“It’ll be over soon,” I say, touching his face. “I’ll make you heart-shaped cookies.”
“Thanks. You’re a credit to your—what are seeds?—your phylum? Your genus? Your gender?”
We’re sitting, fully clothed, on his bed, supposedly studying.
I say, “I’m not that much of a credit to anything. Maybe we should talk—”
“No, we should eat. Want to order pizza? My mom has taken to cooking for the Scottish prince. There’s only so much charred sea bass a person can take.”
“Blackened sea bass? Like with a pepper crust?”
“You don’t get large-scale family dysfunction, do you? She burns it, we eat it.”
“Excuse me, I get—”
He pushes me onto the pillow. We don’t study.
• • •
After school, Siobhan and I search for antique stockings with seams down the back to go with my (vintage) dress, which turn out to be the Holy Grail of vintage shopping.
Siobhan is texting Strick, who has some form of the flu. “I don’t care if he has to OD on cough syrup. We’re clubbing on Valentine’s. You aren’t the only person with the perfect dress.”
“You didn’t take me shopping for your perfect dress?”
“Nancy,” Siobhan says. “I have to throw her a bone once in a while.”
I wonder if my mom liked vintage. If she would have liked it on me. Or if she would have been so rational about teen girl attire that vintage wouldn’t have had to be my fallback when my dad rejected any garment associated with modern fashion.
Within seconds, I am deep into the realm of Stop It, Stop It, Stop It, with Siobhan snapping her fingers six inches from my face and telling me not to sulk.
“I hate to burst your little bubble,” she says, “but this Valentine’s Day party you’re going to: lame. A bunch of Hollywood burnouts with Botox. Burton got invited.”
“There are going to be kids there.”
“Kids who get dragged there. Do you know how cool the Strip is going to be on Valentine’s Day? Think: Lame. Awesome. Lame. Awesome. Obviously you and the labradoodle should come with us to Awesome.”
“Me and you and Strick and Dylan and three IDs?”
“You could be Birgitta from Malmo. I got her ID in Barbados. And who the hell knows about Strick? I might have to round up Wade.”
“Wade?”
“Or whoever. It’s me. It isn’t going to be a problem,” Siobhan says. “You just don’t want to go with me, do you?”
“It’s not that.”
“It’s completely that. I can read you. You’re going to an octogenarian yawnfest instead of doing something that actually might be fun? And why is that?”
She is looking at me with the angry, hooded eyes of those Australian toads that squirt poison at their enemies.
I say, “I’ll ask Dylan. All right?”
I won’t ask Dylan.
“Cause widdle Emma can’t make up her own mind,” she says. “You should listen to me. You won’t survive five minutes in the real world without me. You’d be fucked if I didn’t have your back, and you don’t even get it! Go to your lame party! I don’t even care!”
I pull into her driveway and she slams the car door on her way out.
I am in a state of damn-what-just-happened? Because whatever it was, it’s not good.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
TWO DAYS AND THEN I hear from her.
Siobhan: You have to get over here.
Me: Why?
Siobhan: Just do it. Tell DrLaz a friend in need is a friend indeed. Tell him you have to borrow my earrings. Get over here.
Me: Why?
Siobhan: Tell him I’m jumping out the window if you don’t talk me down.
Me: Is something actually wrong?
Siobhan: Get over here
Siobhan: I mean it.
My dad is in the living room, reading a journal and drinking brandy. It’s like a scene out of the Analyst’s Home Companion; all we need is a black lab and an artsy mom who makes jewelry or hooks rugs or something. I’m wearing jeans and a pajama top and a Latimer hoodie and Bert and Ernie slippers. I figure, how can anybody dressed like this possibly be up to no good?
I say, “I need to go over to Siobhan’s for a little while.”
He looks at his watch.
I say, “I know, but she sounds upset and it’s not like she calls me over there in the middle of the night all the time.”
“If anything is going on that you can’t handle, you’ll call me. No secrets if it’s dangerous.”
I say, “I know. I will. Thank you.”
“And Ems, midnight.”
“Midnight.”
