Charmed Thirds_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [110]
“You're the Hum-V girl!” they screamed. “The one from Bitch (YUB Trippin'?)!”
Bridget instinctively grabbed for her ponytail to start chewing—as she always does whenever anyone mentions her one and only professional acting credit as one of the video hos for the already-forgotten baaaaaad boy band Hum-V—but the phantom hair wasn't there anymore. Recently, she was stopped on the street by a rep from a new striving-to-be upscale salon who offered her a free cut in exchange for her work as a hair model. Her choppy mess of a new 'do is not altogether different from The Mitch of yesteryear, and yet she looks more stunning than ever. If she were anyone else, I'd hate her.
“Can you believe we were both Hummers in high school?” Tanu cackled.
“How embarrassing!” Kazuko cried.
Bridget's perfect complexion turned red and itchy. “Not as embarrassing as, like, actually going out with one . . .”
Only after Tanu and Kazuko had exhausted all their questions about what the Hum-V demi-himbos were really, really like did they agree to run out to Rite Aid to get a $10 case of whatever Lite beer was on special. Bridget and I finally had a moment to ourselves.
“So, let me guess,” Bridget said, gesturing toward Kieran. He hadn't said much all night and was, at that moment, sitting at the piano, gently hitting the same somber, low note, over and over again. “He's the one you're going to sleep with.”
“Oh, stop,” I said.
“You totally are!” she said.
“And why is that? We haven't even talked since you arrived.”
“I know,” she said, eyeing him again. He had now drifted away from the piano and was watching Percy and ALF score coke, pick up hookers, and run over innocent bystanders in their alternate lawless universe. He looked bored. “It's, like, a very obvious not talking.”
As is often the case with Bridget, I hated to admit that she was right. But she was. Kieran and I had barely said more than “hey” since our National Enquirer afternoon. Our relationship was very bipolar. (And I don't think Dexy would be offended if I described it as such, which I probably will when I share this story with her on the phone.)
“He's exactly like Marcus,” she continued. “Only shorter.”
I nearly fell over. “He's nothing like Marcus!”
“Yuh-huh,” she insisted, exaggerating the affirmation. “He's exactly like Marcus.”
“No one is exactly like anyone else,” I said. “Not even the Olsen twins.”
“Well—duh!—they're fraternal.”
“I was only trying to make a point how no one is exactly like anyone else,” I said, trying to steer the conversation away from NYU's most famous coeds and back to me, me, me.
“I know,” Bridget said, grabbing the back of her naked neck. “And I was only trying to point out how Marcus and Kieran are like, of the same . . .” She paused, trying to find the right word. “Archetype.”
“Wow, NYU has made you really smart.”
“You know it's true but you don't want to admit it,” she said, ignoring my gentle teasing. “They've got the same stonah lovah man thing going for them.”
On cue, Kieran flip-flopped over to us.
“You look like you're having an intense conversation,” he said.
“With this hair? Not possible,” Bridget said, running her hands through her platinum locks. “Do you think I should get it dyed black so I'm taken seriously?”
I loved seeing Bridget like this. She had ditched acting altogether and was studying Art and Public Policy. She's particularly interested in the development of theater and music programs for kids who, like her, have nothing but an empty house to return to after school every day. She had gained so much confidence in her intelligence at NYU that she could now mock the whole dumb blonde stereotype. It made me wonder what my mother, and to a lesser degree, my sister, would be like now if they had ever allowed themselves to have even a vaguely intellectual thought.
“So Kieran, do you have a girlfriend?” Bridget was a little drunk.
Kieran coughed, looked away, and rubbed his eyes before answering. You don't need to know a damn