“You gotta just not try so hard,” Mark gave Ricky lady advice during a practice smoke break as Hooper yelled at her phone, the Brooklyn in her ripping whoever was on the other end a new one. Mark blew out a cloud of tobacco. “Like, I’m not saying that you are trying too hard, but, like…” He took another long, relaxed pull of his cig, savoring it fully. “It’s been my experience, at least, that the less I try for something, the easier it is for me to get it. It’s very counterintuitive. You ever read Lao Tzu?”

“Nah.” Ricky had so much reading to do for school, he couldn’t imagine reading anything for pleasure or to enrich his personal life. He swirled the last sip of Tecate and threw it back. His face was blank as he twisted and crushed the red-silver can in his hands and let out a low growl. 

“By letting it go it all gets done,” Mark quoted the Chinese philosopher.

“Kinda like in Swingers when they’re in the casino and he goes, ‘We gotta act like we don’t need this shit and then they give us the shit for free,’” Ricky quoted his favorite movie. 

“Exactly.”

“But they still wanted the free shit, they were just acting like they didn’t.”

“Yeah, there’s a spectrum of desire and effort that will always exist. I mean, we’re human. Just be easy. I feel like there’s something in women, like some hardwired, ass backwards form of self preservation and mate selection that makes them just smell it when you want them. And as soon as they know they can have you, it’s usually over and they’ve moved on.”

“Well, that’s fuckin’ lame.”

“It is, but the great thing about it is that it’s easier to just not try. And to really just not give a fuck. Focus on yourself. Your songwriting’s great, don’t stop that. Even if psychotits over here,” he was referring to Hooper, who was still ranting over the phone a few yards away, “only wants to play her tunes, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep writing.”

“Thanks man.”

“Yeah, just stay confident. Get whatsherface out of your head. Play more bass. Yo Hoops!” Mark’s cigarette was done. “We gettin’ back in there or what?”

She moved the phone away from her ear. “Yeah, you guys get in there, I’ll be done with this bozo in a minute.” The rhythm section took its orders diligently and went back into the studio as she went back to her call. “What? No… I wasn’t fuckin’ talkin’ to you… No… Yes, you are the bozo I was talking about.”

As much as he’d always wanted to jump her bones, Ricky was glad he never got close enough to Hooper where she’d yell at him like that. Having her as a foxy band mom was exhilarating and exhausting enough. 

Whatsherface, who Mark was advising Ricky to forget, was Andrea Alcaraz, who he’d met when he joined the USC snowboarding club. They called it a team, but competing was optional and almost everyone that went up used it as an excuse to get cheap lift passes, bum rides, and party heavily. 

Andrea was assigned as his ride up to Mammoth Mountain the first weekend of the season. She interrogated him on the drive up.  

 “Ricardo Gomez, huh. ¿Y de dónde eres?” Her blonde hair and soft blue eyes easily hid the fact that she was Mexican, and her flawless Spanish accent caught him by surprise.

“Um.” He almost responded in Spanish but had just smoked weed and pussied out. “I was born in Mexico City, but we moved to California when I was three.”

“And what, you don’t speak any Spanish?” 

“No, I do, I just…”

“What, you’re shy?” He liked how her slightly crooked button nose scrunched up to the side when she laughed and was quickly becoming a bandwagon fan of her smile. 

“No, I dunno, I just don’t practice enough.”

“Pues, practicamos!”

“Esta bien.” Selena was playing on the radio. Como La Flor. He turned the music up. She smiled at him again. He could feel the blood rushing through his face. 

The third trip that they took up was one of the most packed cabins of the whole year. Word had spread that all team members could bring a friend as a free cabin guest, so the parties were raging. Andrea, who’d become his little snow buddy, as well as his weekly ride up north, brought her friend Leslie, a tall, pale, opera singing major with perfectly straight oversized teeth and full matching lips. She was very friendly, asking Ricky all sorts of questions about himself, to the point where his drunken ass thought she was hitting on him. He’d lost count of how much cheap tequila they’d had, and had been continually adding to the mountain of crushed beer cans in the corner of the kitchen. 

By that point it was mostly snippets and flashes. Andi was sitting next to him on the couch. She was talking to someone else. They had their backs to each other, but Ricky felt her hand touching his. He leaned into her. She leaned back.

Either Leslie had run out of questions, or he’d started ignoring her, but she suddenly stood up with a light pout as if to say, “that’s it. I’ve had it.” For one short drunken moment, Ricky thought she was going to jump on him, but instead she grabbed each of them by the hand and led them upstairs, found an empty bedroom, and sat them on a bed. 

“There. Geez.” She didn’t say anything else before closing the door behind her. 

It was dark, but he could see Andrea. He was nervous, and could sense the confidence she normally rolled with was hiding too. She stared at her hands. He did the same. He hadn’t showered since getting off the mountain and was smelling like an icy locker room. His stomach turned. Those shots of tequila were causing a little bit of a ruckus inside of him. Was she as drunk as he was? His thoughts kept stumbling over each other. 

Touch her. Do it. God, he wanted to.

But I’m not like these other creeps. Taking advantage of a drunk chick. 

But she’s so cute. 

Plus, I wanna remember this. 

I think I’m gonna puke.  

Sober, he’d already imagined it playing out like a movie, with some awkward eye contact, a coy grin, a slow lean in, lips, and scene. 

Instead, he focused on holding down the liquor, beer, and junk food that so desperately wanted to escape him and asked her if she wanted to go back down to the party, effectively shooting himself in the foot for what felt like the hundredth time of his youth, and setting his cheesy, short, romantic film ablaze.

“Sure.” 

Idiot.

Instant regret. 

Mark had been witness to Ricky’s inebriated psychosis more than most, as they maneuvered through the grungy bars east of Hollywood and north of downtown together. He knew all about his strikeout with Andrea, and how infatuated he still was with Hooper, although that obviously also wasn’t likely to pan out.

“I mean, anything can happen, right?” Mark had asked his during another drunken, post-practice confessional. 

“I guess.”

“It’d probably ruin the band though.”

“I know.”

“I mean, worse things have happened. But, you know, like I’ve told you, just let it come to you.”

Ricky kept picturing Andrea sitting next to him on that bed in that cabin, served on a platter, and he smacked his own forehead. 

“And seriously dude,” Mark continued imparting his wisdom, “even if you did fuck something up with any of these chicks you’ve met, you gotta look at it as all being for the best. Trust yourself. Most of them are fuckin’ maniacs anyways.”

“True.”

“You’re gonna make mistakes, but like, I know you’re a good dude. A little bit of a maniac too, especially when you get hammered, but you’re a good dude.”

“Thanks Mark.”

“As long as you keep making your decisions from a good place, and caring about people, then you can’t go wrong.”

“You’re right.”

“And if you make a decision, and it doesn’t work out, fuck it. Learn a lesson and let it go man. Just like our buddy Lao.”

“Yeah.”

Ricky did his best to take his drummer’s advice and stopped tormenting himself over women, past, present or future. “Do not chase, attract,” Mark would remind him in his Confucious voice. “The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond the winning.” Some of what he said was still going over his half-baked, half-drunk head. However, by his last semester at USC he’d learned to pretend to not give a shit enough where his advice was starting to make sense. He was still just pretending though.