The Other Fish in the Sea (Grab Your Pole, #2)

by Jenn Cooksey

  “Well, why don’t you have them hang stuff and then we can do the toy decorating? I’ve got this cool idea for a cassette tape centerpiece that I think you’ll love, and I’m pretty sure the guys will be more inclined to hanging stuff than playing with monchichis, even if they are so soft and cuddly.” If that little tagline is unfamiliar to you, Kate just quoted part of the thumb-sucking stuffed animal’s jingle. It was pretty awesome and giggle worthy…

  “Oh! I almost forgot to tell you, Brandon made a portable break-dance floor out of some linoleum and he also cut up some cardboard, so hopefully we can get a competition going…I’m prepared to die laughing tonight, just FYI,” Melissa informed us with a firm nod and then a giggle. Brandon’s totally into this theme thing by the way. He loved dressing up for last night’s party and for tonight, he’s planning on dressing like someone from a hair band. I think he’s even gonna be carting an electric guitar around with him all night.

  “How flippin’ funny would that be? Oh God, I hope we can and Jillian’s around to video it!” Kate said, laughing.

  “Hey girls…whatchya up to?” Jeff asked, coming in the back door.

  “Oh, just going over our decorating plan of attack for round two of the bodacious birthday weekend,” I replied.

  I got a good laugh out of everyone for my vintage verbiage and then I let a big grin spread across my face when Jeff gave me the hang loose sign as he said, “Tubular, dude.”

  “Hey Camie? Do you really think you want the balloons and streamers? I mean, I’ve been thinking about it and I have a feeling they’re gonna detract from the posters and records on the walls…you know what I mean?” Melissa asked, still looking at the to-do list.

  “Huh…yeah, you might be right and if I have to pick, I’m so gonna keep my posters of Duran Duran, Bananarama, The Psychedelic Furs, and Wham, you know? Plus all the ones of Heather Locklear and girls in jazzercise outf—”

  “Ditch the lame balloons, Heather and those jazzercise posters have to go up!” Jeff interrupted to make sure his thoughts on the subject were well-known and understood by all.

  Kate just rolled her eyes, Melissa giggled and I gave him the okay sign while mouthing the word at the same time.

  All the decoration delegation being settled, the eight of us bent to our allotted tasks of turning my house into something like an ‘80s museum. However, while Kate, Melissa and I were in my room collecting posters and whatnot, Kate came across my irrational list of no-nos from the allergist.

  “Are you kidding me? You’re supposed to avoid all this stuff?”

  “I know. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? I think they just give that to everyone as a precaution, you know like it’s a generic list and I’m really not expected to avoid everything on it…I mean I know I’m not hyper-allergic to cats or I would’ve been dead by now,” I said, shaking my head and glancing through pamphlet with Melissa as Kate flipped the page.

  “Oh, holy shit…look at this one,” Kate said with a laugh and pointed to an item about halfway down the backside of the second page.

  Latex condoms.

  Oh for love of all that is holy! Wouldn’t that suck! I can just see it now… While having sex for the first time I start gasping for breath and Tristan mistakes that and my rapid heartbeat for something else entirely and then I die. Jesus, my dad would kill us both. I’m not even sure what my dad would be more furious about…Tristan nailing his daughter while they’re out of town or, thinking we were being safe, that he wore a deadly piece of rubber while doing so or, that my mom suggested I go on birth control pills as well as purchased said deadly rubber for me to keep handy in the event that I needed it.

  And yeah, I’m pretty sure tonight’s the night. I was thinking it might pretty cool to celebrate my sixteenth birthday by giving myself something in the way of losing something. I’m actually really excited. I thought once I made up my mind about the specific “when,” that I’d maybe feel nervous or start having second thoughts but I’m not at all. I will however make sure my legs and bikini line get to spend some quality time with my razor later today, and I’ll probably take extra care in choosing what undergarments I’ll be sporting under my cool costume of those totally rad purpley-pink acid washed jeans with the ankle zippers, an off the shoulder, cropped sweatshirt in pink with black and white geometric designs on it, a ridiculously long plastic belt that wraps around me twice and kind of crisscrosses in front and matching pink jelly shoes that I plan on wearing socks with. I know. Some of the fashions of the ‘80s are just grody-to-the-max and yeah, even though some of this stuff has come back into fashion, most of it hasn’t, although you can find all kinds of crazy stuff like this at the Goodwill. I also have a banana clip for my hair. Not from the Goodwill, because um…ew.

