I Can Imagine

Oftentimes, a story’s inception is some profound quote from someone much older and wiser than the storyteller. This is one such story. Pink once said, “I’m coming up, so you better get this party started.” That was in 2001. Of course, that wasn’t the year I was born, but this was my birthday, and I was thinking about these lyrics right smack in the very middle of my birthday celebration. My two best friends, Allison and Steph, danced in circles around my living room, practically making love to an open, oversized bottle of cheap champagne. I picked at my chipped, glitter nail polish, feet kicked up on the coffee table they’d slid aside to make room for a dancefloor. It was my 30th birthday, and I often wondered if I had ever really gotten the party started. If I hadn’t, had I just neglected planning the party? Or did I miss an invitation to one? Or was I just not invited?

“Portster, what’s good?” Allison asked, tossing herself onto the couch next to me and playing footsies.

“I think people stopped saying that when we were in college.”

“Well, whatever, never mind,” she laughed.

“Now you’re speaking my language.”

“Yeah, because you only speak in nineties lyrics,” Steph said, spinning around in a circle, taking a sip, and joining us. Some Vengaboys music video was on, and it took me back.

“Do you guys ever think about things now that remind you of things back then?” I asked.

“Not really. Only things back then remind me of back then,” Steph said.

“Yeah, that doesn’t make any sense, bitch,” Allison laughed. “That’s the whole thing about nostalgia. Why, what has you feeling nostalgic on your birthday, Porter?”

“Honestly? Everything. Glitter. Cherry lip balm. Some fruity perfume. ‘Past Lives’ by Borns. The lowered Honda Civic across the street. Just everything,” I said in my reflective state.

“Does it make you feel alive, though?” Allison asked.

“It does, in some cosmic way. I feel older, but I feel good. I feel like I want to remember. Those were special times.”

“Well, this is your party,” Steph said. “Let’s do it!”

“I’m sorry, do what now?” I asked.

“Let’s make this room a time portal. Let’s go back in time, and let’s talk about our memories and all the things we loved and hated growing up,” she suggested.

“Yeah, what do you think?” Allison asked.

“I fucking love it.”

The girls passed me the bottle of champagne, and I took a swig. I assumed that I was to be the one to start this trip down memory lane, so I picked a spot—not necessarily in chronological order—and I began.

“Hot Topic,” I said.

“Oh. My. God. Yes!” Steph yelled. Allison sighed disappointedly. She was evidently as upset about Hot Topic’s transgressions as I’d been for years.

“Remember when it was ‘all about the music’? When our parents were afraid to go in there with us because it was so fucking dark?” I asked.

“Yes! It really was. We’d go straight to the clearance rack and hit up the band tees,” Steph said.

“And you were sweet on that one guy in the mall, remember? The Hot Topic guy?” Allison asked. We all laughed.

“I like how we literally call him the Hot Topic guy. I don’t think I ever knew his name. Shit, I just knew that he had tattoos and gauged ears, and I was digging it,” I said.

“You always liked them bad boys,” Allison teased.

“Actually, they were all bad by comparison. Because I was always so good, obviously.”

“The fucking truth right here, people,” Steph said, pointing over at me like we were on some MTV interview.

“Total Request Live,” I said.

“TRL!” Allison yelled.

“I felt that just now,” I said, catching a slight champagne buzz.

“Okay, what about our rooms? Let’s talk about that for a minute,” Steph said. “Remember the lava lamps? The beanbag chairs?”

“I had one of those pink blow-up chairs. I was never cool enough to have a beanbag chair,” I said.

“I don’t think you had to be cool, really. Just your parents didn’t buy you one,” Allison said.

“Sure. That was it.”

“I had one of those… weird fucking things. It was like a clear, jelly thing with like colored liquid and stars and sparkles in it,” Steph recalled.

“I know what you’re talking about! Shit, I had one of those, too. It was like… it served no purpose whatsoever. You just fucked with it while you were doing fucking nothing much in your beanbag chair. Or, in my case, in your blow-up chair.”

“Yeah, but you had Barbie’s beach bungalow,” Allison muttered.

“How are you still jealous? You are still fucking jealous, bitch. It’s been decades,” Steph laughed.

“Think my parents bought me that to make up for the fact that I—”

“—Didn’t have a beanbag chair?” Allison teased.

“Oh, fuck you.”

We all laughed and passed the champagne around in a circle, even though we were sitting in a straight line. Maybe our line was only semi-straight.

“Remember the dial-up sound?” Steph asked.

“Who the fuck doesn’t? God, I wish that was my ringtone or something.”

“Remember ringtones?” Allison asked. “No one even has those anymore. I hate it. I hate going somewhere and being like, wow, another fucking iPhone. Congratulations, you have a new iPhone. We all heard it.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, searching my birthday brain for another memory. “The Art Stuff Club.”

“Oh shit,” Steph said slowly. “Yeah. The last time Bath & Body Works did something actually cool.”

“I mean, they’ve clearly done cool things since. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be in business or whatever,” Allison said.

“Yeah, but I’m with Steph. The Art Stuff Club was actually cool. They had glitter rollers. They had weird scents, too, like for nineties kids. Like you want to smell like cosmic blueberry stardust? Because that’s what you get.”

