by Carrie Secor
Eventually they found their way upstairs again, and Andy suggested they go into the kitchen and get a drink. Melody agreed. She was hesitant, but she did not really want to say no to any of Andy’s suggestions.
One of the football players, a senior named Zack Myers, was at the keg as they approached. She thought this was probably for the best; she saw that Andy was watching him intently and knew that, like her, he had never worked a tap before. She was briefly reminded of Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson with the computer in Zoolander.
The football player stepped back away from the keg. “All yours, bro,” he said to Andy.
“Thanks,” Andy answered coolly, taking the nozzle. He looked around the kitchen and pointed to the counter nearest to Melody. “Could you get me a couple cups?”
“Sure.” She pulled two blue Solo cups out of the opened package on the counter and handed them to him.
He filled the first and handed it to her. She took it unenthusiastically, but waited for him to finish filling his before she drank.
They walked toward the living room, drinks in tow. Melody glanced down at his free hand, which was only inches away from hers. She had been tempted to touch his hand all night, but she could not seem to come up with the courage to do so. Reluctantly she took a sip of her beer, making a face at the taste. “You know, we’ve been here for about twenty minutes now,” Melody began, “and we have yet to see—”
As if on cue, Susan appeared across the room and caught sight of them. She lifted her hand in a greeting and started to cross the room toward them.
“—Susan,” she finished lamely.
Andy gave her a look. “You just had to jinx it,” he said.
She smirked at him.
“Hey!” Susan hugged Melody first, then Andy, clearly catching him by surprise. “When did you guys get here?”
“About twenty minutes ago,” Melody said. “Where have you been? We didn’t see you.”
Susan gestured behind her, waving her hand frantically toward the sliding glass door. “I was outside,” she said. “They have a stereo set up out there. I was dancing. A lot of people are dancing.”
She was pretty well blitzed already, Melody realized. She glanced at Andy, but he seemed completely uninterested in the conversation, which was not uncommon when Susan was around. He was staring across the room and drinking his beer. Melody turned her attention back to Susan. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“Actually, now that you mention it, I kind of have to go to the bathroom,” Susan said. “Will you go with me?”
“Why do you need me to go to the bathroom with you?” Melody asked.
“I don’t understand that, either,” Andy said, finally joining in the conversation. “Guys go to the bathroom by themselves all the time. Is that not something they teach girls while they’re being potty trained?”
Susan grabbed Melody’s wrist and started dragging her in the direction of the bathroom. “I’ll be back,” Melody called over her shoulder to Andy. “Ow, Susan, you’re pulling my arm out of the socket.”
“Sorry.” Susan loosened her grip.
The half bath on the first floor was occupied. The two girls made their way downstairs, where they found the other bathroom mercifully vacant. Melody intended to wait outside for Susan, but she got pulled into the bathroom with her, and Susan shut the door behind them.
“Seriously, I don’t know how much help I’m going to be,” Melody said.
“Come on, Melody, I didn’t really have to go to the bathroom.” Susan set down her cup and started checking out her reflection in the mirror over the double sink. She finally tore her eyes away from herself to look at Melody. “I wanted to know how things are going with Andy.”
Melody shrugged. “I don’t know. We just got here. Did you really bring me all the way down here just to ask me that?”
“You didn’t just get here,” Susan contradicted. “You’ve been here for twenty minutes. What have you been talking about?”
“Nothing, really,” Melody admitted. “We pretty much just walked around the house to see what was going on, then went and got beers, and that’s where you found us.”
“So you haven’t said, ‘Hey, Andy, I like you, and this is a date’?”
Melody pretended to think about it carefully. “I don’t think so,” she said slowly.
Susan went back to examining her reflection. “Weak.”
“I still have an hour,” Melody said defensively. She looked around the bathroom. “So what am I doing down here with you? I’m going back upstairs.”
“Good luck,” Susan called as Melody left the room. She was deeply engaged in fluffing her chestnut brown ringlets.
Melody made her way back up the stairs and into the living room where she had left Andy, but he had disappeared.
Shane had drawn an inside straight. He was not sure how good he was at bluffing, but he hoped nobody could read his expression when he raised Ryan Hostler’s bet by two green chips.
Obviously they could, because everybody folded. Shane’s straight had won him a very meager pot. He sighed as he passed the cards to Ryan, who was dealing the next hand, and gathered up the chips in the center of the table.
The football team had managed quite a win that evening. Actually, to be more accurate, it had been a complete slaughter. By the end of the third quarter, the score had been 34-0, and an assortment of first-string players, including Shane, had been taken out to allow their second-string players to finish the game. The final score had been 47-10. It was not an unexpected win—their opponents were notoriously bad—but Shane had still felt lucky leaving the stadium, which was why he had decided to sit in on the poker game at the party.
Their poker game consisted of Shane, Will, Ryan, and three other guys by the names of Tyson Claar, Zack Myers, and Adam Benson. Mostly they were playing Texas Holdem, but Adam had a strange fascination with five card draw, so every time he dealt, that was what they played. Shane had thought he was a decent poker player, but this theory was being contradicted more and more with every hand. His pile of chips was slowly diminishing, and on the rare occasions when he got decent enough cards to actually win a hand, he played so badly that somehow he ensured that the pot was next to nil. The game had had a five-dollar buy in, with twenty dollars going to the winner and ten to the one who came in second.
