Drain You

by Beth Bloom

  And they were strangers. All of them. I recognized some of the faces—I’d been at my high school for three semi-social years—but couldn’t match any of them with names. What was popularity anyway? Being known? Knowing? I could claim neither, but scenes like these made me feel like that Pavement song: an extra in the movie adaptation of the sequel to my life.

  “Who are all these people?” I shouted in Libby’s ear over the music, while she tried to dance with me to some Dr. Dre song.

  “Frosh, sophs, who knows?” she shouted back.

  “And you’re listening to rap now?”

  “We’re listening to rap now.”

  I’d always been listening to rap, and Libby’d always been sighing and making a puke face about it.

  “You look pretty,” I said.

  “Me? Yuck, whatever,” she said back, actually checking herself out in some reflection behind me. “Now you, you look crucial.”

  I loved when Libby said stuff like that to me, and for someone so totally into herself, she said stuff like that all the time.

  “This was so us when we were freshmen,” I said, looking around. “Only we were dorks.”

  “We were terrified.” She fixed my bangs.

  “Yeah, but I’m still terrified.”

  “Stop pretending you’re a loser.”

  It was true; I did do that. But I wasn’t a loser, I was Libbits Block’s best friend, and when everyone had decided that counted for something, I started to think so too.

  “Well, I didn’t come with one of them,” I said, pointing at the giant archway to the kitchen where Stiles and Sanders stood drinking with their posse. “Or two of them.”

  I’d meant it as a joke, but Libby didn’t smile.

  “Kidding. I know you’re just with Stiles.”

  “He’s cool, right?” she asked, and it was hard to tell, but maybe she really did want my opinion.

  So I told her, “He’s so cool.”

  “He’s kind of intense, though. Sometimes.”

  “So what? He’s like post-senior, he’s like grade thirteen. That’s hot. They’re all pretty hot,” I said, my eyes wandering over to them again.

  “You don’t want any of them.”

  I said, “I know,” but that hadn’t always been the case.

  “I’m serious, Quinn.”

  “I know, Libby, it’s cool.”

  “I think I might, like, love him. Is that weird?”

  “It’s not that weird.”

  “Not like I love you, of course,” Libby said, and made a face, then pushed me.

  “I love you too, you know that.” I said it because it was true, or at least it was mainly true, and that was close enough.

  “Oh God, we’re being so stupid right now.” She took a drink of her champagne.

  “Yeah,” I said, but I felt like this was so much less stupid than how we usually acted. Libby was already distracted, though, and only getting more so. Her eyes kept roving over to peer at the twins.

  Beyond them, the kitchen was packed. It was wall-to-wall, all strangers, crowded together in a throng sprawling from the refrigerator all the way to the breakfast table. People were even smoking inside, which was gross and a total Libby rule violation. My empty stomach was growling, and I saw several bowls of nondescript snacks on the kitchen counter. I looked down in my cup at the small amount of Libby’s secret champagne—I imagined most kids here were drinking some combination of Stella’s Listerine, orange juice, Mountain Dew, and five-dollar Russian vodka—and knew I needed to get to those Doritos before I found myself pressed up against some smoky-smelling freshman feeling barfy.

  “Libby, I need food….”

  “So go get some.” She winked in Stiles’s direction, wobbling tipsily. Her silver bracelets jangled with the music.

  “Fine, I will.”

  Libby shrugged and danced away, her off-white layers shimmying in unison.

  “Look away,” someone whispered low in my ear. “It’s like staring into the sun.” I didn’t have to turn around to know it was Nathan Visser, Libby’s former part-time boyfriend for years.

  “Deal with it, Nathan. She looks like a goddess with a cocktail.”

  “She looks…like a vanilla soft serve.”

  “You’re not even wearing a hat,” I said disapprovingly. But I felt for him. I knew what it was like to orbit around planet Libby.

  My mind was locked on food, though, so I kept moving. I had to eat if I was going to survive this rager. Even if the twins were guarding the chips.

