When I look up at his face, I realize he’s staring back at me. It’s weird, us watching each other. I’d been looking at him like he couldn’t even see me. When our eyes meet, he smiles, slowly, this creep of movement from the corners of his lips. He’s wearing eyeliner. Thick greasy pools of it under his eyes. His hair is long and dark and he has a thick, wide chin with a dimple. They finish the song and start another one. The lead singer screams, “Fuck!” at the top of her lungs about six or seven times in a row and as far as I can tell there aren’t any other words to the song. Every time I look at the guitar player, he makes eye contact.

At the end of the song, when he changes picks, he looks me right in the eye, kisses the old one, and throws it at me.

I catch it, which is some kind of miracle, because I’m never that smooth. I slip the pick into my purse. Carly is freaking out. She pulls me through the crowd and into the bathroom to ask how it happened.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I was watching him play and he just started looking at me.”

“Seriously? Don Dickford threw you his pick? He’s like notably stoic.”

“Do you want it?” I put my bag on the counter by the sink to dig it out.

“No! I couldn’t.”

“Yes, you can!” I hold it out to her. “Take it. You love them.”

She wraps her arms around my neck and kisses my cheek. “I love you! You’re like the best friend ever!”

Just as she’s pulling away from me to get a better look at the guitar pick, the bathroom door opens, letting in a horrible blast of sound, and Rosemary.

“Oh, am I interrupting something?” Rosemary says like she’s bored, pushing her way up to the mirror. She pulls a lipstick from her purse and reapplies it to her already perfectly made up lips.

“Come on, hon,” I say to Carly. “Let’s go.”

As I reach for my bag, Rosemary knocks it off the counter, sending everything in it flying across the disgusting bathroom floor. Lipstick, eyeliner, wallet, the crocheted tampon pouch Margo made me when I got my first period, buck knife, safety pins, chewing gum—Carly and I scramble to pick it all up as if stuff that’s been on the bathroom floor of a club will be less revolting if we get to it faster.

“Oops,” Rosemary says, even though she clearly did it on purpose. She bends down and pushes the stuff that’s near her toward me, scraping my lipstick and the crochet bag into the dirty floor even worse.

“Stop,” Carly says through clenched teeth.