by Cameron Lund
“He looks like James Dean,” she whispers, slack-jawed. Hannah knows this because I’ve had a Rebel Without a Cause poster tacked to my wall since fifth grade. It’s one of my favorites.
Our eyes trail him as he approaches the counter, coming up behind Danielle and Ava. He’s wearing a leather jacket that covers his butt, and I inwardly curse the cold weather. I can tell the moment Danielle notices him. She nudges Ava, who stands up straighter, hands reaching up to smooth her pink hair. They both turn to face him at the same time.
“You’re up,” Danielle says. Then she licks a dollop of whipped cream from the top of her drink, staring at him like she’s licking something else. Danielle’s stare is a powerful thing; she uses eye contact like a weapon.
“Uh, thanks,” he says. His voice is like warm, hot fudge.
The girls rush back to the table.
“Did you see that guy?” Ava hisses, probably not as quietly as she should.
Danielle takes a long frozen sip of her drink. When she pulls her mouth away, there’s a red lipstick mark on the straw. Before Danielle, I always associated lipstick with old ladies, the smell of powder perfumes and hairspray that always hovered around my grandma. But lipstick is Danielle’s signature.
“I should go back and talk to him.” She glances over her shoulder.
“Yeah you definitely should!” Ava nods vigorously.
Danielle looks back at him and shrugs, then walks to the door instead. “Whatever, he’s not worth it.”
It’s not like Danielle at all to shy away from a guy, especially one as good-looking as James Dean, and I wonder if Chase has messed her up more than she’s letting on.
I glance back once more as we leave, just to get another look at James Dean, and feel myself flush with excited embarrassment when he looks right at me. Then he lifts a tiny cup of espresso to his mouth and takes a long sip.
FOUR
WE’RE DRIVING AGAIN when my phone beeps. I pull it out of my pocket to find a cryptic text from Andrew.
Help!
I suck in a sharp breath, then text back.
Don’t scare me. This better be something serious. Are you dying?
I wait a moment and my phone beeps again.
We’re in so much trouble
I feel my chest clench, like something heavy has been dropped there. My phone begins ringing, playing a tinny, canned version of “Eleanor Rigby.” I pick up even before the violins can start.
“What’s going on?”
“Is that Andrew?” Hannah mouths from the seat next to me.
“My parents found the condom,” Andrew says.
“What condom?” I’m caught off guard by his words. The car swerves, and Danielle reaches up to turn off the music.
“Chase and Danielle’s condom,” he says. “They found the wrapper on the nightstand next to the bed.”
I can’t help it. I laugh. “Seriously? They didn’t throw out the wrapper?”
Danielle swears softly from the front seat, and I can tell she’s caught on, even if she can’t hear Andrew’s voice on the other end of the line.
“Your mom’s gonna kill you,” I say.
“Yeah, and she’s gonna kill you too.”
“What did I do?”
“Your parents are here.”
I sigh, the weight on my chest increasing. “I didn’t have a party!”
“Yeah, but it was your birthday. Obviously you were here.”
“Fine,” I answer. “I’ll get dropped off.”
I hang up the phone and turn to Danielle. “You left the condom wrapper on the nightstand?” I can’t tell whether I’m angry or whether I want to laugh.
She purses her lips. “At least we used protection.”
Andrew’s house looks spotless. When we pull up to the front, it’s easy to forget that last night even happened at all, that we spent the morning lugging trash bags across the slushy ground.
“Tell Andrew I’m sorry,” Danielle says as I jump out of the car. “His parents won’t kill him?” She actually looks worried. I want to tell her Andrew will be fine. He’s used to getting into trouble. I’m the one she should be apologizing to. But she’s craning her head out the window and looking toward the house, and she doesn’t focus her worried gaze in my direction at all.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say instead. I shut the door and walk toward the house, my boots crunching in the snow. The car peels out of the driveway, the smoke from the exhaust leaving little puffs in the cold air. I can hear Wicked come back on from all the way down the street.
My mom must have spotted me coming up the driveway, because she bursts through the front door and onto the porch. Like usual, her white-blond hair is wild around her head, curling out like wisps of smoke. When I was little, I used to think my mom was a beautiful witch in a fairy story, with her long colorful skirts and the gemstone rings stacked on her fingers. But then I realized she’s just from Vermont.
Right now she’s wrapped in a purple pashmina to keep out the cold, and it whips behind her in the wind like a flag. I shrink back slightly when I see her, preparing for a lecture, angry words to match the angry whip of the pashmina.
“Honey, it’s freezing! Where is your coat?”
The soft tone of her voice catches me off guard.
“I’m fine.”
She grabs ahold of me as I get up the steps and ushers me inside. The house smells like garlic now instead of the stale beer stink from last night, and there’s classical music playing—I recognize Debussy from when I used to take piano lessons.
There are bags of ski gear dumped in the front hallway, boots dripping melted snow onto the tile floor. Andrew’s parents always close out the ski season in Canada for their anniversary weekend, and usually Andrew stays with my family while they’re away, but this year they said they trusted him on his own. I’m struck suddenly with the fear that if they’re talking to us before they’ve fully unpacked, this must be serious.
