DC Trip

by Sara Benincasa

  She and Sivan looked at everyone else, who appeared baffled.

  “Ms. Deats taught us about this just the other day,” Sivan said.

  “Weren’t you paying attention?” Peighton asked.

  “Whatever,” Brooklynn said. “The point is, we’re not gonna narc on you and you’re not gonna narc on us.”

  Gertie, Sivan, and Rachel looked at one another.

  “Sounds fair to me,” Danny Bryan said.

  “Thanks, Danny Bryan,” Rachel said. “You’re right.”

  “And who’s this guy?” Brooklynn asked.

  “That’s Danny Bryan,” Sivan said. “And those are his classmates from Lindbergh High.”

  “Wow, there’s a lot of them!” Peighton said. “I thought it would just be the field hockey team. Let’s go hang out with them.” And she, Brooklynn, Kaylee, Rachel, and Sivan walked away.

  Danny looked at Gertie. Gertie looked at Danny.

  “I guess we should probably go hang out with everybody else,” Danny said, a little reluctantly. “We can’t just be a Camp Willope clique of two. I don’t want to keep you from your friends.”

  “Of course!” Gertie said, even though she was slightly crushed. But she didn’t want him to know that. She hopped up immediately. “Let’s go.”

  “Oh, you actually want to?” Danny said. He sounded slightly disappointed, or maybe Gertie was just imagining that.

  They walked over to the crowd, above which rose a thick cloud of marijuana smoke. Danny and Gertie coughed.

  “Danny!” one of his buddies called. “C’mere, bro! You gotta check out my new pipe! It’s fucking beautiful, man.”

  “Um, okay,” Danny said. He looked at Gertie apologetically. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “Sure,” Gertie said, and jammed her hands in the pockets of her thin hoodie.

  Rachel immediately sidled up and hissed, “OMG, Gertie, this is fucking AMAZING!!!”

  “Shh!” Gertie hissed back. “We’re like surrounded by Lindbergh kids. I don’t want anybody to hear that I’m like this lifelong Danny Bryan fangirl.”

  “Oh my God,” Rachel said. “Look at that.” She pointed and Gertie grabbed her.

  “What. The. Fuck,” Gertie said, her eyes wide.

  Coming down the steps, laughing like old friends, were Brock Chuddford and Carter Bump.

  Shocked, Rachel ran up to them. “Brock, you didn’t like kidnap Carter or something, did you?”

  “Naw,” Carter said before Brock could answer. “Word spread fast. We heard the mean girls were sneaking out, so we decided to come too, because it’s not fair that mean girls should have all the fun. Good to see you here, Rachel.” He smiled at her, and she found herself feeling a little warm inside. Must be the weed.

  “We brought a few people,” Brock said, jerking his thumb back.

  And then, as if out of nowhere, most of the small Flemington High School sophomore class appeared. Laughing and smiling, they joined in the mix of the Lindbergh High seniors and started introducing themselves. Many of them had met on the field of battle at a lacrosse game or football game or wrestling match, but it was the first time most of them had actually said hello to one another.

  “But how—” Rachel started, and Brock cut her off.

  “It was Bump’s idea,” Brock said. “He found a bus map of D.C. and figured out we could call room to room in the hotel and tell everybody the plan. So we just took the bus here.”

  “Figured they can’t make the entire grade go to summer school, right?” Carter said.

  “The bus!” Rachel said, snapping her finger. “Dammit! We could’ve taken the bus. I should’ve thought of that.” She looked at Carter Bump. “You’re good, Carter,” she said. “You’re real good.”

  “Thanks,” Carter said. “I’m also fucking drunk.”

  “Me too!” Rachel said, and they burst into giggles together.

  “Nice work, bro,” Brock said, and clapped Carter on the back. Then he waded into the center of the crowd, presumably to find some weed.

  “So you guys are friends now,” Rachel said.

  “Yeah,” Carter said. “But I guess weirder shit than that has gone down in this town.”

  “Absolutely,” Rachel said. They smiled at each other for a long moment, and then Rachel did something very impulsive: she hugged him and kissed him on the cheek.

