Amen, L.A.

by Cherie Bennett

  I shook my head. “No thank you.” I touched Alex’s arm. “You don’t want to do this.”

  She shook me off.

  “I’m having fun, what’s wrong with that?” She offered me the bottle again. “Just one drink. Just to show you’re my friend. One drink.”

  “One drink, Natalie. One drink.” Brooke picked up the refrain, and suddenly all the kids on the veranda were chanting it. “One drink, one drink, one drink!”

  I didn’t drink. Instead, I stepped toward Alex and spoke to her quietly. “We need to talk.”

  “No we don’t.” She wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “Yes we do.”

  She smiled at me sadly. “I don’t talk to friends who won’t have a drink with me. Don’t you respect me? I asked you so nicely. Come on. It won’t kill you.”

  “But it might kill you,” I said softly, hoping no one else could hear.

  “One drink?” she whispered, tears in her eyes.

  I had a choice here. I could stick to my guns and not touch the bottle of Jack. Probably Alex would be true to her word and not talk to me. Or I could take the bottle, take a swallow, and have a chance to engage her.

  I chose option two.

  “Fine. Give me the bottle.”

  I tilted the Jack up and let a solid swallow roll down my throat. Yeah, it burned, but there was no way I was going to sputter, or cough, or do anything that would give those kids a chance to jeer. In fact, I wiped my lips with the back of my right wrist when I was done, in what I hoped was a confident gesture. Then I put down the bottle behind me instead of giving it back to Alex.

  “Yay, Natalie! You know how to drink!” Alex looked almost preternaturally happy.

  Right.

  “Okay,” I told her. “Let’s talk.”

  “We are talking.”

  “Privately?”

  She shrugged and glanced over at her friends, where some guy I didn’t know was doing a belly shot off Brooke’s taut abs. “ ’Kay.”

  I looked for someplace to go. The front door was open. “Inside.”

  Alex hesitated, then shrugged. “Sounds good. Bring the Jack?”

  I shook my head. She hesitated, then rolled her eyes and went inside. I followed her and sent a quick text to Brett as I walked.

  Where are you?? Am with Alex. Call ASAP its crucial N

  The foyer of Brooke’s house made Ricardo Montalban’s look like a Motel 6 lobby. Her parents apparently collected Chinese art, since there were Ming vases on pedestals to the left and the right, lit from above by museum-quality fixtures. There was a thick wool Beijing rug in gold and blue underfoot, with a theme of fire-breathing dragons. The room was soundproofed, too. Though the Lil Wayne blaring outside had been close to deafening, in here, once I closed the door, it was as silent as a meditation room.

  “Hi,” she said softly.

  “Hi.”

  Now what? I’d never done this before. I decided to speak from my heart.

  “I’m worried about you.” I desperately wanted to sit on something. Anything to occupy my body. There was nothing. All we could do was stand there.

  “Don’t be.” Her voice was gentle.

  “That doesn’t reassure me.” I pushed some of my amazingly thick hair off my forehead, thinking that I wouldn’t have had the extensions put in if it hadn’t been for Alex. “What about your sobriety?”

  “What about it?”

  “You want to end up like your brother? A prisoner in your own house? You spent all that time in rehab,” I reminded her. “You did all that work. You can still get right back on track. All this is tonight is a slip.”

  “No.” Alex shook her head and pushed her hair out of her eyes. “A slip is when you drink so much you hit your head on some fucking monster-sized Chinese vase and bleed all over Brooke’s parents new thirty-thousand-dollar living room rug. They picked it out on a trip to Hong Kong two years ago. Brooke invited me. I’ve been to Hong Kong so many times that I took a big, fat pass.” She slid down the wall, landed on her butt, and smiled up at me. “This is a drink, not a slip. And I’m not going to end up like Shep. I don’t run around naked in strangers’ houses.”

  “How about if we both just bag this party?” I suggested, resisting the temptation to remind her of some of her exploits I’d read about on the Internet. Slip, drink, whatever she thought it was, I just wanted to get her away from the alcohol.

  “For sure!” she exclaimed. “Are you coming with us?”

