Teena’s jaw clenched at what felt like an inadvertent dig at her own taste for drinks with paper umbrellas.
“Whatever you think,” Sarabeth said, practically melting in a puddle at Leo’s feet.
“Whiskey it is,” he said, and with a smirk toward Evan, added, “Dude, think you can mix up something pretty and pink for Teena?”
Teena did an isometric abdominal crunch, holding the muscles taut as she counted to ten in her head. She’d made a New Year’s resolution to calm herself this way every time something bothered her. It didn’t help with the bother, but after several months of being irritated, she did feel a nice firmness in her obliques.
Ugh. So Leo had picked someone else. What was in the McAuley DNA that couldn’t take coming in second? She was teasing poor Evan with suggestive arm brushes. Next, she’d be giving Church Boy lap dances just to piss off Leo. Wasn’t a life-or-death situation enough to correct her mean-girl ways?
Leo finished mixing two whiskey drinks for him and Sarabeth, leaving Evan shaking a pink fruity concoction that Teena found enticing in spite of herself. And in spite of her stomach’s sea of Swedish Fish.
He poured the drink into two tumblers with flamingo necks for handles and handed one to her, looking a little proud of himself. “I think it’s a strawberry daiquiri. But it’s pretty strong,” he said, taking a sip and grimacing as he double-checked the recipe in The Bartender’s Handbook. His puzzled pursed lips were cuter than Teena wanted to admit. “I don’t have a ton of bartending experience. But I figured, why not?”
Teena sipped. Why not? was right. The cocktail was good. Evan must have been heavy-handed in both the daiquiri mix and the rum because the little chill running over Teena’s skin ceased, leaving her instead with the milky warmth of being rum-soaked.
Across from her, Sarabeth was nursing her cocktail. She probably didn’t like whiskey any better than Teena did. And yet, her flushed cheeks and easy sips indicated she was having a good time. Sarabeth looked up and caught Teena staring at her. She smiled the kind of smile one girlfriend smiles at another one when she’s talking to a guy she really likes and she wants her friend to squeal with happy-for-you glee. Teena took another gulp of her drink and tried to scoot closer to Evan to see if Leo would notice, even as a little voice inside said, “Give it up, already.”
Coupled with their exhaustion and the adrenaline-fueled nature of the last two days, the booze worked fast. Teena felt like she was thirteen again and had just taken her first shot of Rumple Minze in Becka Gierstakas’s basement. Now that things had slowed down, the totality of their situation dawned on Teena. They weren’t just pre-gaming; this very well could be her last drink ever.
“Don’t you guys think it’s weird that there’s no military evacuating the town or anything?” She looked at her co-combatants expectantly. “Seriously, where is everyone?”
“I thought we established that the aliens were taking everyone.” Leo drank. “Just absconding with them.”
“Yeah, to their ship.” Evan drank.
“Teena’s right, though. How is it possible we’ve seen only, like, three other people? This is a big town.” Sarabeth drank. “And what about people from other towns?”
“Why are you guys debating? Aliens are fucked-up shit. Maybe they put everyone to sleep in their houses.” Leo drank. “If you’ve ever read any alien theory, you’d know that experts believe they’re more efficient than humans and might even be able to bend space and time, or execute mass mind-control.”
Teena raised an eyebrow. “Are you for real? Alien experts? Who believes that shit?” She smirked at Leo. He could say what he wanted about her being bitchy, but she knew he was turned on by girls who didn’t fall for his bullshit. “And why are you reading alien theory?”
Leo smirked back at her, and for a second, she could feel that familiar crackle of his. He might have acted like it was just sex between them, but he’d always found her a little interesting, too. “Let’s just say I read it because I—unlike some people—never believed aliens were outside the realm of possibility.” He sounded peeved, but he was grinning at her. Bingo. She drank, this time with satisfaction.
“Maybe the military is scared. Or unprepared.” Evan drank. Their roundtable discussion had become a remedial drinking game. You spoke, you drank.
“Whatever, I still think it’s fucked-up. You don’t just let your whole town get wiped off the map by aliens.” Teena drank.