“Glitter in general,” Allison added.

“Glitter in general. Fucking love glitter,” Steph agreed. I showed off my chipped nail polish with a quick flash of my hand that resembled John Cena’s, “You can’t see me”, then grabbed the champagne bottle and took a swig.

“Fun Dip,” I said. “You know, there are certain songs I hear nowadays, and I’m like, I could have jammed to this while I was eating Fun Dip and riding my bike somewhere.”

“Like what?” Steph asked.

“I don’t know. Anything by Peach Tree Rascals. I hear some of these songs, and I’m thinking, yeah, I’d eat Fun Dip to this.”

“Did you even eat it? Wasn’t it just like powder?” Allison recalled.

“Pretty much.”

“Jump ropes,” Steph said.

“Yeah, and it’s bullshit that the only people who jump rope anymore are like working out,” Allison said, rolling her eyes.

“Tell me about it. Everyone works out now,” I said. “Who even are you anymore if you aren’t a gym rat?”

“Right! People didn’t really work out as much back then, did they? They just sat around and watched all those infomercials on the Bowflex systems,” Steph said.

“John Basedow,” I said. “Biceps, triceps, and even abs.” They both cracked up, and I sat there straight-faced and waited. “Am I right?”

“Yes, you’re right, but oh my God, girl. Where did that come from?” Allison laughed.

“Okay, so we’re naming a lot of pop culture things,” Steph said, keeping the conversation rolling like Limp Bizkit. “What about our memories, though?”

“Our memories?” I asked. “That could take days. Weeks, even.”

“Ain’t nobody got time for that!” Allison said.

“And again, and I can’t stress this enough, no one fucking says that anymore,” I said, giggling and chugging more cheap champagne. The bubbles tickled as they trickled down my throat.

“Get the yearbooks,” Steph muttered.

I sighed dramatically, flipping my head back into the couch cushion and staring up at the ceiling like I’d just been asked to do a shit ton of homework. In my mind, looking at the yearbooks may have even equated to doing homework. I didn’t know if I wanted to remember what that was like, but I agreed to it anyway.

“They’re in my closet in the office. Allison, can you get them? I need cake.”

“There’s still cake on the counter, yeah,” she said. “I’ll go grab them. High school?”

“Sure, yeah,” I agreed.

I cut an oversized slice of cake to match our oversized bottle of champagne, and I slid it sloppily onto a glittery paper plate and leaned against the kitchen counter. The booze was wearing me thin, and I ran my fingers through the thick frosting on the edge of the slice and slid it into my mouth.

“Hot,” Steph said, nodding insistently.

“Thank you.”

“No, really. You could get a man like that.”

“Probably not, but thank you anyway,” I laughed.

I scarfed the entire thing down by the time Allison returned with a stack of yearbooks. She pulled out the one from senior year first, working in reverse chronology for some reason. I trusted her, though.

“Look, this was the year I was cheer captain,” she said proudly.

“Yeah, that’s the year I led the track team,” Steph said.

“That’s the year I did not do a single fucking athletic thing ever in my life,” I said, and they both laughed.

“The nerd. You’re our little nerdy nerd,” Allison giggled, pinching my cheek.

“I cannot stress to you enough how much you should not do that unless you’re someone’s grandmother.”

“Can’t stop me,” she said. “Anyway, let’s see. Who did Steph have a crush on all those years?”

“Brandon Waters,” I said immediately.

“You remember?” Steph said, covering her flushed cheeks.

“Of course, I do. You were obsessed with the guy, and I don’t use the word obsessed lightly.”

“Like you would not shut up about him. She’s right,” Allison said.

“Okay, but he led me on, to be fair,” Steph said, attempting to defend herself and stand by her teenage convictions. “Who did Allison have a crush on? Oh, that’s right. Everyone!”

“Nuh-uh!” she yelled, flipping through some of the pages.

“And again, and I can’t stress—”

“—Stress this enough,” Steph said, mimicking me, “no one says that anymore.”

“One hundred percent, yes.”

“Who did you have a crush on, Porter?” Allison asked. “I don’t remember you having a crush on anyone. You talked to boys and stuff, but you were never really happy, I guess.”

“Thank you. Thanks for reminding me,” I said.

“I’m not trying to be mean, it’s just—who did you have a crush on?” she repeated.

“I didn’t. I don’t do the crush thing.”

“What do you mean?” Steph asked curiously.

“I never really have. I don’t crush. I was never like, ‘Oh, he’s cute. I like him.’ It was always, let me learn about what he likes and what he thinks and how he feels. If he wasn’t extremely intelligent and put together and well-spoken, I just wasn’t feeling it,” I explained.

“So, what are you saying?” Allison questioned.

“I’m saying that I never really ‘crushed’ on a guy. I still don’t. I don’t have crushes. I either like you, or I don’t.”

“Damn. Damn straight,” Steph said.

“Damn skippy,” Allison added.

“And again,” I sighed. They both laughed.

“So, who did you like, then? Because I know there had to be someone,” Allison pried playfully, tugging at my arm.

“Yeah,” I said breathlessly, closing my eyes for a moment. “Yeah, there was someone.”