“Who else will be there?”
“The whole class is invited.”
“Will there be boys?”
I turned around, my hands dripping wet, and reached for the dish-towel on the counter. “Of course, Mom, it’s the whole class.” Because my mother had her back to Min and me, I made a face, crossing my eyes. Min smiled.
My mother put down her knife and turned to me, one hand on her hip. “Is this one of those kissing parties? Everyone groping each other in the dark?”
I stared at her. I couldn’t think of anything to say. How did she know? It was like she had read my thoughts. Then I stammered, “I don’t know. I’ve never been to one before.”
“No.”
“What?”
“I said no. You can’t go.” She turned back to hacking up the onion.
“But Mom—” I began.
“It’s just a party,” Min interrupted, sounding really earnest, like she went to these parties all the time. “Just a bunch of kids getting together, drinking soda and eating chips and talking to each other. Maybe there’ll be some dancing.”
My mother turned on her. “Listen, young lady, I know what happens at these parties. Don’t you dare tell me any different. You two want to run off and fool around with those boys the first chance you get. And those boys will take advantage of you. I’ve told Laura that a million times. My answer is no.”
All my mother’s anger had rushed up to her face, turning it beet red. Every time she got mad I was afraid she was going to have a heart attack or something. I unwrapped the plastic and dug my hands into the hamburger meat. Then I had the awful thought that she had read our notes to each other and somehow decoded them. How else could she have found out what would be happening at the party? How else could she know how much I wanted to be kissed? I would die if my mother found out everything that Min and I talked about. I frantically tried to remember where I had hidden those tightly folded pieces of paper in my room. From now on, I would have to throw them away as soon as I’d read them.
Behind me, Min said, “You never let Laura do anything.” I froze, my hands greasy from holding blobs of hamburger. She didn’t know what a mistake she was making, talking back. If I kept very still, maybe it would be like I wasn’t there at all.
“Min, you’ve overstayed your welcome.” My mother’s voice was a high whine again. I wished Min would go home too. Her being there hadn’t helped anything.
“It’s normal to go to parties.” Min had raised her voice. “We know those boys from school. You’re just too old to remember.”
“Min,” my mother said in a suddenly low, threatening tone. She turned around, her knife still in her hand.
“Okay, I’m leaving.” Hearing Min scrape back her chair, I still couldn’t turn around. The front door closed. I wondered if Min would ever come to my house again. I’d never heard her sound scared before.
My mother turned to me. “Are you going to make the hamburgers, Laura?”
I convinced my mother to let me stay overnight at Min’s house on Friday night, telling her the party was Saturday, so we got to go anyway. We spent over an hour getting ready. I couldn’t decide whether to wear my cream-colored shirt with the V-neck and long sleeves or my purple t-shirt with the cartoon of an old-fashioned telephone on the front. I was afraid I would spill on the lighter one, but I always wore the purple one.
“No, wear the first one,” Min said as I stood on the edge of the bathtub and leaned to the left to see myself in the mirror over the sink. I pulled the telephone shirt over my head for the second time, wishing I had asked Claudia before she went out if I could borrow one of hers. “It’s older, more sophisticated,” Min added. “And it looks nice with those pants.”
I looked down at my white bra, my stocky torso, the flare at the hem of my green cotton pants, and my pale feet. My hair fell forward over my face, and I flicked it behind my ears, impatient. I didn’t like my body. For so long I had waited to be grown up, old enough to make decisions for myself. Now that I was almost a teenager, practically an adult, even my own body wasn’t mine anymore. I’d started getting my period two months before, but after the excitement of the first time, all it boiled down to was stained underwear and having to wear a bulky pad between my legs for five whole days. Min handed me the cream shirt. I put it on and looked down again, then in the mirror. I felt fat and lumpy. I would never get used to having breasts.
“Yeah, you look great,” Min said, and she meant it. If she thought so, maybe Nick would too. She pulled me down from the bathtub by my arm. “Come on, we’re already late.”
“Wait, I want to put on eye makeup.”
