“You don’t want to seem desperate,” Kylie told her.
After a while they left the front and went into the short hallway, but Rose pulled back when Kylie went to enter the room with the dancing throng. Instead, she diverted them to the left, drawn by a clattering noise and a peal of good-natured laughter. They walked into the kitchen, where a bunch of girls had gathered and were filling boxes with empty beer bottles and a tiny table had been stacked with maybe a dozen presents. A blonde in a fitted green top and tight black pants was carefully pouring rum into a bowl of red punch. Ice and sliced oranges floated on top.
Rose recognized her just from the way she stood.
When Courtney glanced up from the punch bowl and saw her, her face mirrored Rose’s surprise.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Courtney muttered to a curvy brunette.
The other girls in the kitchen turned to look at Rose and Kylie. Two of them Rose recognized from Courtney’s table in the cafeteria at St. Bridget’s. Others looked older, presumably Chloe King’s sister and her friends or roommates. If Chloe herself was in the room, Rose had no idea which one she might be.
“What are you doing here?” Courtney asked.
“We were invited,” Kylie announced.
Courtney practically sneered, looking over at the older girls. “By who?”
“None of your business,” Kylie said.
“Really? That’s your wittiest quip?” Courtney said. “‘None of your business’? Want to take a few minutes and try to come up with something clever?”
Kylie opened her mouth to reply but Rose grabbed her arm and gave it a squeeze, silencing her.
“Actually, clever would be wasted on you, so, no,” Rose said. She dipped her head in the direction of the older girls, who were smirking at the way Courtney bristled at the insult. “Sorry for the intrusion.”
Loving the annoyed scowl on Courtney’s face, Rose led Kylie from the kitchen with a smile on her face. She had no interest in staying any longer at the party. If Courtney and her friends were mixing punch, they were obviously pretty tight with Chloe, and Rose did not feel like celebrating the birth of one of the shallow cheerleaders or basketball bitches who were part of that clique.
“That was a thing of beauty,” Kylie said.
“Let’s get out of here,” Rose replied, guiding her through the crowd, glancing around in the hope of a Jared sighting.
“Hey, Coma Girl, wait up!”
Rose turned to see Courtney and her two friends making their way through the room. One girl had a stack of plastic cups and the other carried the punch bowl in both arms, moving carefully so as not to slosh any over the sides. But Courtney had a clear plastic cup full of punch in her hand and she held it out like a peace offering.
“Don’t run off so fast, Rose,” Courtney said, a thin smile turning her features even icier than usual. “Have a drink first. We’re going to toast Chloe’s birthday. Raise a glass. After all, you were invited.”
Even over the music, fifteen or twenty people turned to watch this exchange. Rose felt the pressure of their attention. She didn’t want to come off as a party crasher, no matter how many of them had also come without a real invitation, and if Courtney was going to pretend to be nice, Rose didn’t want to be seen as a bitch herself.
Almost involuntarily, she reached for the cup.
Courtney pretended to stumble and splashed the cup of rum punch all over Rose’s blouse, the sticky, icy liquid instantly soaking through the fabric, the red stain spreading. A lot of people laughed, but she saw several recoil in disapproval.
“Oops,” Courtney said, covering her mouth in a theatrical show of regret. “I’m soooo sorry.”
Kylie started toward the girl but Rose put an arm out to stop her. The music still pounded the air, but conversation had dropped to whispers of scandalized amusement. All eyes were on Rose. She thought about how she would explain the stain to her aunts—not the punch, but the rum. Surely the smell would be impossible to hide.
She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. But in her encounters with Courtney, first at school and now here, Rose had discovered that underneath the anxiety that always seemed to be bubbling on the surface of her thoughts, she possessed a steely core. She had stood up to Courtney before, and each time it infuriated the girl more. That was what had driven her to this new cruelty. She wanted to humiliate Rose into subservience and silence.
A bold smile blossomed on Rose’s face. That wasn’t going to happen.
“Wow, Courtney, that was awesome,” she said.
Courtney’s grin was full of malice. She started to reply, but Rose forged ahead.
“Really, congratulations on the success of your oh-so-cunning plan,” Rose said. Shocked at her own behavior, but also exhilarated by it, she began to unbutton her shirt, knowing that if people had been watching before, they would be staring in riveted fascination now. “I mean, you could have put a little effort into it and come up with something truly cruel, maybe used just a tiny sliver of imagination, but then you would have ruined the image you’ve obviously worked so hard to build.”
Feeling as though she had stepped outside herself, as though she watched this brash behavior through someone else’s eyes, Rose stripped off her stained shirt and mopped the sticky dampness of the punch from her belly and her bra-clad breasts.
“What the hell are you doing?” Courtney asked, wide-eyed.
Rose glanced over at Kylie. “Can I borrow your jacket?”
Kylie said nothing, silenced for once by her own surprise. She slipped off her jacket and handed it over.