When we get into the living room, Andrew’s parents are sitting on the couch by the window, my dad on the love seat next to them. Andrew is perched on the coffee table, half off it like he’s prepared to flee. They’re all holding steaming mugs in their hands.
“Keely, sweetie, would you like some yerba maté?” Andrew’s mom asks, getting up from the couch and heading into the kitchen, long skirts billowing behind her. There’s a reason our moms bonded so quickly when they met—they’re the same kind of hippie artist weirdos. “Robert picked some up from the health food store on our way home.” She rummages through the cabinets and pulls out another mug. I smile when I see it’s one Hannah made—she sometimes sells mugs at our local craft fair.
“Your mom brought us over some homemade bruschetta,” she continues. Our parents are all vegans, so they’re always cooking up new recipes. Andrew’s mom places a few tomato-and-onion-covered toasts onto a little plate for me. “You have to try some.”
I’m trying to get a grasp on the situation, but I can’t. Andrew made it seem like we were in trouble when he texted, but my mom’s concern, the smell of the garlic, and the tinkling piano music makes this feel like some friendly lunch instead. But maybe this is the punishment—being forced to drink yerba maté and hang out when we’d rather be literally anywhere else.
I look to Andrew for help, but he seems just as confused.
“So we talked about what we wanted to say to you,” my mom starts, “how we wanted to . . . well, how we wanted to bring this up—if we even wanted to bring it up at all.” My dad puts his hand on her shoulder to show they’re a Parental Unit and he agrees with her no matter what.
“We know these things happen,” he says, running a hand through his beard. My dad has had the same beard my whole life, and sometimes I think it’s his proudest accomplishment.
“A part of me has been preparing for it,” Andrew’s mom says. “I mean, really, we’ve always known this might happen, even hoped for it a little bit. We’ve certainly joked about it a lot.”
“You guys are all grown up now,” my mom says. “It’s hard for us. You were our babies. But this is normal, of course. And you were being safe.”
“We’re certainly glad you used protection,” my dad agrees. “We raised you right.”
I choke on my tea, spitting it back into my mug as everything clicks together. They aren’t mad about a party. They don’t even know about the party.
“But did you really have to do it in our bed when there are so many other places available?” Andrew’s mom adds. “You know our room is off-limits.” She pauses. “Is that why you went in there? Was it some sort of kink?”
“God, Mom, stop!” Andrew jumps up, banging his knee on the edge of the couch. “That wasn’t our condom, okay?”
The room suddenly feels hot and cramped. Hearing Andrew use the words our condom makes my stomach flop uncomfortably. It’s just messed up.
“Well, who else’s could it be?” his mom asks, and I swear she sounds a little disappointed.
“Are you saying you two aren’t using protection?” my mom jumps in. “Because if that’s the case, we have a lot more to worry about than—”
“We’re not having sex!” I shout, jerking suddenly and spilling my plate of bruschetta. The toasts scatter all over the carpet. I bend down and scoop the tomatoes up with my fingers, trying to clean, trying to hide my face, to keep busy, to focus on anything other than the conversation around me. I can’t look at my parents, can’t make eye contact with anyone—especially Andrew.
He bends down to help me, grabbing some bruschetta into his napkin, and I stare intently at the floor. His shoulder is an inch from mine, and I can feel the energy radiating off him, can feel the heat of our parents’ gazes as they read too much into the situation.
“I’ve got it,” I say.
“It’s okay, I can help.”
“No, seriously. Stop.” I pull the napkin from his hands. He stands up, arms raised in surrender. Everyone is staring at me. I place the trashed plate back onto the coffee table while everybody watches. I’ve never felt so uncomfortable in my life.
“So if it’s not yours, how did a condom wrapper end up on our bedside table?” his dad asks. “Did it fly in through the window?”
“We had some people over for Keely’s birthday, okay?” Andrew says, sitting back down on the coffee table.
“Some people? Like a party?” his mom asks.
“No, like a casual get-together with some friends. What did you guys expect, leaving us alone on her birthday weekend?”
“A casual get-together with some sexually active friends, it seems,” his dad adds.
“This isn’t a big deal,” Andrew says. “You’re blowing this all out of proportion.”
“Oh, am I?” his mom asks. “I haven’t even gotten started.”
* * *
• • • • • •
“We probably should have just let them believe it,” Andrew says later. We’re slumped in the hammock in his backyard, cocooned in a pile of coats to keep warm. It’s still a little too cold to be outside, but the thought of being in the same house with our parents after everything that’s just happened is too unpleasant. “They didn’t even seem mad when they thought it was ours.” He pushes his leg against the ground so that the hammock begins to swing. “If I knew they were gonna flip about the party, I would have just gone with it, you know?”
