Afterparty

by Ann Redisch Stampler

  Megan: Roy Warner is famous. Girls at St. Bernadette know who he is. Guinness World Record for weed consumption. Joe says avoid him.

  Me: Now you tell me.

  Megan: Where’s the next one?

  Me: I can’t believe you’re encouraging me.

  Megan: Sacrificing you on the altar of vicarious thrills.

  Me: Someplace more glam. Now that I survived my starter party.

  * * *

  My dad, not incomprehensibly, is reluctant to let me out of his sight. But it’s been two weeks, and it’s Saturday, and he’s not immune to the allure of the girly. He knows I want it, and he knows he can’t exactly share a girly salon moment with me. So Nancy offering to take Siobhan and me to Beverly Hills for manicures seals the deal.

  “Just no zebra stripes,” he says after I more or less beg to go.

  “Leopard spots with rhinestones on the cuticles.”

  “Nothing that glows in the dark.”

  “Dad! You’re taking all the fun out of it!”

  “I’m very unhappy with you, Ems,” he says. “You might have to go with that clear pink one.”

  “No! You wouldn’t make me do that, right?”

  “Never. Go have a nice time.”

  “And I swear you won’t hate it. Too much.”

  He smiles and pats my shoulder on my way out the door. “And Marisol is chaperoning later?”

  “She’s going to tuck us into bed.”

  • • •

  Clearish pink nail polish isn’t even on the table. Literally.

  Nancy—who’s in on the pink-streaked hair and the party where I plan to wear it—is well known at Lumiere, where we take our scraggly fingernails. She has a long, serious talk with her manicure artist about which of their more glittery colors my nails ought to be. We go for something called Bold Aqua Ice.

  I start counting the bottles of polish that contain blue, or contain sparkles, or are some variant of Day-Glo whenever the subject of deceit comes roaring back into my head.

  Siobhan picks silver. Nancy says, “I know better than to tell you what to do.”

  Siobhan says, “You’ve got that right.”

  I find myself wondering if Fabienne and I would be getting manicures together, if she’d be weighing in on my nail color.

  Then I go: Stop it. Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it. Until I stop it. Because maybe some people can do that and just keep having a normal day, but I’m not one of them. I’m not even close to being one of them.

  “Are you listening to me?” Siobhan asks in a voice suggesting that she’s on the verge of snapping fingers in my face.

  I say, “Sorry, I’m obsessing about nail color. Nancy was right, right?”

  “Like if she told you to get some crap color, I wouldn’t say anything? Em? You look like you’re going to cry. You must really hate aqua. Come on, what?”

  “All right, I was thinking about my mom. You and Nancy . . .”

  Siobhan puts her arms around me. “That sucks.”

  When our nails dry, we walk down Little Santa Monica half draped around each other, eating cupcakes from Sprinkles, while the foot reflexology person at Lumiere goes to town on Nancy.

  We spend the rest of the afternoon putting pink streaks in my hair with William watching from Switzerland. His roommate, Gunther, who wakes up and shuffles across the screen in drawstring pajama bottoms, says, “Are those real girls? When does she take the robe off?”

  William yells at him in German. I tell him he’s a pig in French.

  Siobhan says, “I’m done with you. Ciao, William. Get some sleep.”

  William says, “Ciao, Sibi,” and closes his eyes.

  Four hours later, we’re ready to go.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE HOUSE HAS A DRIVEWAY that plunges off Mulholland, as if in enticement to drive off solid land into the city lights. It requires a leap of faith to cross the threshold. Marisol drops us off at the edge of the precipice, and we walk down toward a sprawling house shining with white light below.

  There are kids everywhere, food everywhere, music everywhere, drinks everywhere. I have clicked my heels three times and here we are in Party Oz, not even in the same world as Roy Warner and his slow-motion friends.

  “Nice birthday party, right?” Siobhan says.

  She takes my hand and we wind through the main hall toward the back of the house, to a deck that surrounds a long, rectangular pool, illuminated through the blue-green water. Where a bunch of guys from Latimer football are decimating a ten-foot table of refreshments. These are guys I talk to every day at lunch, and here we are, and there’s even a food theme (although with classier food), and the only thing I can think of to do is eat.

