My Fair Lazy - Jen Lancaster [10]
The problem is that in regular social conversation, there’s no opportunity for cheat sheets. I’m flying without instruments. Plus, if there’s any kind of spark between these two, I don’t want to derail a potential romance with a comment about how I’m considering Botox injections to keep my feet from sweating. Best to just lock my lips.
Stacey leans conspiratorially into Crush and admits, “You know, you were my Jake Ryan in high school.”
Crush is confused. “Your Jake Ryan . . . what does that mean?”
“From Sixteen Candles? Jake Ryan was the senior in some of Molly Ringwald’s classes, and she had such a thing for him even though he had no clue she existed,” Stacey informs him.
“Huh. Never saw it.”
Yes!! Here’s my opening! I’ve been waiting for this all night! I mean, I can’t tell you shit about opera or art or law, but I pretty much have a Ph.D. in John Hughes.18 We’ve hit upon one of the few subjects in which I excel, so I unclamp my lips. “You never saw Sixteen Candles?” I blurt. “How is that possible? How could you practically go to high school in John Hughes’s backyard and not see Sixteen Candles?”
Crush flashes a nervous grin while he runs his hand across his stubbly chin. “I don’t know. I just didn’t.”
I continue on my tirade. “Anthony Michael Hall as Farmer Ted? Trapped under a glass coffee table, screaming, ‘JAAAAKE!’ Ring any bells?”
Crush shakes his head. “I’m sorry, no.”
“Come on!” I insist. “Sixteen Candles is a classic coming-of-age film. You weren’t allowed to leave the eighties without seeing it.”
“Apparently I was.” He glances over to Stacey for help but she just shrugs. Wonder if she wishes he was talking about masonry right about now?
“No! Wrong! Think harder! You must have seen it! John Cusack’s first role? The beginning of the Brat Pack? Molly Ringwald as Samantha Baker? And the scene where her grandmother felt her up because she ‘got her boobies’? Nothing?”
“I’m sorry, no.”
“‘Dong, where is my automobile?’ ‘We have seventy dollars and a pair of girl’s underpants. We’re as safe as kittens.’ ‘Now we’re BOTH on the pill!’ Anything?”
“Nope.”
“ ‘I can’t believe it; they fucking forgot my birthday.’ ” I wait for his flash of recognition, but it never comes. “Seriously, nothing? I mean, come on! EVERYONE has seen Sixteen Candles, so everyone knows who Jake Ryan is.”
Crush takes a series of small, deliberate steps back from me.19 “If I say yes, will you stop shouting at me?”
I weigh his request. “Well, no. I can’t understand how you’re unfamiliar with the cultural touchstone that Jake Ryan was for our generation.”
He remains steadfast. “And I maintain that it’s an esoteric reference.”
Okay, seriously?
Them’s fightin’ words.
I fling my purse off my shoulder and whip out my wallet, which is adorned with a giant Paul Frank monkey.20 “Listen, I have”—I count—“eight dollars. I have eight dollars that say you are flat-freaking wrong. I’m willing to wager these eight dollars that every single woman in this room between the ages of thirty and forty-five knows exactly who Jake Ryan is. Are you in? Or are you a tremendous pussy?”
He pauses. “I’m not a tremendous pussy.”
“Ergo, you’re in. Scoot.” I give him a helpful shove in the direction of the stunning girls who’d previously been discussing some guy they kept calling Proost. Not more than ten seconds into the conversation, I hear the lone male in the group squeal, “JAAAAAKE!” Crush catches my eye and I mouth, “I told you so!”
Stacey and I watch as he hops from group to group, and I congratulate myself each time he shoots me a sheepish thumbs-up. Embattled cries of “JAAAAAKE!” occasionally puncture the otherwise civilized