Kayla!
Pam: I mean, for real. Sure. You’re not fucking. That makes total sense. Right.
Max: So … um, Pam, Kayla, meet my buddies. We call this guy Betts. Real name Ron Betts. You choose what to call him, or better yet just ignore him because, well, you’ll see. And this is Xavier Rodriguez. Goes by Zay-Rod in these parts.
Pam: Hey.
Kayla: Hey.
Betts: What up.
Zay-Rod: What up.
[Awkward silence lasting perhaps twenty seconds …]
Max: So …
Jordan: You keep saying that.
Max: Someone’s gotta say something.
Pam: So awkward. This is why I don’t make new friends. So it doesn’t feel like this ever.
Kayla: Yeah, THIS is the reason you don’t make new friends. The ONLY reason. Nothing about your personality.
Pam: Bitch, I will throw you in the dryer and put you on spin cycle. Bitch, I will haunt you all your life and terrorize your children.
Zay-Rod: [Laughing] So you are basically us.
Pam: What?
Zay-Rod: You’re us. Jordan is the misfit [points to Max], she’s the one with all the privilege who thinks she’s all that [points to Betts], and you’re the hot one.
Max: Hey!
Jordan: Hey!
Kayla: Hey!
Betts: Hey!
Pam: Hi!
Betts: Privilege my ass. Straight white men are the new minority.
Max: Why are you so stupid?
Pam: Why haven’t I seen you around?
Zay-Rod: I seen you.
Pam: Yeah?
Zay-Rod: Yeah.
Kayla: Does this mean I’m stuck with this idiot?
Betts: I’m not an idiot.
Kayla: You’re not NOT an idiot.
Betts: True.
Zay-Rod: You like to hang out?
Pam: Depends.
Zay-Rod: On?
Pam: [Smiles]
Kayla: Jordan, you need to stop this before it starts, and she doesn’t listen to me. Tell Pam she cannot get with this boy because you’re with his friend and that leaves me with this guy and he’s not viable.
Betts: What? How am I not viable? [Flexes his biceps]
Kayla: [Pointing with a finger and then circling with it in Betts’s direction] Um. This.
Betts: Oh please. Like you’re so hot.
Kayla: No. You. Didn’t.
Pam: No. You. Didn’t.
Betts: What? You just said the same thing to me.
Zay-Rod: Read the room, B.
Betts: I’m telling you. Straight white men are the new oppressed class.
Max: He was dropped on his head a lot when he was a kid.
Zay-Rod: And he continues to fall on his head which is why it’s so misshapen.
Max: Oh snap.
Betts: At least I’m not … [Pauses, looks around, stomps a foot] Damn it. I got nothing.
Kayla: Aww, poor baby. [She goes behind him and rubs his shoulders]
Betts: Oh. Okay. New strategy. Um, I’m a loser baby …
Kayla: [Laughs] Better, yeah. I cannot take that bravado stuff. Makes me nauseated. I like a man who knows he’s less than.
Betts: Oh I’m less than …
Kayla: Yeah, but this is never, ever, ever going to happen, so maybe just stop trying? No offense.
Betts: [Rolling his eyes] None taken.
Pam: So question … Who here buys that these two are not having sex on the daily?
(Only Max and Jordan raise their hands)
Betts: Sure.
Kayla: I know, right? They should embrace it. We’re all sexual beings.
Betts: Yep.
Zay-Rod: Yep.
Pam: Yep.
Jordan: But, um. Okay. So we’re taking it slow? Because there’s more to life than sex?
[Everyone but Max and Jordan make a sound that connotes disbelief]
Max: He’s not lying. Why are you so up in our business anyway?
Pam: We’re not. We just like the truth, is all.
Kayla: Exactly. Here you have all these friends who love you exactly as you are, and you can’t even be real about having sex.
Betts: He’s so repressed. Won’t tell us anything.
Kayla: Oh my God! He’s your Jordan. Do you give him makeovers and pep talks when you find his dildos?
Jordan: Kayla!
Max: Wha? This is, um. Information.
Jordan: [Turning the color of an eggplant] Pre-dating you, and can we not discuss this please?
Betts: Nice. So Maximo is the guy?
Pam: The guy?
Kayla: [Play slaps him] What is wrong with you? They’re both guys. Are you one of those boys who thinks if you’re penetrated you’re no longer male? Because that’s fucked-up.
Pam: True. And what about you?
Zay-Rod: Leave me outta this. B you’re on your own.
Betts: Nice loyalty.
Kayla: You were this close to being passable, but that misogyny shit knocked you down five pegs.
Betts: How the hell is that misogyny? Do you all live in crazy town?
Zay-Rod: B, think back a couple minutes. Strategy, dude.
Betts: Oh, right. [Puts his head in his hands] I’m a useless man.…
Kayla: Insincere.
Pam: I know, right?
Betts: I can’t do or say anything right.
Kayla: [Back to massaging his shoulders] Now we’re getting somewhere.
Betts: I will stop talking now.
Max: Good choice.
The girls and I debrief at the Chandler Mall food court.
“Zay is smokin’,” Pam says, as she picks at her usual Panda Express junk.
“He