Two-way Street

125 Days Before the Trip, 11:37 p.m.

So I chickened out. About telling Lloyd, I mean. But it wasn’t really my fault, because while we were leaving the party, we ran into Olivia Meacham outside, and she was all over Lloyd in one of those “I’m making it clear you can have sex with me if you want” kind of ways. Which I could never figure out. How girls can do that, I mean. I’m always terrified of giving a guy any idea I might like him, so I overcompensate by acting like I don’t. Like tonight, for example. I totally wanted to dance with Jordan. But I hesitated because:

I thought I would look stupid. Which I probably did, but hopefully everyone was too drunk to notice.

I didn’t want him to think I wanted him. Because I don’t. I want Lloyd. But the point is, no matter who it is, a guy I don’t like or a guy I do, I don’t want them to think I like them.

Anyway. There was Olivia Meacham, wearing a frayed denim skirt that I’d tried on once in Hollister with Jocelyn and then vetoed because it was way too short, and a blue halter top that showed off her stomach. It’s taken me, oh, I don’t know, five years to get up the courage to even think about telling Lloyd I like him. Olivia transferred into our school around Christmas, and three months later she’s practically going down on him at this party.

Anyway, Lloyd starting flirting with Olivia, and the next thing I knew, she was in the car with us, and Lloyd was giving us both a ride home. And Lloyd dropped me off first. Which was kind of weird, since he made that whole production out of making sure I was riding home with him, when that wasn’t even the plan to begin with. But I’m not stupid. I know you always drop the third wheel off first.

So here I am, at home, by myself, and it’s kind of this big letdown. I really did want to tell him. And I can’t even bitch about it to Jocelyn, because she’s not answering her phone or replying to my text messages.

And of course no one’s on instant messenger, because everyone’s either sleeping or out. I download a few songs from iTunes, and then decide to see if Jordan has a MySpace. Not because I like him or anything. But because I’m curious.

“Jordan Richman,” I type into the search bar, and his profile pops up on the screen. The song he’s chosen is “Let’s All Get Drunk Tonight” by Afroman. Charming. I scroll through his pics. One of him at school, hanging out in the quad, one of him with his brother, Adam, who I recognize because he was a senior when we were freshman. And a bunch of Jordan with girls. Seriously, he has like ten pics of him with girls. Don’t the girls get mad? I wonder. That they’re on his page with a bunch of other girl pics?

I hit the back button and check out his friends. 789 friends. Quite the popular one, that Jordan. I have 117.

I scroll through the comments.

Seems like he and “Mad Madd Madison” have quite the MySpace flirtation going on. I go back and forth between their profiles, reading them. “What are you wearing?” Jordan asked her. “Why don’t you come over and I’ll show you,” Madison wrote back. Gag. They couldn’t come up with anything better than that? How lame.

My cell phone rings, and I reach for it, figuring it’s Jocelyn calling me back. But the caller ID shows a number I don’t recognize.

“Hello?”

“Court?”

“This is Courtney,” I say, cradling the phone between my shoulder and chin and scrolling through Madison’s pictures, most of which show her pouting for the camera, and wearing bathing suits. Seriously, bathing suits. And she’s not in the beach or by the pool in any of them.

“Hey,” the voice says, sounding nervous. “It’s Jordan.”

“Oh,” I say. “Um, hi.” I close out the browser, wondering if he somehow saw I was on his profile, and is now calling to tell me to stop stalking him.

“You weren’t sleeping, were you?”

“No, not at all,” I say. “I just got home a little while ago.”

“Cool,” he says, and there’s a pause.

“So, uh, what are you doing? Home from the party?” Oh, yeah, that was really great. Obviously he’s home from the party, or he wouldn’t be calling me. This is why I’ve never had a boyfriend. Because while other girls are wearing halter tops and leaving flirtatious messages on people’s MySpace profiles, I’m coming up with such gems as “So, uh, what are you doing?”

“Driving around,” he says. “I dropped B. J. off and then I was going to hit this other party, but I’m not really in the mood.”

“Cool,” I say. “But why are you driving around at”—I glance at the clock—” midnight?”

“I’m not sure,” he says, sounding confused. “Just seemed fitting.”

“Um, okay,” I say.

“So,” he says. “Where do you live?”

“Where do I live?” I say, flopping down on my bed. “Jordan, I can’t tell you that! Technically, you’re a stranger.”

“I’m not a stranger,” he says. “And besides, if I don’t know where you live, I can’t pick you up.”

“Pick me up?” I say, swallowing.

“Yeah,” he says. “So you can come to breakfast with me.”