“I just want you to know that I get it,” Rose said as she put on the jacket and began to button it. “Okay, I’m Coma Girl, but I’ve seen enough movies and watched enough bad TV since I woke up to know how it works. Blond cheerleader, keeping your place in the hierarchy through sheer nastiness. It’s a classic. I get that it would be hard to come up with an original spin, so it’s easier to just be a cliché. Job well done. You’ve achieved it. You are a cliché.”
Courtney’s smile had vanished. She glanced nervously around at all of the people who were watching the show, including her friends, but none of them jumped to her defense.
“You… you…” she said.
Rose shrugged. “I know. I went off script. But don’t worry. You don’t have to say anything. Have a drink. Raise a glass to Chloe. It’s her birthday.”
With that, a cheer went up. People hooted and applauded and shouted happy birthdays to Chloe. Courtney stared furiously at Rose, but others moved between them, the crowd filling the spaces, some teasing Courtney and others smiling at Rose, full of sudden admiration and goodwill.
“That was epic,” Kylie said into her ear.
Rose felt cold inside, but a warm ember began to burn off that chill. She smiled.
“Thanks,” she said, holding her ruined shirt in one hand. “I can’t believe I just did that.”
Kylie’s friend Dom joined them and soon they were part of a cluster of half a dozen St. Bridget’s students chattering about cliques and clichés and the spanking—as Dom called it—that Rose had just given Courtney. When Rose glanced around a few minutes later, Courtney was nowhere to be seen, lost in the crowd or having retreated back into the kitchen.
Rose wanted to leave. She could have stayed and basked in the approval of people who had enjoyed Courtney’s humiliation—and probably also enjoyed the sight of her in a wet bra—but now that her own pleasure at having slapped the girl down had begun to wear off, the victory felt hollow and a little ugly.
She glanced around for Kylie and saw her talking to Dom near the table being used as a bar. But as she started toward them, she felt a gentle touch upon her shoulder and turned to find herself face-to-face with Jared.
“I hear I missed all the excitement,” he said.
Rose smiled, but only halfheartedly. “Yeah. So much fun.”
Jared’s eyes narrowed with concern. “Are you okay?”
�
�I’ve been better. It’s pretty awkward. I’m feeling like I shouldn’t be here.”
Jared pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. With his hair a mess and in a navy blue shirt open at the collar revealing a beaded leather choker, he looked entirely different from the guy she’d met at school. But the eyes were the same, full of unspoken feeling. And in casual clothes, out of uniform, he looked older than his years. She had to fight the temptation to touch him.
“We could go outside and talk,” he said. “On the steps. Or maybe there’s a deck or patio in the back.”
Rose glanced at Kylie, who was deeply engaged in animated conversation with Dom, just as emphatic and enthusiastic about whatever topic she was discussing as she always seemed to be. She seemed to sense Rose watching her and looked up, gave a goofy little smile and a wave, and then went back to focusing on Dom.
Go outside and talk, Rose thought. She had her punch and rum soaked shirt in her hand, wore only a bra beneath her borrowed jacket, was at a party she had not been invited to where people were drinking boatloads of alcohol, and this guy who made her knees weak wanted to spend some time in intimate conversation away from the crowd.
Aunt Suzette and Aunt Fay would have taken turns having heart attacks.
“Okay,” Rose said. “Let’s go.”
There were too many people crowded on the back deck, so Rose and Jared wandered into the small fenced yard in back of the house and, to their delight, discovered a bench beneath an old oak. Abandoned beer bottles indicated that it had not been vacant for long, so they had gotten lucky.
The noise of the party spilled out of the house, but somehow the space around them seemed intimate regardless of the loud laughter from the deck. Fallen leaves danced along the grass with each breath of the night breeze, making a crinkling sound that Rose loved. The October moon shone brightly down upon them, the sky clear save for the occasional wisp of cloud. Though they were in the city, somewhere nearby someone had a wood-burning stove and the smell alone warmed Rose.
They talked about school, mostly. Jared talked about his favorite teachers, about football, about some of the kids he had been in class with since elementary school. But after a while he seemed to become reticent and several brief silences arrived to interrupt the conversation.
“So, Kylie says you’re sweet,” Rose said.
Jared arched an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“And what do you think?” he asked.
Rose smiled. “So far, so good. I want to know more about you, though.”
He shrugged. “Like what?”
“Your family. Your life. Your girlfriends.”
Jared glanced away, almost shyly, and Rose liked that very much.
“My parents are pretty cool, I guess. As for my life… it’s kind of what-you-see-is-what-you-get. When I’m not in school or at football practice, I play guitar or watch TV. I like to read—”
“Old books,” Rose said.
Jared chuckled softly. “Kylie told you that?”
Rose nodded. “Maybe you can recommend something. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
“Jack London. Jane Austen. Dickens. I love all of that stuff. I’m reading T. S. Eliot right now—The Waste Land. I understand hardly any of it, but it’s still cool just trying to soak it in, make some sense of it.”
His passion for the subject lit up his eyes, but when he saw her watching him, he seemed to grow embarrassed.
“Sorry. It’s kind of lame, I know. Totally uncool.”
Rose smiled. “No. I like that you’re so into it. Besides, I don’t know the first thing about what’s cool.”
