by Benway,Robin
“Just act natural,” I told her, and Oliver cracked up as we both climbed out of the car. “Here,” he said, bending down a little. “Climb on.”
Caro looked wary, but jumped up on his back and wrapped her arms around Oliver’s neck. “This is both super weird and really helpful,” she said, trying to pull down her skirt in the back so that she wouldn’t flash half of Canyon Crest.
“You’re welcome,” Oliver said. “Can you, um, loosen your grip a little, though? My neck.” He coughed and winced.
“Oh, sorry, sorry.” Caro readjusted herself, then looked down at me and grinned. “You look so little from up here.”
“You’re, like, six inches away from me,” I pointed out as the three of us (well, two and a passenger) trekked it toward Drew’s house. The last time we had all gone to Drew’s house, it had been for Drew’s fourth birthday party, but I could still picture Oliver, Caro, and I trudging up the driveway, gifts in hand.
“It’s a dramatic change,” Caro told me, unaware of what I had been thinking. “You don’t understand because you’re average height.”
Oliver just hefted her higher onto his back. “Caro, your shoes. Ow.”
“Oh, sorry, sorry.” She dug her heels out of his sides. “My bad.”
We hiked up Drew’s driveway (empty, of course) and I almost slipped in the loose gravel, grabbing Caro’s ankle at the last second to steady myself and almost pulling the three of us down to the ground in the process. “If I die . . .” Caro warned.
“If you die?” Oliver said, trying to right both himself and me. “Who makes driveways like this in real life? Why is it so long?”
“Because if you can afford this driveway, you can afford the car that’s good enough to drive on it,” I said. “It’s a show-off thing.”
“Well, where’s Drew’s car?” he asked, looking around.
“In the garage,” Caro said, gesturing a little without actually letting go of Oliver.
“Stop talking, we’re almost there,” I said.
Drew gets a little twitchy when people talk about his parents’ money. “It’s not even mine,” he says whenever someone brings it up, then he changes the subject.
Sometimes, the things people don’t say are louder than the words that come out of their mouths.
“You should’ve seen the moat they tried to put in,” I whispered to Oliver in a not-very-whispery voice as we climbed up the (massive, seriously) front steps. “Zoning laws and all that, but trust me, it could have been epic.”
“Well, an alligator is one thing,” Oliver said without missing a beat. “But when you need five or six, that’s a different story.” He grinned down at me as Caro slid off his back.
Caro noticed, though. “He’s picking up what you’re throwing down,” she whispered to me as Oliver started to knock on the door. “Wait, no, what are you doing?” She interrupted him, reaching up to stop his hand before he knocked again. “This is a party, you just go in.”
“Lead the way,” Oliver said, but Caro took an extra second to give me a Meaningful Look before plowing through the front door.
It looked like things were already in full swing. I could hear Drew’s brother, Kane, laughing from somewhere deep inside the house—or maybe it was just in the next room. Drew’s house was so large and the ceilings were so high that it made the acoustics weird, like that whispering spot at the US Capitol. (We took a field trip in eighth grade. And yes, my mom was a parental chaperone. No surprise there.)
“Hey!” I heard Drew yell, and he appeared at the top of the stairs, already on his way to very drunk and with a bottle of something in his hand. It was actually a double staircase, one on either side of the foyer that met at the landing at the top. We recorded ourselves acting out a scene from Romeo and Juliet on that balcony for an English assignment back in freshman year, when Caro swooned so much that she nearly fell over the railing. “A-plus for effort,” our teacher had said when he saw the footage, but we ended up with a B-minus, anyway.
“Remember?” I grinned, turning to Oliver. It was instinctive and accidental, like my brain could place him there even though he hadn’t been there at all.
“Remember what?” he replied. His eyes were sort of wide and I realized that Drew’s house was probably a smidge overwhelming, what with the staircases and the noise and the total strangers.
“Nothing,” I said. “We should get something to drink.”
“A-fucking-men,” Caro echoed, and we went past some of Kane’s friends and into the kitchen, where a keg was sitting on the granite-topped island with dozens of beer bottles and red cups scattered around it.