But as it turns out, there is something over there I can’t handle. Although phoning home isn’t an option.
At first I’m not sure who it is in there with her, submerged to their chins, their heads seeming to bob, disembodied, on the frothy surface of the Jacuzzi, steam rising off the foam, obscuring their faces. I can’t tell if he and Siobhan are wearing anything, but they seem to have achieved a level of coziness that makes you wonder why a third person, such as me, would even be invited.
Siobhan says, “Hey! This is my friend.” She reaches out of the steaming water to throw a bathing suit at me.
The guy says, “Hey, Siobhan’s friend!” He sounds friendly but slightly stoned. I recognize his voice immediately. Then I recognize him. His torso rises from the water, his elbows splayed back over the fieldstone rim of the Jacuzzi.
The profile and the brow. Jesus, the guy from the beach club, still gorgeous in the dark.
It is completely clear he has no idea who I am.
Siobhan says to him, “You’re quite the piece of work, aren’t you?”
He says, “That I am.” He sounds quite taken with this idea.
“How drunk were you at that beach club, anyway?” Siobhan says. “You assaulted this girl outside the ladies’ room. Your tongue has been in this girl’s mouth.”
The profile becomes even more beautiful when all the other details blur into shadow. “Oh. You! Polka dots, right?”
The dress.
I say, “Siobhan—” Because I want him not to remember. I want the whole thing not to have happened. I want to not know him and for him not to know me.
She says, “International Girl of Intrigue, meet Mystery Man.”
“Amélie!” I say. I don’t want the whole idiot episode to come roaring back with me—and a name anyone in L.A. knows as me—in it.
He says, “Amélie? Pretty. I’d ask you if you’re French, but your footwear . . .”
I say, “Seriously, Sib? What are you doing?”
“Oh yeah, Amélie,” she says. “Get in here. Or do you want me to call up you-know-who and make it a foursome?”
“No!”
“You-know-who?” the guy whines. “Don’t you like me?”
I say, “Siobhan, could I talk to you for a minute?”
She reaches behind her and I see her phone, and she’s waving it above the water. “You’re such a buzzkill baby! Don’t you want to have fun? Because I’m phoning! Nope, not yet. Yes, I’m phoning right now. Not yet. Yesssss I am! You weren’t such a buzzkill in the summer, were you? You didn’t care who you kissed!”
“Whom,” I say.
“Fuck you!” Siobhan yells.
“No, she’s right, ‘whom.’& ” Beach Club Boy is at least highly grammatical.
I say, “I’m leaving.”
She says, “No. You’re not. I know, why don’t I call up your asshole boyfriend and Jean-Luc. Then all five of us can chat about it. But wait, I’ll be the only person in here who hasn’t had a tongue down your throat. I feel so sad and left out.”
The guy says, “You could put your tongue down her throat, Sibby. I don’t mind.”
This is the point when I know—Good Emma, Bad Emma, Emma with any sense knows—it is the moment to walk back into the house, say good-night to Marisol, and go home. Because even if
she calls my bluff, Dylan showing up with me on my way out is so much better than Dylan showing up with me sitting in a Jacuzzi with drunk Siobhan and drunker Beach Club Boy, and I still don’t know if they’re wearing anything. She could just be strapless.
It is not the moment to step out of the Bert-and-Ernie slippers and into the too-tight swimsuit. But what if I can placate her? What if I can give just the smallest bit, what if I just sit in the Jacuzzi like we have a hundred times since summer, and she doesn’t call him up, and he doesn’t find out everything about me two hours before Valentine’s Day, and that’s the end of it?
I climb into the water, slowly.
I immerse myself completely. I come up looking at the stars glittering through the blue-black sky and the rusty half-moon, the steam rising all around me off the roiling water, and the gorgeousness of Siobhan and the boy. And then his hand is on my shoulder, only he’s kissing Siobhan, and then he turns to me and I am, I swear, pulling away, I am recoiling, I’m thinking, get up, get out, abort, stop, don’t. I’m climbing out, my shoulders are out of the water, but he kisses me. His lips feel unnaturally cold as my body steeps in the hot water, pummeled by the jets. Cold but compelling.