  Carter hugged her back. Then at some point it stopped being a hug and started being something more. It just lasted longer than a hug would or should. He smelled really good—like really, really good. Rachel had never smelled anybody who smelled like he did. It wasn’t cologne and it wasn’t deodorant … it was just … him.

  She looked at him and he looked at her and Rachel realized for the very first time that he had beautiful blue eyes. Without even meaning to, she moved her lips closer and closer to his—

  “Hold on,” Carter said, stepping back from her. “Not yet. Not here.”

  Rachel was shocked—both by what she’d done and by his response.

  “I don’t know why I just did that,” Rachel said, aghast. “Or why you just did that.”

  “I applaud your impulse,” Carter said. “But you’re drunk and you don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “I do know what I’m doing,” Rachel said, as she realized it was true. “I know exactly what I’m doing. And it’s freaking me out.”

  “Look, Rachel,” Carter Bump said. “I’m going to be honest with you. We both know what’s going on here.”

  “I know,” Rachel said.

  “You have a crush on me,” they both said at the same time.

  They stared at each other.

  “What?” Rachel said. “I’m not into you like that.”

  “Yes, you are,” Carter Bump said. He wasn’t being mean or snooty or cocky. He was just stating it kindly, like it was any other fact. “You have been since seventh grade science class. I dissected your frog for you. Remember?”

  Rachel’s brain whooshed back in time, and suddenly she was standing there, in science class, being berated by the teacher for crying because she felt so bad for the poor dead frog.

  “Mr. Peck,” seventh grade Carter Bump said, putting a gentle hand on seventh grade Rachel’s shoulder. “It’s okay that she has feelings about frogs. She’s just a really compassionate person. She’ll calm down.”

  Mr. Peck had looked at Carter. He hesitated for a moment, then his face softened. All the teachers at their middle school had a soft spot for the son of the local fallen war hero.

  “You know what, Carter?” he said. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Rachel. You cry all you need to. You can do the alternate assignment instead. But you have to do one of the assignments or else you get a zero.”

  “Th-thanks, Mr. Peck,” seventh grade Rachel had said. The teacher walked away, and she looked right into Carter Bump’s eyes. She smiled at him softly. He smiled back. And she felt—something. Something big. Something she didn’t have a word for, exactly.

  Then one of the cool soccer players hurled a dead frog that hit Carter Bump in the head, and the spell was broken.

  Tenth grade Rachel was gobsmacked by the memory.

  “Fucking A, Carter,” she said slowly. “You’re right. I must have repressed it because you’re so dorky.” She clapped her hand over her mouth. “I didn’t mean it—I mean, I don’t mean—”

  “It’s okay,” Carter said. “I am a dork.”

  “But are you my dork?” Rachel asked, her eyes filling with drunk tears.

  Carter paused and swayed back and forth for a moment. Then he caught his balance again.

  “Time will tell, Rachel,” Carter said. “But we have to see if we connect. I mean, I want to make out with you. I really do.”

  “Thank you,” Rachel said.

  “You’re welcome,” Carter said. “But I want to get to know you better first. I want to hear what you think about things.”

  “You do?” Rachel said incredulously. “But why?”

&nbs
p; “Because you’re you,” Carter said simply, and that’s when tenth grade Rachel felt the exact same thing seventh grade Rachel had felt. She smiled, and he reached out and touched her face.

  And while a dead frog didn’t interrupt this particular moment, something worse did: a cop.

  “Hey!” yelled a police officer who popped up seemingly out of nowhere. “Hey! Hey, you kids aren’t allowed to be here!”

  A collective scream arose from the crowd (Brock Chuddford’s scream may have been the highest-pitched of all) and they all started running. It was a stampede of stoned, drunk Jersey teenagers, and the security guard seemed more terrified than angry, but the kids were too freaked out to notice.

  Carter grabbed Rachel’s hand.

  “RUN!” he yelled, and they did.

  “But what about my friends?” Rachel yelled as their legs carried them away from the memorial.

  “They’ll be fine!” Carter yelled.

  Gertie looked around desperately for Danny Bryan, but he was nowhere in the wild crowd. Then she turned and bumped right into him.