The next hand was Holdem. Everybody anted. He was dealt the king of diamonds and the jack of spades. The cards showing in the middle were a seven and a four. Shane tried very hard not to roll his eyes at his own bad luck. Zack won that hand with two pair; he had had a seven and a four dealt to him. A few more of Shane’s chips found their way into the hands of another.
Tyson stood. “Let’s take a break before the next hand,” he said. “Anybody else need a smoke?”
Adam did. The two of them slipped out the sliding glass door onto the lower level of the deck. Ryan took the opportunity to go to the bathroom. Shane started gathering up the cards on the table and shuffling them, since the next hand would be his deal.
“Don’t stack those cards,” Zack warned.
“Zack, if I knew how to stack cards, do you think I would be doing as badly as I am?” Shane shot back, gesturing at his winnings, pitiful as they were.
“Maybe you’re hustling us,” Zack responded with a wry grin.
“I wish.”
The sliding glass door opened again. Shane was expecting Tyson and Adam to come back from their smoke break, but instead, Stacy came through the doors with a cup in her hand. Shane was surprised beyond belief to see that Cadie Dawson was with her. She stopped for a second when she caught his eye, but recovered quickly. The two girls came over to the poker table, and Stacy leaned forward to wrap her arms around Will’s shoulders.
“Are we winning?” she asked him.
“We’re not losing,” Will responded.
“Not like me,” Shane offered. He glanced at Cadie. “Hey, Cadie,” he greeted her.
“Hey, Shane. You look surprised t
o see me.”
He put the deck of cards down on the table. “Oh, good. That makes for a very profitable poker game, you know, when everyone can read your expression.”
Cadie shrugged one shoulder. “You looked like I did when I saw you walk into AP calc,” was all she said.
The sliding glass door opened once more, and this time it was Tyson and Adam returning. Ryan came back downstairs at the same time; he had had to venture to the upstairs bathroom. “Are we ready to play some poker?” he shouted loudly, clapping his hands together. The three guys took their seats around the table again. Shane started dealing another hand of Holdem.
“Oh, isn’t this cute, Cadie?” Stacy remarked, putting her arm through Cadie’s. “The boys are playing cards. Could I get you boys some cigars and brandy?”
“No, but I’ll take a refill, if you’re offering,” Tyson said, tapping the empty blue Solo cup that sat beside him on the table.
Stacy pulled the black scrunchie off her wrist and flung it at him.
Five more hands were played. Shane did not win one of them. He leaned forward and rubbed his forehead in frustration, watching as Ryan pulled in another massive pot.
“Shane, did you want me to get you a refill?” asked Cadie suddenly, reaching for his cup.
Shane looked at it. “Actually, I think I’m still—” Before he could even finish the sentence, Cadie’s fingers hit the cup at exactly the wrong angle, and it upended into Shane’s lap.
The guys started laughing hysterically. Stacy clapped a hand over her mouth, trying to cover her own smile. Cadie looked mortified.
“Shane, I am so sorry,” she said as he stood up, causing a flood of beer to drip onto the floor.
He held up a hand. “It’s okay,” he said. He put down the cards that he had just been dealt. “Give me a few minutes to get cleaned up, okay? I’ll be right back. Don’t look at my cards.”
“Maybe if we look at your cards, you’ll start winning,” Zack remarked, to another round of raucous laughter.
Shane was trying hard not to be annoyed at Cadie. He knew it had been an accident, but on top of the fact that he was close to losing five dollars, he could not help but feel like this was just icing on the cake of a lousy party. He turned and started heading toward the stairs, to get paper towels out of the kitchen.
“I’ll come with you,” Cadie said, setting her own cup down on the table. “Stace, I’ll get some paper towels and clean this up.”
Cadie was right behind Shane on the stairs. Once they reached the landing, Cadie reached out and hooked her index finger through one of his belt loops, pulling him to a stop.
He turned and looked over his shoulder at her in alarm. “How much have you had to drink?”
“You keep looking at your cards,” she said.
He turned around to face her. The landing was away from the action of the party. No one was in sight and it was relatively quiet. “What?” he asked irritably.
“Whenever you get a good hand, you only look at your cards once at the beginning, and then you put them down for the rest of the hand. But when you get a bad hand, you keep checking them right before you bet. That’s how they know that you’re bluffing.”
Shane stared at her, his aggravation dissolving. “Are you serious?”
She nodded, then glanced down the stairs to make sure the poker game was well out of earshot. “Adam leans back in his chair every time he bluffs. And Ryan taps his fingers on the table whenever he has a good hand.”
“You could tell all this after only five hands?” Shane demanded.
“Well, if you weren’t sucking so badly, I could have waited longer and told you more,” Cadie responded defensively. “But I figure the way you’re going, you only have about three hands left.”
Something occurred to him. “You spilled the beer on purpose,” he said slowly.
“Yeah. Sorry,” she said again. “I couldn’t wait for you to finish your beer.”