  In the end, my house was the epitome of a 1980s throwback that even the likes of MTV or VH1 would be proud to broadcast from. Placed all over the house were candy dishes some of which were made from a Millennium Falcon, that’s from Star Wars by the way, and an old metal Muppets lunchbox. Additionally there were a couple of vintage Cabbage Patch Kid dolls along with an E.T. stuffed animal, the monchichis, a Stretch Armstrong and some Care Bears. I’d also found some Strawberry Shortcake and He-Man characters, not to mention the dozens of action figures I’d been picking up over the last couple of months. We stacked some of the popular games from my chosen decade in the family room and kitchen as well so if people didn’t feel like break-dancing or dancing to Depeche Mode or The Go-Gos, they could play a game. The sofas and recliner were covered in zebra print sheets and we hung up neon rope lights all over the place in the backyard.

  When all that was done, we took a dinner break and my friends went to their assorted houses to change, returning to look like they’d just been transported by a DeLorian time machine off the cover of a Tiger Beat magazine issued from sometime in 1987. Like I thought, Brandon was dressed as a hair-band rockstar but he was wearing a long, curly, blonde wig with a super wide bandana at his forehead, these ridiculously tight, red tiger-striped leggings with scarves tied around his thighs, a black leather vest and no shirt. He even had makeup on. So with his real tattoos, he definitely looked like he could’ve been the guitarist for some band like Poison or Warrant maybe.

  “Brandon, you look freaking great! Oh my God, Melissa, where did you find this shirt?!” I asked with enthusiasm about Melissa’s truly rare find.

  She’s wearing a black leather skirt with zippers that run all the way up both sides, black fishnet stockings and these heeled ankle boots that I swear walked right out of 1986 and into today, but it was her “Frankie Says Relax” shirt that really did it for me. It’s actually a real concert t-shirt that tons of people used to wear from a band called Frankie Goes To Hollywood and their big hit was “Relax.”

  “Oh I know, isn’t it great?! I couldn’t believe it, but Brandon had it in his closet!” She answered, giggling.

  “Before any of you dicks start in, it was my mom’s and I wasn’t about to let my dad toss a concert shirt,” Brandon said in defense of what could’ve been taken as his questionable fashion sense.

  You see, the original video for that song featured a homosexual S&M den, and the song itself is overtly sexual and can probably be called obscene. Well, maybe not in today’s dictionary, but back in 1984? Yeah, it was a bit over the top.

  “Well I love it! Thanks for letting me wear it, Hotness,” Melissa said to Brandon and then the two engaged in what might’ve been called a “steamy” kiss back in 1984, but pretty normal for today’s standards.

  Then Jeff and Kate showed up and I about peed myself laughing. He’s actually wearing a mullet wig! Oh my God…he kills me! He’s also got on ripped up acid washed blue jeans, a Stryper band t-shirt and a classic pair of black and white checked Vans tennis shoes. Kate looks a lot like me except she’s wearing a Vuarnet t-shirt, which were popular sunglasses of the day, she has her hair in a side ponytail with a big polka dot bow tied around it, and she’s wearing bright blue pumps…with socks
.

  Pete’s costume is pretty laughable too. He’s wearing not one, but two Izod polo shirts, one pink and one yellow with the collars turned up on both of them, a turquoise Member’s Only jacket with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, summery-colored plaid Bermuda shorts, and Tristan’s uncle’s penny loafers…with no socks. And just for good measure, he’s wearing a pair of sorta nerdy looking reading glasses.

  “Hey Trist, way to do the absolute least and get away with it,” Jeff said in regard to Tristan’s lack of costume.

  Tristan is dressed in theme, but again, he looks like this almost all the time. He’s wearing a Bubble Gum surf wax t-shirt that has a picture of a blonde kid blowing a big huge bubble with the words “Blow Me” in the middle of the gum bubble, jeans and well-worn, sand colored Ugg boots. He’s usually either wearing those or flip-flops, but if he’s forced to wear actual shoes, he typically goes with Converse. Well, he usually wears cowboy boots to ride his horse, but that’s not an everyday thing. And yeah, he totally makes for a particularly drool worthy cowboy, just FYI.