  “Gertie!” he said. “Get out of here! I’ll see you back in Jersey!”

  “Okay!” she said. “Promise?”

  “YES!” he shouted, squeezing her hand for a moment, and they both took off running in opposite directions.

  Sivan and Peighton found themselves near each other, racing for the street. Sivan wasn’t much of an athlete, and she started to lag a little.

  “C’mon!” Peighton yelled, grabbing her arm and pulling her along. “We can’t stay! We gotta get out of here!” Her hand slid down, and she and Sivan clasped hands. Sivan suddenly felt a new burst of energy, and she ran faster and faster, hand in hand with Peighton.

  The Lincoln Memorial was clear in no time, just as the sun was rising.

  Between Carter Bump’s bus schedule and the surprising abundance of early morning cabs in D.C., the Flemington High School sophomores got back safe and sound—if still drunk and high. They felt victorious. They felt like winners. They felt so amazing, in fact, that they forgot to do certain important things like brush their teeth before they caught a half hour of sleep, or take out their contact lenses, or—in the case of Gertie, Sivan, and Rachel—keep the masking tape intact.

  In fact, they walked right through the tape, dizzy with love and lust and other chemicals.

  “Oh, fuck,” Rachel whispered. “The tape! The tape!”

  “It’s fine,” Sivan said, the warmth and pressure of Peighton’s hand still on her mind. “Ms. Deats will probably forget.”

  “Sivan’s right,” Gertie said happily. “She won’t notice. Let’s get some sleep.”

  “Okay,” Rachel said, and they all flopped down onto one little double bed, clothes on, and passed out immediately.

  BEEP BEEP BEEP.

  Alicia Deats woke with a start at the sound of the alarm. That’s funny—her own alarm was the tinkling of windchimes. Had she accidentally set her phone alarm to some generic abrasive beep at seven a.m.?

  Then she looked around.

  Oh. Right.

  She’d spent the night fucking the shit out of Brian Kenner.

  And it had been extraordinary.

  “Shit,” Brian said, waking up and turning off his alarm. “Is it—oh, hi.” His sleepy eyes met hers, and he smiled warmly.

  “Hey, you,” he said.

  Alicia felt like the spirit of Etta James had entered the room specifically to croon “At Last” to both of them at that exact moment. She was over the moon. She was up in the stars, floating, so happy. She was—

  “Oh, gosh!” she said, sitting bolt upright. “The kids can’t see me coming out of your room! Especially not in the clothes I wore last night!”

  Brian laughed.

  “You’re not exactly in any clothes right now,” he pointed out.

  “Thank you,” Alicia said, hitting him with a pillow. “Very helpful.”

  “Oh, they’re not up yet,” he said, batting the pillow away. “I think you’re good. If anyone sees you, we can just say we had a very important early morning meeting. In my hotel room. Alone.” They both giggled and blushed.

  “Okay, well, um,” Alicia said, struggling to get into her clothes. She gathered her laptop and smoothed her hair. “Um. Thank you for a very nice evening. And I guess I will see you at breakfast.”

  “I guess you will,” he said, flashing that perfect grin, and she almost melted into a puddle right there on the spot.

  She peered cautiously out the door before actually moving into the hallway. No kids. Not one.

  Relieved, she tiptoed into the hallway, quietly closing the door behind her. She moved stealthily down the hall, like some kind of hippie ninja, and was not too far from her door when something caught her eye.

  The tape on the girls’ door.

  It was broken.

  Alicia felt her heart drop. Oh, God. The girls had sneaked out again. Were they home? Were they safe?

  She paused and cocked her ear. She could hear light snoring from within the room. Relieved, she let her shoulders drop.

  And that’s when she got angry.

  She had been the one to fight for them. She had been the one to give them chances. And now they abused her trust like this—again?

  No fucking way.

  Sure, she was high off a night of great sex, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t snap right back into teacher mode.

  Alicia Deats had hit her limit.

  She banged on the door louder than she’d ever banged on a door before. She didn’t just do it once or twice or even three times. She kept doing it, loud and insistent, until finally she heard someone move toward the door. She stopped only when Sivan actually physically opened the door.

