woman who is carefree and beautiful, but it’s actually about how Don Henley goes to some war-torn country and meets this woman who is in the middle of the most horrible situation ever, and all he notices about her is that she’s dancing. That’s the only thing he sees. She’s living in this dystopia where the government is bugging discos and mobsters are selling weapons to the military, and he actually thinks that all she cares about is goddamn dancing!”
My voice was a little too loud. Nobody said anything for a second, then Lizzy laughed. “I hate this song too.”
Jenny smiled. “I realize that I am totally uncool because I like Don Henley. I like the Eagles, too.” Then she shot me a serious look. “But yeah, let’s listen to something else. Do you approve of Tracy Chapman?”
It was mom music, but I still liked it. We sang along to “Fast Car” and sailed down the freeway back to Irvine.
Hamid called me two nights later. I answered on the downstairs phone next to the kitchen, where my mom was washing the dishes after dinner and listening to everything I said. That was fine, because I didn’t want to say much.
“Hey, it’s Hamid. How’s it going?”
“I’m good. How are you?” I twisted the curly cord around my fingers.
“Pretty good. What are you up to this weekend?” He didn’t offer any explanation for why he’d waited so long to call.
“I have plans with Heather and those guys.”
“All weekend? You don’t even have time to watch a very special video history of the Mouseketeers?” His voice hovered between needy and sad. It reminded me of when we’d talked on the beach, where he’d pulled me into his melancholy and left an alien robot baby behind.
“Yeah, sorry. I’m just super busy.”
“Well, what about next weekend?”
“I have a ton of SAT prep so…”
“So you’re busy.”
“Yeah.”
I could practically hear him getting the hint. When he spoke again, there was no emotion in his voice. “Okay cool… well, anyway, maybe I’ll see you around before I leave for UCLA. Or maybe not. Whatever.”
“Okay cool. Bye.” I hung up and tried not to feel anything.
My mom put down the dish towel and looked at me. “Was that a boy?”
“Yes.”
“You were very nice. I thought you did a good job politely turning him down.”
I had one of those split-second fantasies where I smashed every single dish my mom had painstakingly dried. The room was covered in powdery shards, and then it wasn’t.
“I think I’m going out with Lizzy tonight, okay?”
I ran upstairs before she could finish saying yes.
Irvine Meadows was having a summer weeknight concert with four indie bands, including Million Eyes, and we’d been planning to see it for a few days. Soojin and Heather were already in the station wagon when Lizzy picked me up.
“So what the hell happened with you and Hamid?” Heather turned all the way around in the front passenger seat, kneeling on the pleather to face me. “He said something about how you are going to be busy for the rest of the summer?”
After what happened with Scott, I figured Heather could keep a secret. So I told her and Soojin the whole story. By the time I got to the part where I’d puked in the trash can, we were parked in Irvine Meadows’ most distant and secluded parking lot.
“Please don’t tell Hamid, okay?” I looked at Heather.
She nodded slowly and then let out one of her crazy cackles. “Yeah, I can see why you might be busy all summer.”
“It’s not that Hamid is a bad person. Actually, he’s really nice. I’m just not… I know it sounds weird, but I’m not in the mood to talk to him.”
“That totally makes sense. I mean, he’s my cousin, so I feel bad for him. But also he’s kind of a dumbass.” Heather stuffed some weed in a pipe and took a long hit. “You want some?”
“I want some! I’m done driving now, hello!” Lizzy reached for the pipe, still trailing smoke.
We passed the pipe around for a while, and then headed toward our seats. After the first opening act, I heard a familiar voice behind us.
“Hey, guys. Great show, right?”
It felt like the hair was walking off the back of my neck. I turned around to see our social studies teacher, Mr. Rasmann, smoking a cigarette and looking very non-teachery in a leather jacket. He’d graduated from college only a couple of years ago, and a lot of girls at school had crushes on him.
“Hey, Mr. Rasmann.” Soojin smiled at him. “I didn’t know you liked punk rock.”
“Yeah, I miss going to shows in L.A. But this lineup is great. Have you guys heard Million Eyes before?”
I knew I wasn’t going to be interested in whatever he said next. My guess was that he only asked as an excuse to barf out some giant explanation of a band I definitely understood better than he did.
But for some reason Soojin fell into his conversation trap. “I love them, but I’ve never seen them live.”
And, as I predicted, he took her reply as pretext to launch into a long commentary about Million Eyes that he’d ripped off practically verbatim from an article in LA Weekly. Lizzy pulled out a cigarette to share, and Mr. Rasmann leaned forward to light it for us. It felt cool to have a teacher do that, but it also reminded me of Bob, with his “we’re not standing on ceremony” routine.
Lizzy grabbed my elbow. “Let’s take a little stroll before the next band.”
We wandered through the loge section and Lizzy glanced back over her shoulder. “That teacher is so gross. He’s always hitting on girls in my class.”
“Really? Ugh.”
Soojin raced up to us, almost crashing into the railing where we leaned. “Why did you guys leave me with that pervert?”
I waggled my eyebrows. “Why did you leave Heather with that pervert?”
“Heather went to the bathroom.”
“What did he do?”
“Well, at first I thought he was being nice. He was like asking me to call him Tom and talking about cool music. But then he was like, hey you have skin like a china doll, and do you want to party after the show, and it was super gross.”
“That asshole has been molesting girls at our school all year.” Lizzy had a furious expression on her face that I’d only seen once before, on the night we never talked about.
“He’s definitely got a molester vibe.”
“We should teach him a lesson.” Lizzy’s mouth hardened into a smile. Soojin grinned back.
I thought that would be the end of it. But Mr. Rasmann was still there when we got back to our seats, and Soojin wore a fake flirtatious smirk she only used to fuck with people.
“Hey, ladies!” He was trying to riff on a Beastie Boys lyric, and it came out sounding awful.
“Hi, um, Tom.” Soojin shot Lizzy a look as she spoke. “So where do you want to go party after the show?”
He bared his teeth. “You should come to my place. I have some good bourbon I got from my dad.”
“Can my friends come?”
Mr. Rasmann raked his eyes over us. “Sure. What the hell. It’s summer vacation, right?”
We followed his directions to an apartment complex in Tustin. It was one of dozens of suburban developments built during the 1970s to look woodsy and natural. As we wandered between amorphously shaped plots of grass and stucco walls masked by trees, I hung back for a moment to light a cigarette that Lizzy had stuffed in my pocket earlier.
“I’ll catch up, you guys! I’m going to smoke for a minute.”