Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

"I'm through with you for tonight," Tris says, standing up. "Find that other fuck-up and have fucked-up children together. Don't name them after fruits or months. Be original and just name them like children."

"But she's gone," I say.

Tris snorts. "Nick, Norah's not gone. She's clearly someplace. All you have to do is find out where that is."

"Any ideas?" I ask.

"Nope," Tris answers, walking out of my life once again. "You're on your own."

I let her leave. I watch her walk into the blast of music blaring from the open door of the club.

Then I look back to the sidewalk and try to map the possibilities.

12. NORAH

I am still hungry.

I am also still tired, and still vaguely interested in my future life of sainthood, but still. I gnaw. The stale Oreo I am munching in the cab, with the cookie part soggy instead of crisp, the white center near-gelatinous-like a room temperature ice cream sandwich-is brilliant, but not coming close to quelling this hunger. I'm not sure whether the gnawing is coming from my stomach or the Arctic vicinities around that area that, earlier, eerily melted under the greenhouse effect of Nick's touch.

"Are we going or not?" the taxi driver asks me. We've sat through five rotations of the light at Houston and West Broadway while I decide where I want to go. The driver is putting up with my uncertainty because he's hopeful I won't follow through on my threat to either be driven to Jersey or file a formal complaint if he gives me any more shit about leaving the city.

"Where to, lady?"

I DON'T FUCKING KNOW!

I can only process two rational thoughts. (1) I want more stale Oreos from that Korean grocery, and (2) I don't want some stupid fucking guy to be the reason I stop liking Where's Fluffy. I need to erase the memory of my favorite Fluffy song, their gay rights anthem "Lesbian Lap Dance," from being my last memory of the band, the song they were performing when genius girl decided to take Nick by the hand for some lap-dance action of our own. I need to get back to that fucking club.

"Back to Ludlow," I tell the driver.

Did I go too far with Nick, or not far enough? Or is it that I'm just plain unattractive? I never should have deleted all those spam e-mails advertising the vitamin supplements for fuller, firmer breasts. I'm more stacked than Caroline and Tris but mine go off in the wrong directions-over and out instead of up and in. It's probably time for me to wake up and accept the fact that I may be in need of a makeover.

The driver sighs, shakes his head, then pulls an illegal U-turn across four lanes of traffic from where we've been idling at the curb. He turns up the radio volume, perhaps hoping he will not hear me if I should change my mind again. How a former second-string player on the Kazakhstan soccer team came to be driving a graveyard-shift taxi in Manhattan and listening to Z100 instead of the standard 1010 WINS (all news, all depressing, all the time), which I had always assumed to be the one cardinal rule of taxicab radio etiquette, I don't know. Everyone has their story.

Vintage Britney sings from the pop radio station; she knows about toxic. Nick must think I'm toxic, marauding him in a closet at a Fluffy show. He didn't try to stop me when I left that room, or when I left him to get into this taxi. He didn't even wave good-bye.

The cab is careening down Bowery, whizzing by the club where earlier tonight Nick asked if I would be his girlfriend for five minutes, then made me like him, then looked right at me and made a public declaration with those magic words-"FUCK-SHIT-COCK"-that left me no choice but to make a play for him. I remember seeing Crazy Lou at the Where's Fluffy show, long after those five minutes had expired. Lou would only leave his club for someone else to close up shop if-

"STOP!" I shout at the driver over the music. I'm already where I'm supposed to be.

The driver slams the brakes so hard I toss my cookies-truly. The jolt sends my bag of Oreos to the floor. The taxi halted, the Kazakh poster king turns around and from the other side of the plastic divide yells back at me, "WHAT YOU WANT ANYWAY, LADY? WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU?"

Tal is across the street, ushering the remaining club inhabitants from the establishment, closing up his uncle's place for the night. His post-show usual, Tal's shirt is off and he's sweeping the sidewalk. I remember Tal's chest, all lean muscle, too scrawny, too vegan. I remember my hands on Nick's chest. I liked touching Nick. He had something to grab on to. I want more touch.

I don't know what's the matter with me, driver. But if I am destined to a life of loneliness and celibacy, isn't there some side rule that entitles me to go out in one last blaze of glory? One last booty call?

Three times I start to get out of the cab to pursue that last rite. I reach for the door handle and count the money in my wallet. Three times I stop and sit still again.

"What'll it be? Are you getting in or getting out?" the driver asks.