Second Helpings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [14]
“Me, too,” I replied, calmly. “I watched them when I was little because my sister liked them and—”
“I didn’t need anyone to introduce me.”
“Well, uh . . . okay.”
“And it makes me mad when girls suddenly decide that Breakfast Club is their favorite movie, when they haven’t even seen the version that isn’t edited for TV. . . .”
“It’s pretty hilarious when they say ‘Flip you!’ instead of ‘Fuck you!’ ” I said, trying to salvage the conversation. She steamrolled right over me.
“I didn’t jump on the bandwagon. I discovered them on my own.”
Ashleigh made this declaration as if she were Columbus, Magellan, and Ponce de León all rolled up into one ugly little package. Not so incidentally, Ashleigh uses a similarly contagious mind-over-matter to convince others she’s cute. She believes in her cuteness so deeply that others see it, too, despite the evidence to the contrary: flyaway bottle-blond hair, crazed, bulging eyes, and a nose that resembles a stalk of broccoli, inverted. (This is an externalized version of my He Who Shall Remain Nameless trick, which still isn’t working.)
I so dislike Ashleigh’s desperate need for conversation domination that I intentionally pick fights with her, even when I’m in total agreement with what she’s saying. Very immature, I know. But it wasn’t until tonight that my combative behavior came back to chomp me in the ass. No sooner had I looped my first lo mein noodle onto my chopsticks than Ashleigh gave the Last Word on the most infamously self-proclaimed virgin in the pop music community.
“Britney? No way,” Ashleigh said. “She lives with Justin. Case closed.”
It would be difficult to find someone in the Western world who disagrees with this. I mean, the only virgins left in the world are, uh, me, Hope, and those True Love Waits religious zealots who wear “hip” Holy Roller T-shirts with sayings like CHRIST’S MAMA WAS A VIRGIN AND SO AM I. But I just couldn’t let Ashleigh go through life thinking that she’s right about everything.
“How do you know Britney’s motto isn’t ‘How about a hand job instead’?” I countered.
“Is that your motto?” Ashleigh asked, in the snotty way that only a not-cute-who-thinks-she’s-cute devirginized girl can.
Splotches sprouted all over Bridget’s face and neck, like a harvest of cherry tomatoes. Make that a harvest of cherry tomatoes with a guilt complex.
“Well, like, Ashleigh asked if you were a virgin, so, like . . .”
I didn’t let her finish her sentence. I just picked up my carton and left.
To add to the insult of my nonsexed status, I returned to my room to discover that Call Me Chantalle had tied one of her toe shoes on the doorknob, her way of letting me know she was “getting her wettins on.” Unspecified Intimate Moment #6. Ack.
Her moans easily escaped through the walls, so the warning was totally unnecessary. Call Me Chantalle’s pleasure grunts were so specific that I could tell that her partner was slurping, not screwing. Where, oh where, was the resident adviser when I needed one?
Tonight’s sexile destroys all hope that my roommate and I will be anything but mortal enemies. Oh, I’ve seen her freak side, all right. Unfortunately, it’s the Rick James, from-her-head-down-to-her-toenails variety. And to think my first impression of Call Me Chantalle, the one I kept to myself because I was being nice—that she was a prissy, anorexic nutcase with an unhealthy obsession with hygiene—was a dream compared to the reality. Call Me Chantalle is far more complex than I had thought. She’s a prissy, anorexic nutcase with an