  “Huh?” I was taken aback.

  “A bunch of us are going clubbing in Hollywood. Sort of like my rebirth,” Alex explained. “I think you should come.”

  “Clubbing,” I repeated, stalling for time.

  “Yeah. Don’t worry about ID. We know all the doormen. They love us!”

  Bad to worse, I thought. At least Brooke’s house was a controlled setting. Hollywood? I winced. Again, I recalled all that online research I’d done at Sandra’s insistence. The escapades and the photographs. Everything. Could it be that Sandra had been right all along?

  “I’m not sure clubbing is such a great idea,” I said.

  “Ha!” Alex barked out a laugh. “It’s because you’ve never been. Right? You can’t argue with me on that one!”

  That was true. I couldn’t argue with her on that one. But there were a lot of things in life I’d never done, along with at least one thing I’d done that I wished I hadn’t.

  “You told me about your club days. You said you didn’t want to do them over again.”

  “That was then, this is now.” She held out her hand, meaning I should take it and hoist her up.

  “Alex—”

  “I’m going,” she insisted. “You can’t stop me. A girl’s allowed to have fun.”

  I had to stop her. But so far I wasn’t doing a very good job of it, and I wasn’t sure that I could do it on my own. I needed help. Where was Brett? I silently cursed him. I needed him.

  I thought of the only other thing I could that might work.

  “It’s really okay if I go with you guys?” I asked.

  Her eyes grew wide. “Really?”

  “I’d love to,” I lied. “That is, if it’s okay with Brooke.”

  “You’re coming? Cool!” She threw her arms around me and hugged me.

  I didn’t say yes, and I didn’t say no. I just gave a little smile and asked where there was a bathroom. I told her that if we were going clubbing, I needed to clean up a bit. She grinned, pointed to one of the guest bathrooms, and then told me she’d be waiting outside for me.

  “I’m so glad you’re coming, Nat,” she declared.

  “Me too.”

  She went her way, and I went mine. I knew that what I was about to do, once I got behind the closed door of the bathroom, would be social suicide. I don’t know if you’ve read the novel Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson. Probably you have, and if you haven’t, you should. In it, a girl who gets assaulted calls the cops to bust up a party and is turned into a social outcast for doing so. I hadn’t been assaulted, and I wasn’t calling the cops, but the operative effect of what I was about to do would be the same. Among Alex’s friends, I’d be a social outcast. But somehow, stopping Alex was way more important than having her friends, or even her, like me. Maybe once Alex sobered up, she’d thank me.

  Sometimes a girl has to do what a girl has to do.

  I took out my cell and speed-dialed my mom. No answer, but that made sense. She must have turned her phone off during the big church dinner. That left one other option. Yes, he was home with sick Gemma and not-so-sick Chad, but I didn’t think my father would let me down. I owed it to Alex to try.

  “Dad? It’s me,” I said when he answered his cell.

  “Sweetheart! Are you okay?”

  The bathroom was more like a sitting room–bathroom combination; I plopped down on a gunmetal and black fabric padded chair that had been tucked under a black vanity. “I’m okay. I’m fine. But my friend Alex—”

  “What’s going on
?”

  I told him that I’d gotten separated from Alex, that I’d found her with a bunch of her friends and a bunch of bottles, and that she was about to go clubbing. I left out my detour home with Chad and the reason for that detour. Later for that.

  “I can’t stop her, Dad. I tried. She asked me to help her stay sober—”

  “Do you want me to try?”

  I put a hand to my forehead, which was pounding. “I think so. Yeah.”

  “What’s the address?”

  I gave it to him.

  “I’m on my way.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” I told him gratefully.

  My dad clicked off, and I clicked off, too. Then I heard another click—the click of the bathroom door opening a crack. Then it swung all the way open. Standing there, hands on her hips, was Brooke, with the most shit-eating grin on her face. She held a martini glass in her right hand, and she raised it to me.

  “Thanks, Dad,” she mimicked, with an exaggerated flat Minnesota accent.

  Brooke. My social death sentence had been handed down earlier than I’d expected.

  “Get out of here, Brooke.” I kept my voice low.