His hand touched hers, and their fingers twined together. She wasn’t sure who had initiated it, but she liked the contact very much.
“Tell me more,” she said.
This time Jared didn’t look away. He looked into her eyes.
“I read about all of these amazing places, and I want to see them all. To travel. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time, not just across the ocean,” he said. Then he grinned. “But across the ocean will do.”
Rose thought about the ocean. “Do you like to swim?”
“Yeah. I love the beach.”
That’s one thing, Rose thought. The more she learned about Jared, the closer she felt to him. She didn’t know much about herself, but her aunts had told her that she loved the sea, so she and Jared had one thing in common, at least. For the rest… she would have to learn more about herself to know how compatible they really were.
But it certainly felt good being with him.
“You didn’t say anything about girlfriends,” she reminded him, teasing a little.
“I don’t have one, if that’s what you mean,” Jared replied.
Rose smiled, and for a time they enjoyed the relative quiet of the night together, the muffled roar of the party forgotten.
“It’s beautiful out here,” Rose said, after a time.
“Yeah. It is. I love this time of year. Pumpkins and Halloween and all of that,” Jared said, but he glanced away from her.
“What is it?”
“What’s what?” he asked.
“Something’s bothering you.”
Jared smiled, almost sadly. “Not really. I’m just feeling badly, I guess.”
Rose pushed her hair away from her face, keenly aware suddenly of how close they were sitting to each other, their knees touching, his hand on his thigh only inches from hers.
“Why?”
He shrugged. “I sound like a jerk, talking about myself like this. You… I mean, I want to know more about you. I’m curious about you.”
“Me, too,” Rose said with a sheepish look. “Truth is, there isn’t much to tell. I’ve been on this… what’s the phrase? Crash course. I’ve been on a crash course in how to be an American teenager. I know all of this stuff, but I’m not sure how I know it or what the frame of reference is. What little I do remember, things I understand, feels more like data from a computer file than actual experience. It’s experience I can’t recall.”
Jared leaned toward her. “Wow. Nothing?”
“Next to nothing,” she said. “I have dreams that seem like they’re trying to remind me of things I’ve forgotten. And obviously not much shocks me, so a lot of stuff that feels familiar must just be locked in the attic of my brain or something. But in other ways it’s all new to me. Other than reading books and watching TV and movies and shopping in Boston with my aunts, everything I’m doing really is like the first time for me.”
Jared shifted a little on the bench, his leg pressing more fully against hers. For a moment he just looked at her, an odd smile on his face. Rose wondered if he could see her cheeks reddening in the moonlight or hear the pounding of her heart even with all the noise from the house.
“So as far as you know, this is the first party you’ve ever been to,” he said.
Rose nodded. “Yes.” The word came out as barely more than a whisper.
The stray lock of her hair had fallen across her face again. Jared reached out to push it aside, his hand lingering, and Rose held her breath.
“And if I kissed you, as far as you know…” he said, letting the words linger in the space between them.
Her heart beat against the cage of her chest like a frightened bird. For what seemed an eternity, their gazes were locked together and she felt mesmerized, unable to look away. Then Jared dipped his head slightly, the preamble to a kiss, and her paralysis was broken. She glanced away.
“It would be my first,” she admitted. “But I can’t. I… God, I know how this sounds, but I promised.”
A rush of embarrassment went through her. She felt foolish and ridiculous and wanted to find Kylie and go home. But the thought of leaving Jared behind, of surrendering the delicious intimacy they had created around themselves like some sort of magic bubble, filled her with sadness.
He touched two fingers to her chin, tilted her face up toward his, and then those deep, bro
wn eyes had caught her again. Jared bent toward her and she did not pull away. His lips brushed hers and she closed her eyes and gave in to him, all of her self-control pouring out of her with that single kiss. It lingered and her first kiss became her second, and then she understood that this was no singular thing, nothing that could be tallied like points in some game. He pushed his hands through her hair and brushed her cheek with the pad of his thumb before slipping his arms around her and holding her close. She wondered if he could feel her heart pounding even through Kylie’s jacket and imagined she could feel his, wished that she could be sure, shocking herself with the desire to remove the jacket and anything else that kept their heartbeats from meeting.
When he kissed her neck, Rose let out a soft moan. That sound, and the feeling that came with it, woke her up. Her eyes snapped open and she pulled back from him, wetting her lips with her tongue, glancing around at anything and everything but Jared. She reached up and touched her hair, then the collar of the jacket, frantic with fear of the things she had been feeling.
“Rose?”
“I’m sorry. I promised,” she said, picking up her stained shirt and pushing herself up from the bench. “I need to go home.”
“Hey,” Jared said, standing up and catching her hand so gently. “I shouldn’t have… I didn’t mean to upset you. I just thought…”
Rose took a deep, shuddering breath. She rolled her eyes at the melodrama of it all and tried to steady herself, turning to him.
“It’s okay,” she said, smiling and shrugging at the same time. “I mean, really okay. I’m glad, I’m just not… it’s quick for me. I’m like a brand-new person, y’know? I just have to kind of sort out all the stuff running around my head, okay?”
When Rose Wakes Page 10