by Cass Kim
She started searching for her shoes. When had so many shoes ended up piled here? And why was her nose running? She swiped a hand across her cheek, the back coming away wet with her tears and smeared with thick black mascara. What a stupid idea. She should never have come here. If she’d only known it would be at Jeremy’s house. Where the hell was Alyssa? She didn’t really need shoes anyhow. She knew how to unlatch the door. Surely if she just latched it behind her, stayed out only a minute or two, just to calm down, it would be fine. She wouldn’t leave the porch. Jeremy’s Mom lined the porch with pennies. She put fresh ones out every month, on the first of the month. Yeah. That would be okay.
Oh No. No, no, no, no, no, no. Her stomach started heaving, the beer sloshing in warning. She needed a bathroom, and she needed it now. She ran back through the hall, smashing through other kids and burst back through the door at the end of the hallway. Covering her mouth desperately with her hand she ran straight past the couple making slippery sighing noises in the bed and wrenched the bathroom door open. As she flipped back the toilet lid and bashed her knees to the ground she heard Alyssa’s voice behind her.
“Renna? Oh… Renna, oooh. Yep, we’re done here.” Renna heard Alyssa shoving the guy she’d wandered off with earlier out the bathroom door before closing it again. “This time we’re locking this door.” Then Alyssa’s cool hands were gathering up her long hair and pulling it away from her face and neck as she rubbed her back. “Just let it out. You’ll feel better.”
After what felt like hours of vomiting, but was only a few minutes, Renna had finally emptied her stomach. She sat on the floor, cushioning her head on the arm she’d rested on the edge of the tub. Alyssa sat next to her, a wash cloth she’d doused in cool water in her hand and was gently wiping the thick lines of mascara from Renna’s cheeks.
“I’m sorry I ruined the party for you,” Renna mumbled, misery choking her voice in the back of her throat. The room was still spinning slightly.
“Nah, girl.” Alyssa stopped wiping and handed her a wad of crumpled toilet paper. “Here blow your nose. Don’t worry. He wasn’t much of a kisser anyhow. He kept trying to swallow my tongue whole. I’m sorry.” Alyssa gave her the soft puppy dog eyes that said she meant her apology. “I shouldn’t have left you. You looked like you were having so much fun, I thought it would be fine. What happened?” She wiped a little more, “Based on your current state, I assume you lost at beer pong.” She held up a glass of water for Renna to sip from.
Renna snorted, “Yeah. But only by one cup.” She sipped obediently, then rolled her face into the crook of her arm and mumbled his name.
Alyssa leaned in, her blond hair tickling across Renna’s upper arm, “I could swear I just heard you say ‘Jeremy’ but I thought you weren’t going to let him get to you tonight?”
“Lyssa, I can’t help it. I hate him.” Renna started crying again, her stomach starting to roil once more. “He ruined the only good memories from our childhood.” She felt the water hit her stomach, refusing to settle comfortably in there. She turned back to the toilet. “I’m never drinking again,” she gasped before heaving into the open toilet bowl.
“You must have had a lot after I left.”
Wiping her mouth, “No. Well. Just the beer pong beer and two more shots of vodka.”
“Straight vodka?” Alyssa grinned, then forced her lips into a stern expression, “Renna, you’ve become a wild child before my very eyes. What have you done with my sober and quiet best friend?”
Renna rolled her eyes and blew her nose again, dropping the toilet paper in the bowl and depressing the handle to flush it. She yawned broadly. “I’m so tired of people calling me boring. Actually, I’m just really tired. When can we go home?”
Alyssa wrinkled her nose and checked her phone. “It’s only three in the morning. We’ve got a few more hours yet. What you really need to do is brush your teeth. Do you think Margaret still keeps a million toothbrushes in here?”
“Mrs. Bennett,” Renna stated, giving her best side-eye to her friend as she propped herself up on the counter’s edge, “probably does.” Jeremy’s mom worked as a dental hygienist a few towns over, and always seemed to have tons of those plastic wrapped toothbrushes with the dental office name and phone number embossed on the handle.
