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you’re a native Pittsburgher, you’re on my team. And if you’re from out of town, you’re on Amir’s!”
    Shouting and uproar. The “hot as balls” guy from earlier (not my type; not my Amir, ha) announces he’s from Wheeling, West Virginia, so the out-of-town team “needs to come over here,” he goes, “because I’m not leaving the couch.” Instantly Amir’s team crashes onto the sofa in a tight pack: a group of wolves not bred in Pittsburgh.
    â€œNative Pittsburghers,” Carly says, adopting the longest, ugliest version of our local dialect that you can imagine, “let’s just sit by the TV.” (If you don’t know anyone from Pittsburgh, look it up on YouTube. You won’t believe it. Our accent sounds something like a parrot doing an impression of a fire alarm.)
    â€œWait, the teams are uneven,” says a non-native. “You guys have two too many.”
    â€œQuinny’s not from Pittsburgh!” Geoff offers, unbelievably. “He’s from Cleveland.”
    â€œUh, we moved down here when I was, like, one ,” I say.
    But Carly holds up her hands and does a big “Rules are rules!” thing, and I am so frustrated because the last thing I want is to be on Amir’s team. I’m not ready to join forces. I don’t even know how to play this game.
    Geoff smiles at me like we’re in on the same running joke that is my life. We are not.
    I sit on the floor next to the couch. Somebody hands me five torn-up slips of notebook paper, and I go, “Thanks,” and when I’m sitting here long enough without doing anything, this girl literally furrows her brow like Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest and goes, “Can’t think of anyone?”
    I clear my throat. “Um.”
    â€œJust write down five celebrities,” she says.
    You have to see Mommie Dearest , by the way. Oh my God. Put it on the list.
    â€œOn the pieces of paper,” she continues. “One celebrity for each paper.” She holds out a pen and looks at me like I’m a dangerous alien in neutral clothes. Which, let’s be honest.
    Carly’s kicking off her sandals. “Okay, does everybody have their celebrities?”
    Somebody volunteers his Pirates hat to be used as the “bowl” for us to put our slips of paper into, and that’s when Faye Dunaway says, louder than you’d believe: “Wait. The cute kid hasn’t written down his names yet.”
    I mean, at least she thinks I’m cute.
    â€œOh, you can go without me,” I say, but a tipsy guy from the Pittsburgh team goes, “No way. It has to be even numbers! It has to be.” As if party games are known for their fairness. As if that’s the chief quality that gets people hooked on the party game circuit.
    Geoff and I lock eyes, and he breaks into the biggest “I’m sorry” grin I’ve seen since the time in elementary school he let it slip to the other boys that I’d “borrowed” two of Carly’s Barbies after a sleepover; he’s clearly remembering, only now, how completely out of the loop I am about current pop culture.
    â€œ Bro , just think of five famous people,” a guy from my team says, and so I take the pen from Faye Dunaway and like a magic wand it supplies me with insight: I’ll use my practically genetic aversion to being ordinary to my advantage.
    1. Hitchcock. 2. Kubrick. 3. Mankiewicz. 4. Preminger. And, for the modern crowd: 5. Tarantino. Yes. Yes. Filmmaker celebrities for the ages.
    I’m writing so fast that somebody actually goes: “The kid’s on fire!” and I fold my sheets of paper in half and drop them in the Pirates hat. Carly claps her hands together. It’s all good.
    â€œOkay, anyone who hasn’t played before: It’s like, I don’t know, verbal charades, and your team has to guess who you’re acting