Free Getting Over Jack Wagner by Elise Juska Page B

both more frequently lately, especially when something grown-up happens in his life—investing in a new stock, trying a new vegetable—in an effort to convince himself he’s still carefree and childlike.
    â€œAnyway, it’s me,” he says. “Got your message. Give me a buzz.”
    Andrew’s message clicks off and the automated answering machine man comes on: “No. More. Messages.” Like I need this guy rubbing it in. Sometimes I have visions of the automated answering machine man trying his best to maintain a monotone, while laughing into his sleeve between messages and stuffing his mouth with pork rinds. One day he’ll just come out and bark something like: “Same. Old. Messages. Loser. Get. New. Friends.”
    I go into the west corner/bedroom and crawl into my PJs. It’s almost a quarter past nine. It’s too quiet. No phone ringing. No TV rambling. The Piano Man seems to have packed it in. Karl didn’t call, obviously. Should I feel disappointed? No. Do I? Not really. Not specifically. Not justly, anyway. After all, I’m the one who said I needed to unwind. I return to the living room, turn on VH1—an intimate Behind the Music; tonight, the Fleetwood Mac story—and dial Andrew.
    â€œHey, Eliza,” he answers, before I can speak.
    Andrew’s ability to identify my phone calls freaked me out for exactly two days last October. I went through the phases of a) Andrew as impressive, b) Andrew as spooky, c) Andrew as genuinely clairvoyant, and d) Andrew and I as psychically connected and possibly destined to be soulmates after all, before I realized he’d just gotten Caller ID.
    â€œI know you can ID me, Andrew. You don’t have to keep proving it.”
    â€œBut it’s fun.”
    â€œYou’re right. It’s a ball.” I settle deeper into the couch, pulling an afghan over my knees. “What are you watching?” This is our standard greeting, and a quick test of the other’s state of mind.
    â€œX-Files. You?”
    â€œBehind the Music.” Both of these sound fairly healthy.
    â€œWhat’s the musical story tonight?” Andrew says. “Drugs? Divorce? Bankruptcy?”
    â€œI don’t know yet. I just turned it on.”
    â€œRight.” I hear him pop something in his mouth and crunch. Probably Cracker Jacks. “So, did you go out with Bon Jovi today?”
    â€œActually, I might have almost finished with Bon Jovi today.”
    â€œOh yeah? How come?” I can hear him smiling as he waits for my reason. “Does he have a pet bug? Sing badly in the shower? Say ‘idear’ instead of ‘idea’?”
    This is one of the downsides to having best friends. You become too obvious.
    â€œWe went to his mother’s house.”
    â€œOooohhh!” Andrew says, sucking in his breath like a crowd watching a goal graze the net and just miss. “The fatal Eliza-mother move. Which did she break out first? Photos or live action film?”
    â€œNeither. It was worse. She was kind of, ferreting in his facial hair.”
    â€œFerreting in his facial hair?” The smile audibly disappears. “What the hell does ferreting mean? That’s not a word.”
    â€œIt is a word. I should know. I do words for a living.”
    â€œIt is not.”
    â€œIt is.”
    â€œHold on. I have a dictionary right here.” It’s true, he does. I can see it lined up next to his phone along with his thesaurus, phone book, zip code directory, and eighty-dollar art history textbook he bought in college, never opened, but refused to sell back because (his story) he might want to refresh himself on the material in the future or (my story) he wanted to keep the pictures of naked women.
    â€œHere it is.” I hear him flipping pages, mumbling to himself. This is hitting Andrew where he lives: the practical, provable world. “F. Ferret. Noun. Mammal. Fur. Feet.” I hear