  “Hey, the shirt is from 1985…” The company is still around, but this particular shirt was his dad’s. “And the jeans are actual button-fly Levi’s, so you can kiss my ass, hillbilly. And I don’t see you giving Satan’s mistress a ration of shit for how she’s dressed,” Tristan retorted with a laugh and jutted his chin in my sister’s direction.

  “Hey! I’m in costume,” Jill countered as she prowled over to us, making it really kind of difficult for the guys, except for maybe Tristan, to not gawk at her. After all, she is my sister and he thinks of her like she’s his as well. He mentioned her that way just to spite Jeff.

  “As what?” Jeff asked, trying to not focus too long on her “costume.”

  “Billy Idol Barbie,” Jillian replied, as if that should’ve been self-explanatory.

  And actually, that’s exactly what she looks like. Jilly’s costume is an almost exact replica of what the girl in Billy Idol’s “Cradle of Love” video wore. And even though at first glance my sister looks like she always does, on closer inspection you realize she doesn’t. She’s wearing a little makeup for one thing, but she also has on high-waisted, black, skin-tight shorts that I think are made of spandex, black nylons, sling back black heels, a white button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows and over it, she’s got on this cropped, red satin, oriental-looking jacket that I think she actually stitched a green dragon on the back of to look like the one in the video, and under all of that, her black bra is more than visible by how the shirt is unbuttoned but tied in a knot at her ribcage…none of which our parents would ever be okay with either of us wearing together as part of an ensemble on a regular day. She’s also wearing those red pleather, fingerless gloves I gave her for Christmas, big dangly earrings and although Jillian doesn’t typically wear “good” jewelry, she’s got an actually very pretty and obviously “good” silver pendant I haven’t seen before nestled in her cleavage, which I’ll have to get a closer look at later. The pendant, not my sister’s cleavage, duh… And her hair is in a high ponytail with part of it wrapped around the rubber band so you can’t see it. I have to say I’m highly impressed! I would even go so far as to say “to the max.” Really, nicely done, Jill!

  “Devon from ‘Rock the Cradle’?” I asked with a smile of appreciation for her attention to detail and received a wink and a nod from her in response.

  “Didn’t that song come out in the ‘90s though?” Brandon asked, showing us his knowledge of music history while making a desperate attempt to keep his eyes on hers.

  If she does any part of the dance the girl did in the video, I think all these guys plus a few more will have a stroke. I could even see Tristan bundling her off to her room with instructions to change into a snowsuit.

  “Recorded in ‘89,” she replied and took a drink from the bottle of root beer(?) I think it was that was in her hand. Actually, the bottle looks an awful lot like what Pete was drinking last night, so it might actually be beer, which would be kinda weird for her.

  “It counts,” I said at the same time.

  As far as the rest of the guests go, Derek and MaryAnn (sans Dylan and the uninvited others) looked like they walked out of the movie The Lost Boys with Derek having dark circles under his eyes and him wearing a long black trench coat while MaryAnn was all gypsied out like the character Star. Mike showed up wearing authentic parachute pants—gold lamé parachute pants mind you—a vest, gold chains around his neck and dorky sunglasses like MC Hammer wore. Oh, I don’t know if I ever mentioned it before, but Mike is actually black so this is pretty freaking hysterical, because his costume is so spot on, I wouldn’t be surprised if people genuinely mistook him for the real Hip-Hop artist he’s dressed as. Mike was also carrying a boombox on his shoulder that I immediately recognized as the one Tristan used to win me back by recreating that scene from Say Anything. Kristen was decked out in blinding neon of every color imaginable and she was also in the obligatory leggings and big hoopy earrings. A sweatshirt was draped over her shoulders to complete Kristen’s, sadly, picture perfect ‘80s look. There were also some sightings of pencil-thin ties, pastels, lots of polka dots, funky color combinations, and several Michael Jackson and Madonna look-a-likes from a few different points in their careers. And, of course, just about everyone including the guys had big hair. I was really thinking we should’ve had some WARNING: FLAMMABLE signs posted throughout the house because with all the hairspray required for these dos…really, we’re an en masse fire hazard.

