“I wouldn’t do that,” I said, and I probably wouldn’t. The books on the wallpaper had no discernible spines, like the people in the room. “He’s outside now, in his car. Go see if you want.”
“He doesn’t even have a car,” Jennifer Rose Milton said.
“Well, then it’s her car.”
“Whose?”
“I don’t know her name. She’s the one on stage crew who can always fix the light board and swears like–”
“That’s Cheryl.”
“This girl isn’t fat,” I said.
“The girl who can always fix the light board is Cheryl,” she said emphatically.
“Well, then Cheryl isn’t fat.”
“But she is. People call her Fat Cheryl.”
We both sputtered and laughed, loud. It bounced off the swans, the books, the smudgy mirror, the clock. It wasn’t even eight yet and I was already laughing with somebody alone in the bathroom.
“How drunk are you?” I asked.
“Fat Cheryl,” she repeated, and we both laughed again, loud. “Not as drunk as I would like to be,” she said. She sat down on the closed toilet and put her feet up on the towel rack, smudging tiny matching towels I bet you weren’t supposed to use if you lived here. “He’s an awful person,” she said meditatively. She stood her mask up on the towel rack and made it do a little puppet dance. We giggled and Adam opened the door.
“Has anybody seen Flan?” he said. He was wearing a tie and clutching a drink. Then he shut the door.
I blinked; Jennifer Rose Milton dropped the mask. I looked in the mirror and for a minute it looked like Natasha was facing me–I saw his mistake. “No, wait,” I said, standing up. When had I sat down? “Wait,” I said again. Jennifer Rose Milton turned off the swans and I opened the door and looked down the hallway. In one direction, nobody. In the other direction, a flashbulb.
“Shit!”
“Sorry, Kate,” Flora Habstat giggled, and bounced down the hallway with her camera. “I’m taking pictures!” she crowed, and rounded the bend.
“I’m not Kate,” I said, and this seemed important all of a sudden. “Jenn, I’m not Kate.”
“You got that right,” she said sloppily. She was pulling her hair back sharply and gazing at the mirror. She looked, suddenly, oddly like Lily. I rubbed my eyes and the real Lily almost stepped on me as she walked down the hallway.
“Flannery!” she said, and hugged me. Her smile was way too wide, and the music was suddenly turned up a notch. She pulled me out of the bathroom and down the hall; when I looked back Jennifer Rose Milton looked like decoration again.
“What we need,” she said, pointing at me, “is food. I mean a drink.”
The kitchen was wrecked. V__’s family had those copper pots hanging from a rack around the stove like torture devices, and somebody had pulled the rack out–or half-out, really, because it was hanging precariously from the ceiling with bits of plaster showering down like fairy dust. The pots had fallen long ago; they looked like dented relics on the kitchen floor. Gabriel was standing blankly in the middle of it looking like an astronaut who’d missed the last shuttle back to the mother ship. He had a clearly forgotten chef’s hat lopsided on his head and was staring in awe at a mountain of pots and pans that were piled in the sink so that the sink itself seemed irretrievable and the entire counter–the whole side of the kitchen–appeared to be made of pots. Everywhere, something was dripping so the whole kitchen was making one big gurgling sound that echoed in my head. The kitchen table was stuffed with bottles of alcohol, full and empty; a punch bowl with sherbet and plastic cups floating in it. Empty beer bottles lined up like choirboys. Lots and lots of plastic cups, mostly overturned; a big bowl of melting ice. One tall cup was lazily drooling something bright red and syrupy onto the white carpet.
“Wow,” I heard myself say. Gabriel turned around suddenly and gave me a big hug, his body sliding against my slippery dress.
“Where have you been?” he said.
“Sorry,” I said. What time was the party supposed to start? It wasn’t even eight yet. “How’s the shindig?”
“This is the best party!” he sang out, waving one arm in the air. I followed the other one to a large glass of punch. Oh. Was everybody drunk?
“Is everybody drunk?” I asked, but the room started spinning just as I caught the self-righteousness in my own voice. “Including me,” I added sheepishly, and when I closed my eyes I could hear Lily and Douglas laughing. Lily and Gabriel. I reached out an arm to steady myself and knocked over a small pile of logs, but when I opened my eyes I saw they were the baguettes. Gabriel handed me a glass of punch. “I brought these baguettes,” I said, as I took a sip.
