"Cat can’t invite you on my date! My date! And I thought you didn’t even like hanging out with this crowd."
Jay shrugged. "I don’t mind so much."
"Also, I don’t think this is your kind of movie."
"If you don’t want me there, fine. Just say so."
"No, no, you can go if you want. What difference does it make now that half the Masque & Dagger club is going."
"I won’t go."
"No, go."
They sat in silence for a moment.
"Maybe," said Doug, "maybe you could even help distract everyone else a little. Keep them busy. Create a diversion."
"Yeah, that went superwell last time," said Jay.
They both smiled, lips drawn tight to restrain laughter that chuffed out through their noses.
"No needles this time," said Doug, and they laughed some more.
"I hear laughing," said Mr. Majors, "so I know you’re not talking about T. S. Eliot."
The Rocky Horror Picture Show was a cult and cultural institution. It was a decades-old campy sci-fi horror rock-and-roll comedy musical that was almost certain to be playing at midnight, somewhere in the world, on every day of the year. Even Christmas. Especially Christmas.
"I think it’s gonna be really weird," Doug told Jay in the car. "I’ve heard things. I should have researched it more online."
"Which house is Cat’s again?" asked Jay.
"On the left, with the basketball hoop."
Jay pulled into the driveway.
"Should I honk? Or are you going to go up?"
"I should go up, right? I’ll go up."
Doug went up, his guts slithering. It was exciting having something real to do on a Friday night, and it gave him a feeling of almost limitless expectations. He rang the doorbell. It was like anything could happen. It was like this door could open onto the whole rest of his life. And a moment later the door did open on a round, curly-haired woman in a fuzzy yellow sweater set, like a big baby chick. Like a really obese baby chick.
"You must be Doug," she said with a reluctant, simpering look, like she was trying to smile her way through a bad cookie. Doug would have taken it personally, but he’d seen Cat’s mother before and was pretty sure she always looked like this.
"Yes," he said. "Hello."
"Here for our little Sejal, then."
"Yes," Doug answered, then nodded slowly and deliberately as if his head might come off otherwise. This wasn’t really his area, and he wondered if there was something he was supposed to say or do to produce Sejal faster. He was suddenly anxious he might have to solve a puzzle.
"Mom!" a voice shouted from behind the yellow, and Cat appeared, squeezing herself and Sejal through a gap in the doorframe. "I told you not to answer the door!"
"I don’t remember you saying that—"
"It’s a blanket rule. Bye, now. Going to a movie. Won’t drink or smoke or shoot heroin. Promise not to kill Sejal. Good-bye."
"Hello, Doug," said Sejal as Cat pulled her past and down the path to the driveway. Doug gave chase. When he reached the car, they were already climbing into the backseat.
"Oh, hey, you can have shotgun, Cat," said Doug.
"Naw, you go ahead. Back here me and Sejal can talk in our secret girl language."
"It’s mostly hand signals, no?" said Sejal.
"Hand signals and telepathy," said Cat. "Hey, Jay."
"Hi."
They pulled out into the road and a clammy silence fell over the car.
"Has anyone seen this movie before?" asked Jay.
"No," said Sejal, "but I have heard about it. And I like Tim Curry."
"Is that, like…a spicy dish?"
Sejal laughed. "It is a spicy man. An actor."
Now Doug was jealous of Tim Curry. He didn’t even know who that was.
"Ophelia’s told me about it," said Cat. "And I think Abby has been. People shout stuff at the screen, throw food…I put the music on my player — can we listen to it in the car?"
"Yeah," said Jay. "Pass it up here."
"Can that program you wrote really clean up my music files?"
"Only if you’re running Linux. You’re not running Linux, are you?"
"No," said Cat, "but I totally want to. Open-source everything. You wouldn’t be willing to set it up for me, would you? I’ll buy pizza, it’ll be like a really lame party."
Jay laughed. "Sure."
The music played, and Doug twisted around to look at Sejal, gave her an eye-rolling smile. "Finally, someone will use one of Jay’s little programs."
"Lots of people use my programs," Jay said faintly. "My vlog widget’s been downloaded twelve hundred times."
"Vlog widget," said Cat.