He had no idea what he was talking about, but he was a Civil War bartender—I didn’t expect him to. He was just another adult who forgot what it was like to love something so completely. In fact, he probably only liked things ironically, which meant he didn’t really like things at all. And I may have only been a teenager, but I knew a truth that he had obviously never grasped: The joy you find as a teen, however frivolous and dumb, is pure, and meaningful. It doesn’t matter that it might ferment and taste different when you’re older. That’s the whole point of being a teenager—not worrying about the future.
Other people may have seen fangirls as crazy teenage girls obsessed with a fad, but they couldn’t understand the small but important joy you can get from indulging in these fandoms. They didn’t understand that a new gif of Rupert K. grinning at you could be the difference between a crap day and a beautiful one. They didn’t get the friendships that formed, the community of people who shared in your same joy. Maybe it was obsession, but it was also happiness; an escape from the suckiness of everyday life. And when you find something that makes you happy and giddy and excited every day, us fangirls know a truth that everyone else seems to have forgotten: You hold on to that joy tenaciously, for as long as you can. Because it’s rare to get excited about anything these days. Ask your parents.
All of my best memories have something to do with The Ruperts. Like the times Erin and I spent at her house.
At school, Erin still had her popular friends: a seemingly unending supply of people she’d sit with in the back of classes, girls she’d go to the bathroom with to touch up mascara and trade lip balms, guys who’d carry her books just because she liked the idea of it. And while the two of us had our moments at school—meeting up at my locker every morning, eating lunch together, passing notes in the classes we shared—it was still vastly different from when we would hang out together after school. At Erin’s house, we’d lie on our backs on her carpeted bedroom floor and sing Ruperts songs as loud as we could until we were out of breath and dizzy from laughing. Erin would always pop up and grab her hairbrush to sing into, and I would always marvel at the fact that nobody at school ever got to see this side of her—the geeky, fangirly, passionate-about-a-boy-band side. Because being too passionate or excited about anything was never cool. Erin only let me see that side of her.
“There you are!”
Speak of the devil. I spun at the sound of Erin’s voice. She marched through the bar until she was beside me, taking the stool next to mine. Civil War Bartender watched us skeptically. Or maybe that was just the look of someone checking Erin out. “I’ve been looking all over for you,” she said.
Civil War Bartender set my drink down in front of me, and Erin didn’t even wait for him to ask what she wanted before saying, “Rum and Coke.”
“What are you, like, seventeen?” he asked.
Erin didn’t betray anything. Not an impeccably mascaraed eyelash moved on her face, but I could tell she was beaming at the fact that someone thought she was older than her actual age.
“Did no one ever tell you it’s bad manners to question a woman’s age?” she said.
“Do your parents know you’re in a bar in the middle of the day?”
“I don’t know,” Erin said. “Do yours?”
I wish I could talk to him that way. But watching Erin do it was just as good. “What does a girl have to do to get a drink around here?” she said.
“Be not so much a girl,” Civil War Bartender said. He smiled at her. He actually smiled! Did he think she was flirting with him or something? That this was some meet-cute banter? He was in for a rude awakening. I braced myself, wishing this bar served popcorn.
“Oh, you don’t think I’m woman enough,” Erin said. “Come on. I’ll show you my tits for a drink.”
“Erin!”
“Wow, did everyone just hear that?” Erin said, ignoring me. “The bartender just asked me to show him my tits for a drink!”
“Hey!” Civil War Bartender said.
“Well, I never!” She was making a scene. I was embarrassed and enthralled. Watching Erin was like watching a new movie without knowing any spoilers: can’t-look-away-edge-of-my-seat realness.
“What is wrong with you?” Civil War Bartender hissed, but he was working hard behind the bar like he was Tom Cruise in Cocktail. “Rum and make the Coke cherry,” Erin said.
He stamped the glass down in front of her, and she winked at him. “That’s a good boy.”
Civil War Bartender left us to go to the other side of the bar. He picked up a heavily dog-eared paperback copy of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.
Of course.
“It’s too bad the bartender is such a shitstain. He could get it otherwise.”
“Ew, Erin, he’s prehistoric.”
She cocked her head to the side and gave him a once-over. “I’d swallow.”
“So wretched.”
She turned to me. “So why’d you run off?”
“Erin, come on. You know this is wrong.” We were away from Isabel and Apple. It was just the two of us. She had to agree with me on this.