“Oh God.” She made a face. “Okay.” She sat down sideways on the closed toilet lid, pulled her knees up to her chest, and leaned back against the wall. “Tell me when you’re ready to go,” she said, closing her eyes.
Min had decided what she was going to wear days before. She had on blue jeans, a black sleeveless shirt, and her blue Adidas. She looked like she was part of a rock and roll band. I tried to remember if there were any bands with women in them. I didn’t think so. Her black hair fell straight down either side of her face to her waist. Her lips gleamed with lipgloss, but otherwise she wasn’t wearing any makeup. I’d asked if she wanted to use some of mine, but she’d said no, she didn’t see why she should get all gooped up just to see the same old bozos she’d been in classes with all week. I thought that was the point. It was a chance for us to be somebody different, even if it was only for a night.
I had already curled my hair earlier. I leaned close to the mirror and brushed dark brown mascara onto my upper lashes, then the lower ones. I got some on my cheek and had to wipe it off with cold cream. I tried to pick the little clumps off, getting brown streaks on my fingers. With a little spongy wand I put on green eyeshadow. I stood back and examined my reflection. Would Nick like it? I glanced over at Min, wanting to ask her. She was watching me and smiling like she approved. I smiled too and looked away. I was blushing.
It had started to rain while we were eating dinner. Min’s mom offered to drop us off. In the car I was too jittery to say much. Catherine asked Min to call her by ten so she could pick us up. I sat in the back seat, chewing on the ends of my hair and wishing I had brought a sweater. Outside the rain-spotted windows, redwoods loomed on either side of the narrow road. Diana lived a ways out of town, in the foothills of Mount Tam. I could smell wood smoke from some of the houses we passed. Out there, a lot of them were homemade, not much more than cabins hammered together, with rooms added on and VW Bugs in the dirt driveways.
We knew we were close when we heard the rock and roll. Catherine drove slowly up the winding driveway covered with pine needles. The house looked small from the outside, hidden beneath the trees, its brown-stained wood making it seem part of the hillside. “What’s that music?” I asked Min. It made me want to dance.
“‘Brown Sugar.’ The Rolling Stones.”
“Oh.” The records I listened to were more folk music: Joni Mitchell, Harry Chapin, Bread. I liked the love songs best. Catherine pulled over into a ditch and turned to Min in the passenger seat, letting the engine idle.
“Have fun,” she said as she and Min hugged. I was already turning the door handle when she said, “Here, Laura, give me a hug too.” I slid back over and we grabbed each other, the front seat between us. Not only was she letting Min go to this party, she was driving her to it. I wished she was my mother. She squeezed my shoulder. “You look very nice,” she said. Min and I scrambled out of the car.
We ran to the front door, trying not to get rained on. “Are you nervous?” I asked Min before we went in.
“Maybe.”
We grinned at each other.
“You go first,” she said.
In the living room, all the furniture had been pushed against the walls. The only light was from the hall. Nobody was in the middle of the large, darkened room dancing to the cranked-up music. About twenty kids sat around the edges, on t
he couches and chairs, drinking soda and not talking much. Some of them were smoking cigarettes. I looked carefully, but none of them was Nick. Some I didn’t know at all from the other section of the class. I realized that all the girls were sitting on one side and all the boys were sitting on the other. Suddenly I was depressed. Maybe nothing was going to happen after all.
While Min threw her sweatshirt into the coat closet, I asked Joey where the drinks were. He was talking to Ron and just pointed his thumb behind him like he was hitching. In the kitchen, Diana stood with her best friend Melissa near a big picnic chest on the floor filled with ice and sodas. Diana was tall and had beautiful, long chestnut hair. I knew her somewhat from having had classes together over the past three years. She was nice for a girl who was so popular.
“Hi,” she said when she saw me, “want some?” She held up her ginger ale. I’d seen some of the girls with pink cans of Tab. I couldn’t decide which I wanted.
“Where is everybody?” Min asked, bending down and grabbing a Tab.