“How do you know I’m hungry?” I ask, thinking about his MySpace profile pics, and wondering if all those girls were invited to breakfast, too. I wonder if it’s one of those weird competitions guys have. Like this one thing I read about guys in college who made up this game to see who could sleep with the biggest girl. It was really, really mean. Disgusting. Maybe Jordan and his friends have some sort of twisted MySpace pics competition. If he thinks he’s getting a pic of us together, he’s wrong.

“Well, are you?”

“Starved, actually.” I am hungry. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to breakfast with him. I mean, hello? Isn’t this how people get stalked and killed? They sneak out in the middle of the night to meet some guy they know nothing about, and the next thing you know, no one ever hears from them again.

“So it’s all settled,” he says. “Where do you live?”

I hesitate.

“Courtney?” he says. “Please?” And there’s something in the way he says my name that makes me think he really, really wants me to come.

I sigh and reach for the jeans lying on my floor. “Twelve thirty-five Whickam Way,” I say. “And you better be buying.”

“That was so good,” I say an hour later, pushing my plate away. “I can’t believe I ate all that at one in the morning. Definitely not a good idea.”

“Ahh, it’s fine,” he says. He reaches over and uses his fork to cut a piece of the pancake that’s left on my plate. He pops it in his mouth.

“How can you possibly want to eat any more?” I say. He’s had three of his own pancakes, piled high with strawberries and whipped cream, three pieces of bacon, three sausages, home fries, and now he’s eating what’s left of mine.

“I’m hungry.” He shrugs and picks up the check, which the waitress has left on our table. He pulls out a twenty from his wallet.

“How much do I owe?” I ask. I reach into my bag and rummage for my wallet.

“Nah,” he says. “Don’t worry about it.”

“No,” I say. “Absolutely not. I’m not letting you pay.”

“Why not?” he asks, cutting himself another piece of pancake. “I forced you out of your house at midnight, it’s the least I can do.”

“You didn’t force me,” I say.

He shrugs. “Well, whatever. I’m paying.”

“Thanks,” I say, sliding my wallet back into my bag, and suddenly feeling awkward. I know I joked with him on the phone about him paying, but still. Does this mean it’s a date? Who goes on a date at midnight with some guy she met at a party? It’s very weird. Is this how things work? Do girls just pick up guys randomly and then go on dates with them? I guess so, since Olivia Meacham hooked Lloyd tonight in about two seconds. Although technically, Jordan picked me up, not the other way around.

“So,” Jordan says, standing up. “What do you want to do now?”

“What do I want to do now? Um, in case you haven’t noticed, it’s one in the morning.”

“So?” he says, grinning. “It’s early. Oh, unless your parents need to have you home or something.”

“Oh, no,” I say. “It’s nothing like that.” The truth is, my parents would probably be thrilled that I’m out. My dad, especially. He’s always trying to get me to go out more, instead of just sitting at home, doing homework or playing around on my computer. “My parents totally trust me,” I tell Jordan. I reach over and take a sip of my hot chocolate, then grab two sugars from the container on the table and dump them into my cup. “It comes from being such a Goody Two-shoes for the first eighteen years of my life. They refuse to believe that I could do anything wrong, so they pretty much let me do whatever I want.”

“So you’ve built their trust to a point where they wouldn’t even consider the idea that their daughter could be text messaging when she’s supposed to be learning about cosines, right?”

I almost spit out my coffee. “Hey,” I say, “how did you know about that?” I spend almost all of math class texting to Jocelyn, since she has unstructured that period. I usually have a handle on the math stuff from reading the chapters the night before, and plus Lloyd goes over all my work, so it’s not like I’m really missing out on anything. But how does Jordan know this?

“I’m at the perfect angle to see you pull out your phone,” he says, grinning. “You do it all covert, hiding it under the pocket of your hoodie. Which, by the way, you always put on right before calc, so that you can text.”

“Everyone texts in class,” I say, shrugging my shoulders. It feels weird knowing he was watching me, that he knows something about me. Thank God he doesn’t know exactly what I’m texting Jocelyn about, because trust me, he would flip out. Let’s just say the words “Lloyd” and “sex” are used a lot. Not that I’m having sex with Lloyd. Or want to. I just like to talk about it. A lot.

“Anyway,” I say, as the waitress comes by and drops the change onto our table, “thanks for breakfast.” Jordan leaves $5 on the table and puts the rest of the money back in his wallet. So he’s a big tipper. That’s hot.

“So what do you want to do now?” Jordan asks, standing up.

“What do I want to do now?” I say. I check my watch. “Well, seeing as we’re under twenty-one, I’m thinking our choices are home or home.”