  Stiles was the first to see me coming, and he looked as arrogant as always. He wore his black hair cut short on the sides and long on top so it dripped down his forehead, plastered in place by a yacht captain’s hat. He looked like a carefully styled millionaire, a classic James Spader villain. I never remembered his eyes being so light, like they were glass. Like I could see inside him and there was nothing there. And if his eyes were translucent glass, then his skin was opaque glass, smooth and white. He was an eerie, hollow dude.

  Sanders was the same, cocky and uncomfortably handsome. His black hair was parted on the side, and the longest piece reached his chin. Slick, manicured, he was nearly identical to Stiles: the creepy crystal eyes, the immaculate skin and posture, the starched chinos. Sanders held a matching captain’s hat in one hand and a plastic cup in the other. I tried to shove through them, but they stood arm to arm, forming a wall.

  “Move, you guys,” I said.

  “Already hammered and it’s only ten thirty.” Sanders clicked his tongue. His jaw was angular, harsh, a mirror reflection of his twin’s. He stared me down and up and down again. I tugged on my shorts for something to do.

  “Shouldn’t you have a skipper hat, Sanders? You can’t both be captain, so I’m guessing you’re first mate?” I still had some spit left in me before I puked on his Sperry loafers.

  “Libby said you’d be good for a laugh,” Stiles said.

  The party spun around me: disorienting fuzzy bass, sweaty shapes throbbing to the beat, strangers surrounding, Spaders encroaching. I struggled to get my headdress off before I collapsed. It was screwed on tight, the rusted lid on an empty jar.

  I tried to remember where I’d set the keys to the Lexus. I tried to summon Morgan with whatever witchy will I could muster. I sensed two bodies come up behind me, trapping me against the evil S.S. Donnelley. I turned around.

  Dewey Kaplan stood rigid and clean in crisp white jeans and a white button-down, nothing like the slacker he used to be. He too had lost all his sweet round features, the cherubic ones that a couple years ago made him seem friendly. Those were gone, replaced by a frozen mask, by a pod-person void. I remembered how he’d worn a dirty Metallica shirt in his senior yearbook photo, and I’d admitted to Libby that I thought he looked totally sick. I guess I used to sort of be into Dewey back then, when he was a hesher and had hair like Dave Grohl used to have—before he became Stiles’s and Sanders’s clone. I hadn’t really noticed their features all melting together, becoming the same vacant disguise.

  Cooper Richards was at Dewey’s side, even more expressionless, even more clone-y. He’d also thrown away his whole high school deal—basketball shorts, Air Jordans, backward Stüssy hat—for pleated pants, a tailored dress shirt, the same numbed-out vibe. How long ago had I stopped paying attention? When had they all become so similar? I barely knew Cooper when he was varsity royalty, but I could tell I didn’t want to know him now.

  He licked his lips at me and held up a brown-bagged bottle. “Thirsty? We brought our own.”

  Dewey nudged him and grabbed the bottle. “That’s not for her, man.” Then he poured for Stiles and Sanders, the red wine thick and dark in their cups. They drank deeply, gorging on it.

  “Gross, what did you spike that with? Corn syrup? It looks like pudding.” I tried to push past them again. “You’re all mental.”

  “Whoo…ooops,” Stiles said, spilling wine from his cup onto my tank top. Sanders and Dewey cracked up but Coo
per went stiff, twitching slightly, then lunged down and grabbed the hem of my shirt and started licking the stain.

  Then I heard, “What’s your problem, Richards?” and there was Morgan, reaching in and pulling me out. His helmet was gone and his breath smelled like stale beer. “Quinn, are you cool?”

  I nodded, shaking. Morgan’s soft, blemished complexion was a guiding light, completely out of place among these chiseled faces. I wanted to wrap my arms around him but couldn’t.

  “Yeah, cool as can be,” I said, straightening myself. “It’s just getting a little cult-y around here.”

