A group of guys pushes over to us, sloshing beer onto the floor and their clothes. I can’t tell if they’re queer. They all have baseball caps on, but then, so do most of the guys in our group.
“YO!” the one named Dominic yells. “GUYS, THIS IS MY BOY PETE FROM CAMPUS CONSERVATIVES! AND HIS FRIENDS! PETE, WHO ARE YOUR FRIENDS?”
Pete introduces us. Dominic and the others are drunk already and in very good moods. At first I assume the “Campus Conservatives” thing is a joke, though I guess I don’t actually know Pete all that well. Maybe Pete and these guys really are Republicans. The sort of Republicans who come to a mostly gay-and-trans bar anyway. We don’t have those kinds of Republicans where I’m from.
“ARE YOU A FRESHMAN?” one of Pete’s friends yells at me.
“Yeah,” I say. “By the way, I know expressing your thoughts at the top of your lungs can be good for stress relief, but you really don’t need to yell. We’re not on the other side of the room anymore.”
The guy laughs.
“I like this kid,” one of them says.
“Dude, don’t get any ideas,” Andy says. “T’s taken. Got a little girlfriend down at NYU.”
“Like that matters, man,” the guy says. “Nobody makes it through freshman year. This kid’ll be hookin’ up with other chicks by fall break.”
“That is such an irrelevant stereotype,” I say. “As if it’s impossible that my relationship would be durable enough to sustain a few months apart.”
“What, you gonna stay with your girl forever?” One of the other guys laughs. “You gonna get gay-married?”
“How amusing,” I say as the other guys chuckle. “In fact, I find jokes about the decades-long sociopolitical movement to ensure legal and cultural equality for all simply hilarious.”
The guys all stare at me. Huh. I used that line all the time in high school and it always got a laugh.
“Uh,” Pete says. “T, we need to get you another drink.”
Pete’s right. Two beers later, I love everyone in the place, and they all seem to love me back. I joke around with Dominic and the other guys for half the night. It turns out they’re all in the same final club. Final clubs are these exclusive all-male secret societies that have these crazy parties, but everyone on campus who isn’t in a final club sits around mocking final clubs. When Dominic and the others get sick of hanging out with guys who want to talk only about yachts and how many BU girls they scored with that weekend, they come here to chill.
All night long, Dominic and the guys make fun of the people in their club and ask me and my friends questions about our exotic, non-final-club-centered lives. They don’t even mind when we don’t want to satisfy their curiosity. When one of them asks me how Gretchen and I have sex, I answer, “That is none of your damn business, you useless asswipe,” and everyone just laughs harder.
It’s the best night I’ve had since I left DC.
Nance shows up later with two cis girls I don’t know named Laura and Inez. I try to say hi, but Dominic has just finished telling a story about one of the guys in his club who’d gone snorkeling while stoned on spring break and thought a shark was attacking, and I’m laughing too hard to talk.
Nance sees me and turns to Derek. “You let him get drunk?”
“He’s fine,” Derek says. “Oh, wait, crap. Sorry, T. Nance, we’re not supposed to say he anymore. Turns out Toni isn’t into that.”
“Whatever.” Nance leaves to go to the bar.
“I’ll get us some water.” Derek goes after Nance.
“Did they really used to go out?” I ask Eli.
“Oh, yeah,” Eli says. “For, like, a year.”
“Was that before...”
“Oh, yeahhh.” Eli nods vigorously. “Derek was a girl then. Our freshman year really kind of sucked, to be honest. You’re doing a lot better than we were. Anyway, that’s how we got stuck with Nance. Derek made us put her in our blocking group freshman year, so now we’re stuck living with her till graduation.”
“You don’t like Nance?”
Eli shrugs. “Do you?”
It never occurred to me to dislike anyone in Derek’s group. I assumed they were a package deal.
Derek and Nance are fighting their way back from the bar. Nance is awkwardly holding three pint glasses and Derek has four bottles of water. The music hits a low point, and we can hear them talking.
“She’s such a little babydyke,” Nance is telling Derek. “She’s as bad as my sister. You shouldn’t bother. It’s not like you need another charity case.”
Nance’s stories are always weird. I turn back to continue my conversation with Eli, but Eli shifts, not meeting my eyes. Then Pete says to Derek, way too loudly, “Hey, did you see the babe in the blue skirt? Hot.”
Did Eli and Pete think Nance was talking about me?
Was Nance talking about me?
Then Nance and Derek catch my eye, and they both look down. That answers my question.
Is this because of the stupid pronouns?