Read If Only You People Could Follow Directions: A Memoir for Free Online Page A

spend many minutes in the hallway telling her how “cute” she looks and how “fantastic” her new shoes are. I follow the two girls down into the basement where a bunch of teenagers sit on old Victorian sofas. The walls are bare and the ceiling is low. The TV is on and I stand there awkwardly staring at the screen, pretending to be absorbed. I squint my eyes and tilt my head. I hope this expression conveys approachability and deep introspection, a chance for someone to break the spell and say, Hey, what’s up? or Whatchya watching? But no one does. I don’t like the idea of sparking conversation. The whole practice is lost on me; my mother’s penchant for charm and wit skipped over me and settled on Eric, thirteen now, whom I hate, envy, and love in equal measure.
    This is the popular crew, the kids I’ve been longing to know for as long as I can remember. Instead, I’ve managed to get by with a few “mid-level” friends. Not nerds, exactly, but not members of this higher echelon, either. I am reminded of this as Rachel introduces me to a handsome boy named Dave who looks at me curiously through a thick fringe of blond curls.
    “Do you go to Wissahickon?” Dave asks. I’ve been in school with him since the second grade.
    “I just moved here,” I say, shrugging.
    Dave takes a drag of his joint and hands me the tattered end, then jumps up from the sofa to change the station on the radio. The cherry burns a dull orange and then goes out by the time I get it to my lips. I roll the remnants between my thumb and forefinger and drop it to the ground. A girl I do not recognize is pouring shots of vodka into a variety of mugs and passing them around. I take a mug from Rachel. It has a picture of two gigantic cartoon breasts, the nipples distended and glistening. Cream? it reads.
    I stick close to Rachel the entire night. Occasionally, Angel’s mother yells for someone to turn down the fucking radio or take the cigarettes outside .
    “Pot is okay,” I hear Angel explaining to Dave. “The smell doesn’t last so long.”
    By midnight I am drunk and warm, the chaos distilled into an even hum. The boy named Jordan is sitting next to me watching a TV show about a hamster, a real, live hamster, and his adventures in an overgrown backyard. The creature wears a tiny red helmet that Jordan finds so freakin’ adorable . He laughs hysterically. Rachel laughs, too, but I can tell it is just an act. I don’t find it that funny, either, just ridiculous. Jordan improvises dialogue in a high, squeaky voice and a bunch of girls begin to giggle with him.
    I think this boy is beautiful and effeminate, delicate and self-conscious. I have never spoken to him before but havealways wondered what it would be like to be his friend. He is close with all the most popular girls in school. Rachel tells me they fawn over him and let him dress them up for parties. They tend to him like a sick child when he gets too drunk, which is often, and defend him in front of their boyfriends. The boyfriends are beautiful, too, but not as bright as Jordan; they are confused and feel threatened by his effeminacy and the gentle way he braids their girlfriends’ hair in our school hallways. These are girls Jordan’s known his whole life; he’s slept beside them at birthday parties, and at times when his parents needed him to go away. Their mothers have fed him, bathed him, and watched over him as their daughters dolled him up in their Sunday school dresses and matching pink sweaters.
    For now, the party has died down and just the two of us remain on the basement floor. A girl named Sarah plops down beside us to tell me how her mother used to toss them in the same bathtub when they were young. She tells me that Jordan would shit every time the water was too warm, and so now she bathes only in cold water. She tells me how scared he became when the lights went out at night and how once, after they were a little older, she caught her brother masturbating