Opening random drawers, Alyssa met her eyes in the mirror of the sink as Renna swished tap water around her mouth, “Do you think she steals them? Like, this long game of having a million toothbrushes when the virus suddenly morphs and we live in Zombieland. She just takes home a few at a time. She’s just, like, stashing them in her purse as she packs up for the day. I bet people would pay a lot for a toothbrush when the world finally turns into a full apocalypse instead of this half-pocalypse, half normal life thing we got.”
Renna spit the water out, swiping her arm across her mouth. “I don’t think people will care about money then. But they might care about keeping their teeth.”
“Aha!” Alyssa triumphantly held up a clear toothbrush wrapped in thin plastic, with gold wording stamped into the plastic handle. “Man, I found the motherload!” Renna peeked over to the corner drawer. She really had. The entire drawer seemed to be stuffed with them. “Here,” Alyssa unwrapped two and handed one to Renna, dalloping a glop of toothpaste onto the one she kept and passing the tube to Renna’s drink-clumsy hands.
They brushed their teeth, taking turns spitting in the sink and washing it down, as if they’d been brushing next to each other their whole lives. As if Renna’s house hadn’t been deemed unsafe for sleepovers after the incident. Alyssa made them beds on the floor, with towels for blankets and washcloths stacked up for pillows. They lay facing each other.
“I’m so glad you brushed your teeth. I would never be able to nap with your vom breath in my face.” Alyssa‘s eyes twinkled before becoming more serious. “Remember that time Mrs. Bennett made us all brush our teeth after Jeremy’s ninth birthday party? She said we couldn’t be running around all afternoon with sugar burrowing into our adult teeth. She was always like that. Mothering us. All of us, not just Jer.”
“Yeah.” Renna smiled sadly back at Alyssa. “I used to wish she was my mom.”
“Me too.” Alyssa tugged her towel up and tucked her hands under her cheek, eyelids drooping. “I always thought that was part of why you dated him for so long. Why you put up with his shit. You loved his family just as much as you thought you loved him.”
Chapter Three
Renna’s brother was sleeping on the couch, an arm draped across his eyes to block out the sunlight streaming through the blinds, when she arrived home. Tim Tam was curled up across his ankles, and lifted his head in greeting, winking one bright green eye. Her brother slept through her re-locking the door. She tiptoed past him, resisting the temptation to flick his ear as she did. As soon as she started filling a glass with water from the tap he woke up with a start.
“Renna! Where have you been? Didn’t you see Mom’s texts? Forget that, didn’t you see mine?” Tim Tam jumped down and wound around her ankles, his tail tickling the backs of her knees.
Renna ducked her head guiltily. She had seen them. And she’d ignored them. All of them. Being hungover for the first time in your life just didn’t seem like the right time to willfully get a lecture. “Uh… yeah. Sorry. I was with Alyssa.”
He dropped his feet from the couch and sat up abruptly. “Yeah, I know. She at least had the decency to reply to my text.”
Renna’s mouth dropped open, “That little sneak! She didn’t even tell me you’d texted her.”
He walked over to the kitchen sink, taking in her dress and sniffing once deeply. “Somebody smells like alcohol and for once it isn’t me.” He grinned, the dimples that Alyssa had spent half the year fawning over when she was in love with him in eighth grade peeking out.
Renna shoved him half heartedly away, “Ugh, Benjamin I don’t want a lecture.”
He ruffled a hand through her hair, still grinning like the cat that ate the ca
nary. “Oh, don’t worry little sister. I’m not going to lecture you. But I can’t say the same for Mom whenever she sees you next.” He started thumbing the screen of his phone rapidly. “Don’t worry, I’ll text her that you’re home. She has a double today, so you’ll be safe. For now.” Their mom frequently worked doubles to help meet the bills as a single parent. They’d gotten a lump sum after their Dad’s death, but it didn’t stretch far for long. Because of the curfew, anybody who worked far away, or worked the longer shifts often slept at their jobs. Or they slept in dingy copper covered hotels that were part of a network of connected buildings in the larger cities. It wasn’t worth the risk of attack to be walking to and from a car at night. And it wasn’t worth the risk of the fines to be caught driving between 9pm and 6am.