“Their parents wouldn’t let them come,” Melissa said. “Like, why would they ask their parents?”
“Well, maybe they couldn’t get a ride otherwise,” I said.
Melissa rolled her eyes. I decided on ginger ale. I didn’t know why Melissa didn’t like me. I started to move away.
“What do you have to spike it with?” Min asked.
“Now that you mention it . . .” Diana said. I could see she admired Min a little more. I felt stupid. I hadn’t even guessed there might be liquor at this party. “Vodka,” Diana answered. “Are you game?”
“Sure.”
Min followed Diana into a back room. Melissa and I ignored each other. I realized that most of the kids there were the ones who got in trouble at school. Maybe we shouldn’t have come. I doubted Min would like the vodka. I’d tasted my father’s gin and tonic the summer before. It was medicinal and bitter, and when I made a face, everybody laughed.
When Min got back we wandered into the living room. I kept looking around for Nick, scared that I might see him and scared that he wouldn’t come. There was space on one of the couches, and we squeezed in and sat there, sipping from our cans. The music had changed to “Dream Weaver.” I knew the words from listening to the radio and sang along. Still nobody got up to dance, though now there was a couple sitting on the floor in the corner making out. In the dimness I couldn’t tell who they were.
Min leaned over. “I wonder if Band-Aid’s going to show up,” she yelled over the music.
I almost said, “He told me he would,” but stopped myself in time. It was weird not telling her everything. But I couldn’t. Even if Nick arrived, he might not talk to me.
“Yeah, I wonder,” I yelled back.
I was glad Min was there with me. Sitting around in somebody’s unlit living room wasn’t what I had expected. I thought there would be dancing, people talking to each other, maybe card games or something so we could all get to know each other better. I would have liked a birthday party, with its chocolate cake and unwrapping of presents, more than this.
“Let’s look around,” I said. “There’s nothing happening here.”
We went upstairs. The light was on in one of the bedrooms at the top. Eight kids were sitting on the floor in a circle. A girl and a boy were crawling past each other, changing places. Diana held a Coke bottle in her lap. Min grinned at me. I started to get nervous.
As soon as we came in, they all stopped talking and gaped at us like they’d been caught by their parents stealing money. One of the boys said, “No way, I’m not playing with them!” Karen, sitting next to him, slapped his knee lightly, giggling. Her laughter hurt even more than what he’d said.
Diana looked down at the Coke bottle, then leaned forward and placed it on its side in the middle of the circle. “Sorry,” she said, looking like she really was, “we’ve got the same number of girls and boys. We can’t add two more girls.”
“Come on,” I muttered to Min, plucking at the back of her shirt. I started to leave the room.
“Can we watch?” Min asked them.
All I wanted to do was get out of there. But I turned back. Now instead of staring up at us, they were all looking at each other or picking at their sneaker laces. A few of the girls shrugged.
“I guess so,” Diana said. There were a couple of nods.
“This isn’t a spectator sport,” the same boy protested.
“What difference does it make?” Min asked. “You’re all going to be watching each other.”
“Let’s start,” Karen said, impatient.
“Close the door,” another boy said. I pushed it shut behind me, which cut the volume of the music. I could feel the bass through the floor under my feet.
We sat above them on the canopy bed. Min lay on her stomach with her head in her hands, like she was watching TV in her living room. Her hair fell all around her, landing like a flouncy skirt. The only way I could tell her feelings had been hurt too was because she was extra calm and focused on the game, like she didn’t notice she had been left out. I wished for the millionth time I could be more like her. I couldn’t get comfortable. Finally I sat back against the pillows, holding one of them against my chest. Outside the window, the rain had stopped.
It seemed like they’d all played before. There was no hesitation, once the bottle stopped spinning. The boy or girl would lean forward on hands and knees and kiss the person of the opposite sex closest to the bottle’s open neck. The kiss was either fast or slow. Sometimes the others commented, rating the kiss. There were no tongues involved that I could see. A couple of times a boy looked down the shirt of the girl leaning toward him. I held my pillow closer against me.
