THE PARTY, TAKE TWO
“This is how a horror movie starts,” Ally says. “Are you sure he’s number forty-two?”
“I’m sure.” My voice sounds like it’s coming from a distance. The huge crush of fear has returned. I can feel it pressing on me from all directions, squeezing the breath out of me.
“This better not screw with my paint job,” Lindsay says as a branch scrapes along the passenger door with the sound of a nail dragging against a chalkboard.
The woods fall away, and Kent’s house comes looming out of the darkness, white and sparkling, like it’s made of ice. The way it just emerges there, surrounded on all sides by black, reminds me of the scene in Titanic when the iceberg rises out of the water and guts the ship open. We’re all silent for a second. Tiny pellets of rain ping against the windshield and the roof, and Lindsay switches off her iPod. An old song pipes quietly from the radio. I can just make out the lyrics: Feel it now like you felt it then…. Touch me now and around again….
“It’s almost as big as your house, Al,” Lindsay says.
“Almost,” Ally says. I feel a tremendous wave of affection for her at that moment. Ally, who likes big houses and expensive cars and Tiffany jewelry and platform wedges and body glitter. Ally, who’s not that smart and knows it, and obsesses over boys who aren’t good enough for her. Ally, who’s secretly an amazing cook. I know her. I get her. I know all of them.
In the house Dujeous roars through the speakers: All MCs in the house tonight, if your lyrics sound tight then rock the mic. The stairs roll underneath me. When we get upstairs Lindsay takes the bottle of vodka away from me, laughing.
“Slow down, Slam-a-Lot. You’ve got business to take care of.”
“Business?” I start laughing a little, little gasps of it. It’s so smoky I can hardly breathe. “I thought it was making love.”
“The business of making love.” She leans in and her face swells like a moon. “No more vodka for a while, okay?”
I feel myself nodding and her face recedes. She scans the room. “I’ve gotta find Patrick. You gonna be okay?”
“Perfect,” I say, trying to smile. I can’t manage it: it’s like the muscles in my face won’t respond. She starts to turn away and I grab her wrist. “Lindz?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m gonna come with you, okay?”
She shrugs. “Yeah, sure. Whatever. He’s in the back somewhere—he just texted me.”
We start pushing past people. Lindsay yells back to me, “It’s like a maze up here.” Things are going past me in a blur—snippets of conversation and laughter, the feel of coats brushing against my skin, the smell of beer and perfume and shower gel and sweat—all of it whirling and spinning together.
Everyone looks the way they do in dreams, familiar but not too clear, like they could morph into someone else at any second. I’m dreaming, I think. This is all a dream: this whole day has been a dream, and when I wake up I’ll tell Lindsay how the dream felt real and hours long, and she’ll roll her eyes and tell me that dreams never last longer than thirty seconds.
It’s funny to think about telling Lindsay—who’s tugging on my hand and tossing her hair impatiently in front of me—that I’m only dreaming of her, that she’s not really here, and I giggle, starting to relax. It’s all a dream; I can do whatever I want. I can kiss anybody I want to, and as we walk past groups of guys I check them off in my head—Adam Marshall, Rassan Lucas, and Andrew Roberts—I could kiss each and every one if I wanted to. I see Kent standing in the corner talking to Phoebe Rifer and I think, I could walk up and kiss the heart-shaped mole under his eye, and it wouldn’t make a difference. I don’t know where the idea comes from. I would never kiss Kent, not even in a dream. But I could if I wanted to. Somewhere I’m lying stretched out under a warm blanket on a big bed surrounded by pillows, my hands folded under my head, sleeping.
I lean forward to tell Lindsay this—that I’m dreaming of yesterday and maybe yesterday was its own dream too—when I see Bridget McGuire standing in a corner with her arm around Alex Liment’s waist. She’s laughing and he’s bending down to nuzzle her neck. She looks up at that moment and sees me watching them. Then she takes his hand and drags him over to me, pushing other people out of the way.
“She’ll know,” she’s saying over her shoulder to him, and then she turns her smile on me. Her teeth are so white they’re glowing. “Did Mrs. Harbor give out the essay assignments today?”
“What?” I’m so confused it takes me a second to realize she’s talking about English class.
“The essay assignments. For Macbeth?”
She nudges Alex and he says, “I missed seventh period.” He meets my eyes and then looks away, taking a swig of beer.
I don’t say anything. I don’t know what to say.
“So did she give them out?” Bridget looks like she always does: like a puppy just waiting for a treat. “Alex had to skip. Doctor’s appointment. His mom made him get some shot to, like, prevent meningitis. How lame is that? I mean, four people died of it last year. You have more of a chance of being hit by a car—”
“He should get a shot to prevent herpes,” Lindsay says, snickering, but so quietly I only hear because I’m standing right next to her. “It’s probably too late, though.”
“I don’t know,” I say to Bridget. “I cut.”