“So tell me about the party.” He reached across her to open the medicine cupboard, thunking the bottle of painkillers next to her. “Actually, take two of these and I’ll make you Mrs. Grass soup. You can tell me while the water boils.” He ran one hand through his floppy curls as he filled a pot in the sink. Tim Tam, annoyed with the lack of attention, wandered back over to the couch to curl up.
She tapped out the pills, swallowing hard. Hopefully these stayed down. “Aren’t you supposed to measure the water?”
“I’m an expert. A hang-over expert, and a party expert. C’mon Renna. Let big brother Jammin cure this hang-over while you regale me with all the high school fun you had last night.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her, making her laugh.
“You just finished high school like…four months ago.” She edged her butt onto a stool along the counter, flipping through his sketchbook to avoid telling him about the party. He’d made some new sketches last night.
He grabbed the book from her, flipping it closed and stashing it on the opposite counter. “That’s four long months of wisdom earned while playing bars and watching people get shitfaced on a Sunday afternoon. Besides, unlike you, I knew how to drink responsibly by seventeen.”
“Is there even such a thing?” She stuck her tongue out at her brother.
“Did you ever see me freak Mom out the way you did?” He ripped the top off the box of dried soup ingredients in one smooth motion.
“Ugh. Like she even cares if I’m here or not.”
He sighed heavily, his back to her. “Not this again. Renna, she loves you, she’s just tired and she isn’t good at showing it. Now spit it out. I know there’s always some kind of drama at these things, and based on your make-up you either danced the entire night as a sweaty mess or you and Alyssa were right in the middle of it. And since you’re not much of a dancer…” he trailed off, turning back to her with his annoying brother grin in place.
She squinted her eyes at him, screwing her mouth up in a grimace. “How do you know I can’t dance?”
“Because I know you. And I know the types of girls that dance at parties.” He was the smooth unruffled artist and musician. Where Renna was serious and awkward, her brother had always been easy to talk to. It didn’t hurt that he looked like their mother, all bright blue eyes and sandy brown curls. He was the kind of boy that girls fawned over as he played bass and flashed his dimples, even when he wasn’t trying to get their attention. With a sigh, Renna gave in and began telling him the parts of the party she remembered. She never could resist telling her brother things. Even when they were younger and he used her information to get her in trouble. He was a good listener. And he’d totally take her side and curse out Jeremy, which would make her feel better.
After she’d told Benjamin the story of Jeremy acting all weird and possessive, he’d done exactly what she’d expected; he cursed out Jeremy and laughed at her vomiting story. There was something so comforting about knowing somebody well enough to predict exactly what they’d do and how they’d make you feel better. Once her stomach was full of warm chicken noodle soup and the painkillers dulled the throbbing in her head, she’d crawled upstairs and into her bed to catch up on the sleep she’d missed out on.
When Renna woke in the early afternoon, it was to the sound of acoustic music and a sultry voice drifting up the stairs. Diamond must have come over to practice the new acoustic set with Benjamin. Renna hugged a pillow to her chest and listened. Diamond and Benjamin had been playing together for ages. Usually they played a heavier set, with Diamond’s vocals belting above guitar riffs, the strength beyond impressive from her slim frame. This new sound was something entirely different. She listened as the guitar rose and peaked, then slid back down soft and intimate, with the accompanying voice oozing across the notes, warm and yearning. If she’d been born a few decades earlier, Renna had no doubt that Diamond would have been playing famous nightclubs and selling out stadiums.
With a sigh she stretched and slid out of the bed. She so needed to brush her teeth again. Grabbing her phone she went to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, and splashed water on her face. She pulled on sweatpants and a plain tee before making her way downstairs. At the landing she paused, not wanting to interrupt the song. She checked her messages, and saw she had two new texts from Alyssa.
