“Don’t do it,” The Mouse says. “Too messy—”
“Stop,” Maggie shouts.
The Mouse and I look at each other and immediately shut our traps.
“Okay.” Maggie takes a deep breath. “It happened. My worst fear. It came true.”
The Mouse looks up at the ceiling. “Maggie,” she says patiently. “We can’t help you unless you tell us what ‘it’ is.”
“Don’t you know?” Her voice rises to a wail. “Peter broke up with me. He broke up with me and now he’s seeing Jen P.”
I nearly fall off my barstool.
“That’s right,” she snarls. “After we had that big fight on Wednesday afternoon, you know”—she looks at me—“that day when he was flirting with Jen P in the gym. We had a huge screaming match and then we had sex and I thought everything was okay. And then this afternoon, he calls me and says we have to talk.”
“Uh-oh—”
“So he comes over and…” Maggie’s shoulders collapse at the memory. “He—he said he couldn’t see me anymore. He said it was over.”
“But why?”
“Because he’s interested in Jen P. He wants to date her.”
Crap. This is my fault. How could I be so stupid? But I never expected anyone to actually take those stories in The Nutmeg seriously.
“No way,” The Mouse says finally.
“Yes, way,” Maggie says. She orders another vodka, takes a sip, and puts it down. She’s beginning to slur her words. “He said he asked his mother—his mother, can you believe it?—what she thought, and she said he was too young to be seriously involved with one girl and should ‘explore his options.’ Have you ever heard anyone even talk like that? And it wasn’t his mother’s idea, that’s for sure. It was his. And he was using his mother as an excuse.”
“That’s disgusting. What a wimp.” I suck hard on the straw in my glass.
“Peter’s not really a wimp,” The Mouse says. “He might be a jerk, but—”
“He’s a wimp with a good haircut.”
“A haircut I made him get!” Maggie exclaims. “I was the one who told him to cut his hair. It’s like—I turned him into this cool guy, and now every girl wants him. I made him. And this is how he repays me?”
“It’s nothing short of egregious.”
“Come on, Maggie. It’s not your fault. Peter’s just a typical guy. The only way to look at men is like they’re electrons. They have all these charges sticking out, and they’re always looking for a hole where they can put those charges—”
“You mean like a penis?” Maggie says, glaring at me.
“Penis would be an exaggeration,” The Mouse says, going along with my theory. “We’re not talking about actual matter here. It’s more like a crude form of electricity—”
Maggie grits her teeth. “He’s taking her to the prom.”
I slump onto the bar, wracked with guilt. I should tell Maggie the truth. She’ll probably never speak to me again, but…
A man sidles toward us and slides onto the barstool next to Maggie.
“You seem kind of upset,” he says, lightly touching her arm. “Perhaps I could buy you a drink.”
Huh? The Mouse and I look at each other and back at Maggie. “Why not?” She holds up her empty glass. “Fill ’er up.”
“Maggie!” I say warningly.
“What? I’m thirsty.”