more Doughgirl
Truth be known, the idea of commitment hadn’t come easily to her. She wasn’t like the other girls, with their successions of long-time boyfriends since the age of 15. No doubt, there was something to be envied in being someone’s girlfriend: that possibility of having an instant identity even when other talents escaped the girl. How many conversations had Lara been in, where the other girl didn’t even talk about herself, but the Boyfriend?
Lara- ‘Hey, are you going to the dance, Jennie?’
Jennie- ‘Maybe- My boyfriend, Frank, -the name thrust forward like a glittery diamond on a newly-fianceed finger- he doesn’t really like goin’ ta dances, ya know, ‘cuz he likes more like Alternative music, and all they play at dances is more like just Club music. Like Frank’s Flip, and he knows a lot of DJs, but he doesn’t like House or Club that much. So, Frank said, maybe we could go to a movie at the mall or something instead. How about you, you got a boyfriend?’
At which point, Lara would have to duck out of the bathroom or lockerroom or studyhall where such conversations would occur. Because she didn’t have a Frank about which to compare notes.
This was why she welcomed the party atmosphere of college so quickly. She embraced the beer and pot, the instant comaraderie of drunken stoney people eternally ready to use “party” as a verb. In this group, there may have been couples, to be sure, but stoned girls didn’t begin and end their existences around Frank… instead, there was the buzz and the music; lacking a buzz, there was the continual search for a buzz, and always the music.
There was no Don in this existence for Lara either.
And maybe his jealousy stemmed in part from the fact that he had been outside this molting, kinetic microcosm that she belonged to so easily. It didn’t enchant him, captivate him the way it did Lara. In her dreamvision, made liquidy with beer, and its edges blurred with smoke, Lara saw lifelong friends who had shared life-defining moments with her. Don, on the other hand, saw a bunch of potheads who were gradually getting on with their ordinary lives and should be forgetting about old roommates, old fellow concert-goers, and old party-girls like Lara.
Lara- ‘Hey, are you going to the dance, Jennie?’
Jennie- ‘Maybe- My boyfriend, Frank, -the name thrust forward like a glittery diamond on a newly-fianceed finger- he doesn’t really like goin’ ta dances, ya know, ‘cuz he likes more like Alternative music, and all they play at dances is more like just Club music. Like Frank’s Flip, and he knows a lot of DJs, but he doesn’t like House or Club that much. So, Frank said, maybe we could go to a movie at the mall or something instead. How about you, you got a boyfriend?’
At which point, Lara would have to duck out of the bathroom or lockerroom or studyhall where such conversations would occur. Because she didn’t have a Frank about which to compare notes.
This was why she welcomed the party atmosphere of college so quickly. She embraced the beer and pot, the instant comaraderie of drunken stoney people eternally ready to use “party” as a verb. In this group, there may have been couples, to be sure, but stoned girls didn’t begin and end their existences around Frank… instead, there was the buzz and the music; lacking a buzz, there was the continual search for a buzz, and always the music.
There was no Don in this existence for Lara either.
And maybe his jealousy stemmed in part from the fact that he had been outside this molting, kinetic microcosm that she belonged to so easily. It didn’t enchant him, captivate him the way it did Lara. In her dreamvision, made liquidy with beer, and its edges blurred with smoke, Lara saw lifelong friends who had shared life-defining moments with her. Don, on the other hand, saw a bunch of potheads who were gradually getting on with their ordinary lives and should be forgetting about old roommates, old fellow concert-goers, and old party-girls like Lara.