  Like Jillian’s party, mine wasn’t huge but it was a blast. People danced, played games and somehow or another, Brandon got his break-dance contest. Of course, he didn’t actually participate in it; he just bullied and goaded others into doing it purely for his entertainment. And at midnight, I was surprised with a Rubix Cube birthday cake that Jeff made for me himself.

  I should also mention that I discovered an hour or so into my party that tonight won’t be the night after all. Along with the ghetto blaster, Mike had brought a “pony keg,” which is like half the size of a regular keg I guess, as well as some other assorted bottles of booze, so when I walked into the kitchen and saw Tristan just finishing off a shot with Mike, I scratched my plan for tonight. I was a touch disappointed but, whatever…tomorrow will still be my birthday, right? I will say that discovery made it easy for me to not sound like a party pooper though when at one point, I fell victim to what I’d witnessed earlier and just hadn’t realized what I’d seen.

  Here’s how it went down; Mike asked me what time it was and, logically, I looked at my Swatch watch. Yep, found this little piece of ‘80s gold on eBay. Anyhow, Mike immediately thrust a shot at me and pronounced that I had to drink for not responding with the correct phrase of “It’s Hammer time.” Mike then scooted off to find his next victim, holding the bottle in one hand and the shot glass in the other, and doing his little MC Hammer shuffle dance as he did.

  That was also why when the party started to wind down, I got involved in the TV drinking game that Jeff had started with the help of my sister and Buffy. At Jeff’s request, Jill turned Real Genius off and put Buffy on, and he along with Melissa, Tristan, Kristen, Derek and some assorted other guests were doing shots of something I was told was called a WooWoo. I have no idea what’s in them and know only that they’re pretty good and later found out, pretty potent as well. The game was fun though; anytime Buffy killed a vampire, you take a drink, every time someone else who wasn’t Buffy killed a vampire, you take two drinks. I didn’t mean to, but I got obliterated and unbeknownst to me, so did Tristan. I did find that out later and in absolutely no way was it a good revelation.

  Again, that hindsight thing is more than fucking applicable here because if I’d known being as blitzed as I was would be the catalyst for what was coming, I would’ve chosen to denounce that first shot of Mike’s and worn the title Party Pooper proudly. I also would’ve told Tristan in advance what my discarded plan for tonight was so that he
could’ve done the same…

  I have no clue what time it was, how many people were left at my house, if any of them had sober rides home, or, how Tristan and I got to my room, nor did I care, but by the time we stumbled through my bedroom door, it was on. We were like animals in our savagery to get each other’s clothes off and I don’t remember a whole lot of details, but I do recall us standing there after I’d kicked the door closed and him saying something about how much he wanted me and me hiccuping with the feeling that I might puke. I held up one finger and wobbling a little on my feet with my head lowered a bit, I said, “Gimme a sec…” The feeling passed and then I gave him the green light to go on.

  It wasn’t until we were both completely naked and I was on my back in bed that the room started to seriously spin. With Tristan on top of me completely oblivious to my rapidly increasing nausea, I felt like I was on one of those carnival rides like The Zipper, and I couldn’t get the thoughts of “Oh God, please don’t let me puke on him when we have sex for the first time” and “This isn’t how I want my first time to be” out of my head. I just couldn’t manage that many spoken words. And really, even if I had been able to, they would’ve been incoherent. I think I managed to slur an inadequate substitution of that last thought being, “I’m not ready,” only to have Tristan retort a little crudely, “Could’ve fooled me,” after removing his hand from in between my thighs and then using it and his teeth to tear open a condom. I was becoming panicked about throwing up on him and I know I said something in the way of wait or stop, but, he didn’t hear me. You have to understand something here; I was so intoxicated, I literally couldn’t see straight. I made a feeble attempt to get his attention again with words, however when that didn’t work, I pulled his hair. I think he took it as me wanting him to kiss me, though, because that was when he raised his head and right before he lowered his lips to mine, I met his extraordinarily dark eyes and breathed out, “Please stop.” He did and he did so in time, but, it wasn’t pretty.