Or maybe he was just from Williamsburg.
“You’re a fan, though, right? Of the boy band that’s staying here tonight?”
Maybe he knew something about the boys. Maybe he could help me find Rupert K. I leaned forward. “Yeah,” I said. “I am.”
“And so you got a room here at the hotel,” he said. “Wow. I don’t know if that’s the most determined thing I’ve ever heard of, or just the saddest.”
I pictured a musket ball piercing his chest during battle.
“I don’t think it’s sad.”
“You’re spending all this money on a room, for what? So that you could maybe, possibly glimpse these guys—who don’t deserve your attention, by the way. They’re just regular boys, probably not unlike the ones in your own high school. They’ve got skid marks in their underpants just like any other person.”
“Wretched,” I muttered.
“What’s your name?”
“My name?”
“Yes,” he said. “What is it?”
I paused, but only for a moment. “Samantha Baker.”
“Okay, Samantha Baker, tell me, because I’m really interested,” he said. “You seem like a smart, nice girl. Why do you love The Ruperts?”
As if smart, nice girls couldn’t possibly like a boy band. I didn’t know if I should’ve felt offended or … Well, I was just plain offended. “Can’t I just love them?”
“Of course you can. But I want to know why.”
Why did I love The Ruperts? It was a fair question, and one that I got all the time from schoolmates, randoms on the street, concerned parent, but it was still a difficult thing to answer.
Was it their music? It was fun, and I listened to it almost exclusively, but even me, a die-hard Strepur, could admit that it wasn’t anything groundbreaking. I’ll be the first to defend The Ruperts when people say that their music is just bubblegum (who doesn’t enjoy the simple deliciousness of gum sometimes?) or that it didn’t merit any accolades because none of it was written by them (most of the greatest singers in the world don’t sing their own music). But I can also call The Ruperts’ music what it is: catchy, mindless pop.
Did I love them because they were hot? Because they were hot, minus Rupert P., of course. Rupert K. would always be my favorite, but the others had their charms. Rupert L. was a beefcake. A babe. One hundred percent bona fide. And Rupert X. may have been the most conventionally blond-pretty boy I have ever seen.
Did I love them because they were the only boys in my life who consistently told me I was beautiful? Probably.
I loved The Ruperts for who they were, sure, but I mostly loved them for how they made me feel. Which was happy.
The Ruperts made me happy. The simplest thing to be in the world. And the hardest.
After my dad died, happiness was a myth. The Ruperts changed all that.
“You can’t help who you love,” I said, shrugging.
Civil War Bartender slapped a dingy white dishcloth over his shoulder and leaned forward, his hairy eyebrows rising and falling dramatically. There was wisdom about to be imparted, I could feel it. Bless.
“What you don’t even realize now—what you will only come to understand in time, but lucky for you, I’m here to tell you—is you’re not going to give two shits about this band in a few years. In fact, I guarantee that this group that you admire so much and that you are putting all of your love and dedication and devotion into will be nothing more than an obsession you will be immensely embarrassed of having had. One day you’ll be in college, maybe you’ll be at a party, and someone will say, ‘Hey, do you remember The Ruperts? How shitty was their music?’ and you will have a moment of crisis: Do you admit your former love for them, or do you concede, because you know in your heart that this person is right? And guess what you’ll say? You’ll say, ‘Yeah, their music was utter. Putrid.Garbage.’ ”
He leaned back again, looking way too proud of himself. I know what I said before, about the importance of being nice, but I have to say this guy was a total douchefuck.
“So, can I order a drink?”
If I had to sit through this lecture, maybe I could get a white wine to go with it. I’d heard white wine tasted better than red. Plus, it didn’t stain.
“I can’t serve you alcohol.”
Classic. “Do you have Sprite?”
“One Sprite coming up.”