Rachel Cohn - Very LeFreak

For Christobel Botten and Jaclyn Moriarty,
two great friends from Oz who so warmly cheered
on this book (and its author) in its original and final incarnations

PART ONE

The Song Diaries

CHAPTER 1

Happy Birthday to You, Very LeFreak

It wasnt the fact that Starbucks did not would notserve Guinness with a raw egg followed by an espresso chaser that was ruining Verys hangover. Nor was Very concerned that she had stumbled into her campus Starbucks on the morning after an overnight study session with the beautiful engineering major from Ghana whose name eluded her, although Very knew there were many hard consonants involved. Hey, she wasnt even bothered that yesterday shed been fired from her work-study security job checking student IDsa feat that, contrary to her university career services advisor, was not, like, impossible to pull offyet Very probably could be counted on later today to blow the remaining credit on her maxed-out card for primary wants like new headphones rather than for secondary needs such as food and tuition.

The fact was, Very wasnt even technically hungover, unless a sugar coma from late-night Capn Crunch consumption, along with several rounds of Red Bull, qualified. It was the excessive inhale of birthday cake and cereal that had done Very in. Like the mild, fully clothed spooning sessionrather, study sessionwith Ghana that had closed out the birthday party her dorm had thrown her, the sugar infusion had felt so comforting in the moment. It was the after that felt so empty, the Red Bulls n Capn fallout headache, the un comfortable wake-up with Ghana, two strangers with stale morning breath gazing into one anothers eyes, each silently begging the other: Yo, lets pretend this never happened?

Ghana had a girlfriend who was away for a semester abroad, and Very had no intention of getting in the way there. Her random act of intimacy hadnt been quite as dangerous, she assured herself. It wasnt like shed cheated on either her real or her imagined boyfriend with Ghana. Bryan had been her best guy friend before becoming her real boyfriend, but, once their relationship had advanced to that levelwhen Very and Bryan were two of the only holdouts in their dorm not to go away for Spring Breakit had lasted only a day before shed been forced to dump him. Bryan was just too good to be true: his own fault. El Virus, Verys imagined boyfriend, he of the passionate e-mails and IMs and text messages, he who taunted her every thought and feeling by existing in the electronic ether yet who refused to appear in live, physical form before her, had suddenly dropped out of the ether; she hadnt heard from him since what felt like an eternity (but technically, according to his last text message, since the week prior to Spring Break). The problem with an imaginary boyfriend was, if he chose not to answer her electronic missives, Very had no idea where else to find him. She had no way of knowing whether the facts hed given her about himself were, in fact, true. Maybe El Virus was an engineering student at MIT in Boston; maybe he was a CIA spy on a secret mission to ferret out Al Qaeda moles stashed away on whaling ships off the coast of Nova Scotia; maybe he was an insurance appraiser in Des Moines with a wife, two kids, and a kitten afflicted with cerebral palsy and that was why he could never sacrifice his home for his happiness and leave the family for Very; or maybe he was a bored and restless hacker up in Scarsdale, possibly within breathing distance of her. God, what if El Virus turned out to be some punk thirteen-year-old with a hard-on?

Guinness with a raw egg? the Starbucks counter person repeated back to Very. I dont understand.

Very didnt understand, either. The concoction promised to be horrific, but her mother had sworn by this hangover remedy, and while Very had no intention of, like Cat, losing her life to chemical effects, she had to believe that her mother would most reliably have known the best chemistry for curing the after-coma.

Just please may I have a latte. Very sighed. Triple shot. Whole milk. What could ruin her kind-of hangover, she realized as she pulled her wallet from her jeans pocket, was that fuck, she had no cash, and her credit card and Starbucks birthday gift cards were tucked away in her dorm room.

Broke again? a familiar voice from behind her in line piped in.

Very turned around. Lavinia. Very had never been so happy to see her roommates disapproving gaze.

Got a fiver you can loan me, Lavinia? Very asked Lavinia.

Jennifer, Lavinia said. My name is Jennifer . Here, borrow five dollars. Again. Happy birthday to you, Very LeFreak.

That was it! Todays primary playlist, Very decided, would be called, simply, Happy Birthday to You, Very LeFreak. Verys top personal goal, beyond mythic goals like eating more protein and vegetables or volunteering to teach mobile-electronic-communication skills to the elderly, was to make a music mix to commemorate each and every mood that should strike her. To seek spiritual enlightenment and physical well-being in life was challenging enough, but to exist within ones soul without proper musical inspiration for each days quest was just plain pathetic, an existence not worth living. While some chose to write in journals or blogs to record the loves, losses, obsessions, and miscellaneous musings of their daily lives, Very chose to remember hers via music mixes, her form of daily diary.

When she died, the future biographer(s) of her Very Unextraordinary Life would only have to unarchive and research her playlists to unearth the everyday secrets of her heart and mind. Very decided this years commemorative b-day list would include The Ballad of Capn Crunch by Pirates R Us, covers of Happy Birthday by Loretta Lynn, New Kids on the Block, and Weird Al Yankovic, plus an assortment of moody boy-trouble songs TBD and some Irish-pub drinking songs, and conclude with Stevie Wonders Happy Birthday (obviously).

Or, instead of the birthday mix, she could show her appreciation for Lavinias fiver and title todays list What Is Jennifers Aneurysm? in tribute to her roommate. Very didnt know what that girls problem was. Lavinia was so a better name. A Lavinia might be descended from Eurotrash celebrities; a Lavinia probably went to boarding school in Switzerland, where she had a mad lesbian affair with the headmistress who wrote the glowing recommendation letter that got Lavinia accepted into the Ivy League; a Lavinia would write her roommates freshman University Writing course term paperVery wouldnt even mind if Lavinia chose depressed ol Virginia Woolfand it would be brilliant . A Jennifer was just a girl who shared a name with so many other girls. This particular Jennifer was a typical one from suburban New Jersey, a girl who maintained a respectable GPA and dressed straight out of the J. Crew catalog. But despite her uncalled-for resistance to being called Lavinia, this Jennifer was a rather endearing one, whose earnest good-girl-ness was almost exotic to Very. Unfortunately for Verys sleep clock, she was also a Jennifer who woke up at five every morning to row on the crew team and to consequently, unfailingly, disturb her roommates first hour of sleep.

A Very LeFreak was a girl who probably needed a room of ones own. But she could peacefully coexist with a Lavinia as a freshman roommate. If I dont mind being a LeFreak, why should you mind being a Lavinia? Very said. She gratefully plucked the five-dollar bill from Lavinias hand. Thanks!

With logic like that, and you wonder why you cant finish your Age of Reason assignment, Lavinia said. She was so feistyit was what Very loved about her, despite Lavinias refusal to write term papers for her. And Lavinia never failed to take on impossible taskslike waking up at dawn to exercise as she did now, reaching over to attempt to mat down Verys tangled strands of fire-hair. Please let me buy you a blowout at a salon for your birthday present instead of the balance board to play Ultimate Cheer Squad that you not-so-subtly text-blasted that everyone could chip in to get you. I really need to see what that wild hair looks like if its tamed, Veronica.