“Smell one,” Cori said. “I swear, it’s like an ashtray.”
“No, no,” Beth said. “Don’t be ridiculous. They smell more like old, burnt coffee from a gas station.”
Erika started laughing, and Tucker—peering around like he was a spy undertaking a secret mission—grabbed a big pink cupcake. Standing next to Erika and leaning back against the counter, he held it carefully under his nose.
“Well?” Jennifer asked.
“It’s not that bad,” Tucker said.
“Really?”
“No, I’m kidding. This thing is a nightmare. It smells like Donald Trump’s soul.”
At that point they all started laughing so hard that Jennifer had to plead with them to be quiet, not wake up Tessa. Tucker handed the cupcake to Erika, and she held it at arm’s length like it was a bomb, because yes, the thing was as bad as everybody said.
Beth was cranking open another bottle of wine, considering Tucker carefully as she did.
“So. Where did Erika find you?”
“Oh!” he said. “We’re, um, just friends. But she found me about three years ago, when we worked together at a crappy arcade.”
The women were smiling and watching him like they were waiting for more. Tucker glanced Erika’s way, as if he were considering how much he should say.
Erika bumped his shoulder with hers.
“Tucker was fifteen. Through a series of elaborate lies, he managed to get scheduled for all of the same shifts as me.”
“Smooth,” Beth said. “Very smooth.”
Tucker had a big, goofy smile on his face now.
“Whatever,” he said. “She was definitely into me, too. I think it was the braces. And the zits.”
Now everybody was cracking up again, and Erika was feeling a little embarrassed, but in that good, giggly sort of way.
“And you two have been friends ever since?” Jennifer asked.
Tucker met Erika’s eyes for a second, both of them struggling to come up with the right words.
“No, no,” he finally said. “We didn’t see each other for a long time, but this past year . . . we keep seeming to end up at the same parties. And they’re always really good parties.”
“Tell us about the parties,” Cori demanded. “We’re old and we need this.”
“We so do,” Beth added. “Especially because this one is pretty boring.”
Jennifer scoffed. “Um, it’s a party for a baby. Was I supposed to have a keg or something? And I’m pretty sure Erika and Tucker don’t want to recount their nightlife for me.”
Jennifer leaned her head on Beth’s shoulder, and Erika could see it then—that they’d all had a teeny bit too much to drink. They looked so happy, though, and she kind of wanted to give them what they were asking for, a good story. She could tell the PG versions, couldn’t she? She just had no idea how to begin.
Then Tucker cleared his throat.
“Last summer, there was a secret party at the shut-down arcade where we used to work. We snuck in with a bunch of people and played mini golf, jumped in the ball pit. Also Erika made everybody dance to Taylor Swift because she’s obsessed with Taylor Swift.”
Jennifer straightened up, her eyes bright. Everyone perked up, in fact, and Beth started chanting more stories, more stories, mores stories. Erika’s heart was thumping a little harder as she started talking.
“Last Christmas, we went to a party at the house—you know the one in the Kentlands, with the decorations?”
“Oh my god!” shouted one of the college friends, her mouth hanging open. “You’ve been inside that place?”
“Yes! There was a band and a DJ and a Santa. Tucker and I crushed everyone in a Harry Potter Trivia contest, and then we went to the secret video game room, and I completely slaughtered him at Super Smash Brothers. Absolutely destroyed him.”
Erika stared down at the monstrous cupcake, fiddling a little with the wrapper.
“He was cool about it, though. He still took me out and bought me pancakes.”
“See?” Cori said, poking Jennifer in the arm. “Didn’t we need this?”
Everyone was looking at Tucker now, so Erika did, too. She expected him to have a smartass smile on his face, but he didn’t. His face had gone a little serious, a little shy.
“I went to visit Erika at St. B’s in March,” he finally said. “She took me to a fake prom party, and we danced on a sofa to ‘You Know’ while everybody cheered.”
And it came back to her then, all in a flash, exactly what that moment had been like.
She remembered the music and their bodies pressed together. The tickle of his breath when he’d whispered in her ear. That had been the two of them at their very best, when they made each other feel free, feel light. And the fact that she’d been on display and that felt good, for the first time in so long . . .
Erika had tried hard to forget about that party entirely, because of everything that had happened at the end. But the night had been so good before it had been bad, had it not? Now that she and Tucker had made amends, she could remember it without flinching. She could embrace the parts that were beautiful.
The women were still grinning at them, still sipping from their cups.
“Oh god,” Beth said. “That song. I wish you hadn’t mentioned it. It’s going to be in my head all night now.”
Jennifer covered her eyes with her hand. “Okay, I have to confess. I secretly love it.”
This set off a loud debate among all the women—half of them swearing to loathe “You Know,” the other half reluctantly admitting to liking it. Erika was too embarrassed to share how strongly she felt about this particular issue, so she stayed silent, her cheeks going a little pink.
She realized that Tucker was checking on her, gauging her reaction. Then he interrupted everyone.
“Hey, hey!” he yelled. “There’s nothing wrong with that song! I happen to love that song.”
“You love that song?” Beth asked skeptically.