So our parents are making us get part-time jobs through the rest of the year. They’re disappointed we’re not being, in their words, trustworthy or dependable, and they think getting jobs will help teach us discipline. Which is messed up. It’s not like I’ve never worked. I spent my last two miserable summers bagging groceries at the local market, making awkward chitchat with all my parents’ friends when they came by the register. Andrew is the one who’s reckless, who acts impulsively, who jumps off cliffs with his eyes closed. I’m the one who’s always waiting at the bottom with the safety net.
This is the last semester of senior year. Last year when I was stressed about homework and the SATs, freaking out about getting into college, I was always so envious of the seniors who got to goof off, joking with teachers and skipping class like it didn’t matter. But I was just waiting for my turn. I knew one day I’d be able to float through the hallways too like I’d already finished. Now our parents are taking that away.
Not to mention these are my last few months with Andrew and Hannah.
“I can’t believe I’m in trouble too when it wasn’t even my party.” I pull a coat tighter around me to stay warm.
“Your birthday, your party,” he answers. “Besides, you’re an accessory to the crime. When you see a crime being committed and say nothing, that makes you responsible.”
“I’m not responsible, remember? I’m untrustworthy and undisciplined.”
“Yeah, you’re pretty terrible,” he agrees.
The sky is a bright gray, giving the illusion that we’re in a cloud. The bare branches of the trees above us stretch out like fingers. Inside the house, the windows are lit up by warm light. I can see Andrew’s mom emptying the dishwasher in the kitchen.
“That was weird earlier,” I say. “I can’t believe they thought we were . . . we . . .” I can’t say it, can’t get my mouth to wrap around the words. Instead, I laugh, shoving him slightly with my shoulder under the pile of coats. “Your mom clearly hasn’t met Party Andrew.”
“Let’s hope my mom never meets Party Andrew,” he says, shoving me back.
“Party Andrew eats bacon,” I say. “She’d be horrified.”
“Yeah. That’s the part that would make her the maddest.” He laughs, snuggling into my shoulder like a cat. “C’mon, Collins, you wouldn’t date me?”
“Oh, are you done with Cecilia?” I ask, pursing my lips. “And Susie Palmer? And Sophie Piznarski? And—”
“All right,” he says. “Point made.”
“It’s a moot point really.” I give us another push with my foot so the hammock keeps swinging. “We all know you’re gonna make little blond babies with Cecilia. Little Sally and Bobby.”
“You named them?”
“You named them, Andrew. In the future. I’m just reporting back. Sally loves manicures, lip gloss, and binge drinking, by the way. Just like her mother.”
“You’re so weird.”
“She’s an adorable kid.”
He laughs and soon I’m laughing too, our shoulders shaking so hard the hammock shakes too. I take a deep, gulping breath, trying to regain control, and suddenly I snort. Andrew hears and loses it.
“No, really,” he says between choked laughter. “You’re the adorable one. The sounds that come from your body are just so cute.”
“You know what’s cute?” I snort again before I can stop myself. “Hearing you say the word condom in front of our parents. I think that’ll be seared into my brain forever.”
“Really?” he asks. “I could have called it a ‘rubber’ and that would have been worse.”
“A little raincoat,” I say.
“Hey—a big raincoat,” he says back, and we both burst out laughing again. It strikes me somewhere in the back of my mind that this is the first time it’s ever occurred to me that Andrew has a penis—that it’s there, not even a foot away from me—only hidden by a few pieces of fabric. It’s a weird, uncomfortable thought, one that sticks out at an awkward angle. I shove it quickly away, and then I’m laughing again and it’s gone like it never even happened at all.
FIVE
WE’RE SITTING IN Greek mythology Monday morning when Danielle gets the note.
It’s an easy class, one of the ones basically designed for spring seniors, where you’re a
lways breaking into little discussion groups and everyone just talks about the weekend. Danielle and Ava usually sit next to Chase and some of the other basketball guys so they get maximum flirt time, but today they’re with me. Danielle has been weirdly nice since the party—she brought me an iced coffee and a Ziploc bag of homemade cheddar scones before class and then sat down next to me like it was totally normal.
Making food for people is kinda Danielle’s thing, and she’s surprisingly great at it. She’ll probably have her own TV show someday. One time sophomore year we were all watching Kitchen Nightmares at Hannah’s house and Gordon Ramsay made some poor guy burst into tears, and Danielle said, I think I’d be good at that.
Cooking? Hannah asked.
Well, yeah, Danielle said. And making people cry.
I’m sure some part of her is using the scones as an excuse to ignore Chase, but maybe some other part of her feels bad.
Now, when she taps my desk, it makes me jump.
“Did you see who sent this?” She has a little scrap of white paper clenched in her hands. I take the paper from her and unfold it. It has five words scrawled across it, written in blue ink:
DANIELLE OLIVER IS A SLUT
I crumple the paper and let go like it’s burned me. “I wasn’t looking. Sorry.”
I glance around the room for a guilty face, for someone who might be paying us a little too much attention. Chase is slumped in his desk on the opposite side of the room. I note the pencil he’s chewing on and then look back at the blue ink on the paper. There’s a chance he used a different writing implement and then slipped it back in his bag, but I really doubt Chase could be that sneaky.