I push out of the water and out of his half embrace, his other arm still around Siobhan. And I shout, “Stop! I have a boyfriend.”
Siobhan says, “Sure you do.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
MIDNIGHT.
I am on the floor of my closet, doing the arithmetic of poor choices. I’m in the negative numbers column, not even counting the things that I refuse to guilt myself about but maybe I should, starting with every second I’ve spent with Dylan. Not to mention every lie I’ve told to get every one of those seconds with him.
And then there’s every second I want to erase.
It isn’t that hard to differentiate.
Me: How could you blindside me like that?
Siobhan: Give it up. He tried, you left. Big fucking deal.
Me: You might have warned me it was him.
Siobhan: Like u’d have come?
Me: That’s the point!!!!! Where did you dig him up?
Siobhan: Beach club. Thought we could get another taste.
Me: I didn’t want another taste.
Me: What am I supposed to say to Dylan? I so suck.
Siobhan: Check mark for killing labradoodle. Time to bail.
Me: I’m not bailing. I’m going to tell him. Obviously. I got in a Jacuzzi with your latest whatever and he tried to kiss me and I left. It’s not that big a deal.
Siobhan: Obviously.
Me: He’ll understand.
Siobhan: Sure he will. Are u and labradoodle coming to Sunset tomorrow with me or what?
Me: You’re delusional. You did that to mess with me. Did you think I wouldn’t notice?
Siobhan: Nobody fucks with me grasshopper. Even u.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
THE GENERAL UN-FUNNESS OF NOT getting ready with a best friend is getting to me. Siobhan is as incommunicado as you can be when you’re in most of the same classes and capable of communicating volumes with a single scowl. Given that I want to punch her, this is not entirely a bad thing. Clearly, the combing of the hair and the shellacking of the nails, the admiration of each other’s exquisite taste in hot dresses, won’t be happening
I ask my dad if I can go down to Sunset Plaza to Blushington to get the infinitesimal, minute amount of makeup I plan to wear applied by a professional and get my hair blown out in Hollywood at Je Jeune. I’m not sure if it’s that he’s so in love with the idea of completely invisible makeup, or if he feels sorry for me, if it’s my motherless-girl-in-need-of-arcane-female-knowledge mojo, but he says yes in less than a second.
And even though, thanks to professional help, I finally achieve something as close to gorgeousness as I will ever hover—glossy hair, perfectly made-up eyes, the to-die-for vintage scarlet dress—I keep thinking about getting ready for parties with a mother, and whether she ever contemplated dyeing her eyelashes.
I am tangled up in small, intimate details I will never know.
Even the compass feels sorry for me. It goes, Buck up. For once, you’re in a dress that’s not obscene, and you’re so depressed, there’s a good chance that you’ll behave yourself out of sheer listlessness. Yay!
My dad says, “Just remember –”
“I’ll only get soft drinks directly from the bartender, and I won’t drink anything that’s left my hand, and I won’t let anyone who’s drunk anything but pop drive me, and if I see drugs or weapons or gang warfare, I’ll walk away. And there’s enough money in my handbag to fly back to Canada if California has an armed insurrection between now and two a.m.”
“This is serious, Ems.”
“Dad! I know that you’re concerned about me and I appreciate it so much and I’m so happy you’re letting me go and thank you. But seriously, I’m not going to get drunk or pregnant or kidnapped or shot. The guy’s parents are going to be there.”
My dad looks dubious. He says, “How did you get me to agree to this again?”
“Don’t I look nice and respectable? This dress comes from the nineteen-fifties.”
My dad says, “You look stunning. That’s what worries me.”
But he hugs me, and then he opens the front door, and I walk out in my extravagantly high-heeled red shoes as quickly as a person in such slender heels can walk, before he changes his mind.
I just want to get to Dylan’s, and for Dylan to look up and say something like “wow,” if not the actual word “wow.” Then I want to finally meet his parents, who can admire the vintage dress as well as marveling at Dylan’s good taste in girlfriends.