  I can barely make eye contact, or smile, or chew.

  Ian Heath, who has a girl I don’t know under his arm, literally drops her as he turns to Siobhan, who’s in a tight green dress that matches her eyes, and he says, “Whoa,” and he touches her hair.

  Siobhan, so quickly that I almost miss it, whispers, “Watch this.” Then she puts her hands on his butt and draws him toward her. If Siobhan had a list, Ian Heath would be a straight shot to all the check marks a person could possibly need.

  I stand there behind her, half hidden. I don’t know where to look or what to say when he kisses her, partly a hello kiss, partly something else.

  I grab what looks to be a tiny éclair and stuff it into my mouth.

  Across the pool, Sam Sherman is talking with Mara, whose hair is now electric blue. She can carry on normal conversation with a guy in party world—even if Sam is wearing a school hoodie, drinking beer out of a can, and looks as if he wandered into the wrong event.

  I scoop more éclairs onto my napkin.

  Everyone is here. Arif is here, eating skewered fruit. I grab a bottle of microbrewery beer out of a tub of ice and drink it very, very quickly.

  I say, “Hey, Arif.”

  “Hey.”

  I say, “So you know Strick? Who is he, by the way?”

  “Over there,” Arif says. “Aspiring biker.”

  There is actually a kid with a pack of cigarettes tucked into the short sleeve of his T-shirt, with hair combed back like classic James Dean.

  I say, “Holy shit.”

  Arif says, “You drink. You swear. You attend dreadful birthday parties. Your prognosis for fitting in just improved astronomically.”

  We stand there, watching Sam try to drag Mara in the direction of the food and abandon her in favor of eating his way across the table toward goblets filled with what might be chili.

  “Bar mitzvah redux,” Sam says. “All we need is DJ Jim and his seizure lights.”

  I ask Arif, “So where’s your boy?” Because here I am in Nancy’s pale pink dress and earrings that twine through my earlobes like gold ropes.

  “Dylan only hangs at UCLA,” Sam says. “He’s been otherwise engaged all year.”

  “And last year,” Arif says.

  “Kahane is a dog,” Mel shouts over the music, loading up on more éclairs.

  Lia says, “He’s an aspiring dog. He’s sniffing around after Aiden’s castoffs like a puppy is what I heard.”

  Thank you, Lia Graham, for that arresting image. I’m so far gone, the only part of this I care about is that he’s going after somebody who isn’t me.

  I go off in search of Siobhan, which is a challenge since more people are pouring in and Security isn’t doing much to stem the tide. There are kids standing up on the living room couches singing something unrelated to the piped-in music.

  Siobhan is standing outside a bathroom off the industrial-sized kitchen. She says, “Did you get any check marks? I told you this would be good.”

  “I drank, I talked to Sam and Arif, I ate éclairs. I think I can call it a night.”

  Siobhan puts one finger on her chin. “Let me think. No. Drinking doesn’t even count. You already drink. Come on. I’m getting you a giant check mark.”

  She pounds on the bathroom door with b
oth hands.

  She yells, “Come on! Share!”

  The door opens. Two guys, one fiddling with white powder on the counter, the other snorting cocaine off the stainless steel soap dish.

  I slam the door closed.

  “What’s wrong with you! I’d have a mother if not for this shit!” I’m screaming at her over the music, holding the door closed until she pulls my hands off the doorknob and I turn around, running, and she follows me down the hall.

  “Stop yelling!” she says. “You’re going a little crazy.”

  “I’m not crazy!”

  She pulls me into a vacant room lined with books, a tiny office, and she locks the door. She says, “Breathe! You’re flipping out.”

  We sit on a love seat between bookshelves. She slips a party napkin out from under a drink on the desk and hands the napkin to me.

  She says, “Here’s how it works. There’s drinking and there’s alcoholics. Not the same. Are you listening? And there’s heroin and everything else. Heroin is here, with maybe that synthetic shit you get at gas stations that kills you.” She waves her right arm, her hand cupped, her fingers curved upward, apparently to demonstrate the exact location of the heroin and the deadly gas station synthetic. “Coke and everything else is there.” There being her similarly cupped left hand. “Just because somebody likes to get amped occasionally—occasionally—doesn’t make her a burnout with holes in her septum.”

