All three girls get up and give Nanette a big, sloppy group hug that smells strongly of tequila and makeup.
To someone who has not been around these girls for their entire lives, it might seem a bit unbelievable that they are literally embracing the same girl who has been the recipient of their hate stares for months now. But Nanette knows how fickle this crew is. They move like a flying V of geese in the sky—all together. So once one of them changes course, the rest must follow.
“We’ve missed you,” Maggie says.
“And you look hot!” says Shannon. “Who are you targeting tonight?”
“Whoever’s game,” Nanette says, trying out her fake personality, hiding behind eyeliner and blush and lipstick.
“Ohhhhh!” the girls say, smiling their approval. “We like this new Nanette!”
“Margarita?” Riley says.
“She’s our designated driver,” Shannon quickly says, sparing Nanette the peer pressure.
After two more rounds of margaritas, everyone is in Nanette’s topless Jeep.
“Isn’t it a little cold for the top to be down?” Riley says.
But then fake-drunk Shannon says, “Don’t be such a little bitch, Riley. Let’s wake up the fucking neighborhood.”
Shannon plugs in her iPhone, takes over the radio, and turns it up.
When the first song comes on, Maggie, Riley, and Shannon dance and sing loudly, waving their hands over their heads, showing off the shaved hollows of their teenage armpits.
The music—it sounds like a British guy rapping over acoustic guitar.
“Why aren’t you singing? Don’t you know this one?” Shannon says, elbowing Nanette.
“No,” Nanette yells over the music.
“What? They play this on the radio all the time.”
Nanette wonders why Shannon needs to use her iPhone to play this music if it’s always on the radio. It’s an okay enough song, but it sounds exactly like what Shannon and her crew would listen to, because it’s mainstream—common. Nothing weird about it at all, and so the new nonweird Nanette nods and pretends to like it, too.
At the party, there are kegs and bottles and boys and more music you can hear on the radio.
Nanette dances to the angry rap they play. During one song, which is played three times in a row, several boys excitedly rap along about fucking each other’s bitches while they grind up on Nanette, and so she crosses her wrists above her head, shows off her armpits, gyrates her hips, and smiles just like Shannon, Maggie, and Riley do whenever a new boy rubs his package against their asses. Because she’s pretending to be someone else tonight, Nanette also does a sexy sneer and nods whenever these boys put their hands on her stomach and she keeps dancing even though she doesn’t like misogynistic rap music at all and finds these boys so painfully similar—like being surrounded by clones.
As the party advances, the three girls she came with pair off with boys, and then Nanette is somehow alone with Ned Frazier in the kitchen. Ned is tall and handsome in a traditional way—sharp jawline, fit body, long feet, which is supposed to mean long dick, according to Riley—and he’s popular and dresses exactly like everyone else considered cool at school.
He’s also pretty drunk off beer, swaying a bit.
“I’ve always thought you were hot, Nanette. But you never come out to parties this year. I always wondered why a sexy girl like you would stay home reading books and shit, you know? I mean—fuck books,” he says, doing the same sort of ironic TV newsman finger-pointing motion he did during the rap song that was played three times.
Why is he doing that? Nanette wonders.
His face is flushed red.
His breath reeks of alcohol, which also seems to be oozing from his skin like sweat. He’s now slouching against the counter so that he’s at eye level with Nanette and looks like he might fall over at any moment.
“So I feel lucky to be—um . . . with you here in this kitchen. Like I won the lottery or something. This is a happy, kick-ass night for me because I’ve always just wanted to . . .”
He moves closer to Nanette and then reaches out to feel her boob as he tilts his head and begins to tongue-kiss her.
Nanette thinks about a baker kneading bread as Ned Frazier works her left boob with his massive hand. His kiss is too wet, and he bangs his teeth against hers more than once. But she smiles at him, pretending, whenever he says, “Good?” or “You like that?” because of the experiment.
When Ned pulls away, he says, “That was so fucking awesome.”
Nanette nods and smiles some more.
“Why aren’t you talking?” he says.
“Nanette is talking.”
“You’re so cute. I love when you call yourself Nanette. It’s a massive turn-on. Goddamn.”
The kissing and groping continue for another lip-chafing half hour before Nanette’s finally back in the Jeep with the now ridiculously drunk girls and—against her will—listening to the British pop star rapping over guitar music once more.
They have to pull over when Maggie starts puking.
Luckily the top’s still down and Maggie’s managed to aim her vomit outside the Jeep, although some does get on the green paint of the passenger-side door.
The girls take turns holding Maggie’s hair back as she emits a seemingly endless stream of yellow chunks onto someone’s front lawn.
The British guy keeps singing and rapping gleefully through the whole thing.
They finally get vomiting Maggie into Riley’s house, where she’s staying the night.
Then Shannon and Nanette are alone, driving through the moonlight with the top down and the heat on.