“Excuse me,” says Maddy with precise enunciation, “it’s very important that you give me a Screaming Orgasm now please.”

“Um, remind me how you make that?”

“Sure! Put some ice in a blender. Then take me out to your car and–”

“NOT that kind of bar, Maddy,” says Landrey, yanking.

“No?”

“No.”

“Then why,” says Maddy cunningly, “do they have hot bartenders?”

Lights dim; the audience mobilizes. “Please excuse my friend,” sighs Landrey.

“How much did she manage to drink in one intermission?” says the concerned, hot bartender.

“None.”

“INTOXICATED WITH THE POETRY OF MARLOWE,” declares Maddy, digging for her flask.

Maddy stretches a recipe. Kent fiddles with his father’s old turntable while Destiny sells her aunt’s LPs.

H.G. talks to his cat a lot; Eola writes stories on paper airplanes. Adamkin collects playing cards from the gutter. Landrey does her homework in Sharpie and it bleeds through six looseleaf pages. Annabelle loans her a Bic #2.

Theo died, two years ago, of “complications.” Tally sits in his old desk.

What if there’s exactly one person in the world for you?

What if you’re not the one for them?

Jeremiah scuffs his soles in time to the beat of his iPod heart.