“Maybe every town is getting wiped off the map.” Sarabeth drank.
“It doesn’t matter. For all we know, we’re who’s left. And I’m pretty sure we’re teetering into wastedness,” Leo said. They drank. Teena hated that Sarabeth was swigging whiskey while she was downing a daiquiri, but she had to admit, Evan’s cocktail was really good. If she could just transplant a little of Leo’s swagger into Evan, she could almost picture kissing him. He’d probably play with her hair. She loved that.
“So, what do you guys think you’ll do if you survive? Like, do we just finish high school?” Seated cross-legged on the floor, Sarabeth leaned in Leo’s direction. She put one hand on the floor for balance, and it wasn’t lost on Teena that Leo put a hand down, too, causing their pinkies to just barely touch. Teena suddenly wondered if the aliens could erase relationship memories, like in that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind movie. She needed Leo out of her head.
“Well, there’s some question about whether I’d finish high school, ever,” Leo said, giving his whole focus to Sarabeth, like his interaction with Teena from moments ago was barely a memory. “Of course, if they take out Ermer High, maybe my permanent record will be vanquished.”
“Oh, please,” Teena said, “you’re practically a genius.” Leo looked at her again and smiled appreciatively. Score another point.
“What do you think you’ll do, Sarabeth?” Leo said, turning right back to the gangly Snuggied succubus.
Sarabeth looked up at the ceiling, her oversize anime eyes reminding Teena of an annoying Zooey Deschanel type. “I know I need to finish high school, but the whole accredited-college thing is seeming a little lame to me all of a sudden.” She sipped her drink like some bitch out of an F. Scott Fitzgerald book. Leo’s attention brought something out of her. It was like watching a butterfly emerge from a cocoon, without the nasty larva stage. Sarabeth was really, truly happy. “I think I want to go to one of those cooking academies in France. Just imagine, buying fresh ingredients at the markets, walking on cobblestone streets that are actually old and not just … ”
“ … and not just some developer’s way of making a new mall seem upscale?” Leo finished for her.
Cobblestones were a marker of upscale retail. Teena fumed. Why did Leo so aggressively scorn her world?
“Yeah, I used to want a baseball scholarship. But it’s not like I’ll make the majors. Maybe it’d be good to bum around for a while,” Evan said, refreshing his flamingo drink with another pour of rum. He gestured at Teena, offering to add some to her drink. She grabbed the bottle from him and poured with abandon. Evan didn’t seem to notice her irritation and smiled sweetly.
“Dude, free college?” Leo said. “I have a cousin who’s still paying for her art history major ten years later. I’m not usually the voice of reason, but why not just go and use the chance to study something really useless.” He gestured with his tumbler of whiskey, like the world was at Evan’s feet.
Evan laughed. “Maybe. Whatever will piss my stepdad off the most would be awesome. Something like evolutionary science.”
Leo raised his glass. “Cheers to that,” he said. He and Evan clinked. Leo dismissively clinked with Teena, then lifted his glass to Sarabeth. “Cheers,” he said in a whisper.
Fuck. This.
No one had even asked her what she wanted to do after this was over. It was like they assumed she would die, or like she was already dead. This was so not a normal day in the life of Teena McAuley.
Again. Fuck. This. If it was so easy for Leo to ignore her, mayb
e she just needed to do something he couldn’t ignore. Subtlety wasn’t her style, anyway.
Step one. Lose the Snuggie. She pulled the pink blanket-dress over her head, and even though the cold air hit her instantly, she reached her arms over her head with her chest out and sighed into the stretch. During their mall adventure, she’d traded her hoodie and torn jeans for a snug V-neck and a new pair of Paiges.
Step two. Eye contact with Leo. “Can I try some of that?” She gestured to Leo’s tumbler. He shrugged and handed it to her, but she could tell that he was curious. “Thanks,” she purred¸ and tossed back a healthy swig. Handing him the glass back with one hand, she wiped her mouth with the other lustily. “That hit the spot.”