A group of people started thundering down the staircase. Shane took Cadie’s arm and steered her toward the wall, out of the way. “How do you know all this?” he asked her after the group had passed. He could not get his mind around the fact that she had deliberately spilled beer on him just to have the chance to help him win this game.
“Everyone has a tell,” she said quietly. “Adam leans back because he’s trying to look casual when he’s bluffing. Ryan taps his fingers because he’s impatient for people to bet, because he thinks he’s going to win.”
“And how long have you been playing poker?”
She grinned. “Awhile.”
The two of them just stared at each other for a few moments as they stood on the landing. Her grin faded. Shane thought that someone had turned the music completely off, because it seemed like a very heavy silence had settled over them. For the first time, he noticed Cadie’s eyes were slightly grayish, not just a straight blue. He also realized he was still holding her arm, and he released her immediately.
She looked away and cleared her throat. “Paper towels,” she said lamely.
Shane nodded. “Right.”
The two of them started their ascent to the kitchen again. Cadie found the stash of paper towels in the cabinet under the sink, and she handed him a roll so he could soak up some of the beer in his jeans. “Sorry about the beer,” she repeated. “I couldn’t think of anything else.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he replied, dabbing at his thighs with the paper towels. “How long were you trying to figure out a way to talk to me?”
“I figured out your tell after the second hand,” she answered. “Adam’s and Ryan’s took a little longer. I haven’t gotten the other guys’ yet. But I don’t think Will has bluffed once, so if he’s betting big, it probably means he has a good hand.”
Shane crumpled up a paper towel and threw it into the garbage can before turning to Cadie. “What’s your tell?” he asked her.
Even though it was a completely innocent question, it came out sounding very personal. Shane was not sure whether he intended it to sound that way or not.
Cadie looked at him for a few moments. “I guess you’ll have to play with me and find out,” she responded. And even though that was a completely innocent statement, it came out sounding very personal as well. She turned and headed back toward the staircase, paper towels in hand. Shane watched her walk away for a few seconds before following her.
Andy had circled the house again, hoping he would find Amanda. He had not seen her during their initial tour, but he was hoping she might have somehow materialized since then. He was starting to feel stupid for automatically assuming she would be there.
He stepped out onto the upper level deck. It had gotten slightly colder since the football game, and although he wore a black wool jacket, it did not offer as much warmth as a band uniform. Andy saw, far out into the yard on the edge of the woods, that a bonfire had been started. He could hear voices coming from that direction as well. Andy made his way down the stairs to the lower porch, then from there, ventured into the backyard. He would check to see if she was out here, he decided, and if she was not, he would go back to the house and find Melody. Lucas was right; it was rude to come to this party with her and not spend at least a little time with her. But she had run off with Susan, and it seemed like a waste to come to one of these parties and not even try to talk to Amanda. He did not know when an opportunity like this would arise again.
Once at the bonfire, his eyes found her right away. There were a handful of people sitting in folding chairs around the fire, and she was one of them. Her knees were drawn to her chest, and she was poking at the fire with a stick. She was completely enveloped in a giant gray sweatshirt that depicted their school’s mascot in blue. And, lo and behold, the chair next to her was vacant.
Andy sat down, feeling slightly awkward. Mercifully, none of the others around the fire gave him any indication that he did not belong there, even though he recognized that they were all football players and cheerleaders.
Amanda saw him and smiled. Andy smiled back, wondering how he could possibly start a conversation with her. He decided to start with, “Hi, I’m Andy.”
“Hi,” she responded. “Vandevander, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m Amanda Teller.”
“I know. It’s kind of a small school.”
She laughed. “You’re in the band, aren’t you?”
“Yup,” he responded.
“That’s cool. I’m glad you came to the party. They’re usually always the same people, so it’s nice to see some new faces.”
“Oh. Thanks.” He nodded at her sweatshirt. “You look nice and warm.”
She smiled. “Yeah, this thing is enormous, isn’t it? It’s Shane’s.”
Andy felt a knot form in his stomach. “Shane Stolarz?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she responded. “He left it at my house months ago. I just kept it.”
“Oh.” Andy paused. “Are you guys, like, together?”
Amanda laughed. “God, no. We’re just good friends.”
“Ah.”
The two of them fell into what Andy hoped was a comfortable silence. He surreptitiously opened his cell phone to check the time. He estimated that he had ditched out on Melody about fifteen minutes ago. He figured he had about five more minutes with Amanda before he had to go back inside and rescue Melody from Susan. He did not intend to spend too much time with Amanda—just enough to lay sufficient groundwork for their next conversation.
Before Andy had time to think of another topic, his phone beeped, signaling a received text. He opened it to find a message from Melody that said simply, Where are you?
Andy stood, cutting his time with Amanda short. “I’d better get back inside,” he said. “Good talking to you.”
“You too, Andy,” she said as he walked off. He felt a chill run down his spine at the sound of his name from her lips.
He made his way back uphill toward the house, opting against texting while walking through the grass in the dark. When he climbed the stairs to the upper level of the deck, he saw Melody come through the sliding glass door, her eyes scanning the deck.