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chef’s salad when my phone rings. It’s A.J. She’s in a hurry but wants to invite me and “anybody else” I want to bring to her house Saturday night. Just a few people. No big deal. Kind of a movie party.
    Debra, one of the girls with babies who was in
High School Confidential,
sits down across from me and scowls till I hang up. When I do, she barks, “I don’t want to be on YouTube.”
    “Fine. Don’t be.”
    “It’s all Oliver can talk about, but I don’t want no part of it. I’m sorry I said what I said about Molly being lighter-skinned and all. I mean, she is, but we talked about that and her little boy and my little girl, and now we help each other out sometimes with babysitting and shit, and I don’t want hard feelings.”
    “Debra, I did the Oliver piece as a favor to him, okay? And kind of to just see if I could do it. I’m not going to use your part. Relax.”
    She stands up and tugs at her Los Angeles Lakers T-shirt. “You promise?”
    “Absolutely.”
    Colleen steps right up beside her and gives her a little hip check. “Is everybody hitting on my boyfriend today?”
    “He don’t keep his promise,” says Debra, “he’ll see some real-life hitting.” Then she flounces away.
    Colleen sits down and takes a big bite out of a giant slice of pizza before she says, “What’s the name of that movie where some kid journalist goes on tour with a rock band? It was on last night.”
    “
Almost Famous.
Billy Crudup, Kate Hudson, and Anna Paquin as Polexia Aphrodisia. It was about a real guy, a journalist named Cameron Crowe.”
    Colleen just shakes her head. “How do you remember all that? I can’t remember what I read twenty minutes ago.”
    “I don’t know. I just do.”
    “You don’t even try?”
    “I try to remember when I study for history or something. But with movies, they just kind of seep into me.”
    “Well, I wish math would seep into me.”
    We concentrate on the trays in front of us for a minute. Somebody drops a plate, and the whole cafeteria applauds. Colleen’s a little twitchy all of a sudden. I reach for her hand, and she lets me hold it.
    “Do you want to go to a party Saturday night at A.J.’s house?”
    “Who’s A.J.?”
    “Just this girl I met. She’s into movies, too.”
    “Since when are you meeting girls?”
    “Since that night in Hollywood. At the gallery. You were busy with Nick, remember?”
    “Oh, yeah. That loser.”
    “A.J. says it’s Vampire Night. So we’ll eat and watch a Bela Lugosi movie, probably.”
    Colleen pretends to ponder. “Let me see: would I rather go to a club and get high or watch a DVD about bloodsuckers with a bunch of eleventh-graders? What a dilemma!”
    “Eight o’clock, all right? Or come at seven and eat with Grandma and me.”
    She shakes her head. “Granny makes me want to jump out a window. I’ll pick you up at eight.”

 
    I WAIT BY THE DOOR LIKE FIDO, and when Colleen tools up, I make my way to the curb. It takes a little while, and I can see her drumming with both hands on the steering wheel.
    She opens the door for me, and I fall into the seat, a move I’ve perfected.
    “What’s the address?” she asks.
    “Linden Lane.”
    “I hate this girl already. Fucking Linden Lane. I live on Fourth Street. Why am I on dead-assed Fourth Street and she’s on glamorous Linden Lane?”
    I point across the street. A yellow SUV is parked in the driveway. “Marcie’s back.”
    Colleen roars away from the curb without even looking. “Where’s she been?”
    “Some kind of retreat. She does that sometimes.”
    “Why can’t I go on a retreat? I want to go on a retreat to Linden Lane and meditate with my butt in a tub of butter.”
    Colleen rants a lot, and there’s no point in ranting back, much less being reasonable. I put my sick little left hand on her leg, and she reaches down and pats it.
    “I’m all right,” she says.
    “I didn’t say you weren’t.”
    “I know what you’re thinking.”
    “I’m not