The Witch by Jean Thompson

around,” Mikey said. “Do a little research. We can have another party and invite the same girls and see which one of them rings your bell. Okay?”
    â€œI guess so.” But what if the girl had run off half-barefoot because she was disgusted with him, and with herself for having anything to do with him? Well, if that was the case, he’d still want to talk with her and find out why. “Sure, let’s have another party.”
    â€œWe can fix the place up a little,” Dave D. said. “Have a bunch of fancy drinks ready, fruit drinks, and cupcakes, and olives on toothpicks, shit like that. Call it a Ladies’ Night.” Dave D. had gone to school in marketing and thought in promotional terms.
    â€œWe’ll take you shopping, Royboy. We’ll dress you up fine.”
    â€œI don’t think I want to get dressed up.”
    â€œNo bow ties this time. Promise.”
    â€œI’m going back to bed for a while,” Royboy said. His friends meant well, but they were making him nervous with all the things they had set in motion on his behalf.
    He took the shoe back to his room and made a space for it among the piles of clothes that had never quite made it either into the dresser drawers or the laundry basket. He got into bed and rolled around in the sheets, sniffing at the pillows. No perceptible trace of girl. But he still felt a little of the shining, benevolent energy that had filled his head earlier.
    It had either been a long time since he’d had a girlfriend, or else he had never had a girlfriend. It all depended on how you defined “girlfriend.” Girls sometimes gravitated his way, but they tended to take themselves off pretty fast. (Although never before had one escaped before he could even form a memory of her. That was a first.) He wasn’t very good at conversation. They got tired of waiting for him to say something interesting. Lance the Pants tried to give him pointers. “Just ask them a question they can run with, like, does she have any pets, or any brothers or sisters.”
    â€œGot it.” Royboy nodded. “Piece a cake.” The next time he and his buds were out for an evening, he spotted a likely girl at the end of the bar and ambled over to her. He said Hi. She said Hi. They smiled. Royboy asked her if she was having a good time tonight and she said pretty good so far. She seemed receptive. Her name was Sherry. She kept on smiling.
    â€œSo,” Royboy said, summoning up his nerve, “do your brothers and sisters have any pets?”
    Would anything ever change? Was he doomed to klutzy lonesomeness? He still had hopes that somewhere out in the wide world was an attractive female person who would see pasthis awkward surface and lack of vocabulary, down to the essential Royboy: a not-bad guy who wasn’t inclined to cause problems, and who now had a little bit of money to spread around. She was out there somewhere, maybe even hobbling around on one shoe.
    His roommates were as good as their word. They let it be known that there would be an actual, planned party, with food and drink and merriment. Royboy accompanied them to the liquor store and paid for the rum and mixers, the wine and beer, the bags of ice. At the grocery they bought a quantity of delicatessen items and bakery items, also supplies of hand soap and toilet paper. There was a debate about flowers versus no flowers and no flowers won, because they had never had such a thing as flowers in the house before and so didn’t have vases. Vases were a bridge too far.
    Mikey was put in charge of Royboy’s hygiene and wardrobe. “Dress for success, dress to impress, dress not to be a mess,” he intoned. “Let me see your fingernails. Not good. Do you have a nail clipper? Never mind, I’ll get you one.”
    â€œWhy can’t I wear my normal clothes?” Royboy asked. He was wrapped in a bath towel and he felt unnaturally clean, like if somebody