“It’s a good song! I would defend that song forever. Until I die.”
“Until you die?”
“Yes! It’s the perfect soundtrack for . . . basically everything. Dancing. Driving. Running. Definitely good for running.”
Now that smartass look was creeping onto his face, and Erika waited for him to say more, to give her up, but he didn’t. She took a breath, ready to make a confession of her own, but she was too distracted by Tucker’s stupid smile, by how maddeningly adorable he was.
Erika shoved the cupcake in his face.
She’d done it in an instant, utterly without thinking. Tucker’s nose and his cheeks were now frosted in pink, his mouth hanging open in shock. He moved as quickly as he could to grab another one from the counter behind them, and she did her best to dodge him, only half succeeding.
Now Erika had sprinkles all over her chin, and the thing really did smell like an ashtray. Crumbs were raining from her face down onto the floor, and as they did, she came to her senses.
Oh my god, you’re making a mess of their new house, not to mention acting like a five-year-old.
She turned wide-eyed to Jennifer, and started stuttering out an apology, but then Jennifer grabbed a cupcake and smooshed it into Beth’s cheek.
“That’s for calling my party boring.”
“JENNY!”
Two seconds later, cupcakes were flying everywhere, and everyone was screeching and laughing, Cori crying out that the things were poisonous and they were probably all going to die. One got Erika right on the nose, and she squealed in disgust.
“What in the . . . what are you doing?”
Erika whirled around to see her dad standing in the doorway of the kitchen. She desperately wanted to peg him in the face, but the cupcakes were no more. Jennifer was handing out paper towels, and everybody was still laughing, ignoring her dad as he continued to stand there and ask what was going on before finally throwing his hands in the air and disappearing.
Erika walked over to the s
ink and did a half-assed job of cleaning her face. Tucker came over and stood right across from her, smiling. Very slowly, he reached out and wiped a bit of frosting from her nose with his finger.
“Now what?” she asked him quietly.
Tucker looked surprised, his face a little flushed.
“Um, I know you have an early morning. I thought you said you needed to go?”
That had been her plan a few minutes ago—to get home, get some rest. But somewhere in the course of recounting all those parties, Erika had officially stopped caring about that.
“One night of not enough sleep isn’t going to kill me. I’m covered in toxic frosting. It’s barely past ten. I can’t go home yet. We can’t go home yet.”
Tucker nodded, smiling.
“Okay. I did hear from Bobby about something we could do.”
“I’m listening.”
“It’s really dumb.”
“Spill, Tucker.”
He sighed. “Bobby’s girlfriend, Destiny, could get us into after-prom, if we wanted to go. But it’s that stupid one the school puts on at Dave and Buster’s. You know, the thing they do to keep kids from drinking in hotels. Once you go in, you’re not allowed to leave, so . . . it’s probably not a good idea. We’d have to stay until the end, which is, Jesus. I don’t even know. Three in the morning?”
He wanted to go, badly—it was written all over his face. He wanted a few more hours of acting stupid with her, didn’t he?
It was exactly what Erika wanted, too.
“We’re going.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, yes, yes! Get your keys.”
Erika turned to give a final wave to Jennifer and the others. As she did, she saw that they were all watching her and Tucker go, looking at them a little wistfully.
“Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do,” Beth called. “No, wait. I don’t mean that. Do all the things we used to do, before we got old!”
The last thing Erika saw as they hustled out the door was Jennifer laughing and punching her sister in the shoulder.
45
Tucker
Destiny was in charge of the after-prom committee, which is how Tucker’s and Erika’s names had gotten on the official list. A couple of parent volunteers were waiting at the door, and they checked Tucker’s and Erika’s IDs, made them sign the paperwork with the night’s rules, and then let them in.
As soon as they entered the main room, Destiny spotted them. She waved wildly, then started up a modified version of one of the school’s cheers. “We’ve got Tucker, yes we do.” A couple other girls took it up, too, and just as everyone was staring at them, Destiny switched over to Erika’s name.
Erika squealed and hid behind him, refusing to emerge until the chanting finally ended. Her face was pinker than he’d ever seen it.
“Sorry,” Tucker said, though he wasn’t actually sorry at all and couldn’t stop smiling. “Destiny is the head cheerleader.”
“Yeah, I can tell,” Erika said. “I think I need a drink after that.”
“You do remember that not drinking is kind of the entire point of this thing?”
She gave him a little shove, then spotted Nina and ran off to say hello. A second later, Destiny popped up at Tucker’s side, with Bobby in tow. She wrapped Tucker in a hug, while Bobby patted him on the shoulder.
“Uh, thanks for that greeting,” Tucker told her. “And thanks for sneaking us in tonight.”
“Oh, I put you both on the list a month ago. I just had a feeling.”
Tucker tilted his head, disbelieving. “Really? Cause the odds were pretty long, a month ago.”
“We had faith in you,” Bobby said.
“We?” Destiny said, giving him a pointed look. “You said there was zero chance.”
“Shhh. Don’t tell him that.” Bobby put an arm around her, then turned to Tucker with a more serious look. “You okay? How was the farm?”
“It was good. Riley’s at my house. He’s finally seen the first Harry Potter.”