  Alicia narrowed her eyes and stared down into Sivan’s guilty face.

  “You lied to me,” she said. She didn’t shout it, but she said it pretty loudly. As she’d already woken the floor up with banging on the door, it was no surprise that heads began poking out of doors up and down the hall.

  “N-no I didn’t,” Sivan said, staring at the floor.

  “Yes you did,” Alicia said. “I put my trust in you, and you lied to me. And now you’re lying about lying. Where did you go last night?”

  “Um …” Sivan said. “Uh …”

  The other two girls rushed up behind her. At the same time, Brian hurried to see what was going on.

  “Nowhere!” Rachel said quickly. “Well, I mean, we went somewhere. We were—we were—”

  “We were so moved by what we saw at the American Indian Museum,” Gertie said. “You know, the Trail of Tears part? Anyway, we were really upset. So we went down to the lobby to talk about our feelings.”

  “You went down to the lobby to talk about your feelings,” Alicia repeated slowly. “And you expect me to believe that?”

  “We just needed a change of scenery,” Rachel said. “Brighter colors, people moving around. We knew it was wrong and we felt bad but we just—needed to cheer up. That’s as far as we went. We didn’t leave the hotel.”

  “We definitely didn’t leave the hotel,” Sivan said, nodding vigorously.

  “I do not believe you went down to the lobby to talk about your feelings,” Alicia said. “And why are you all dressed up like that? You’re going to tell me you got up to talk about your feelings, then came back to bed, slept, woke up, and got fully made up and dressed up for a trip to the White House? Already? I don’t believe you for one minute. Especially about the feelings part.”

  “I do,” said Brian. Everyone looked at him, shocked.

  “Feelings can be … complicated,” Brian continued. “Sometimes it takes talking it out for a while before the feelings start to make sense.”

  Alicia looked at him and felt warm and sweet inside again. He looked back at her. They both smiled.

  Sivan looked at Rachel. Rachel looked at Sivan. Gertie looked at Alicia and Brian.

  “Oh,” she said quietly, recognizing what passed between t
hem.

  “Oh, what?” Alicia asked, snapping back to attention.

  “Oh … we were wrong,” Gertie said. “We know we were wrong. And we’re really sorry.”

  “Well, this is your second strike,” Alicia said.

  The girls gasped.

  “She’s right,” Brian said. “This is your second strike. It’s good that you didn’t go far and we know you didn’t mean any harm by it. But rules are rules. Just behave perfectly the rest of the trip and we won’t have to talk about summer school.” He paused. “We won’t even have to tell your parents. Again, unless there’s a strike three.”

  “There won’t be,” Rachel said. “We promise. Thank you so much. We’ll get ready for breakfast now.”

  “So will I,” Alicia said, and it was then that the girls noticed she was wearing the same clothes as the previous day.

  Alicia noticed them noticing.

  “I, uh,” Alicia said. “I stayed up reading Noam Chomsky all night.” The girls nodded as if this were a perfectly normal thing to say, apropos of nothing.

  Alicia rushed off to her room, leaving thoughts of the girls behind her momentarily. She needed to shower. She needed to put on fresh clothes. And she needed to reconsider trying to put on some of that makeup her sister had given her. Because of Brian. Who was so cute, and so handsome, and so sexy, and smelled so good up close.

  She stripped quickly and jumped in the shower. As the hot water hit her skin, she reflected that maybe now was a decent time to reconsider that whole no-masturbating-in-the-morning thing.

  After all, it was a stress reliever, right?

  Everyone who’d gone out that night was hung over. Of the trio of girls, Gertie was by far in the worst shape. Gertie puked twice before they left for breakfast. She reflected that she would never, ever, ever drink tequila ever again if this was what it did to you.

  The whole grade got to breakfast early, and the buffet hadn’t officially opened yet. As the food workers bustled about preparing everything, Rachel, Gertie, and Sivan held their stomachs.

  “I’m starving,” Rachel moaned.

  “How can I be so hungry when I’m so fucking nauseous?” Gertie groaned.

  “I honestly don’t feel that bad,” Sivan said.