  They opened up the ring and let us leave, then huddled back together, ignoring us. We moved back toward the dance area. There were twice as many people as before, and the music was twice as loud. I looked around for Libby. For Naomi. For James. Hopeless, I grabbed the beer out of Morgan’s hand and chugged.

  “Whoa, settle down there, chief,” Morgan said, but I’d already nearly emptied the can. It tasted awful.

  “I hate beer,” I moaned. “I hate this party.”

  “I thought Cooper was going to eat you.”

  “I know. I was almost to the kitchen. I just…wanted…some…” I didn’t finish. The floor scooped me up where I stood, and I blinked as it hit me. I felt my hot cheek against the shag carpet.

  “Oh, no way. I’m taking you to the bathroom.”

  “Where’s Libby?” I mumbled.

  “Nuh-uh. Bathroom, now.” Morgan hoisted me off the floor and onto his back, somehow hauling my rag-doll body up the roped-off staircase and into the quiet master bedroom. He shut the door behind us and laid me on the bed. “Seriously, Quinn, you’re wiggy.”

  “I’ve got to eat something.”

  “Savory or sweet?”

  “Savory, sir.”

  And then he was gone, bounding down the stairs to hunt and gather.

  I stumbled into the bathroom and splashed water on my face. Then I splashed water on the wine stain, but it was no use; the shirt was ruined. I stared at myself in the mirror above the sink. My face looked green. The feather headdress made it all an even more garish, cruel, crazy joke, but I was afraid if I took it off my head would come with it. Was it two in the morning?

  The bathroom clock read 10:52.

  Yeah, I was a real party animal. Whatever hopes I had of exiting Libby’s house with dignity intact were dwindling fast. But I couldn’t leave before Morgan came back with the food because, well, I needed the food so I could drive without totaling the Lexus. But if I stayed, that’d add one more point to the long-running Morgan Crandall scoreboard for undying loyalty to a girl who didn’t deserve it. My selfishness was pathetic, second only to my low alcohol tolerance and right above my socializing skills—or lack thereof. People shouldn’t even look in the mirror when they’re drunk. These kinds of self-realizations are never helpful. This wasn’t supposed to be some dark-night-of-the-soul thing. I came to…party.

  Next thing I knew I was lying on the carpet again, dialing a number on the phone by my head. The folded piece of phone-book paper had somehow unfolded, come out of my pocket, and attached itself to my left hand.

  “Hello?” Naomi sounded confused, either because she’d never given anyone her phone number—which was a real possibility—or because it was actually closer to three a.m. I looked at the clock to check that I hadn’t read it wrong. 10:57. It wasn’t too late to call on a weekend night.

  “Hey, it’s Quinn, I’m at the party. You never showed, you know?” I tried to keep it light. I tried not to sound like the worst, most out-of-it person ever.

  “When I said zero likeliness—”

  “Right.” I acted like I was brushing it off, like it totally didn’t matter if Naomi came or anyone she was related to. “I said you could borrow a hat.”

  She laughed at that. I relaxed a little.

  “So you’re not having a good time then? If you’re calling me.”

  “No, I’m having a sucky time. Whatever you’re doing has got to be a million times better. What are you doing?”

  “Watching a movie.”

  “I love movies,” I said, hitting my head against the carpet.

  “You can come over. It’s cool.” Maybe it was optimism on my part, but Naomi didn’t sound annoyed or put out. For a moment I imagined she might actually want someone to hang out with on a Saturday night. I felt a sudden victory; I was turning this night around. I could see myself in less than an hour sandwiched between James and Naomi on the couch with a movie, sharing popcorn in the dark, chatting idly through the boring parts. My body went limp just picturing it: popcorn….

  “I’m alone, though,” she added. “Like, it’d just be you and me.”

  “Where’s your brother?” It came out like a dying girl’s last wish.

  “Out doing whatever he does. I don’t even want to know.”

  I didn’t have time to think about what that could mean, because I heard Morgan’s voice at the bottom of the stairs telling someone he left his coat in the bedroom. I had maybe thirty more seconds.

  “Can I sleep over too?” The cool performance was over. Maybe there’d be another show at midnight.

