Junior Year Box Set

I hadn’t thought of it in those terms. Mr. Vance could scream at me the whole time if he wanted. Maybe I’d ask my mom to practice on me so I could handle it.

Halle and I talked for a while, and then she went to her room. There was no need to make things awkward for Rita. We were sure she knew we were having sex, but I respected her too much to toss it in her face.

◊◊◊ Tuesday December 8

It turned out some other celeb had done something stupid, and there were no more paparazzi at our gates. We were just about ready to go to my sunglasses advertisement shoot when my phone rang. I can’t say it was a surprise to see it was Bill, but what did surprise me was it took him so long to call. I answered as Caryn and I got into the car.

“What did you say to Sage?” he asked.

I sighed. I guess I needed to play along.

“What are you talking about, Bill?”

“She won’t answer my calls. I drove over to her condo, and they won’t let me in. Apparently, she left town to take a job. I know you left with her. What did you say?” he asked.

“Bill, do I really need to explain it to you? The last she saw of you was when you crawled into bed with Penny.”

“And you took advantage of it. Sage told me you were interested. Don’t deny it.”

“Of course I was interested.”

“So you did sleep with her,” Bill accused.

“Bill, you know me. When have I ever slept with a girl who’s dating someone, especially a friend’s girl?” I asked.

“That’s just it. You might have thought Sage and I were done. I wanted you to know that isn’t the case.”

“I would probably disagree with you, but I assure you I’ve never slept with Sage,” I said.

“God damn it, David! What am I supposed to do? I love her.”

“I understand, but I don’t see how you can come back from this one. You admitted to sleeping around on her when you go to away games. It was obvious that you and Penny had been together before. If you were going to do that, you needed to talk to Sage before it ever happened. You can’t expect her to take you back after you didn’t man-up and tell her what you either planned to do or did,” I said.

“See, that’s why you’re abnormal. No guy in his right mind would ever tell his girl he planned to have sex with other girls at away games. He most certainly wouldn’t tell her about his threesomes with Ridge and Penny.”

“I don’t know what to tell you then. The reason I’m ‘abnormal’ is that I don’t want something like this happening to me. Let me give you some advice because we’re friends: the best way to get over this is to find someone and spend the day in bed with her. I’m sure Penny would be willing to help you out. Believe me, you’ll feel much better afterward,” I said.

“I call bullshit.”

“Perhaps, but what do you have to lose?” I asked.

He actually laughed.

“Screw you, Dawson,” Bill said and hung up on me.

“What was that about?” Caryn asked.

I told her about the weekend, and my friend getting drunk, and him both revealing secrets and having sex with one of his girlfriend’s friends.

“So, your advice was that he should have told her beforehand?” she asked.

I explained my theory on communication and how you wouldn’t know what you could or couldn’t do unless you talked about it. Caryn didn’t believe me, so I had her call Harper, and let Harper explain about the sorority party we’d gone to.

When they rang off, Caryn turned to me with ‘the look.’ I was beginning to believe it was the one truly devastating weapon every girl in existence had honed to a killing edge.

“Caryn, open communication is everything. While I agree that you need some secrets in a relationship, I believe it’s important that you and your partner agree on what’s acceptable. You’ll never know until you talk.”

“It’s been my experience that anytime someone wanted to ‘talk,’ it was to pressure me into doing something I usually wouldn’t do.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“What do you mean, like what?”

“Like a for-instance.”

“I don’t know. Maybe something like, I don’t want to do anal sex,” Caryn said.

“Have you ever tried it?”

“Shut up! When did this become about me?” she asked.

“I was just trying to find out if you’d had a bad experience. Maybe he didn’t know how to do it right,” I said.

“Screw you, David,” Caryn said and ignored me the rest of the trip.

◊◊◊

I discovered I had an accent. Even though I said the words exactly like on the tape, they told me I had an accent. I spent the first hour on set working with a dialogue coach to get rid of my accent. I’m not joking, I said it precisely the same way, and they were happy. My opinion was they were just messing with me.

I was never really clear on what the ad was about. They had me stand in an alley in a rumpled suit and then put on their sunglasses. They did a close up of me with a goofy grin on my face. The next shot I was in a crisp suit on the beach with a bevy of Japanese babes. It seemed the sunglasses had some kind of magical powers.