“Super Wal-Mart is open,” Jordan says, holding open the door for me. “And I heard they’re having a sale on hoodies. You could get another one. You know, to help you in math.”

“Oh, yeah, great plan,” I say. “Our first date you take me out to breakfast at one a.m., and then to Super Wal-Mart. How romantic.” He looks uncomfortable for a second. “Not that this is a date or anything,” I add quickly. “I was just messing around.” Oh, my God, could I have been any dumber? Who says that? Refers to a random call from a guy she doesn’t even know at one in the morning as a date? It’s so not a date. Dates are when the guy calls you days in advance to set something up, and shows up at your house, meets your parents, and then takes you somewhere. And everyone knows that you’re not supposed to even accept a date for the weekend after a Wednesday, because then you supposedly look desperate, right? Or is it Thursday? Whatever; the point is, this is so not a date. In fact, I’m not sure what it is. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was a booty call. Booty calls always happen at one in the morning. But with booty calls, aren’t you supposed to get right to it? Like, the point of the booty call is to get naked right away, not mess around with formalities like dinner and dates. Unless this is a booty call, and I just don’t know it. And Jordan is trying to trick me into getting naked by taking me out to breakfast first, so then later, when I’m like, “That was a booty call!” he can be like, “No, it wasn’t, we had breakfast.” Like a modified booty call. It’s probably the new trend in dating.

“So,” Jordan says once we’re on the road. “You really have to go home?”

“Yeah,” I say, thinking about the MySpace comments him and Mad Maddy exchanged less than twenty-four hours ago. “I should really get home.” For a second, I expect that he’s going to try to convince me to come back to his place, or worse, park the car in the Super Wal-Mart parking lot so we can mess around. I mean, why else would he invite me out? Like I said, it’s not a date, and if it’s not a booty call, then what the hell?

He pulls into my driveway. “Are you sure you live here?” he asks, sliding the car into park, but leaving the engine running.

“I’m pretty sure,” I say. I pull my keys out of my purse. “I have a key and everything.”

“It’s just that the mailbox says ‘Brewster,’ and your last name is McSweeney. So I need to make sure you’re not involved in any illegal activity, where I might be implicated since we hung out tonight.”

“What sort of illegal activity?” I ask. “Breaking into people’s houses to sleep?”

“Well, it could be anything,” he says, leaning back in his seat and pretending to look thoughtful. “This could be the headquarters for your drug trafficking posse. And all that texting you do in math is business related, and must be done during eighth period because of the time difference in certain South American countries.”

“Yeah, I’m a total drug trafficker,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I’m surprised your friend B. J. hasn’t told you about me—he’s my biggest client.”

“Touché,” Jordan says, grinning.

“No, but seriously, the truth isn’t anything all that shady,” I say, looking away for a second. “I have a different last name than my parents.”

“Oh,” he says. “I’m somewhat disappointed that it’s something so normal.”

“Maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime,” I say, opening the door. Although if you want to know the truth, I don’t really want to leave. Which is crazy. I mean, this is Jordan Richman. He is totally not my type. Actually, I’m not his type. He likes girls like Olivia and Madison, girls that are super confident around guys and have the hookup list to back it up. My hookup list reads like this:

Kissed Jocelyn’s cousin Justin during her seventh-grade birthday party during a game of spin the bottle. He had greasy lips. No tongue was involved.

Ninth grade—went on two dates with Paul Gilmore (once to the movies and once to dinner at the restaurant his dad owns, which I’m not sure really counts, since he didn’t have to pay). Made out (kissing with tongue) during each date, which was slightly awkward since once we were in a movie theater, and once we were in the kitchen of his dad’s restaurant.

Spent some of last year hooking up with Blake Letkowski, even though he was never really my boyfriend. He smoked. He was bad news. But he was a really good kisser.

Jordan unbuckles his seat belt and turns off the car. “Let me walk you to the door,” he says.

“Oh, no, that’s okay,” I say, hopping out before he can protest. The last thing I want is some random awkward moment at my door, where he’s trying to weasel his way into my house so he can attempt to devirginize me. I turn around and look back at him in the car. “Thanks again for breakfast, Jordan.”

“My pleasure,” he says.

“So, um, see you in school on Monday,” I say, realizing it’s true. I will see him in school on Monday. Which is weird. Thinking about seeing him in school, I mean.

“See you,” he says, and I slam the car door. He waits until I’m safely inside before starting his car back up and pulling out of my driveway. I watch him from my living room window, wondering what the hell just happened, and how I ended up going out to breakfast with Jordan Richman.