“I see Kane brought the refreshments,” I said, taking stock of everything. There was a bowl of Cheez Doodles on the counter next to a spilled cup and I grabbed it and held it to me. “Grab snacks when you see them,” I said to Oliver when he raised an eyebrow at me. “Otherwise they become victims of beer-pong games gone wrong.”
“Ah,” he said, then took a bag of chips that still hadn’t been opened.
“Good, you learn fast,” I said.
“Too bad I’m a Cheez Doodle kind of guy.”
“Yeah, that is too bad,” I teased. “Because these are mine and they’re going to be delicious and—”
“Hiiiiiiiiiii!” Drew said, suddenly draping himself over both Oliver and me. “You made it!”
“It wasn’t exactly a treacherous drive,” I pointed out, then gave him an awkward one-arm hug while protecting my Cheez Doodles.
“Did you have to go into Caro and Heather’s bedroom?” Drew asked, and I nodded. “Then trust me, it was treacherous. But you survived. You’re here now! You’re alive!”
“It feels like everyone’s here,” Oliver commented as two people jostled past him.
“How drunk are you?” I asked Drew. “Here, have a Cheez Doodle.”
“He gets one?” Oliver cried.
“I get two,” Drew announced, then popped them into his mouth. “Sorry, dude, I live here. I get preferential treatment. And to answer your question, Ems, I am somewhere between that one bonfire last summer and that time that you and Caro and I went to Steve’s party before finals week.”
“So, kind of drunk but on your way to very, very drunk?”
He bopped my nose. “Exactly.” He let go of both of us to greet someone else. Oliver, sensing his opening, immediately dove for the Cheez Doodles.
“Hey!” I yelped. “You have tortilla chips!”
“They’re boring! And unsalted!” Oliver shook the bag in my face. “Besides, fake orange cheese is meant to be shared with friends.” He dug his hand into the bowl and ate a huge handful, then smiled at me with a huge, cheesy (no pun intended) grin.
“That is so gross,” I said, trying not to laugh and trying not to show how I didn’t think it was that gross at all, not really.
“Hey! Want some milk to wash those down?” Someone bumped into Oliver and I heard snickers over the music, which was suddenly loud and thumping and probably making the chandelier in the foyer dance on its axis.
Oliver swallowed quickly, then shook his head. “No, man, thanks. I’m good.”
The guy turned to me. “Hey, Emmy.”
I took a deep, inward breath. Brandon Mills. The last person I wanted to see at this party.
“Hey. This is Brandon,” I said to Oliver. “He went to our school, but he graduated last year.”
“We surf together,” Brandon added.
“I don’t think being in the Pacific Ocean at the same time counts as ‘surfing together,’” I said. “He goes to UC Santa Cruz,” I told Oliver. “Hopefully he’ll be going back there soon. Like, in the next ten minutes or so.”
“Aw, don’t be so jealous. Maybe one day you’ll be on the surf team, too.” Brandon tried to put his arm around my shoulders, but I shrugged him off. If I could, I would have shrugged him all of the way out the front door and back up the coast.
Oliver was watching us both very carefully, his eyes shifting from me to
Brandon and back to me. “Nice to meet you,” he finally said, even though his eyes were locked on mine.
“Hey, man, saw you on TV,” Brandon said, shaking his hand. Both of their grips looked tight. And painful. “Good interview.” He was still smiling, the way people smile when they want you to know that they’re talking shit about you, that they didn’t really see your television interview and don’t really care whether or not you’ve returned home after disappearing for ten years.
“Thanks.” Oliver sounded the same way that he had in the interview, clipped, not sure of the right words to say.
“So,” Brandon turned back to me. “Did Kane teach you any new moves? While I was away?”
“Oh, shut up, Brandon,” I said, rolling my eyes and taking Oliver’s arm to lead him away.
“What? It was just a question!” he yelled as we walked past, but he was laughing and so were a few other people in the kitchen.
