Two Parties, One Tux, and a Very Short Film about The Grapes of Wrath Read Online Free Page A

ask. Bottom line: he will go along with it anyway.
    Usually Carrie and M.C. ignore us, which is just fine. But today Carrie taps me on the shoulder from the backseat.
    â€œI have a question. You’re guys,” she says. I don’t immediately answer because I assume that our guyhood is not the question. “So give us a guy opinion.”
    â€œSure,” I say. I hate agreeing before I know what it is I’m agreeing to.
    Carrie then launches into a very long story. It begins hypothetically, something about “this girl,” who “may or may not” have done something with “this guy” on this camping trip, or maybe it was skiing, anyway, it wasn’t here,but he came back and told everyone about it, even though there wasn’t much to tell about it because they hardly did anything at all. So if she didn’t really do anything, but she did something, and now that they’re back she doesn’t want to do anything at all, this is his problem, not hers, right?
    I start to ask who, but I can tell from the punching in the backseat who the story is about and that the right answer is of course his problem, not hers.
    â€œSo you’d be willing to go out with someone who you knew this about, wouldn’t you? If you liked her, you wouldn’t care who she kissed on some camping trip.”
    If I say I wouldn’t go out with her, then I’ve just implied that I wouldn’t want to date an indiscriminate kisser, which feels all wrong particularly since I’m pretty sure I’d be in favor of it if it involved my mouth. If I say yes, I have admitted that I would be willing to ask her out, although I guess not as the real M.C., just as an abstract M.C.
    â€œSure, yeah, of course. Yeah.”
    â€œSee,” Carrie says, turning back to the less hypothetical M.C. “Even my brother would go out with you. What about you, David?”
    â€œI’m saving myself for marriage.”
    Perhaps popular people pick a pepperoni pizza
    Carrie convinces us that we need to stop for pizza.
    â€œI’m not hungry,” David argues.
    â€œSo?” Carrie answers.
    â€œSo, why do I need to eat pizza at 3:30 in the afternoon?”
    The real answer is because Carrie told us we had to, but she tells David it is because she and M.C. so value his companionship and wit, which amounts to the same thing. David shrugs, we get pizza. He sits with M.C. and I sit with Carrie and it could be a date except David is gay and I’m sitting next to my sister.
    We agree that a whole pizza is cheaper than slices for four people but David doesn’t eat pepperoni.
    â€œYou’re joking, right?” Carrie never knows quite what to make of David.
    â€œNo, I don’t eat pepperoni.”
    â€œBut you do eat pizza?”
    â€œYes, just not pepperoni.”
    â€œI didn’t realize you’re a vegetarian,” M.C. says brightly. “My older sister is a vegetarian, except she eats fish. And chicken. And turkey at Thanksgiving. And sometimes bacon cheeseburgers.” I think she’s joking, but she keeps a straight face. She’s a little like David; I can never tell when she’s being serious. The difference between the two is that David never smiles when he’s making a joke and M.C. smiles even when she isn’t.
    â€œI’m not a vegetarian,” David says calmly. “I just don’t eat pepperoni.”
    â€œI don’t get it,” Carrie says. “Everyone eats pepperoni pizza. It is one of those things you can count on. Are you sure you’re an American? What kind of pizza do you like?”
    â€œPineapple.”
    We order pizza with black olives. I don’t like black olives, but I’m not willing to make it an issue.
    David dating data
    â€œIs David dating anyone?” Carrie asks me, pretty much as soon as we walk in the door. David had offered to drop M.C. off at her house, but she decided she would do her