moved away from her on the couch. “So it’s really like a big deal for you, having sex with me?”
Casey wanted to kill herself. How could she have shown her naïve and overtly virginal cards so easily? “Of course not.”
“So if it’s not a big deal why let a party you have to plan stop you?”
She stared at the guitar ahead. Oh what she would have given for a little Joan Jett sitting on her shoulder at that moment. Alex Deal was right. Right? It was only sex, and they were pretty much going out. Plus, who better to lose it with than him? She imagined herself at school the next day telling Leigh all about it. She would finally be one of those girls who made it to the other side of the fence.
He sensed he was making headway and placed a hand on her knee. She looked into his eyes. She started to form the words that would constitute a yes okay let’s go for it, even if there were some technical issues she was curious about, such as birth control and AIDS and herpes. She wanted to call Leigh again. But he kept staring at her with those eyes. And sometimes you just have to lose yourself in the moment.
13
“Hold on,” she said. She went to her backpack and brought it to the couch. Then she took the list out.
She wrote it the night before after she got back from his house and told Leigh everything and Leigh ended the conversation by saying, “Oh my God I bet you guys are gonna, like, go to winter dance together.”
The image of that happening had simultaneously filled Casey with such joy and terror that she realized she needed a soundtrack. Thus as soon as dinner--an event that consisted of a glaring Yull, a Tricia prattling on about math tutors and cheating on tests, and a stepfather Jim talking about the stock market, the only part Casey really tuned in for, mainly because he said “fucking” and that pissed Tricia off even more--anyway after wading through that puddle of distasteful familial gastronomy, she went upstairs and wrote it.
1. Song 1 - “Asleep and Dreaming” by The Magnetic Fields. For when she and Alex Deal had been going out long enough to take naps together and she woke up and found him looking at her. Because when she heard that song she thought that was what had made Stephen Merritt write it: some person he loved sleeping next to him. He could barely stand how sweet that person made him feel.
2. Song 2 - “Atoms for Peace” by Thom Yorke. Thom Yorke, not Radiohead. It was off his solo album. She had no idea what the song was about. She almost never did with Radiohead and or Thom Yorke songs and half the time she wondered if they had any idea either. But who else was so good the songs could be about eight different things and still always mean something?
3. Song 3 - “We Have This Place Surrounded” by The Boxer Rebellion. It was how the chorus crept in, dynamic and dissonant and haunting. Whoever was inside whatever place they were talking about would not get out. Alex Deal would feel that way about Casey one day.
She handed the list over. “So instead of sex I get another list?” he asked. She stared at him. Every muscle in her body wanted to respond to his question with the word “Eww.” But no, she thought, this was Alex Deal. “Do you, like, have these floating around in your bag or something?” he chuckled. She looked down. “I mean, thanks,” he said. He looked it over. “I have 69 Love Songs.” That was the album, box set really, the Magnetic Fields song was off.
“Oh.”
“Boxer Rebellion?”
She perked up. “It’s a great song.”
He smiled, only that time it seemed forced. He placed the list down and gave her one last expectant look. She froze. Just go for it, she told herself. But then she remembered Yull’s voice the night before. A moment passed. “I really gotta get home and start planning this party.”
He nodded. The stiffness had returned. “Right. Well I guess…I mean, I’ll drive you home.”
He did not say much on the ride. She tried to get a conversation going about guitar pedals. Surely it was impressive that she knew D’Addario made great ones. Melanie Corcoran probably never spoke to him about that. When they got to her house a long moment passed