“What was that?” Oliver asked. He was still holding the Cheez Doodles, bless him. “Are you friends with that guy?” The way he said “friends” made me think that he didn’t really mean “friends” at all.
“Um, absolutely not,” I said. “He’s just a douche bag. I mean, he’s in college but still goes to high school parties? It’s ridiculous. Where’s Caro? She always hangs out with the cool people.”
“Emmy!” Caro waved from the second-floor landing, a red cup already in her hand. “Wherefore art thou, Emmy?”
I waved at her, then looked at Oliver. “Do you know what we need?”
“A drink.”
I tapped my nose. “Bingo.”
A few hours later, the party had progressed (or de-gressed, depending on your point of view) nicely. And by that, I mean that I was drunk.
So was Oliver. So were Caro and Drew and pretty much every person I had seen since leaving Brandon behind. I was sticking to beer, but Caro and Drew were both doing shots and inventing some sort of complicated drinking game that involved a basketball, a feather duster, and some refrigerator magnets, and made no sense to anyone but them.
“You have to do the thing!” Caro screamed at him, waving the feather duster. “Shot!”
We had moved back down to the kitchen, but half the party was in the backyard, smoking weed and playing music. Someone had produced an acoustic guitar, as well, and there was an odd, drunken version of “Hotel California” being played.
“Ugh,” Caro said, dropping down onto my lap. I was sitting because, frankly, standing seemed too complicated. I had slumped into Oliver at some point, as well, his arm propping me up.
“Here,” Caro said, then put the feather duster on top of my head. “It’s a hat!”
“Why, thank you!” I said, then modeled it for her and Oliver. Drew was still kneeling on the ground, trying to figure out the magnets. “What do you think? Couture?”
“Ooh la la,” Oliver said. His words were a little sloshy, a nice change from earlier in the night. “You can wear it when you surf.”
“Impractical,” I told him, then plopped it down on his head. “It matches your eyes.”
“Picture! Picture!” Caro cried, then dug her phone out of her pocket and took a few staggered steps back. “Smile!”
We smiled, huge cheesy grins. “Whoa, why is it—?” Caro squinted at the screen, then held it out in front of her. “I can’t tell if I’m blurry or if the picture’s blurry. And oh my God, who brought that goddamn guitar? I want to kill them. Do you know how you can tell who the douche bag is at the party? It’s the guy who starts playing the acoustic guitar.” She took the feather duster back from Oliver and jabbed it in the direction of the backyard. “Take that! And that!”
“Is it Brandon playing?” I asked her and she turned and pointed it at me.
“Oh, God, probably. Brandon’s not even a douche bag. He’s a douche CANOE. A whole canoe, Emmy!” She sat back down in my lap and dropped the duster on the floor, which Drew quickly snatched up and took back to the magnets. “Is he tripping or just really drunk?”
“He was hitting on Emmy,” Oliver said, his chin now resting in his hand.
Caro frowned. “Drew was?”
Drew just laughed from the floor, then started stacking the magnets.
“No,” Oliver said. “The douche canoe.”
“He was not!” I protested, trying to turn around, but my limbs were perfectly comfortable where they were and had no intention of moving.
“Oh, he totally was,” Caro said to Oliver. “I mean, I didn’t see it, but he always hits on her. What did he say to you that one time, Em?”
I reached for my beer, then took a sip and passed it to Caro. “‘You’re not like other girls,’” I said in my best dude-bro voice.
Oliver frowned a little. “Is that bad?” he asked. “I thought you were gonna say something way worse.”
“It’s bad!” Caro and I both screamed at the same time, then immediately jinxed and unjinxed each other, crossing our fingers and rapping our knuckles against the wooden table. “It’s just a stupid thing to say,” Caro added after we could both speak again.
“Like, what’s wrong with being like other girls?” I added. Just thinking about Brandon and his stupid comments was getting me riled up, killing my buzz, and I sat up from Oliver and immediately felt a little cold. “Why, because I surf? Plenty of girls surf. It’s not exactly a rare thing here. I’m not, like, this dinosaur fossil that he discovered. And girls are awesome! Caro’s a girl and she’s awesome.”