  I say, “Shut up.”

  “You should listen to me! I know what I’m talking about. That Just Say No assembly? Bullshit. That would make milk a gateway drug to crack.”

  “That’s not that reassuring.”

  She stands up and pulls on my wrists. “Get up. I shouldn’t have left you alone for so long. We’re going back out there and get you some check marks.”

  This party is so overflowing with kids in various states of impairment, they don’t even notice someone being dragged toward the yard crying. Except for Chelsea, who says, “What’s the matter? Is baby all upset that everybody else has a boyfriend and everybody else is having a good time and everybody else gets it?”

  Siobhan says, “Shut the fuck up, Chelsea. How would you even know if Emma has a boyfriend? She has a boyfriend. A very serious boyfriend. She’s crying because watching all these immature bimbos grind makes her miss the real thing.”

  “So, where is he?” Chelsea holds her hand at a right angle to her forehead and pretends to search the crowd, her lower lip protruding in a big fake frown.

  “He’s in Paris,” Siobhan says.

  “For the weekend? Just so he could miss Strick’s party. I’m sure.”

  I blurt, “He lives in Paris.”

  There, now I’m lying to pretty much everyone I know.

  “And no one’s ever heard of him.” Chelsea rolls her eyes. “That’s rich.”

  “Possibly because her father wants to cut his balls off,” Siobhan says.

  “A French lowlife,” Chelsea says. “How nice for you.”

  I can’t even believe this is happening, and I just helped it happen. I break away from Siobhan and stumble through hordes of happy people toward the far end of the pool, where it’s darker and quieter than everyplace else.

  I stretch out on a pool chair and look toward the city lights. The view from behind my house is a tree-shrouded slice; this is the panorama.

  Kimmy walks by with Max Lauder, kicking his legs. He doesn’t seem to mind. She is soaking wet, wearing a sports bra and a thong, a wet braid down her back.

  She says, “Emma! You came to the party! Awesome!” She is not being sarcastic. “You should go in the water. It’s ninety degrees.”

  I pull Nancy’s dress over my head and fold it over the back of the chair.

  One hundred and eighty-two days to Afterparty and already I’m removing significant pieces of clothing in public; there’s a check mark for sure. I’m wearing a bra and panties and the dangly earrings. Kimmy swims by, giggling. I float on my back in the warm water. I stare up at the half-moon and the stars.

  Here I am, half naked, buzzed on microbrew, and wondering if my mom first saw smack in a bathroom at a party. If she liked cocaine. If I would like cocaine. How much I would like it, and if I started to like it, could I stop?

  Kimmy taps on my arm. I’m so startled that I almost gulp pool water. She says, “Come on. They’re making us get out.”

  There’s a security guy standing by the edge, gesturing with his thumb. I swim slowly to the side of the pool where my dress is and start to boost myself up over the edge. Only the dress isn’t there. Perfect.

  It feels like I’m climbing into a bad teen movie, although it’s hard to see even Chelsea tiptoeing away with Nancy’s dress. I wonder what I’m going to do, because walking around in my soaked bra, panties, and earrings is a nonstarter. I’d sooner hide behind the pool cabana for as long as it takes to weave an outfit out of fern fronds, like Insane Challenge Day on Project Runway.

  Sam is almost passed out on a lounge chair, next to a six-pack.

  I call, “Sam! Hey!”

  He lurches up and bends over the side of the pool.

  I say, “Give me your hoodie. Please.”

  His hoodie is cozy and falls to mid-thigh. I thank him forty or fifty times as I wring out my hair. He laughs at me, but the embarrassment of walking around in an extra-large Latimer hoodie that smells like Budweiser is nothing compared to the potential embarrassment of walking around in my underwear or in a jumper made of woven plant life.

  Siobhan says, “Shit, can’t take you anywhere.”

  We look for Nancy’s dress, but it’s nowhere.

  Siobhan walks up to Strick, who is standing on the lawn smoking weed, and says, “Hey, my friend lost her dress. It’s pink. Go make your security guys find it.”

