Blueprints for Building Better Girls Out of the Blue and into the Black I woke up in my own bed. Alone. Fully dressed, including underwear. Thank you very much. Lucky me because the ballet flats and pink polo shirt weren''t mine, only the jean mini. I like to call it my Houdini skirt because it makes your butt disappear and you can slip out of it even in handcuffs. That''s a joke. I was feeling pretty good about myself.
What a good girl I am, I thought, tucking my comforter up under my chin. You know, who cares if I was so hungover my head felt like a big old pumpkin someone had smacked with a baseball bat. Then, out of habit, I felt for my pearls, before remembering I''d lost them weeks ago. Crap. How long would it take before I stopped doing that? Why do camels drink? To forget. I could hear Butter in our bathroom singing along to the Beach Boys, I wish they all could be California girls, and washing her face with Noxzema, which kills me. I mean, only little kids and old ladies use that stuff. My mom used to put it on my shoulders when I got sunburned.
Which was nice because you know it''s not the same if you do it yourself. I''d never known anybody with a name like Butter until I got to college. My mother asks me, "What kind of people name their child after a dairy product?" I tell her, rich people, and she has to take my word for it. When I explain it''s a nickname Butter''s brothers came up with because when she was a baby her hair was yellow, my mom says, "And the Butter just stuck?" My mother is constantly saying stuff she doesn''t know is hilarious. She and my dad are both from small towns in the Midwest. My grandfather was a dairy farmer, and his dad was a dairy farmer, and so on and so on. I wouldn''t tell anybody that. No reason.
I''d told Butter once, I think, but she''s my best friend. Anyway, Butter''s hair isn''t yellow now. It''s that white-blond color you only see on little kids, which goes with her eyes, which are this sort of unreal swimming pool blue. She says she misses the ocean. Which maybe explains why she only wears sailor suit pajamas. My mom also wants to know why, if Butter is from California, she has a British accent. I can''t really explain except to say, You know how some people go abroad and come home with a tapeworm or yellow fever? Well, Butter spent last semester in London and came home with a British accent. Our friend Deb (who spent the semester in Italy but didn''t come back rolling her r''s, just twenty pounds heavier) keeps telling her to please, just drop it.
She probably wishes she had an Italian accent. Behind Butter''s back, Deb accuses her of being a poser. To her face she says, "It''s not you," but Butter says she can''t help it. I believe her because I know it''s contagious. One beer now and I get all cockney. Bugger this, and blimey that. It makes Deb bonkers. She says, "Are you trying to drive me out of my mind? Jesus H.
Christ, listen to yourself, you sound ridiculous." She''s wrong, though. You know how glasses make you seem smarter; it''s the same thing with a British accent. "Butter," I moaned, as loudly as I could. I thought she should know I hadn''t gone all Karen Ann Quinlan on her. It wasn''t even noon and I was totally awake. I wanted the points. She didn''t need to know I woke up in Blackout City.
"Is that you?" Butter says. Like who else would it be? "I think so," I say, sort of annoyed. I mean I hadn''t had a scandal in my bed (and, for the record, she was conked out the whole time) in months because last time, she''d thrown such a fit you''d think I fucked Charlie Manson with the lights on. I mean, she was so mad she was practically in tears. "Did you ring your mum?" she yells, but I can barely hear her over the roar of the faucet. "I don''t want her to think I''m not giving you her messages, love. Please." Fuck.
Just kill me now, I think. "Come again, ducks? Pipe up." Double fuck. The minute Butter got out of the bathroom, I''d tell her I called my mom back. I''d say, she didn''t sound worried to me-had she actually said that? That she was worried about me? Because all she said to me was that she just wanted to hear my voice and tell me my dad''s back had gone out but was fine now, and that my grandmother was in the hospital, which wasn''t good, of course, and oh, she wanted to know how would I feel about taking a trip to Europe this summer-sort of like a college graduation present. No, kill that-Butter would know I was lying. I roll on my side and try to rock myself back to sleep. Rocking usually helps, except my arms and legs ache like I''ve been dragged through the streets by wild dogs.