Min, lying on the bed in front of me, watched everything carefully like she was studying for a class. Under her black shirt, her torso moved up and down as she breathed. Once, I noticed the muscles of her behind clenching and then relaxing.
I was getting restless. Unlike Min, I couldn’t pay attention. Too much was going on inside me. Something in my chest kept pulling tighter, like it was tied up with string.
Leaning forward, I whispered to Min, “I’m bored, I’m going downstairs.” She turned her head toward me. I thought she looked worried, but she turned back to the game before I could be sure. I quietly edged off the bed and left the room, closing the door behind me.
On the landing I was alone for the first time since I’d entered the house. Down the stairs I saw kids moving across the hall between the living room and the kitchen, laughing, drinking from their soda cans. A boy crossed to the living room with his arm around a girl’s shoulders. The music had changed. There was a slow song playing, another one I didn’t know. It sounded like the Rolling Stones again. A girl needed to be free, and the singer was saying goodbye. I stood at the top of the stairs with my arms wrapped around myself and swayed slowly. The song made me sad. I didn’t want to be free if it meant being lonely. I was afraid I would be dancing by myself at the top of the stairs forever.
I had to go to the bathroom. I turned around and began looking, trying a couple of locked doors before I found it around the corner. I turned on the light and turned the lock in the doorknob. After I was done, I washed my hands, looking in the mirror. In the harsh light, my face looked blotchy. My mascara had smeared under my right eye. I turned on the hot water and splashed my face, trying to scrub off the makeup. The eyeshadow went, but the mascara smeared worse, making me look like a raccoon. Panicked, I looked inside the medicine cabinet. Luckily there was a jar of Ponds cold cream. I swabbed some out with a crumpled-up wad of toilet paper, scoured around my eyes, then washed it all off. I felt so dumb. I had worn that makeup because of Nick, and he wasn’t even there.
The fast music was back on when I opened the bathroom door. I went out and stood on the landing again, trying to decide where to go. I didn’t really want to go downstairs just to watch everybody dancing when I had nobody to dance with, but I didn’t feel like watching more of Spin the
Bottle either. Suddenly I felt hands grabbing my sides, hard, tickling me. I yelped, pushing them away and turning around.
It was Nick, grinning. “Hey, where’ve you been?” he asked, standing back. He was wearing a mock turtleneck with wide green and yellow stripes. His hair was falling in his eyes as usual and his thick eyelashes and pinkened cheeks made him look young and really adorable. His eyes were darker than usual, a royal blue. Three of his friends and Caroline and her friend Stacy came out of the room behind him and stampeded past us down the stairs.
“Where’ve you been?” I asked, then realized I sounded like my mother when Jamie came home late. I was so relieved to see Nick, I wanted to put my arms around him and burst into tears. I couldn’t stop grinning.
“Looking for you,” he answered. I knew it wasn’t true, but I was flattered anyway. “You look very pretty tonight. Do you want to dance?”
I nodded. We went downstairs and into the dark living room. Now the cleared floor was full of kids moving to the music. Nick pushed ahead of me into the crowd and found us a little space near one corner of the room. He turned around and grinned at me, then started to dance. It was another song I didn’t know, but I didn’t care. Dancing was a way to lose myself, like I was hurling myself away. At school dances I was usually asked to dance by the nerdiest guys, if I was asked at all. When I didn’t turn them down, I held myself back dancing because I didn’t want them to follow me around. Dancing with Nick, I threw myself into the music, trying to become it.
I watched Nick out of the corner of my eye. His dancing was jerky and uncoordinated. He kept taking the same steps back and forth. Looking around the room, I compared him to the other guys. There was only one who knew how to dance. I wondered why that was true when all the girls were good at it.
I looked up at Nick’s face. He had been watching me too. He leaned closer. “You’re a great dancer,” he yelled into my ear.
I was glad it was dark in the room. My face was heating up. “Thank you,” I yelled back, pleased. We danced some more, through another song, and I tried not to feel self-conscious. I wanted to let the music take me wherever it was going.
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