Rachel Cohn - Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

“The shoes go with the car, Caroline,” I tell her. “Yugo drivers are required to wear torn-and-graffitied hi-top Chucks shit on their feet. It’s like a rule. It’s in the manual.” I pull the Yugo car manual from the glove compartment. A chewed-up wad of gum extends from the manual back to the compartment. I take the McDonald’s napkin stuck inside the compartment and wipe the gum away from the manual. Fucking Tris and her Bubblicious. I throw the manual into the backseat for Caroline’s perusal.

She ignores the Good Book. “Are you Yugoslavian, driver person?” Caroline asks Nick. “Norah, is that why’s he’s driving us home? He’s the taxi driver, right?”

“Sure,” I tell her. He’ll be the taxi driver as soon as his Yugo-cab will fucking start. We’re operating on a limited window of opportunity here. It took ten minutes just to get Caroline into the backseat. I can see Randy now, loitering outside the club, smoking a cigarette, talking up Crazy Lou but glancing toward the Yugo, ready to pounce on Caroline again, I’m sure, if this Yugo doesn’t blow outta here soon.

“Is there such an ethnicity as Yugoslavian anymore?” Nick asks. “Now that the country’s all broken up? That was some bad shit that went down there in Serbia and Croatia, right? Damn shame.” He shakes his head and his hand idles on the ignition key, as if he’s given up. He knocks his head against the wheel, then slams his fist against the stick shift. He’s done. Can’t take it anymore. This car ain’t going nowhere. He looks so depressed and defeated, I don’t have the heart to slam him for acting like he’s grieving for Yugoslavia when it’s so obvious he’s really grieving for Tris.

Caroline informs us, “I’m part Yugoslavian, you know. On my great-grandpa’s side.”

I tell her, “You’re part Transylvanian, too, bitch. Be quiet. I need to think.” How the hell are we going to get home now? And why do I have to get Caroline home, anyway? There’s a hot guy sitting next to me, even if he is a Tris pass-along, but he’s got potential to be molded. Here I am in Manhattan, like Dad’s favorite Stevie Wonder song goes: New York, just like I pictured it – skyscrapers, and everythang. Shit is supposed to be happening here, not stalled Yugo shit. Through the car windshield, I can see the Empire State Building, lit up in pink and green for Easter. I am reminded that Jesus died for Caroline’s sins, not mine – I’m from a different tribe – so why am I saving her ass again when I could be outside this Yugo getting some life-living going on? I never properly used up those two add-on minutes of being Nick’s girlfriend.

Caroline says, “You’re not the boss of me, Sub Z.”

It’s basic instinct, I can’t help myself. I turn around to face Dragonbreath and snap, “Don’t call me that!” She giggles, satisfied to have gotten a rise out of me.

Caroline’s giggling mercifully transforms to dozing. In the reflection off the passenger-side mirror, I see that Caroline appears to be falling asleep, her cheek pressed against the backseat window. I’ve never seen her pass out without heaving first. Nick and his Yugo may have magical properties, after all. Please, let it last till we can make it back to Jersey.

A heave-snore from the backseat announces that Caroline is indeed out. YES! Sweet Jesus, thank you – for this temporary stay, and hey, I’ll throw in thanks for the dying-for-my-sins thing, too. You ROCK, J.C.! I’m totally gonna not stress on the fact that once I get home, I’ll have to sleep next to Dragonbreath to make sure she doesn’t choke on her own vomit in her sleep. Again.

“That’s one problem solved,” I tell Nick. I place my left hand on his right hand, which is clutched around the stick shift. “Now, what are we gonna do about this other one?”

He flinches a little at my touch and pulls his hand away to turn the ignition key again. Don’t know why I placed my hand on his anyway.

He wants to know, “Why would you fuck up Tris’s Barbies?” and now I’m like, Shit, is this the price of the sacrifice for Caroline passing out unexpectedly early – that Nick has taken over the melancholy stage that usually follows Caroline’s inquisitive one? “I have three sisters and I know that’s some serious business, messing with another girl’s Barbies.” Okay, maybe he’s not being melancholy because his sarcastic smile lets me know he’s back to being standard-issue band-boy irony creature. Damn him that it somewhat makes me wanna jump his bones.

Still, I can tell he’s looking for information, but I am not going into the Tris thing with him. I just can’t. Sub Z can only do so much damage to the male psyche in one night.

On the other hand, perhaps I could make a project out of Nick, detox him from Tris, rehabilitate him, put him through a good-girlfriend immersion program. I like sevens – we could go steady like all sweet and nice, for seven days instead of minutes. Then I’ll set him free, less the Tris baggage, molded and perfected into the great guy I know he is under those Tris-heavy eyes. He’ll be my gift to womankind, an ideal male specimen of musicianship and making out. I’ll send him back out into the world thoroughly cleansed of irony, no longer holding all females in contempt as potential Tris suspects. Now who rocks, J.C.?

A white van barrels down the one-way street in the wrong direction, stopping in front of the fire hydrant directly ahead of the Yugo.

“Oh, thank God,” Nick says. Interesting. We’re in tune on the divine intervention thing. Fate?

A guy emerges from the van and I recognize him as the guy who made out with the non-singing member of Nick’s band after their band’s set. I only caught a minute of their kissing before I had to look away. Sub Z is way turned on by two boys kissing. I don’t see why ogling same-sex kissing should be the exclusive domain of frat boys whacking off to lesbian action, that’s so sexist. Feminism should be all inclusive – it should be about sexual liberation, equal pay for equal work, and the fundamental girl right of boy2boy appreciation.

If not for the really hot kissing I witnessed between those two guys, I might not have answered Nick’s request to be his five-minute girlfriend by pulling his mouth down to mine. That seems like years ago, not minutes, what with Dragon-breath and the stalled Yugo since, and WHY am I giving so much thought to being suspended in time and in Yugo with this Nick guy, anyway? He’s hung up on TRIS!

The boyfriend of the band guy – he’s so emo he’s practically a Muppet – leans into Nick’s open window. He tells Nick, “Pop the hood and we’ll try to jump-start this baby.”

“Yeah,” Nick says, like it’s their routine. “Thanks, Scot.”

Scot looks my way. He says, “Thom could use some help in the van if you don’t mind.”

What the fuck? Whatever.

I shrug and get out of the Yugo while Scot pops the Yugo hood to attach the jumper cables. I pass Randy leaning against the wall of the club and I give him a shove, just because. Then I step to the passenger side of the van and see band equipment in the back. I knew Nick’s band had a van! Why didn’t I specify – van , not Yugo, back to Jersey?

The guy sitting in the driver side of the van says, “Hi. I’m Thom. With an ‘h.’”

I tell him, “I’m Gnorah. With a ‘g.’ The ‘g’ is silent. Like ‘gnome.’”

“Really?” Thom says.

“No, not really. I have an ‘h’ too. At the end. Used to be just N-O-R-A but then I had the H legally added to my name after my dad failed to sign up Norah Jones when he had the chance. I don’t like him to forget these things easily.”

“Really?” Thom says again.

Not really. “Really,” I say. “But I can’t imagine why I am in this van to talk about H’s. What’s up?”