  She grinned a thousand-watt smile that never reached her cold eyes. “Get out of here? This is my house, and you’re my guest last time I checked. Tell me you didn’t just call your father.”

  I was silent.

  “I heard you give him my address. Not that I have anything against older men, mind you. But I hear your dad’s just not that hot.”

  Okay. That made me mad.

  “Oops!” Brooke raised her eyebrows skyward. “Natalie’s upset. Better leave before she calls Daddy and Mommy. Don’t forget to wipe!”

  She closed the door loudly behind her. When I was sure she was gone, I turned the knob to lock it, and then put my head in my hands.

  What had I just done?

  Chapter Eighteen

  Pariah. Noun. 1. A person who has violated the norms and mores of a group, community, or society and as a result is rejected or turned into an outcast. 2. Me, ten minutes after I left the guest bathroom at Brooke’s house and went back onto the veranda.

  I took a few minutes to steel myself after Brooke closed the door, which, in retrospect, was pretty stupid. At the time, though, I thought I was helpless on my own, and knew that it would take my dad twenty minutes to get there. I went to the mirror. My cheeks were splotched red. I did some deep breathing. In, out. In, out.

  Don’t worry, I told myself. Your dad is coming. Alex will thank you in the morning. As for her friends, you don’t really want to be friends with them anyway.

  Those were the good thoughts. The bad thought was, Where’s Brett? Why hasn’t he called back? The only benign explanation I came up with went like this: His cell battery had died, and he’d left the party after he couldn’t find me, during the time when I was driving Chad home. He didn’t know my number, so he couldn’t borrow someone else’s cell to call me, either.

  That made sense. Sort of.

  I checked the time. Ten minutes since I’d called my father. I wanted to be outside when he showed up. So with one more fortifying breath, I stepped out of the bathroom and made my way through the foyer, then out the door onto the veranda. I fully expected to be met with laughs of derision. The veranda, however, was empty. Absolutely deserted, save for stray liquor bottles and cigarette butts.

  Where was everyone?

  Just then, a golf cart rolled into view, but it wasn’t driven by one of the valets. Instead, Brooke was behind the wheel, with one bare foot up on the dashboard. She spotted me instantly and skidded to a stop in front of the shallow steps leading up to the veranda. Then she reached for a bottle of Jack at her feet. I saw that it was full, which meant it was a new bottle.

  “Drink, big drinker?” she offered.

  I wasn’t in the mood for games. “Where’s Alex?”

  Brooke took a long glance left, a long glance right, a long glance up, and a long glance at the ground. “Wow. She doesn’t seem to be anywhere. Where do you think she could be, Natalie? Since she doesn’t seem to have waited around for you?”

  I took two steps toward her. She still hadn’t gotten out of the cart. “Tell me where she is, Brooke. Be a person for twenty seconds, and you’ll never have to say another word to me again.”

  “Wow. Sounds like Natalie has a direct line to God. Or … maybe you are God! I mean, look what your mother does for a living. And you’re just so good.” She stretched languorously, then got to her feet. “Actually, Natalie? I do know where Alex is.”

  “Tell me,” I pleaded.

  She reached into the golf cart, took the key from the ignition, and tossed it to me. I grabbed for it, but it bounced off my palm and clattered to my feet.

  “Drive down the hill,” she suggested as I bent to retrieve the key. “Maybe she’s still down there. I’d take you myself, but I’m supposed to be the host of this little get-together. Oh yeah. Say hi to your daddy, too. I hope he’s bringing your pacifier.”

  With that, she flounced off toward the rear of her house, where the party was still going strong. In fact, I could hear the Sex Puppets crank into another of their blues-inflected tunes. Meanwhile, I stood there like an idiot, the key to the golf cart in my right hand.

  Fine. I’d drive down the hill. There was only one problem. I’d never been behind the wheel of a golf cart before. So while I climbed in unafraid—it was a golf cart, after all, not a Ferrari—and found the key slot easily enough, I had no idea how to put the stupid thing into reverse. Brooke had driven it practically up to the steps, and the front wheels were two inches away from that first step. There was no way to turn it around without going backward.