The punch was strong as death. One sip and the room spun again; I felt those three pieces of toast make a vague threat. Gabriel had his tongue in my mouth when a little skinny guy walked in.
“Is there any more Douglas?” he said.
“What?” Lily said.
“Punch?” he said.
Gabriel smiled. “Flannery, this is Rob,” he said, putting his arm around the skinny guy.
“Bob,” Rob corrected. Bob.
Gabriel leaned in to whisper to me. “Rob is the guy that Douglas, you know–”
“Wanted to invite?” I said.
Gabriel laughed. “Bob, do you want any punch?”
“Rob,” Rob said.
What?
“Just kidding,” Bob said. We all laughed, except Lily who hugged me suddenly and started to cry. I tried to keep her away from the dress but no dice. Gabriel was explaining something in detail to Bob, who sat down in a chair and was staring into space and nodding soberly.
“What’s wrong?” I said to Lily, finally. How long had she been crying?
“Come outside,” Lily said. We walked through another blaring hallway where Rachel State was performing a sweeping arm gesture to three other freshman girls, who were watching intently and trying to copy it.
“You’re not doing it right,” I said to them, and Rachel gave me a look of disgust. She was wearing a black leotard and looked like a mime. What was I talking about? “You’re not doing it right, either,” I said to her.
Rachel shrugged, and reached down to the carpet to pick up her bottle of beer. The music was turned up another notch. “You show them,” she said.
“Come on, Flan,” Lily said. I couldn’t believe she was still crying. Behind me I heard Gabriel and Bob singing something, or maybe it was Twin Can. I blinked; Rachel and Co. were still staring at me.
“What do you guys want?” I asked them, taking another sip of–hold on!–the punch.
“Forget her,” one of them said to Rachel. “She’s drunk.”
“Yeah, forget all about me!” I said to them. “Forget I ever existed!” What was I talking about?
“Natasha!” Lily whined. “I’m upset!”
Rachel and the girls giggled and squeezed past us into the living room. I wasn’t ready to enter the living room yet. Where I wanted to go was–
“Let’s go outside, Natasha!” Lily said. Then she blinked and looked at me. “Flan,” she said, and burst into tears. Didn’t this already happen? She led me to a glass sliding door and slid it open; I watched my reflection travel with it. We stepped outside. The air was cool and stingy. We sat on the stairs where I had comforted Kate just a few days ago. Yesterday. The garden was black except for some white ghost of a figure flitting around and some half-visible lawn chairs and croquet mallets–the red mallet in particular was in plain view. Lily was crying. Down a few steps, Nancy Butler was throwing up and it wasn’t even eight-thirty yet. I put my arm around Lily and realized I was holding a baguette.
“There, there,” I said, and started to giggle because Lily’s shoulders were shaking and making the baguette wiggle in a jerking motion that looked like nothing but masturbation.
“Don’t you laugh at me, Flan,” she said, but started laughing herself. “Look at V__.”
It was the white figure, V__, running ar
ound on the lawn picking things up, I couldn’t tell what. She looked like a little bunny.
“What are you doing, Little Bunny?” I called, with both hands cupped around my mouth, so the baguette jerked around my lips like–well, like some other sex act. I took another sip of punch except the cup was empty. Somebody else’s cup was sitting within arm’s reach, though, so I switched them. No one ever knew that. “V__, what are you doing?”
“It’s not V__,” Lily said. “It’s Kate.”
“I’m not Kate,” I remembered, and told Lily. “I’m not Kate.”
“Of course you’re not,” she said. “You’re Natasha. Flan. Kate’s over there.” She pointed at the white figure, who walked toward us and turned out to be V__, after all.
“I can’t find the rest of the croquet set,” she said crossly. “I’m missing balls.”
“You don’t say,” Douglas said archly behind us, and Lily burst into tears. It was getting a little old, this bursting.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. Douglas sat down next to me and Lily cried harder.
“She’s still upset about us,” Douglas said.
“But we broke up a long time ago,” I said.
“Not us,” he said, waving his wrist between us, “us.” He waved his wrist between him and Lily.
