Charmed Thirds_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [89]
“It's a good thing that you know better now,” Paul Parlipiano replied.
“So where's your boyfriend?” I asked.
Paul's face actually brightened when he said, “We broke up.”
“Oh! I'm so sorry!”
“I'm not,” he said, grinning. “We had different priorities. He wanted to go clubbing. I wanted to overthrow a corrupt administration.”
“Oh.”
“He accused me of being more devoted to the DNC than I was to him. And you know what?” he asked, pausing to sip his martini. “He was right!”
If someone had told me four years ago that I would be tipping back martinis at a Democratic fund-raiser in a tragically hip Manhattan zip code with the out-and-proud Paul Parlipiano, my high school crush-to-end-all-crushes, gay man of my dreams and obsessive object of horniness, I would have bent over to launch those winged space monkeys out of my butt.
Elvis Costello wailed, asking what was so funny about peace, love, and understanding.
I ask myself: Is all hope lost? / Is there only pain and hatred and misery?
“You probably don't know this,” he said. “But you really turned my head around.”
“Really? How?” I couldn't imagine how I'd possibly influenced him.
“Remember when you came to that PACO meeting, before you got into Columbia?”
Remember? How could I forget? I wasn't interested in becoming one of the People Against Conformity and Oppression. I only went because I had this sick fantasy about becoming the hag to Paul's fag. I lasted about five minutes before I pissed everyone off by pointing out that by protesting everything, they accomplished nothing. Paul saw the same events in a different light.
“You made a solid point about PACO, about how we had no focus. We scattered our energies on too many causes. You helped me realize that voting is the most effective form of protest. We have to focus on elections and getting leaders in office who can help us with the causes that are so important to making the world a better place.”
“You know,” I said, feeling brave, “you had a significant effect on me, too. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have applied to Columbia. I wouldn't be here right now.”
He clasped his hands together and brought them up to his lips. “It's interesting, isn't it?”
“What is?” I asked.
“We hardly know each other, and yet have made a big difference in each other's lives.”
“It's kind of cool,” I replied.
“The power to change is very cool,” he said.
And we both drank to that.
“You inspired my stepsister Taryn, too,” he said. “Your high school editorials made her want to be the writer she's become.”
“Oh?” I asked. “She's a writer?”
“You haven't read her political blog?”
“Uh . . . ,” I stammered. “I'm not really into blogs . . .”
“You haven't heard of Punkwonker?”
I shrugged apologetically.
“It gets 250,000 hits a day! She's even been asked to cover the conventions! I'm so proud of her . . .”
A quarter million hits a day??? Wha—? I'm the one who's supposed to use my way with words to right the world's wrongs. Taryn Baker is fulfilling my destiny. It was such a visceral, vicious irony, that I needed to steady myself against the wall, accidentally ripping down a Fermez la Bush poster in the process. I used to be down on bloggers, thinking that they're just as bad as public masturbators. But there's something to be said for believing in your convictions so completely and confidently that you put them out there for anyone to see. I'm so unconvinced by my own opinions that I can't even bring myself to reread what I write in this notebook.
Paul didn't notice my near-fainting spell because he was already in the midst of one of his typically long-winded speeches. I couldn't really hear much over NWA's “Fight the Power!,” but I watched his lips and nodded whenever I made out a distinct word or phrase.
“Activism has replaced apathy . . .”
(Nod.)
“Crossroads in American history . . .”
(Nod.)
“I want you to meet someone . . .”
(Nod.)
And before I knew what was happening I was being led by the hand to be introduced to the woman who, according to Paul, had made the night