Whatsername, chapter 1

"Adie, please keep taking me away." I remember the first time he played me that song, how much I had cried. He had brought me to the first decent-sized gig he had ever played- that is, not in someone's garage. I was in the front row, as usual, and he looked right at me and winked. "I wrote this song for someone really special to me, and I'm playing it for her for the first time tonight." And then he played it, and I cried, and later he teased me for it. And then he proposed. Sitting on a blanket in a park having beers, he proposed. And I ran.

You don't need to launch into a chorus of "you crazy ---!!" Believe me, I agree. I kick myself every day for it. But I was scared! I was just a kid, and I was terrified! So I hopped a plane home and never looked back. Well, until the first time I heard him on the radio. I was working as a waitress at some nothing café in Dinkytown. I was bussing tables one afternoon when I heard his voice, like a bolt from the blue, over the crackly old speaker system. My best friend, Liz, began singing along right away. I had to sit down.

"Liz," I addressed her. I needed to hear it for myself. "Who is this?"

"Geez, Adge, where do you live, a cave? It's Green Day! They're awesome!"

I left early that day and went out and bough Dookie, and over the next few years I watched the love of my life make his way into stardom. And I was happy for him, damnit. Really, I was. Obviously he had moved on, whether I had or not. It wasn't his fault I had walked out. It wasn't his fault that I could never be with another guy because in the end I still loved him the most. But I eventually gave up. My parents were beginning to think something was wrong with me, and my sister was getting married. I couldn't sit around forever waiting for the California punk rocker who didn't chase after me. So I met Dan, and pretended to fall in love with him, even though he bored me to tears. But I knew I was going to have to pretend in the end, so I figured the least I could do was pick someone my parents would like. And boy, did they like him. I began wondering whether or not they wanted to marry him. But anyway, they were happy, and he was happy, and I was pretending to be happy, and things were OK. And then it happened.

I remember I was driving home from the grocery store, because my thrilling lifestyle called for such things, and I had just flipped on the radio.

"Ad now, the exciting new single from Green Day that is taking the nation by storm: here's 'Whatsername.'"

"Thought I ran into you down on the street.."

Wow, this didn't sound like anything they had done before. In fact, it sounded like... dare I say it? A... love song. Had Billie found someone else? "Else," who was I kidding? There was no "me" in the first place.

"I made a point to burn all of the photographs. She went away and then I took a different path. I remember the face but I can't recall the name. Now I wonder how whatsername has been."

Oh crap. This was about me. I parked a few houses down from my own and went through the numbers on my cell. And there was his... .And I wondered if, almost a decade later, there was even the slightest chance he wouldn't have changed his number. And before I could stop myself I was dialing it.

And it was ringing, and...

"Hullo?" Oh, god..that voice. That voice that I had heard every day for the past ten years; but not like this.

"Figures you would be too lazy to change your number after 10 years."

"A-Adie?"

"Oh, so I'm not just 'whatsername.' You remember my name quite well."

"How did I know you'd figure out that song was about you?"

"Well, it doesn't take a genius."

I heard him laugh on the other end. God, I had missed that laugh.

"Wow..so Adie. How've you been?"