“You’ve got to stop all that limp-wristed action,” I giggled, leaning against him. He scowled, smiled, sipped punch from an empty cup.
“Where’d my cup go?”
“Forget about the cup,” V__ said. “I can’t find half the croquet balls, or the red mallet.”
“The red mallet is right there,” I said, pointing to it. Nancy Butler stood up and staggered back up the stairs wiping her mouth. When she slid open the door I distinctly heard Adam calling, “Flan?”
“I’m out here,” I called, but somebody turned the music up and Nancy Butler shut the door. I stood up, felt the wind around my ears.
“Don’t stand up, you’re giving me a stiff neck,” V__ said, sitting down. The four of us sat on the steps: V__, Lily, Douglas and me. I think that’s right. The steps buzzed as the Thin Sham album beat the house into submission.
“This is a splendid party,” I said, suddenly and politely to V__.
“Satan is going to kill me,” she said.
“Take your soul for all eternity,” Douglas said solemnly. We all giggled; Lily–you’ll never guess what–burst into tears.
“Douglas, just tell me, once and for all, is it my fault?” Lily asked.
“Of course not,” Douglas said. “It’s not a fault, Lily. It’s just–”
“It’s his mom’s fault,” V__ said. “She’s so bossy.”
Somebody shrieked with laughter, sounded like Natasha.
“What are you laughing at?” Douglas said.
I kept laughing. “You have to admit, Douglas,” I said, “she is very bossy.”
“But that doesn’t–” Douglas sputtered.
“I think it’s my fault,” Lily said quietly.
“Oh, come on,” V__ said. “It does too, Douglas. If your mom had been normal–give me some of that bread, Flan–you’d still be going out with Lily.”
“Going out with Lily is a sign of normalness?” I asked.
“No, no,” V__ said. “Good bread.”
“Basic Bakery.”
“Well, thanks for bringing it, even if it was late. But I just mean that Douglas’s bossy mother–”
“She’s not bossy,” Douglas said. “Where’s Bob?”
“Oh, forget it,” V__ said, pouting. “Come help me pick up croquet stuff, Flan.”
“I’ll go,” Douglas said. He stood up and put a hand to his head.
I finished off my punch; it burned down my throat like lava. Lily leaned against me and I felt in her sobbing head the weight of the world.
“It was my fault,” she said.
“There, there,” I remembered. Was Jenn still in the bathroom?
“Just tell me, Natasha,” Lily said. She broke away from me to look me straight in the eye. “Be honest with me.”
“I will,” I said, and waited for her question. Distantly, I could hear V__ and Douglas laughing on the black lawn, over the backbeat and the lead singer’s devilish whine. The question didn’t come.
“Just tell me, tell me,” Lily said, raising her voice. She put her hands to her head like she didn’t want to hear it. “I want to hear it, straight from you. Just tell me–I’m fat, aren’t I?”
I looked at her thin frame, her wide eyes, and felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. The song ended and for a second there was just the chilly air and V__’s raw distant laughter, before another one began. “No,” I whispered to her, but she probably didn’t hear me over Bin Bang and the wind and her own heaving breathing. “No,” I said. “Oh, Lily.”
“He said so!” she yelled. The wind rose and drew her hair back sharply like an old movie star. “He told me, one time when we were fighting! He said fat bitch!”
“Douglas?” I said incredulously. In my head was how fragile he looked when he knocked on my door, all those hickey mornings. Fat bitch?
“Yes,” she said, losing steam and blinking at me like I might hit her.
“He called you–”
“A fat bitch,” she wailed, and sat down again, revealing Douglas coming up the stairs, looking wary and guilty. V__ was close behind, waving a croquet ball triumphantly; she’d still missed the red mallet.
“Hi,” Douglas said. Lily looked at the ground.
“A fat bitch?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.
“We were fighting,” he said. “I don’t think I said that.”
“A fat? Bitch?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Flan?” Adam called behind me, and still looking at Douglas I stood up and backed up the stairs into his arms. He held me warm and tight and we backed into the house while Douglas and Lily looked at each other and V__ looked at the croquet ball like a gypsy fortune-teller. He shut the door.