Step three. Acquire target. She turned her gaze pointedly to Evan. “Evan, would you come with me?” She asked this in her sweetest voice. As he stood up, in a voice much less sweet, she added in the loudest whisper she could manage, “I want to show you something in the bedding section.” The word bedding was like a trigger. Evan’s blue eyes went wide, even though he tried to nod like girls used the word bedding around him all the time. Sarabeth actually blushed. And Leo looked at her for just a few seconds too long, as if to say, “What are you doing?”
She grabbed Evan’s hand and began to pull him away.
Leo knew what she was doing, or at least what she was pretending to do. If he didn’t like it, he knew exactly where to find her.
26
A CASE OF BED HEAD
Evan Brighton, 1:17 A.M. Monday, Bed Bath & Beyond (Bedding Section???!!!??)
This was unreal.
No, wait, for it to be unreal, Evan would have to be feeling totally calm and cool. But the rum felt like it was trickling out of his pores stickily, and the hoodie and jeans he’d “borrowed” from Macy’s during their mall party suddenly felt like they were made of hot, heavy iron.
Finally, something was happening. He’d done something right.
Well, Leo had helped him do something right. When they’d all been trying on prom gear at Macy’s, Evan had helped Leo tie a bow tie while Leo had dispensed girl advice.
“Look, man,” Leo had said. “When it comes to chicks, it’s like … well, it’s like fighting those fucking aliens. You know how when you’re in the middle of it, all you’re thinking about really is you? It’s kind of that way with girls. The more you just think about you, the less you’re thinking about them, and the more they start to want you because they can’t believe you’re not just thinking about them.”
Evan had questioned the advice. “But you’re not doing that with Sarabeth.”
“Different. Sarabeth’s still new at this. She needs to realize that life outside the cocoon is safe. But Teena never had that shell. She was born a butterfly. And butterflies never land on you when you run around, trying to catch them. But if you stand still … ”
Evan had raised an eyebrow. “There’s a lot of metaphors going on,” he’d said.
“Girls are metaphors, dude,” Leo had said. Evan thought it was the smartest thing anyone had ever said.
Now, as Teena tugged him away toward the bedding—Bedding! They were about to bed!—section, all metaphors were unnecessary.
He walked behind her, his left hand dragging his bat uselessly at his side. When they kissed, what was he supposed to do with his hands? He didn’t want to put them anywhere lame that would be a turnoff. But he didn’t want to just grab onto her breasts or her butt. It seemed too forward and, honestly, uncreative.
They crossed behind a display bed fitted with a leopard-print comforter and another, more rigid bed done up in a crisp nautical motif. Both seemed a little threatening to Evan, their overly pillowed tops more a warning than a welcome. He knew they weren’t going to do “it”—well, didn’t know, but didn’t want to presume, either. He’d be happy just to touch her face and hold her close to him and have her kiss him back. He could deal with dying a virgin. But if he was going to die, it would at least be nice to know his feelings had been returned.
As she wove between more of the puffed-up display beds, Teena kept looking over her shoulder, but not at him. Evan wondered if the aloofness was her way of playing it cool. He wished he had some music or something. It felt so quiet now that they were alone, and the silence felt too big for him to fill when he had so much else on his mind.
Teena made her way past a red satin display bed that reminded Evan of coffin lining, or those Twilight movies. She looked so tiny among the tall shelves stacked with pillows and mattress toppers. Not looking right at Evan, she started running her fingertips over various sheets, assessing the thread counts. Evan wasn’t sure if this was an important part of their night together, or if he was losing her.
“So, what were your plans for this weekend if we hadn’t been attacked by aliens?” He thought it was a kind of funny question, and he came up beside her as he asked it. She’d traded her heeled boots for a pair of flat boots, and he realized how much shorter she was than he was. He’d have to crouch down kind of weirdly for a kiss to even work.
Teena shrugged, not looking at him but studying the diamond pattern on a set of Egyptian-cotton sheets. “I probably would have wound up here somehow,” she said, with a little laugh. “The mall, I mean.”