What I needed was to see Andy. Andy. My Andy. I''ve never known anybody like Andy before. I''ve never had someone who liked me no matter what I did. I mean, really liked me. I knew, no matter what, I could always go to Andy, and curl up in his lap like a kitten and bury my face in his neck, and say, "Go ahead, tell me how horrible I was. Give me the bad news first, so by the end I won''t feel so much like shooting myself in the head.
" I knew that Andy, unlike Butter, wouldn''t judge me. He''d never leave some stupid magazine quiz like "Are You a Raging Alcoholic?" on my pillow. No, he''d say, "You were cute. Don''t worry about anything." And I''d say, "Are you sure? Don''t protect me, Andy. I''m a big girl, I can take it," I''d say, eyes screwed shut, arms covering my head, like the bad news is going to come in the form of a storm of rotten eggs and rocks. And he''d say, "Belinda"-he was the only person at school who called me by my real name. "Why would I do that, Belinda?" Three years of college, and he was the first, and he said my name so prettily.
Bell-linda, not Bull-linda. Bell-lindahh, with a sigh at the end. And I''d say, "Okay, then why am I so sore today?" And he''d say, "We danced a lot." (Andy was not a big dancer.) And I''d say, "Okay, Fred Astaire, how did I get home?" And he''d say, "I carried you." And I''d say, "You did? You carried me all the way home?" And he''d say, "Of course I did." I love that of course I did. Of course I took care of you.
How often do you find someone like that? Someone you feel safe with? Like never. It would be swell if I could call Charlotte, but she''s probably sleeping, or watching South Pacific for the hundredth time. Until I got to be friends with Charlotte, I thought only blue-hairs and fairies watched musicals. You know what, maybe I wouldn''t even get out of bed today. Maybe I am really sick. I have to say there are days when I think I''d actually like to have something seriously wrong with me, I mean totally curable, you know, but real. Because you know when people have big stuff like that happen to them everybody sees them in a different way. Everybody forgets who they used to be, and they become better people, even though inside they''re exactly the same person.
Or maybe not so curable. Unless it''s something like what happened to Charlotte. Nobody knew what to do with that. Butter says I''m thinking about Charlotte too much. I think no one is thinking about her enough. Even Andy, who after we told them what happened to her, said he wanted to go up to his frat and pulverize the motherfucker. Now anytime Charlotte''s name came up everybody acted funny. It wasn''t like I meant not to call my mom.
I just knew what she was going to ask me, because that woman is like a broken record. I haven''t heard from you. What have you been up to? Are you having fun? Oh, did you meet anyone special? And I would have to tell her, two weeks ago I went to an Around the World party at ATO with Butter. In the Mexico room I sat back in this barber''s chair and did a mix-in-your-mouth margarita-which is a shot of tequila, some triple sec, then you shoot up, bite the lime out of some guy''s mouth, and lick the salt off his stomach, or his arm. No, I don''t think that really happens in Mexican barbershops. Then we skipped off to Ireland and I pounded a Guinness, after that, in Switzerland I snorted a shot of peppermint schnapps-yes, snorted; no, I don''t think that''s an authentic Swiss custom. In Jamaica I smoked some ganja. In Jonestown a guy in aviator sunglasses and a button-down shirt, with a Bible under his arm, served Kool-Aid punch out of a trash can, which probably had a jockstrap at the bottom.
Why? I don''t know. Flavor? No, it doesn''t seem very hygienic. Or funny. No, I don''t think it was grain; yes, I''ve heard it could blind you. I still have the newspaper clipping-clippings-you sent me freshman year. Finally, Mom, I trekked up to the very tippy top of the fraternity house, and visited Bolivia, snowy, snowy Bolivia, and danced all night. I mean I could tell her that, but she''d have a heart attack. I could tell her that guys expect tit for tat, or dis for dat, when they give you lines.
Not that it matters. I could tell her that every time you visited a "country" you got a rubber stamp, like you get on your passport when you go through customs. And that it would take me three days to get the Brazil off my ass. I tried soap, baby oil, rubbing alcohol. It was fingernail polish remover that finally did the trick. When I''d showed Butter, she howled.