Amazingly the hallway was empty. Adam’s face was flushed and smiling, beautiful. His tie was askew, his teeth dazzling. I felt breathless, still revved up from anger and angst and gin, and my heart beat faster and faster like it does in love songs.
“I’ve been looking for you,” he said, and gently took my hand. The music didn’t seem so loud; it was like we were together in a magic phone booth, impenetrable and alone. Like wires were connecting us to an enormous universal network, like we were ringing.
“Hey,” another call came in. Gabriel and Kate. Gabriel leaned in and actually licked my neck; I reached up and took the chef’s hat off his head to at least erase some of the ridiculousness. “I’ve been looking for you,” he murmured into me. Kate glared at Adam, then hooked her arm into mine as Gabriel kissed me again.
“More punch?” Gabriel said.
“Please,” I said. “When did you get here, Kate?”
“I’ve been here,” she said. “Where have you been?” She was looking at Adam like a ferret.
“Outside,” I said. “Helping V__ find her croquet set and watching Nancy Butler throw up.”
There was nothing like the thought of Nancy Butler vomiting, I guess, to break the ice. Everybody laughed.
“I’m going to go dance,” Adam said, looking at me and–I wrote it so I’m typing it–getting me hot.
“I need some air,” Kate said, and slid open the door. Douglas and Lily were screaming at each other. V__ walked in with her hands to her ears.
“Don’t go out there,” she said to Kate. “Come into the kitchen and help me clean up.” Her dress dripped down her like melted wax. Gabriel rubbed up against me. “I can’t find the rest of the croquet set, but fuck it.”
Kate laughed louder than she wanted to, looking hurriedly at Adam out of the corner of her eye so he’d be sure and see what a great time she was having. “I think that will be easier tomorrow, when it’s light outside,” she said, and V__ nodded wisely.
“Also,” V__
said brightly, “I’m missing an earring.” I blinked and Kate was touching her bare lobe. Kate had said it.
Adam touched my shoulder and when I looked at him he was going the other way, down the hallway toward the music.
Gabriel, me and whoever else was there looked at one another. “More punch,” we said in unison, and straggled down the hall.
The kitchen looked even worse this time around. The ceiling rack was hanging lower, more precariously, and somebody had tipped or thrown some of the pots off the counter onto the floor. Jennifer Rose Milton was sitting on the floor clutching an enormous bottle of vodka, nearly empty, crying hollow and hitting the bottle with a tiny clenched fist. Something about it looked ritualistic, like some corny Navajo ceremony in a voodoo movie. I raised my empty punch glass to her and she stuck her tongue out, then cried harder.
“Jesus, Jenn,” Gabriel said, hurrying to her and trying to tug her up by one floppy arm. People were sitting on the floor crying and it wasn’t even nine yet.
“I’m not getting up from this floor,” Jennifer Rose Milton said, “until he says he’s sorry.”
“Sorry,” Gabriel said.
“Not you,” she said. “Frank. I’m not getting up until Frank says he’s sorry.”
“My parents will come home in a couple of days,” V__ said seriously, measuring out punch. “You have to leave by then.”
I laughed, then Gabriel did. Kate bit her lip and turned to me.
“What?” she said.
I wasn’t sure. “I don’t know,” I said.
She blinked, staggered, held onto the table. V__ handed her a glass of punch and she sipped it, then grinned at me, with a drop of punch hanging on the end of her nose like a tiny red pearl. The moment was over, whatever it was. Then there was punch under my nose, and I grabbed it and drank.
Even stronger, now. It was like being bitten by a scarlet scorpion. Static energy grabbed my eyes and pulled my whole face inside out. It was so strong I squinted. The lights got turned up, more neon and white than ever. The music got weird in my ears for a second, bending like sirens do when cops drive by: first higher than normal; then, briefly, normal; then slowly sinking low. The world felt bright pink–I stretched my arms out wide and watched them slowly follow my instructions like reluctant Cub Scouts. What was I thinking? Where was I going? Then the liquor hit my stomach and I felt everything the scorpion had to offer: sting, spindly legs, poison, death. Outside lightning struck. I closed my eyes and with perfect clarity saw a parade of everyday objects: a spoon, a hamburger, a disembodied hand and Natasha’s smirking face.
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