Dave rustled his fresh garbage bag to get it to open up. He slid in some crumbs and a couple of cups from the kitchen table, then took a seat on one of the chairs, staring off into the distance. “Hey, did you notice that Gretchen was here?”
“Yeah,” Julia said, picking with a fingernail at something on the kitchen counter. “I saw you two being chummy. You running for student council, too? Prom queen? Mayor? You’re running for mayor? I’ve created an ambitious, power-hungry monster. Forgive me, world!” She giggled, then walked toward the living room. “Well, shit. Maybe the beers on the ceiling fan were not a good idea.”
Dave followed her gaze to a beer can that had lodged itself in the drywall. “Yikes.”
Julia walked up to the beer in the wall, studying it, as if afraid that if she tried to pull it out the whole house would come crumbling down. “There’s a joke here about how alcohol kills; I just don’t have it yet.”
Dave took a deep breath. “I like Gretchen,” he said.
“Don’t drink and fan? No, that doesn’t make sense,” Julia said. She scrunched her mouth to one side of her face, thoughtful. “Can-cer. Beer. Something about holes?” Julia’s arms dropped to her sides. “Eh, I’ve got nothing.” She turned back toward Dave. “What were you saying about Gretchen?”
“Nothing. I just think she’s cool,” Dave said, suddenly feeling tired.
“Cool as a cardboard cutout.” Julia chuckled.
Dave hid the scowl that he could feel forming by fiddling with the trash bag in his hand. Julia was drunk; he should take what she was saying with a grain of salt.
“You know, at the Kapoors’, I was pretty entertained by how lame everyone was. Tonight it just seemed sad. I had the exact same conversation with three people. Whole sentences were repeated. It’s like the same person is writing all their dialogue.”
“I’m sure that’s an exaggeration.”
“Dave, you know I swore off hyperbole a thousand years ago.” Julia grabbed a nearby beer can and walked over to the kitchen, pouring out the contents into the sink. “So, what did you and cool-as-a-cutout Gretchen talk about? Let me guess,” she called out from behind him. “Summer plans and how great college is going to be and how she totally prefers the shitty beer we had tonight to other kinds of shitty beer.”
Dave forced a laugh. “Clearly, you’ve never had a conversation with her.”
“Why would I want to?” Julia came back into the living room holding a cup of water, which she drank from in great big gulps.
He thought about every wonderful thing he’d learned about Gretchen. About her favorite song by Clem Snide, how she took care of her brother, how she actually tried to live by what she believed in, leaving the world a little better than she found it. If Julia knew that, she’d appreciate her, Dave knew. He just had to say it the right way to make her see. “Gretchen and I...” Dave started. “I’ve seen her a couple of times outside of school now, and I really like her. A lot. I thought you should know.”
Julia was quiet for a few moments, her back to him, finishing her glass of water. She turned around slowly, smirking. “Oh, Dave, seriously? I mean, I know we’re embracing clichés, but Gretchen Powers?”
He grabbed a plastic cup that was under the chair he was sitting on and dropped it into his trash bag. “She’s not a cliché, Julia.”
“The blond chick who’s on the soccer team and dates older guys with tattoos and smiles at everyone like she’s best friends with the whole fucking world? Ha!” Julia turned back to the wall and pulled the beer can out of the drywall, which crumbled and now had a gaping hole. She wiped off the top of the can with her shirt and popped it open, foam rising with a hiss over her hand and spilling on the carpet. “I bet she volunteers somewhere really snappy to get her college application super shiny.”