Getting Over Jack Wagner Read Free Page B

sunscreen.”
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    Back on the road in Karl’s black Saab Turbo 9000 with the two amp-eight driver audio system, I am part frightened by what just happened and part dreading what must happen next. Karl is jamming to Korn, hot damp air is blasting through the sun-roof, and I am trying to control my headache by recalling Hannah’s advice about talking gently to my cranium. Unfortunately, contrary to the spirit of the exercise, all that comes to mind is Screw you, cranium! The only spot of comfort in this fiasco is the anticipation of gloating when I recap the afternoon for Andrew.
    If my best friend Hannah tends to be abstract, my best friend Andrew defines concrete. The man is made of calculators and train schedules, Bic pens and neckties, packs of minty fresh gum. He is a law student at Penn, lives in Chestnut Hill, and reads books with words like “Earn,” “Win” and “10 Tips” in the titles. I tell him he’s going to end up one of those guys who paces on train platforms, barking into his cell phone, crunching on antacids, heart about to leap screaming from his chest.
    â€œThat will never be me,” Andrew says with mock sincerity. Ever since his dad’s bypass surgery, I joke about this because it terrifies me. “I will never have a cell phone.”
    My two best friends have little in common besides their friendships with me. They try hard at conversation, but everything they say just misses the other. Hannah’s words waft past Andrew’s ears. Andrew’s zing over Hannah’s head. I watch their conversations like cartoons, complete with whap s and blam s and whoosh s.
    Andrew: So, how’s the psych school treating you?
    Hannah: Oh, pretty well, I guess. I’m learning a lot. That’s the important thing.
    Andrew: I thought making money was the important thing.
    Hannah (thoughtful): I know what you mean. It’s easy to forget why we do what we do…to lose our centers. We need to be careful not to neglect our spiritual side.
    Andrew (confused): But I love neglecting my spiritual side.
    Eventually, my two best friends wind up silent and perplexed in each other’s presence. Hannah takes Andrew far too seriously. Andrew can’t conceive of someone so lacking in irony. I figure I’m somewhere in between. Part of me views life with Andrew’s casual distance, roughhousing with it, boxing it into bad puns, slinging an arm around its shoulders and buying it a martini. Another part of me knows that nothing, absolutely nothing, rolls right off me.
    Technically speaking, I have a repartee with Andrew that I’ll never have with Hannah; some of this stems from the fact that Hannah doesn’t watch TV. Andrew and my conversations are sharp, subtle, almost scriptlike, relying on a shared history of college and pop culture that requires little explication. With Hannah, conversation is more patient. It requires more pauses and thoughts and words. Sometimes I wish I could toss out a reference like “pork chops and applesauce,” knowing she’d be right there with me. (She wouldn’t. I tried it once and she gave me a brochure about the dangers of fatty acids.) Despite all their differences, however, both my best friends think the rock star/mother curse is in my head.
    â€œNo one’s mother is that bad,” Andrew insists.
    â€œThey are.”
    â€œThey’re not.”
    â€œWhy would I make this stuff up?”
    â€œYou’re not making it up. You’re just exaggerating. Like always.”
    By “always,” Andrew is referring to life since he met me: freshman year of college. Both Andrew and I went to Wissahickon, a small, expensive school made of brick and pine trees in the hills of central Pennsylvania. Technically, we met while passing a Nerf ball between our chins during an awkward freshman icebreaker. But our first real conversation was on a Saturday, one month later, when the rest of our dorm