Failed Girl Tactic #5: The Gentleman. Mariah Epps's family moved to Pittsburgh in eighth grade. When she was introduced to us on the first day of school, I was so fired up. She was cute, she seemed smart, and best of all, she was completely unaware of my history of d.i.c.khead behavior around girls. I knew I had to move quickly. That night, I broke down and asked Mom what girls really wanted.

"Girls like gentlemen," she said. She was being kind of loud. "A girl likes to get flowers every so often." She was glaring at Dad. It was the day after her birthday or something.

So the second day of school, I wore a suit and brought an actual rose to school, which I gave to Mariah before first period.

"I would be honoured and delighted to escort you to an ice-cream parlour this week-end," I said, in a British accent.

"Would you," she said.

"Greg, you look like a fruit," said Will Carruthers, a nearby jock.

But it worked. Unbelievable! We actually went on a date. We met at a place in Oakland, and I bought us some ice cream, and we sat down, and I thought, from now on, this is how my life is going to be, and that kicks a.s.s.

That's when The Talking began.

My G.o.d, that girl could talk. She could go for miles. Invariably it was about her friends back in Minnesota, whom I didn't know. It was all she wanted to talk about. I heard hundreds of hours' worth of stories about these people, and because I was being a gentleman, I wasn't allowed to say, "This is boring," or "I already heard that one."

And so the problem became that the gentleman tactic worked too well. The expectations were ridiculous. I had to wear my nicest clothes to school every day, pay for stuff constantly, spend hours on the phone every night, etc. And for what? Definitely not s.e.x. Gentlemen don't get to fool around. Not that I really knew, back then, what fooling around was. Plus I had to keep talking in that stupid British accent, and everyone thought I was brain-damaged.

So I had to put a stop to it. But how? It obviously wasn't an option to be honest and say, "Mariah, if spending time with you means paying lots of money and listening to you talk, then it's not worth it." I considered a campaign of freaking her out by suddenly only talking about dinosaurs, or maybe even pretending to be a dinosaur, but I didn't have the courage to do those, either. It was a major quandary.

Then, out of the blue, Aaron Winer saved the day. He took her to some movie and made out with her in the back row. The next day at school, they were boyfriend and girlfriend. Bam! Problem solved. I pretended to be bitter about this, but in fact I was so relieved that I started laughing hysterically in history cla.s.s and had to be excused to go to the nurse.

And that was that. During high school I didn't even bother with girls or girl tactics. Frankly, the Mariah thing completely cured me of wanting to have a girlfriend. If it was going to be like that, then screw it.

Cameron "Cammie" Marshall is now captain of the Math League. She still has a h.e.l.lo Kitty backpack, which might not be ironic. She is definitely not the hottest girl in her cla.s.s anymore, although I think that does not really bother her all that much.

Madison Hartner is smokin' hot and probably dates one of the Pittsburgh Steelers or something.

Leah Katzenberg has a shaved head and a bunch of metal embedded in various parts of her face, and four out of five Benson English teachers have given up trying to make her read books written by men.

Mara LaBastille and her two equally phenomenal b.o.o.bs went to a different high school.

Mariah Epps is a theater girl now. She has a posse of 100 percent gay male sidekicks, including Justin Howell, and holy s.h.i.t, do they do a lot of talking.

Rachel Kushner got acute myelogenous leukemia our senior year.

I found out about Rachel's leukemia pretty much as soon as I got home.

So, just to repeat, the first day of senior year had been, if not awesome, then unexpectedly non-horrible. Everyone, from wealthy designer-nosed Olivia Ryan to Nizar the Surly Syrian, thought I was OK, and no one was actively plotting my downfall. This was unprecedented. Plus, in general things were a lot less stressful, now that there weren't uppercla.s.smen who could squirt mustard packets at my head or backpack. That is what being a senior is all about. My teachers were talking a lot of trash about how hard cla.s.s was going to be, but by senior year, you realize that all teachers say that every year, and they are always lying.

My life had reached its highest point. I had no way of knowing that as soon as Mom walked in, the prime of my life was over. It had lasted about eight hours.

INT. MY BEDROOM - DAY GREG is sitting on his bed. He has just gotten home from school and is trying to read A Tale of Two Cities for cla.s.s, but it is difficult for him to maintain focus, because inside his pants he has AN INEXPLICABLE b.o.n.e.r. An image of some b.o.o.bS on GREG'S LAPTOP, open nearby, is not helping things. There is a KNOCK at the door.