But apparently going to a party with Dylan’s parents doesn’t mean actually going to a party with Dylan’s parents. When I drive up to his house, they’ve already left for a different party they’re going to first. Dylan is sitting outside in the dark, lit by the dim porch light, slouched on a wooden lawn chair, bare feet in Lulu’s fur.
I say, “Did something happen?”
“My family happened. My fault, of course.” He shrugs. “Aiden stormed off for parts unknown, which is, again, my fault. No one is very happy with me.”
“We should go cheer you up with some partying immediately.”
Dylan looks at me in the red dress. He does not say “wow.” “Probably you’re overdressed for Mel’s Drive-In. Which was my plan B.”
“But your Plan A is so promising. Music, champagne, over-the-topness. A live band I’ve actually heard of.”
“Probably I’m overdressed for Mel’s, too,” he says, standing up. “But I could change.”
“Don’t change. You clean up really well.”
Dylan shakes his head. “I’m so fucked up right now. You look amazing. You’ll probably run off with a guy at Mel’s.”
He kicks at one of the pseudo-rocks, cast from a glasslike substance, lined up along his driveway.
I say, “It’s just, it’s Valentine’s Day, and we’re dressed up, and it’s a party. Do you really want to spend Valentine’s Day in a diner?”
He says, “When I’m back East and this is all a bad memory from my overprivileged youth, I’m never going to another one of these crap things.”
“We don’t have to go, but I thought you were inviting me somewhere you wanted to take me. Explaining how I’m feeling.”
He sits with his feet sticking out of the driver’s side door of his car, putting on socks. “I’ve been inviting you where I want to take you. I tried to get you to do whatever it takes to get sprung by your dad so we could go hear some real music downtown. But apparently it took this glitz fest.”
I wonder how many miles over the Atlantic Aiden has to be for Dylan to stop being so irritable.
“Shoot me,” I say, fastening my seat belt, in two-can-play-at-this mode, I-might-be-your-excessively-adoring-girlfriend-but-I’m-not-your-doormat mode. “I thought a party with Hell’s Gate playing would be fun.”
“Hell’s Gate is putrid.”
“I thought you liked this kind of thing.”
“Why would you think I like this? I hate this kind of party. I hate this.”
He waves at his house, or maybe at all of Beverly Hills, or at all of L.A. County. Hard to tell.
“Excuse me for not figuring it out, but there are pictures of you whooping it up at glitzfests all over the Internet.”
“Maybe you confused me with my brother, hallowed be his name. Ladies’ man. Asshole. Liar. Looks a lot like me, only taller. Likes the same girls. He really likes this over-the-top shit.”
We wind up to Mulholland. Dylan accelerates into a curve, and there’s L.A., lit up below the guardrail.
He says, “Yeah, you two could hit it off.”
“Excuse me?”
By this time, we’re parked in a turnout, my hands are over my ears, and Dylan is slouched behind the wheel.
He says, “I’m sorry. My fault. No excuse.”
We aren’t actually looking at each other.
I say, “Do you suddenly hate me?”
“I opposite of hate you. I tend to kick the cat when I feel like shit.”
“I get to be the cat?”
“Sorry. Bad week.”
“I know,” I say. “Sorry I pushed this party so hard. Seriously, let’s go back to your house and admire each other’s outfits.”
Dylan turns his head farther away from me. “So I can be the sulky dud boyfriend who screws up your Valentine’s Day and Jean-Luc can be the one who sends you the camellias? No.”
“Dylan, there were no camellias, all right?”
“You don’t have to make things up to make me feel better. Maybe I’m not cool like that.”
“Believe me, he wasn’t all that.”
“Give it up. He was the French god of cool.”
“He wasn’t what you think. I’m trying to be honest here. We should turn around and talk.”
Because this is it, I can feel it coming, I have to do this before we’re any deeper into this.
Just not in this car on the way to this party.
Dylan says, “So. What haven’t you told me about him?”
“Maybe let’s talk after the party if you don’t want to turn back. It’s already intense.”
Afterparty Page 19