  Ten minutes later, we’re standing in Strick’s kitchen with him and his two stoned friends and Nancy’s dress, which is soaking and no doubt shrinking to the size of an oven mitt before our very eyes.

  Siobhan, who didn’t bother to introduce herself back when she was ordering Strick around, says, “Sib,” and sticks out her hand.

  “Strick,” he says. He looks very pleased to meet her. She’s about to phone Marisol, but he makes a security guy give us a lift to her house. Where I discover that not only was I standing around dripping wet in Sam’s hoodie and Nancy’s Jimmy Choos, but the pink streaks ran (which shouldn’t be a big surprise, they were supposed to wash out, that was the point of them) and my head is covered with leopard-print-looking pink spots. I have to wash my hair twice, the second time with laundry detergent, to get most of the pink evidence out.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  SUNDAY MORNING, I WILL MYSELF not to look guilty. I will myself to breathe. I will myself not to say one word about the slightly pink hair until my dad notices the slightly pink hair.

  The moral compass says, Aha! Pink hair! You wanted to get caught. Maybe there’s an infinitesimally tiny ray of hope for you.

  Me: Did not.

  My dad is looking at me strangely. “Is there something you need to tell me?”

  Yes, there is, only I can’t.

  Because I thought about her all day yesterday.

  Because I wondered what color nail polish she’d like.

  Because when I saw some guy snorting cocaine off a soap dish, I couldn’t stop crying.

  Because I took off most of my clothes without regard to modesty, good choices, or what anyone would think of me. I swam around the shallow end of a pool until a security guard made me get out, and oh yeah, I semi-inadvertently entered into a pact to lose my virginity. And it would be nice if I had an actual parent to talk to about this whose heart wouldn’t get destroyed by knowing who I actually am.

  “Did something happen to your hair?” he says, and I can tell he’s making a strenuous effort to remain calm.

  “Yeah, I put in what was supposed to be a temporary pink rinse, but it won’t come out. I might have to use rubbing alcohol or something.”
/>
  My dad looks as if he’s trying to figure out whether to be upset with me, and if so, just how upset.

  I say, “I know it looks weird, but this is really a my-body-belongs-to-me thing. This is in the henna-tattoo-wears-off, tweezing-my-eyebrows, and having-green-toenail-polish column—not in the stud-through-my-tongue one.”

  “You want a stud through your tongue?”

  We have had multiple discussions about how putting a stud through your tongue is a medical disaster, creating a tiny bacterial sewer in your mouth; of course I don’t want a stud through my tongue after that.

  My dad says, “Ma princesse, don’t cry. I’m sure we can find a way to get it out. It’s very slight, the faintest tint.”

  • • •

  “So,” Dylan says on Monday when I’m about to fork over another week of history notes that are completely handwritten because, in a moment of compulsive frenzy, I made charts. “All this time I thought you were a mild-mannered bad seed, but turns out you’re Juliet. Imagine my surprise.”

  I say, “All this time I thought you were an underachiever. What are you raving about?”

  Dylan imitates what appears to be a swooning girl. “Oh Rosalind, it’s just like Romeo and Juliet!”

  “Do we even know anyone named Rosalind? What are you talking about?”

  “From fair Verona, where we lay our scene?” he says, misquoting Romeo and Juliet. “Big family feud. Older French boyfriend. Clashing tribes. Sword fights. Your dad wants to mutilate him. Is any of this coming back to you?”

  Oh shit. What Siobhan said to Chelsea. What I said to Chelsea.

  Only bigger.

  Arif, who has been watching this whole thing, leaning against the bank of lockers, slightly shaking his head, says, “Is this lout bothering you, Miss Capulet?”

  Dylan says, “Shut it.”

  Arif swats him. “You should bypass him and give those notes straight to me,” he says. “At least I know enough not to return them coated with cheese and pepperoni.”

  “Pepperoni envy,” Dylan says. “Not halal. You would smear those notes with pepperoni if you could.”

  “No,” Arif says. “I wouldn’t. And let me point out that it’s not kosher, either. Or even arguably healthy.”