“I can’t really dance to this.” I gave her sad baby eyes.
She slipped her headphones off one ear.
“What?”
“Can you play something we can dance to?” I pouted some more and surreptitiously squeezed my boobs together with my arms.
She pressed her lips together as though it physically hurt her to contemplate bending her art to such a base request.
“Please?” I glanced over my shoulder. “My friend over there is going through a bit of a heartbreak.” Constant romantic frustration is a kind of heartbreak, right? “We’re trying to cheer her up. Plus, it’s her birthday.” The DJ’s eyes flitted toward Eva and Amy.
“What could you”—she gave a dejected sigh, as though she’d suffered a humiliating defeat—“dance to?”
“She loves Robyn!” I beamed.
With a curt nod, she jutted her jaw and waved me away. As I rejoined Amy and Eva, the music shifted, the screeches dying off and the beat pumping louder; I could tell she was doing some fancy hocus-pocus to transition the song. The energy in the bar shifted with it, growing still and then rising as though everyone scented the change on the wind.
Eva looked at me askance. “What did you—” And then the first notes of a remixed “Call Your Girlfriend” played, and Eva squealed.
The dance floor filled quickly. I glanced at the DJ to see if she would acknowledge my brilliance, but she was chewing on a Red Vine and appeared wholly unconcerned with the general state of euphoria the song had inspired.
Eva was having the time of her life. All eyes were on her. Amy and I were living it up too, but there was something to be said for gaydar. Several suitors vied for Eva’s hand; she danced with a hefty flannel with an undercut while Robyn played, then a denim-clad ginger, and then a tiny woman with box braids during a Lady Gaga song.
After the Lady Gaga song ended, Eva dragged us over to the bar, panting and smiling.
“I liked her,” she said, as Amy waved down the bartender.
“Yes, Lady Gagaisvery popular,” I said kindly, thinking Eva really needed to get out more.
She swatted my arm. “No, the last girl I danced with, idiot.”
“Ooh.” Amy and I both swiveled around to scope out the mark. She was wearing an itty-bitty crop top and high-waisted jeans and was now dancing with the ginger.
“Go dance with her again.”
“I can’t just cut in.” Eva wrinkled her brow as I handed her a fresh vodka soda.
“Why not?”
“That’s awkward.”
We all slurped our drinks thoughtfully and watched as Ginger ground her way closer to Eva’s crush.
“Cringe.” Amy shook her head.
“She looks like she likes it, though.” Eva looked put out.
We watched as Ginger leaned in and whispered something that made the other girl laugh.
“You’re much hotter than the ginger,” I pointed out. “She’ll probably be so grateful if you go dance with her again.”
“Rachel, I’m not…” Eva paused, and I was startled to hear a catch in her voice. “I’m not like you. I can’t just wag my butt in someone’s face and get them to like me.”
Wag my butt…?I had to think about that for a moment. I liked to think I had more class—that I enticed people with my candor and wit rather than my backside. I had been joking about feeling like a baboon earlier, but perhaps that was truly how my friends saw me: as a sort of sexy Jewish red-bottomed baboon. I tried to catch Amy’s eye, but she looked away pointedly, sucking on her straw.
“But you’re perfectly—” I stopped, noticing that Eva’s face had grown blotchy; she really was upset. “Come on.” I grabbed her hand and led the way to the bathroom.
In the bathroom’s fluorescent light, it became apparent that Eva was on the verge of a breakdown. She gulped, groping for a paper towel as she blinked back tears. Amy and I crowded around her.