  “It’s pretty boring here.” But it wasn’t a no.

  “Naomi, I am so there.” I found a pen and scribbled down her address on the phone-book page. The Sheets lived ten minutes from Libby, less than seven from me, and for a second I felt weird for never having known that. Then I felt another sharp pang of hunger. I hung up the phone just as Morgan opened the door.

  “Still starvin’, Marvin?” He reached down around me with both arms, a bag of honey mustard sourdough pretzels in one hand and a glistening, cold Diet Coke in the other. He knew me so well it was impossible to resist. If I could’ve asked God for anything in the world to eat at that moment, I would’ve asked for exactly that. It was hard to keep fighting it when all the other cute boys were cult members or unsolved mysteries.

  “Pretty much ready to black out,” I said, and let him hug me into his chest. He sniffed my hair behind the feathers.

  “Want to take this stupid thing off?” he asked, but since he was looking at all of me—all over me—I couldn’t tell if he was talking about the stained shirt or the headdress.

  “I’ll keep it on. I’m leaving in a minute anyway. It’s like a bad Jason movie down there.” I opened the pretzels and ate a handful, in heaven. “All that underage drinking and foreplay, heads are bound to roll. Stabbings are a major concern.”

  “I found the keys to the Lexus,” he said, dropping them next to me. “But you don’t have to drive home if you feel sick. I can take you, then tomorrow we could drive back here and pick it up.”

  No way was I agreeing to two more rides. I wished I’d asked for that stupid run-down Toyota when I turned sixteen instead of a trip to Hawaii with Libby. I’d traded five decent days on the beach for an eternity in the passenger seat of Morgan’s sedan.

  “My mom would flip. She told me to stay here if I couldn’t drive.”

  “Whatever. Just sleep in my sister’s room. She lets older girls have the top bunk all the time.” He smiled and fingered my tank top strap. I was almost beyond rescue. The time to escape was now. Thankfully, I was sobering up fast with the pretzels and the soda, plus the hunch that I’d have to dodge a kiss in less than a minute.

  But when he slowly leaned in for it, I stayed a solid mass and gripped the bag of pretzels in one hand and held the Diet Coke for dear life in the other. My eyes were wide blue marbles staring into an advancing blur. I was plywood, immovable. And yet somehow my lips parted to mold against the shape of his.

  “Morgan. Dude.” It was all I could say.

  “I’m thinking about…us…evolving,” he whispered.

  And I was thinking about dissolving. I had my keys and Naomi’s address; I was as good as gone. This was going to be one of my top five worst departures ever, and I had once walked right into the forest scenery while exiting stage left during a production of A Midsummer Night�
��s Dream. I played Mustardseed the fairy and had about seven lines, but I still managed to knock down half the set. For a whole semester they called me Shakes. It was only a coincidence Shakespeare had written the play.

  And that paled in comparison to this.

  He said, “Quinn,” but I was up and out the door and in the hallway before Morgan could say my name again. I wasn’t turning around for anything. I was on a mission to find Libby and end this part of the evening. I’d see James’s face before I closed my eyes tonight—I’d make it happen.

  The scene downstairs hadn’t thinned out at all. It was like a riot. Hats were off, so were most of the lights, and I had to fight to squeeze myself through the sea of teenagers. The twins were nowhere to be seen, but their doubles were lurking in the laundry room with some burnout kid. Dewey was sort of holding him up, sniffing his hair, it looked like. Inspecting his fingernails. Cooper had the door to the garage propped open, and beyond them was blackness. Not my problem. My eyes searched only for the prize: vanilla soft serve. Vanilla soft serve. The goddess with the cocktail.

  I found Nathan by the stereo. He raised his beer can to toast my Diet Coke.

  “Designated driver?” Nathan asked.

  “Designated hitter, actually.”

  “Vicious. You girls are way cruel.”

  “Whatever. Where’s Libby?”

  He shrugged. “I think I saw her go into her dad’s studio, like, ten minutes ago.”