How are you feeling? The first read, followed an hour later by, Sorry I told Jammin where you were. You’re not mad, are you?
Renna tapped back, All good.
As usual, the typing bubbled appeared immediately. Alyssa must always have her phone on ringer. Phew! Can I come over? My parents are having a huge fucking fight and I can’t stand them. Alyssa’s parents fought and made up fiercely. It was part of how she got away with leaving the house so much – half the time they were so involved in each other that they forgot to keep an eye on their daughter.
Yep. Diamond’s here and they’re practicing.
Even better. Be there in fifteen.
Renna smirked to herself as she remembered the first time Alyssa had met Diamond. It was around two years ago, before the band had a lead guitar player. Benjamin would play bass and Diamond would half play guitar while she sang. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t as good as they were now with the other band members. Alyssa had snuck over, since her parents didn’t like her at Renna’s house, and they’d sat on the couch, eyes wide watching them play. This was during one of Alyssa’s repeated phases of being a little boy crazy, with Benjamin as the star of her rotating crushes. Alyssa had immediately disliked Diamond because it was clear how much Benjamin liked the older girl.
“Did you change your name to a stage name or is Diamond your real name? It seems like it could be your name, but maybe not.” Alyssa had asked Diamond immediately after being introduced.
Diamond had looked at Alyssa for a moment and then laughed, “Would you have asked me that question if I was white, Blondie?”
Alyssa had been immediately flustered, a rare sight that Renna had secretly loved. Their small town was not very diverse. “I…uh. No? Er. Maybe.”
Diamond had laughed again, “Chill, kid. It’s a stage name, I’m just playing with you. My real name is Desdemona. My Mom was super into Shakespeare when she had me.”
“But, didn’t she, like, get smothered by her husband?”
“Yeah, ain’t that some shit? Guess she figured there weren’t many Shakespeare women that didn’t end up dead. I’ma let you in on a little secret. You don’t ask people if anything about them is fake. Don’t ask if I have a weave, don’t ask if my eyes are really green. Just figure I’ll tell you if it’s your business.”
Alyssa had nodded sagely while Renna stared between the two. “Cool.” Then Diamond had reached out and fist bumped Alyssa before picking up the guitar again. Alyssa had loved her since that moment. She idolized Diamond and her confidence.
A throat clearing startled her from the memory, “Heard you had quite the night last night, lil sis.”
Renna’s smirk grew into a grin as Diamond swayed over and hugged her close. “It was a mess. I like the new song. It’s beautiful.”
“Thanks, girl. Something new. We can’t be driving all the way to Syracuse or Albany to do bigger shows that support
the heavier sound all the time. Plus the other guys are working regular jobs more. They ain’t got the bug like Jammin and I do.”
There was a knock on the door, and Renna ran over to it, her socked feet gliding across the tiled floor. Alyssa stood with a duffle bag over her shoulder and sack of snack food in her other hand.
“It’s a bad one, I think it’s going to be a stay the night kind of night.”
“But you’re not allowed to stay the night here. Your parents have always been firm on that.” Renna eyed the sack of snacks, seeing the light blue corner of a bag of salt and vinegar chips.
“What they don’t know can’t hurt them. I’m almost eighteen anyhow.” Alyssa’s mouth was set in a firm line. “Trust me Rennoodle, they won’t even notice.”
“Is that my girl? Get your ass in here and show me what crazy outfit you have on today, Blondie.”
“Diamond!” Alyssa broke into a grin and pushed past Renna, leaving her to re-latch the copper door and bolt the regular door. Alyssa was striking poses and “modeling” her way across the living room while Benjamin scribbled in his song book and Diamond clapped for each new pose. It would be a good night, Renna could already tell. They didn’t need to go to parties to have fun. They had everything they needed right in this living room. Especially since Alyssa’d brought snacks.