I went to an “Across the Universe” party. It was supposed to be a “girls” party and so consequently four boys and two girls showed up. It could have been worse. At least I had my handy dandy boyfriend.

My first group of friends (carried on from middle school) is the goody two shoes. They are the valedictorians, the mathematicians, the aspiring cardiologists, the nerderatti, the rule followers. The best and most trustworthy friends I have ever had.

And then there’s my other friends, more commonly referred to as the stoners. They are my flunkies. My impassioned creative geniuses. My heartstring tuggers. My political activists. My Goths. My hippies. My artists and musicians. My slackers. My instant accepters.

From these two groups of friends I am able to receive the best of both worlds and the worst.

I like to think of myself as an adaptable girl. I feel comfortable in a church as well as the airboxed basement of a girl I met 2 minutes ago. I can put up with talk to mathematics and religious theory. I can put up with banter on which brand of cigarette has good filters. All of it, to me, is sufferable.

Here is where the problems arise. My friends clash like Hanna Montanna and Marilyn Manson sharing a stage. What a show.

Julia welcomed me and Jacob into her house with a dorky little “yay,” like she thought we might not show up. A potbellied Mr. Price sat on the couch next to the hypochondriac Mrs. Price, knitting her little heart out.

Jacob’s face glowed with the watery smile somebody with a little too much to smoke. I hoped Julia wouldn’t notice, lips turned up in a too-goofy grin. Julia, chatting amiably, didn’t notice a thing. She led us to her basement to be greeted by Sean, Luke and Rafi (who looked put out about Jacob’s arrival) and we draped ourselves down.

“What do you have to drink.”
“I don’t know. What do you want Jacob?” (Julia is such a skilled hostess we often call her Mama Julia or Aunti Julia and she acts furious but secretly loves it.)
“Give me a doctor pepper.”
“We don’t have it. But we do have doctor thunder.”
Jacob seemed to find this hysterical and burst out laughing. I answered for him.
“He’ll take it.”

Lucas, never disapproving (being gay he’s experienced as much disapproval from his own family that I will receive in a lifetime) cast Jacob a glance that could only be described as disapproving. I could see his mind clocking away, categorizing, wondering at how I could date outside our social “species.”

Besides, Luke is relatively popular. He could probably tell Jacob was under the influence.

Rafi sat quiet, indifferent on the couch, clenching and unclenching his fist. He didn’t talk but now and then to make a sexual reference about Julia’s body. Funny how those who aren’t getting any action are the only ones to make sex jokes.

Sean was oblivious.

Julia, sensing the tension endlessly served cheese sticks, cookies, strawberries and grapes, twitchily refilling our drinks whenever she got the opportunity. Jacob ate it all up. Literally.

In about the middle of the movie, Jacob began to sense the uncertainty of my friends which was becoming more evident and more persistent with their little mind-game comments and a number of jokes went flat on both sides. Jacob began to clam up and nervously hold me close like a very little boy with a teddy bear.

As the movie wore on Jacob started to whisper in my ear while my friends were trying to talk to me.

“If we got an apartment together some day, will you pay half and I pay half? Or I’ll pay for all of it?”
“Jude is really hot.”
“Yes he is Julia. Maybe Jacob.”
“Maybe, I’ll just let you work part time taking care of the pot plants and the shrooms. How about that?”
“Or is Lucy’s brother better?”
“Julia, I would go for Jude. And Jacob, that is a terrible idea.”

And the cycle continued, me alternating between answering Julia and Lucas’s Beatles trivia and whispering to Jacob in that infuriating way that couples do.

“I don’t know if I could share an apartment with you.”
“Well do you see it as being a possibility in our futures?”
“I do. But I also see it as being not a possibility. What if we go to different colleges?”
“Well. I try not the think about that.”
“Yeah.”
“You have so many good qualities. Smart. Big boobs. Funny. Big boobs. Creative. Big boobs. Kind. Big boobs.”

I laughed in that infuriating way that couples do right as Jude and Lucy entered a poignant shouting match in a Laundromat. My friends glared at me and I shushed Jacob and guiltily continued to watch.

The evening grinded to an end after a few more painful moments in which Rafi suggested that Jacob would have fit well in the 60’s since he’s a loser (can’t ex boyfriends just be so sore?)

We hugged Julia (her favorite activity) for her charming hospitality, psychedelic movie and terrifying amounts of food.

Jacob and I darted out into the rain, hand in hand, racing past the slumped figures of my guyfreinds, a painful reminder to them, like Lucy and Jude, of their own singularity.