  One minute passed as I searched for the gearshift. Two. Three. Finally—this is the truth—I got out of the stupid cart and literally pulled the front end around so I could get it going forward. Of course, that was when I saw the little knob that said REVERSE.

  Two minutes later I was at the valet stand. I found four valets and Alex’s friend Gray. From the way Gray was looking at me and shaking his head I could tell he knew why I was there. He ran a hand through his messy blond hair, his voice more sad than reproachful.

  “You shouldn’t have done that. Calling a parent to rescue you at a party? Maybe okay where you came from. Here? So not cool.”

  “Thanks for the advice.” I swung out of the cart. “Have you seen Alex Samuels?”

  He pointed his chin toward the road. “Outta here. About two minutes ago, actually. With about five other people.”

  My heart sank. While I had been trying to get the stupid golf cart moving, Alex had been getting into a car with whomever to go party. She’d forgotten about me.

  “Where are they headed?” I asked.

  “Dunno.” Gray shrugged one shoulder. “I’d have gone along, but my family is flying to our villa on Lanai really early, and I hate to fly when I’m hungover. I’m going home to smoke some four twenty. The clubs’ll still be here when I come back.”

  I had one more hope. “Alex didn’t drive, did she?”

  Gray laughed. “As shitfaced as she was?”

  “Who did drive?”

  “Brett Goldstein. Oh! Here comes my car.” Gray held out his left hand, and a valet stopped a blue BMW 320i right by it. “Good luck, Natalie. You’re gonna need it.”

  He took the keys from the valet, gave him a buck, and drove off.

  Meanwhile, I was reeling. Brett had blown me off and was driving? How could he do that? How could he possibly, possibly take her out clubbing? He had to know she was polluted. What did he expect her to drink in the clubs? Fiji water?

  I should admit here that I was selfish enough to be hurt—and not just for Alex. I’d thought Brett was special. I’d thought he felt that way about me, too. To say I was disillusioned was an understatement. Plus my dad was coming for nothing, which meant I’d turned myself into Public Enemy #1 for nothing.

  No point in calling him; I knew he wouldn’t answer his
cell while driving. I had no choice but to wait and tell him that the whole thing had been a huge waste. At least I saved a little time by giving my ticket to a valet. My dad would get here, I’d fill him in, I’d get in my car, and we’d caravan it home.

  Fun, fun, fun.

  Our Subaru beat my Saturn to the valet stand. My father rolled down the driver’s side window. I must have looked as sick as I felt, because he reached a hand out before he even spoke. “I came as fast as I could. Where’s your friend?”

  “We’re too late.” His face fell, and I could see he was blaming himself. “No, no,” I added quickly. “By the time I got down here, she was already gone.”

  “I’m so sorry. Did you try to call her?”

  “Not yet,” I admitted.

  “Why don’t you?”

  “When she sees it’s me, she’ll never pick up.”

  He patted my hand. “Give it a try.”

  I did, even as the Saturn was pulled up behind my dad’s car. As I’d predicted, my call went straight to voice mail. I tried Brett’s cell, too, just to say I did. Same thing.

  That was it. There was nothing else I could do. Which was exactly what my dad told me before he uttered the nicest four words I’d heard all day.

  “Sweetheart? Let’s go home.”

  I nodded and headed for my car. Going home was what I wanted more than anything in the world. Except for rolling back the clock and stopping Alex from doing whatever she was doing right now.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I’ve had some terrible nights in my life, but the one of Brooke’s party was right down there on the Y-axis.

  After we got home—my mom was still at her church thing—I turned down my dad’s offer to dig into some Häagen-Dazs. Instead, I went straight to my room and took the hottest shower in the history of hot showers, cranking up the Mr. Steam for good measure, until I felt as dehydrated physically as I did mentally. Then I drank huge gulps of cold water straight from the tap, made a desultory effort to dry off, and crawled into bed.

  Sleep was not my friend. I lay there, staring at the shadows on my ceiling created by moonlight slanting in through the custom-made blinds. All I could think about was how royally I had screwed up my life.