For one thing, Courtney Chapel was a preposterous name for a 22-year-old guy. I mean, “Courtney” sounded girly, “Chapel” sounded religious and the whole handle came off like a debutante-turned-hatmaker.
That’s why my teenage friends and I amped up the stupid name game and re-christened Courtney “Easter Island Head”, in honor of his monumentally long face with its high, sloping forehead. It was funny to boil his identity down to his resemblance to pagan statues. It was also a convenient way to skirt around the fact that we all found him uncomfortably sexy.
Easter Island Head’s appeal lay in some alchemy between his soulful blue eyes and hipster wit, heavy on the irony. The fact that he was a drummer in an indie band and had a lean, muscled body didn’t hurt, either.
I was 19 and tentatively making my first skirmishes on the sex front. My relatively late acquisition of carnal knowledge meant that I was more emotionally innocent than most. And I didn’t possess any of that Lolita-like sexual confidence the other girls seemed to have in their arsenal. I was a frustrated clod.
But cloddishness fused with desire into a raggedy song that somehow caught the ear of Easter Island Head. He began to notice me at the downtown nightclub where we all hung out, and I was thrilled when I was able to engage him with my one sure-fire date-bait: cleverness.
We bantered, then danced, then courted and sparked, all within the petting zoo confines of the club. My friends nodded approval as Easter Island Head’s interest in me became more and more apparent. Katie was about to score big!
In my giddy rush of infatuation, it was easy to surmount the insurmountable: the fact that Easter Island Head had a recent ex, and this ex still lived in a group house with him. Ex, schmex – Easter Island Head laughed at my jokes! What did I care?
And besides, the fact that everyone said the Ex and I looked uncannily similar: small, with childish round faces and dyed red hair – that was a plus, right? As I eagerly justified, it meant that he was already programmed to think of me as hotsy-totsy, so maybe we could gloss right over my sexual inexperience and nerves and get right down to the happily-ever-after stuff.
Soon enough, Easter Island Head and I were standing in his basement room of the group house, lit by a late-night lamp next to a mattress on the floor. The tension and the wonder of this pre-whoopee moment stretched on for an instant infinity. This delicious… unbearable…freeze-frame…juddered back into action when Easter Island Head dropped his jeans to reveal white boxers with big red polka dots all over them.
“Surprise, “ he said, deadpan. For him, even stripping for sex was a hipster joke.
“Fancy,” I responded, trying to match his blasé tone, while my brain raced through a flip-card set of Katie-dorkiness past, present and future. Whatever happened, I needed to suppress my natural talent for the gauche.
The rest of the night passed in a haze of agonizing self-consciousness. Sadly, the effort of faking coolness put a real damper on my ability to remember anything in the hanky-panky department.
What I do remember is waking up in the morning to the ring of a distant telephone. Footsteps marched from yonder, then overhead, then down the stairs, then right into the room where I lay with a slumbering Easter Island Head. My face turned towards the door, I pretended to be asleep, but managed a peek at who was standing there: his ex. Surprise.
My doppelganger called his name, and then said, “Oh,” loudly and sarcastically. Her footsteps stomped away, following their same path back up and out.
I was mortified, and couldn’t wait to get out of there. Easter Island Head awoke to me hastily dressing.
“What’s the haps?” he queried, laconic, ironic.
“The ‘haps’ is your girlfriend, or whatever she is, just walked in on us.”
“Whoops.” For the first time, a little anxiety browned the edges of his beginning-to-get-on-my-tits hip shit.
He whisked his jeans on and walked me out to my car. Which was entirely covered in shaving cream. The telltale empty Gillette can lay next to the front tire.
Apparently, the Ex had expressed her rage in the medium of gentlemen’s toiletries. It took us both a moment to process the whole scenario.
“Oh God,” muttered Easter Island Head, abashed. “This is not good. I’m really sorry.”
For the very first time since our whole social intercourse began, I felt confident.
“Courtney, it’s fine. It’s just shaving cream. Besides, this must be horrible for her.”
He was already scraping the foamy layer off my Toyota with a stray piece of cardboard, and turned to look at me quizzically.
“No, really,” I pressed. “I feel sorry for her. And it’s kind of funny. I mean, shaving cream as a weapon.”
While I was inwardly congratulating myself for my mature response, which actually felt authentic, he said the thing that immediately made me stop believing he was so witty, so sexy, so hip.
“Wow,” he drawled, “What you just said was either really wise or really dumb.”
It was clear that he thought it was really dumb. It was equally clear that the Ex wasn’t really an “ex”, and that he was possibly expecting some sort of twin girl throw down for his Easter Island charms.
Instantly, I understood that the Ex was in, and I was out.
I got into my car and drove home. It had been a close shave with a dull blade.