This wasn’t going well. He hadn’t expected Teena to take the lead necessarily, but he hadn’t expected her to do comparison shopping on bed linens. He took a few steps back and sat down on the nearest bed, which bore an ugly floral comforter that reminded him of his grandma’s house.
Teena flopped down next to him. “I just can’t believe it,” she said, grinning up at him even as her eyes still traveled the store. “I wonder why we survived.”
Ah. Now her lack of eye contact made sense. She was just on the lookout for other aliens. She needed comforting. He needed to make her feel safe.
“I know, but I think the captives are alive. We’re going to save them,” he said in his best tough-yet-sensitive action-movie-hero voice. He inched a little closer to her on the bed, so that his arm was extended behind her back but not yet touching her. He wasn’t sure how to go about this. He’d kissed girls at church functions before, but no one he’d felt an overwhelming need to kiss. And certainly not Teena. “And … it’s going to be okay.”
He sounded cooler than he felt. As his words slid into the air between them, their slick, silvery promise actually pulled Evan’s face toward Teena’s.
And then he kissed her.
Without even thinking about it, he’d kissed Teena McAuley. His skin fizzed, and his heart leaped into his throat, and if those sensations were too girlie to be having, then so be it. This was amazing. And she was definitely kissing him back. Was time slower or faster? One one thousand, two one-thousand. Three one—
Teena pushed him away.
“Are you kidding me?” She’d sprung up off the bed before Evan even had time to fully open his eyes again. “Why did you do that?”
Evan blinked and tried not to look at her full lips, which he still felt should be on his. Which had been on his. He hadn’t imagined it. Right?
“Because,” he said, not coming up with anything. Why would he do that? On what Earth did guys like him get anywhere with girls like Teena McAuley? Apparently, not even an Earth that might be on its way out.
Teena stared at him, still expecting an answer, which made him feel like he was disappointing her even more.
He tried to sit up straight on the bed, but the mattress had gone lumpy and saggy thanks to years of strenuous work as a display model. So he stood up instead and crossed from the bedding section to the bath, as if taking a figurative cold shower. The distance gave him perspective.
“Because, you invited me to the bedding section. Remember? All day long, you rub my arm, you whisper in my ear, and ten minutes ago, you practically dragged me away from Sarabeth and … Oh.” Now it made sense. Teena was into Leo. And Leo was into Sarabeth. So …
“This is about Leo and making him jealous.” Evan began grabbin
g oversized towels as Teena watched, puzzled. He’d seen a couch in the employee break room on their way in. He’d sleep there and not disturb Sarabeth and Leo. The beds here might have been more comfortable, but he wanted to be as far away from Teena as possible.
Teena stared at him, her mouth slightly open like she was simultaneously hanging on his every word and unable to believe someone like Evan would dare speak to her like he was. Empowered, he continued.
“But even if you got Leo, what, you’d be hoping that some other guy would be jealous? That is, if anyone else is still alive. Is it all a game, or do you actually give a shit about anyone besides yourself?”
He turned away from her, the load of towels heavy in his arms. Maybe there was some girl out there who’d go for a guy like him, but it clearly wasn’t Teena. Right now, he didn’t even want it to be Teena. He went in the direction of the break room, plucking his baseball bat from where it was leaning against the shelf of throw pillows.
“Wait, Evan, I’m … I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Teena called after him, her voice weak. He was tempted to look back at her, but he didn’t have the strength to handle whatever apologetic tack she’d try on him.
“Forget it,” he said, hoping she could hear the finality in his voice. “I don’t want to waste whatever time I have left on you.”
27
FIRST DATE
Leo Starnick, 1:22 A.M. Monday, Bed Bath & Beyond
So this was what shy felt like.
Evan and Teena had left about five minutes ago, and Leo and Sarabeth had basically been sipping their drinks and half grinning goofily at each other ever since. He didn’t quite know what to do. He was a guy who prided himself on being a natural, on not having any studied and practiced “moves,” but right now he could have used some.
Every time he looked over at Sarabeth, seated on the outdoor double chaise longue next to him, he was struck dumb by how much he liked her. Right now, acting natural was making him feel like an idiot.
The End of the World As We Know It Page 15