"Believe me, I find it a total mystery too."

"Your monthly check is it, Victor," Dad stresses. "No more. No less. Understood?"

"Well, I guess I'll just have to max out my Visa."

"Really smart idea, son."

Amanda deCadenet stops by the table and kisses me hard on the mouth and says she'll see me tonight and leaves without being introduced to Dad.

"How's Chloe?" he asks.

20

Lunch was mercifully short and now it's only 1:10 and I tell the driver to drop me off at Broadway and Fourth so I can stop by Tower Records before band practice to pick up some badly needed new CDs, and inside, the pop group Sheep-the new alternative rock band, whose single "Diet Coke at the Gap" is the buzz clip on MTV this month-is milling around the front of the store blinking into various video cameras as Michael Levine-the Annie Leibovitz of alternative rock-snaps pictures and "Aeon Flux" is on all the monitors and I scan the magazine rack for the new issue of YouthQuake to see if there are any letters about the article on me. In my basket: Trey Lewd, Rancid, Cece Pensiton, Yo La Tengo, Alex Chilton, Machines of Loving Grace, Jellyfish, the 6th's, Teenage Fanclub. I've also snuck my modeling portfolio in and I spot this cute Oriental girl wearing white jeans with a silver chain-link belt, a V-neck jersey tunic and flat black sandals looking at the back of an ELO CD and I "accidentally" drop the portfolio, bathing suit shots scattering around her feet. I pause before I bend down to pick them up, pretending to be mortified, hoping that she'll check it out, but she just gives me a why-bother? look and walks away and then this cute-as-a-button little g*y guy starts helping me. "It's okay, it's okay," I keep saying, pulling a thong shot out of his hand, and then I see the hottest-looking girl in Tower Records.

She's standing by a listening station, headphones on, pressing buttons, swaying, wearing a pair of tight melon-colored Capri pants that meld into small black boots and an opened violet-beige Todd Oldham overcoat, and as I move closer I can see she's holding Blur, Suede, Oasis, Sleeper CDs. I'm right behind her as she pulls the headphones off.

"That's the coolest record," I say, pointing at the Oasis CD. "Tracks three, four, five and ten are all excellent."

She turns around, startled, sees my face, and what can only be described as a strange expression-one-third worried, one-third smiling, maybe one-third something else-creases her features and then she asks, "Do you know me?" but it's in this teasing way that I'm accustomed to and so I'm able to answer confidently, "Yeah-L.A. or Miami, right?"

"No," she says, her eyes hardening.

"Did you"-I have a small flash-"go to Camden?"

"You're getting less cold," she says simply.

"Wait-are you a model?"

"No," she sighs. "I'm not."

"But Camden is near the target?" I ask hopefully.

"Yes, it is." She sighs again.

"Yeah, yeah, foliage is definitely coming my way."

"That's good." She crosses her arms.

"So you did go to Camden?" I ask and then, to make sure, "The one in New Hampshire?"

"Is there another one?" she says impatiently.

"Hey baby, whoa."

"Well," she says, tapping the Oasis CD, "thanks for the record review, Victor."

"Oh man, you know me?"

She slings a red suede zip-top circular purse over her shoulder and lowers Matsuda sunglasses-blue eyes-and pouts, "Victor Johnson? I mean, that's if you are Victor Johnson."

"Well, yeah," I admit sheepishly. "Actually it's Victor Ward now but, um, it's still the same me."

"Oh, that's just great," she says. "So you got married? Who's the lucky guy?"

"The little pinhead over there with the strawberry strudel on his head." I point to the g*y guy who I'm just noticing has kept one of the bathing suit shots. He smiles, then scampers away. "He's, uh, shy."

Finally I realize that I actually know this girl. "Oh man, I'm so bad with names," I apologize. "I'm sorry."

"Go ahead," she says, holding something in, "be a big boy-take a guess."

"Okay, I'm gonna have a psychic moment." I bring my hands to my temples and close my eyes. "Karen... Nancy... Jojo... You have a brother named Joe?... I'm seeing a lot of, er, Js... I'm seeing, I'm seeing a... a... a kitten... a kitten named Cootie?" I open my eyes.