Kissing Ted Callahan (and Other Guys)(5)

After all, there are plenty of reasons besides revenge for wanting a boyfriend. Love, sex, a guaranteed person to hang out with, et cetera. And by the time you’re sixteen—if you like boys—having a boyfriend is something you might as well try out.

And I’m a musician! Musicians are not supposed to be virgins who throw up the first and only time they drink beer from a keg. Musicians are not supposed to keep a secret diary in their dresser that dates back to the fourth grade and includes a list of perfect names for kittens. (Top contenders: Captain Fluffington, Mittens, and Meowser.) And speaking of, while musicians are supposed to rail against their parental dictators, their main fights are not supposed to revolve around getting said kitten.

Also, a lot of guys are pretty great. Not just Nathan and Ted, but guys. Guys are around, abound, aplenty. I’ve yet to connect with one in any significant way. But they are there.

So I’d already been thinking about them—guys—hypothetically, in general, and thinking about Ted—the guy—specifically. Ted is so many things a guy should be. He has great hair. It’s light brown and just long enough that it gets wavy near his ears and collar, and it looks soft, like in a fancy conditioner commercial. He’s in extracurriculars, which means he cares about the world or at least his college applications. Midway through sophomore year he still looked like a boy in a sea of almost-men, but then he got a little taller and a little filled out. I noticed, but then, suddenly, I Noticed.

And while I’m great at what seems like enough things—drums, making smoothies, flying kites (not that I’d done that in a while)—I’m unskilled in the ways of boys, plural, and definitely in the ways of boy, singular.

Reid is, undeniably, a guy, and he’s around. I realized if I were to need advice about guys, there was one right in my midst. So, on the first day of school this year, I decided to ask Reid what guys were looking for in a girl. Instead of just answering, he handed me one of his beaten-up notebooks, the ones that he carried with him everywhere. Turns out that Reid wasn’t just writing lyrics for the Gold Diggers. He was also writing about girls.

Right then, over lunch, we made a pact: We’d help each other figure out the opposite sex and write about it in the notebook. Reid says that “writing keeps us honest,” whatever that means.

Neither of us wanted to turn into Lucy or Nathan, even if maybe the unspoken truth was that we were jealous of them and what they had. Nathan was the hot guy in the band, and I guess for some reason I thought maybe I’d be the one to eventually land him. It was probably the same reason that Reid thought the hot girl of the group might be his one day. (The lyrics in “Sugar,” one of our earlier songs, about indigo eyes and dreams of demise couldn’t be about anyone but blue-eyed, cults-obsessed Lucy, come on.)

Still, jealousy wasn’t going to make us liars. And that was something we promised to each other.

*

Mom’s grading papers at our dining room table when I get home. She teaches gender studies at USC, which means she’d be disappointed if she knew I had a notebook with detailed outlines of how to make boys fall in love with me and ways to make Reid appealing to girls. Romance plans in general are probably looked down upon by college professors, so I’m not about to tell Dad, either, even though he’s just a professor of American history.

“Riley,” she greets me. “You’re late.”

“Reid wanted to meet me,” I say, instead of THERE WAS A HORRIBLE INCIDENT WITH TED CALLAHAN, BUT ALSO HE WAS IN MY CAR. “He needed help with our English lit homework.”

“Really?” Her eyebrows knit together. Worry is Mom’s default emotion for me. Probably when she was my age she was already dissecting the world for gender analysis, not playing in a band and trying to do just enough work in school to get by. “It wasn’t about the Gold Diggers?”

“Definitely not.” I get a root beer out of the refrigerator and swing the door shut with my foot. “Can I skip dinner? I just ate a waffle.”

“A waffle? For dinner?”

“No, not for dinner; it’s just, now I’m not hungry for dinner.” I make an expression I hope makes me seem like a silly kid who doesn’t understand how eating and getting full works. “I just want to do my homework and practice for a while.”

Her eyes are back on the stack of papers in front of her. “Okay.”

“You should do that on your computer,” I tell her for the billionth time.

“Eye strain,” we say together, and Mom gives me a little smile before I head up to my room.

I speed through my homework and head out to the guesthouse. It sounds swank, but it’s hardly bigger than our garage. Mom and Dad had just used it for storage before I’d gotten my first drums, and it took only a week of me playing inside the house for them to consolidate the boxes and crates and move me out here.

I never took offense; I was crappy for a while, and even good drumming is loud and distracting. Plus, having my own space was freeing. Since I wasn’t worried about anyone hearing me, I could try anything and everything, and while a lot of it sucked, a lot of it was me getting better.

I was obnoxious about it at first. I wore T-shirts with the Zildjian logo or cutesy illustrations of drum kits. I took my sticks with me everywhere, and when I couldn’t get them out, in lieu I’d use two pens on my desktops before, after, and—sometimes—during classes. It was dumb that I was so desperate for everyone to know I was a drummer, but honestly? The only reason I stopped literally wearing it around like an identity was that people finally knew.