Bobby shook his head. “Older cousins are supposed to introduce you to cool shit, not turn you into a dork.”
“Harry Potter is cool.”
“Whatever you say. Now I want to kick your ass at air hockey.”
Tucker said he was in, but then he saw someone and stopped short.
He told Bobby to hold on one second—he had one more thing he had to do.
“Hi! You look great, really great. That’s kind of like a fancy version of a tennis dress.”
“That’s exactly why I bought it.”
Tucker had not seen much of Suzanne this year. Their schedules were not aligned, they didn’t go to the same parties, and of course she’d been very busy.
Tucker glanced nervously around, as he tried to figure out where to begin. “I heard you’re playing at Northwestern next year. Congrats.”
“Yeah, I worked my ass off—so thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
She stared at him, her stark, pretty eyebrows raised as high as they would go. He’d forgotten how intense those things were. They were able to convey complete, cohesive questions.
Right now they were asking, What exactly is the point of this little chat?
“Are you, uh, having a good time?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Actually, I’m pretty bored. I beat my date at like four different games, and now he’s over there pouting. But it’s totally my fault for coming with such a tool.”
Tucker followed her gaze to the corner of the room.
“Oh god, you came with Adam? To say you’re too good for him is the understatement of the century. I apologize on behalf of our entire high school that it could produce no one better to take you to prom.”
She was smiling at him now, but barely. Tucker fumbled on.
“Listen, I wanted to say how sorry I am, about how things ended last summer. I know I sort of said sorry before, but I didn’t do a very good job. Okay, I did a terrible job.”
Around them, games were pinging and beeping; lights were flashing. Tucker spotted one of his baseball friends triumphantly walking around with a giant stuffed M&M that he’d won from the prize counter. He did his best to block all that out and gather his thoughts.
“I was in kind of a bad place, back then. I was pretty down on myself, and I kept hoping you were going to suddenly, magically want to be my girlfriend. Because you’re so amazing, and if you wanted to be my girlfriend, then I thought that would really say something about me, you know? Prove what kind of guy I was? Anyway, maybe you don’t care about any of this, I would totally understand if you didn’t—I just wanted to explain.”
Right over Tucker’s shoulder, there was a very intense game of Dance Dance Revolution happening, and for a moment Suzanne acted like it was much more interesting than this conversation. Then she looked back at him, her expression a little gentler.
“It helps a little. I’m glad you told me. And I’m really sorry about your dad.”
“Yeah, thanks for your note. That was really nice. And thanks for giving to my fundraiser.”
She stepped forward with her arms out, then gave Tucker a very delicate hug.
“I’ll see you around, okay? And good luck in Michigan. I hope you’re happy there.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said with a smile. “I really think I will be.”
Tucker and Erika ate too many snacks and drank too much soda. They played a drag-race game against Bobby and Destiny, losing horribly, each insisting the other was to blame. They whacked moles and threw darts and started pooling their tickets, debating which terrible prize they would take home and which one of them would get to keep it.
Every time someone asked Erika what she was doing this summer, her face lit up as she told them. And she was having an absolute blast, playing all these silly games—Tucker loved seeing that.
Just now, she and Kara had agreed to play that ridiculous wrestling game—the one with the enormous padded suits that people wore as they tried t
o knock each other down. As soon as the girls pulled the suits on, they realized they were one-size-fits-all, and they were both entirely too short for them. When they tried to square off, they couldn’t actually wrestle, and had to settle instead for a competition of who could successfully walk toward the other. Neither managed more than a couple steps, and finally they were both lying there like bugs.
As Tucker watched Erika, prone and laughing hysterically, he couldn’t help imagining some different world, one where they had gone to the same school, been the same age. They might have been best friends. Maybe something more, who knew. But right now, with the way things were . . .
He ran over to help her out of the suit. Grabbing onto both of his arms, Erika slowly emerged, sweaty and disheveled. Once she was free, she smiled up at him and didn’t let go.
“How’d I do?” she asked.
“So good. Incredible. I sent a video of it to my mom.”
“TUCKER!”
She finally released him, then did her best to fix her hair, but it was sticking up everywhere, and she looked so damn cute.
Erika pointed at her head. “How is it?”
Tucker frowned. “Awful. Just awful.”
She flipped him off, and that was what did it—that’s what brought to bear all that he’d been struggling with since the farm.
He had to let it out, what he was thinking.
“Can we talk? For a second?”
As soon as he said that, her face fell a little. Tucker turned and made his way to the quietest corner he could find, over by the pinball machines. She followed, then stood across from him, waiting.
“Erika, this should all be perfect right now, and in a way it is, but it’s also the worst, right? All day I’ve been thinking what if, but there’s no way, is there? You’re leaving, and then I’m leaving, and . . . oh, wait.” Tucker stuttered for a second, felt his face go red. “I shouldn’t have assumed you were thinking the same thing. You might not have been thinking what if at all . . .”
Erika put up her hand, telling him to stop. Her lips were pressed together, and her eyes were big and teary. She ran her hand through her hair a couple more times, then stared at the floor.
Our Year in Love and Parties Page 21