MOM.

offscreen Greg? Honey? Can I come in and talk to you?

GREG.

quietly f.u.c.k f.u.c.k f.u.c.k MOM.

entering room as GREG conspicuously shuts his computer Honey, how are you doing.

MOM squats down on the floor in front of the bed with her arms folded. Her eyebrows are scrunched, she has a crease in her forehead, and she is staring Greg in the eyes without blinking. These are all reliable signs that she is about to ask Greg to do SOMETHING ANNOYING.

GREG'S INEXPLICABLE b.o.n.e.r is in full retreat.

MOM.

again Honey? Are you doing OK?

GREG.

What?

MOM.

after a long silence I have some really sad news for you, honey. I'm so sorry.

CLOSE-UP of Greg's confused face as he considers what this news might be. DAD isn't home. Maybe the university fired him? For weirdness? Can you get fired for weirdness? Or maybe all along Dad has led a secret double life as a CRIMINAL MASTERMIND? And now he's been discovered, and the family has to flee to an undisclosed ISLAND in the Caribbean? Where they will live in a little hut with a rusty tin roof and AN ACTUAL GOAT? And will there be LOCAL GIRLS with coconut halves on their b.o.o.bs and skirts made of foliage? Or is that Hawaii? Greg is mistakenly thinking of Hawaii.

GREG.

OK.

MOM.

I just got off the phone with Denise Kushner. Rachel's mom? Do you know Denise?

GREG.

Not really.

MOM.

But you're friends with Rachel.

GREG.

Sort of.

MOM.

You two had kind of a thing, right? She was your girlfriend?

GREG.

feeling uneasy That was like six years ago.

MOM.

Honey, Rachel has been diagnosed with leukemia. Denise just found out.

GREG.

Oh.

after a short silence, stupidly Is that serious?

MOM.

now starting to cry a little bit Oh, honey. They don't know. They're doing tests, and they're gonna do all they can. But they just don't know.

leaning forward Sweetie, I'm so sorry about this. It's really not fair. It's not fair.

GREG.

sounding even more like an idiot Uh . . . it sucks.

MOM.

You're right. You're absolutely right. It does suck.

pa.s.sionately, and also bizarrely, because parents don't say that things suck It does suck. It really, really sucks.

GREG.

still struggling to find something appropriate to say, and failing This, uh, just sucks . . . really bad.

maybe if he keeps talking, he will say something that is not stupid?

It sucks so hard.

Jesus.

Man.

MOM.

breaking down It sucks. You're right. It just really sucks so hard. Greg. Oh my poor baby. It sucks so very much.

GREG, feeling just insanely awkward, gets off the bed and on the floor and tries to hug his MOM, who is rolling back and forth on the b.a.l.l.s of her feet, crying. They SQUAT-HUG for a while.

CLOSE-UP of Greg's confused and kind of blank face; obviously he's upset, but actually the really upsetting thing is that he's not as sad as his mom-not even close-and he feels guilty and sort of resentful about this. Does Mom even know Rachel that well? No. Why is Mom FREAKING OUT SO MUCH about this? Although, at the same time, why isn't Greg freaking out more? Is Greg a bad person for not needing to cry about this? Greg has a premonition that this is going to turn into some REALLY ANNOYING, TIME-CONSUMING THING.

MOM.

finally crying less Sweetie, Rachel is going to need her friends now more than ever.

GREG.

uhhh MOM.

again, forcefully Now more than ever. I know it's hard, but you don't have a choice. It's a mitzvah.

"Mitzvah" is Hebrew for "colossal pain in the a.s.s."

GREG.

umm MOM.

The more time you spend with her, just, you know, the more difference you can make in her life.

GREG.

Huh.

MOM.

It sucks. But you have to be strong. You have to be a good friend.

It definitely sucked. What the h.e.l.l was I supposed to do? How would it make things better if I were to call up and finally offer to hang out? What would I even say? "Hey, I heard you got leukemia. Sounds like you need an emergency prescription . . . for Greg-acil." I didn't know, for starters, what leukemia was. I reopened my computer.

That was when, for a second or two, Mom and I were looking at b.o.o.bs.

MOM.

disgusted Ugh, Greg.

GREG.