I shrug apologetically. “I thought you only went out with the Über Genetic Specimen types.”
“The what?”
“The Chet King guys.”
“That is so not true!” She hits me on the leg again, and I wonder if I’m going to be completely bruised by the end of the night. She gets a serious look on her face. I’m not sure what to do, so I sit there and hope something brilliant comes to me. After a minute, she says, “Do you remember when I was dating Tommy?”
“Sure.” Everybody remembers that. For a year, they were like one name, StaciandTommy, with daily hallway PDA. When school started again, they had become Staci. And Tommy.
“You know how he went to Dallas for the summer, for football camp?”
“Uh-huh,” I say, like I follow Tommy’s every move.
“He stopped calling me, and I knew, I just knew he was with somebody else. He’d hooked up with this skank from Plano.” Staci looks really small sitting on the cheap bedspread with her shirt falling down. “You know how I found out? I heard him talking to Bobby Wender and David Mack about her. He said she was the best he’d ever had.”
I think about my dad and Raina, and I wonder if they’ve ever done it, and if so how many times? I wonder if Dad feels guilty. Or maybe he feels great. I wonder if my mom knows and if she cares. How do people stay in love, anyway? Is it a choice? Or is it like those plants we studied in biology that mutate into something new and totally different but are still part of the same plant family?
I’ve never been in love. I will die without knowing what it feels like to need to see one person’s face when you go to sleep at night, to crave seeing it when you wake up. I wish I knew.
“Hey, Staci?” I say. “You okay?”
She tries to smile. “He’ll be sorry. I’ve got big ideas. You know?”
“Oh. Sure. I mean, of course you do.” We’re in that weird no-man’s-land. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to kiss her or just keep listening.
“Can I tell you something?” she asks.
“Sure.”
“I’ve got this idea.” She sucks on a strand of her hair in a way that gets a rise in my pants. “Are you sure you wanna hear it? I mean, it’s probably stupid.”
I put the pillow over my crotch. “I absolutely want to hear it.”
Staci takes a sip of her beer and puts it back on the edge of the nightstand. “Okay. You know how, like, when you go to a restaurant they always have a host or hostess to seat you?”
I nod.
“Well, I was thinking of doing a reality show where people compete for a shot at being the host or hostess of a nice restaurant. We could call it The Hostess. Or The Host if a guy wins. Or, no, no! We’ll do girls first and call it The Hostess and then guys and call it, The Host. I’m not talking about some cheesy restaurant like they’ve got in our shitty town. Like good restaurants in Dallas or Atlanta or something. I’ve already got all these ideas for stuff they’d have to do in the competition. … Am I boring you?”
“No. God, no.”
Staci gives me a big, slurpy kiss on the cheek. “You are so friggin’ cute, Cam! Okay, so, like, they would have to deal with problems, like if a homeless couple came in and wanted a table—but, like, they’d have money that we’d give them as a setup and a reservation, so what do you do? Do you seat them and gross out everybody in the restaurant and piss off your boss? Or do you tell them you can’t find the reservation and wait for them to flip out on you? Stuff like that. And every week, somebody gets voted off until there’s a winner.
“I was a hostess for a summer at Hooray, It’s Wednesday’s and it’s not easy. People yell at you or they wanna switch tables all the time or sometimes, sometimes they just seat themselves even though there’s a big friggin’ sign up front that says HOSTESS WILL SEAT YOU.”
“Sounds tough.”
“Exactly.” Staci crawls across the bed and kisses me. “You’re so cute,” she whispers. I hear a weird sound in the room. A snort or a cough. Something. There’s Balder, sitting in a chair by the window, taking in the whole scene.
“Uh, excuse me for a minute,” I say, removing Staci’s arms. “Just a sec.”
Balder’s sitting stone-still with that cheery grin. “Sorry, buddy,” I whisper. Before he can protest, I put him in the back of the closet.
“Now, where were we?” I ask, slipping back to the bed.
Staci crawls on top of me again. We kiss some more. I’m getting hard. I feel Staci up and she doesn’t object, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything in girl language. Any second now, I could do “the wrong thing” and “the wrong thing” could end with me getting my face slapped and an evening spent in solo gratification. Since the feeling up has gone okay, I venture out a little more and find the buckle on her bra. There’s no face slap. My fingers struggle to liberate the hooks, which were no doubt made by a group of nuns in a convent factory somewhere. Staci sits up. Shit, I did “the wrong thing.”