“I am.” Caro nodded to herself, then jabbed a thumb into her chest. “More people should be like me!”
“Agreed!” Drew announced from the floor. “Who are we talking about?”
“Brandon,” I told him.
Drew made a jerking-off motion. “That fucking acoustic guitar.”
“Right?” He and Caro high-fived.
Oliver was suspiciously quiet next to me, and when I finally turned my head to look at him, I realized that he was staring at all of us with the fondest look in his eyes. “I missed this,” he said.
“Missed what?” Caro said as Drew slid back to the floor, propping himself up on my and Caro’s legs.
“This,” Oliver said, waving his arm so that some beer sloshed out of the bottle and landed on the floor. “You guys. This.”
Drew, Caro, and I all exchanged glances. “Uh, dude, sorry to ruin your moment, but right now is not that great.”
“Nope. We are incredibly, off-the-charts normal right now, “Caro slurred. “This party? All a terrible cliché.”
“Hey!” Drew yelped.
Caro gave him a peck on the cheek. “You know what I mean, lovebug.”
“I didn’t ever have normal,” Oliver said. “I mean, I thought I did, but now . . .” He shrugged a little. “I just wish I had known you all longer. All those years. Without the ten-year gap in the middle. It would have been nice.”
Caro stared at him a moment, then burst into tears.
“Oh, shit.” Oliver’s face, already solemn, immediately shifted to panic. “Caro, no. Oh, God. What is she doing? Did I break her?”
Drew and I just shook our heads. “She always cries when she gets drunk,” Drew explained as he pulled Caro off of my lap and down onto the floor with him.
“I can’t help it,” Caro wept, wiping at her eyes. “I’m tenderhearted! And this isn’t waterproof mascara. Fuck.”
“It would have been nice,” Drew told Oliver as I patted the top of Caro’s head and Drew passed her some napkins that looked . . . not very fresh. “But you’re back now, right? We get a do-over.”
“No, we don’t,” I said without thinking. (I don’t cry when I’m drunk, the way Caro does. I just talk.) “There’s no way to do over what happened. And even if there was, all of the pieces fit differently now. Oliver’s not the same person he was when he was kidnapped. I’m not the same person. None of us are. It’s not a do-over. It’s a start-over.”
“You can’t step in the same river twice,” Caro sniffled.
“It’s not my fault I do the reading and you don’t!” she told him. “And it’s a classic line. Please educate yourself. And don’t cheat off of me, either.”
“It was ONE time!” Drew protested.
“I need some air,” I said, nudging Oliver with my elbow.
“Good call,” he said, then helped me stand up. I was drunk enough that it took my head an extra few seconds to catch up to my body, but once I was upright, walking wasn’t too difficult. Oliver took both of our beers in one of his hands, then used the other to steady me as we stepped over Drew and Caro (“Take a jacket,” Caro mumbled from the floor, her voice already starting to sound far away and sleepy) and made our way outside.
Brandon was still playing the acoustic guitar, strumming out Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” with a bit more competence than I expected from him, and I led Oliver through the shadows so we wouldn’t have to deal with him. One encounter with Brandon was enough to fill my quota for the next year.
“Here,” I said to Oliver, leading him toward a gazebo that Drew’s parents had built on their property soon after they bought the house. The wood was old now, the white paint starting to peel and revealing spots filled with dozens of potential splinters. “Drew and Caro and I used to have ‘secret meetings’ in here,” I told him, sitting down on the steps. “Though I don’t know how secret they were in a gazebo. Lots of potential for enemy surveillance and infiltration.”
Oliver smiled as he sat back down next to me, then handed me my beer. It was warm and flat, though, and didn’t taste as good as the ones at the beginning of the party had. “Can I ask you a question?” he said.
“Is that the question?” I nudged his shoulder when he raised an eyebrow at me. “I need a better audience for my sense of humor. And yeah, of course.”
He traced his thumb around the beer, wiping off the condensation in one clean stripe. “Why don’t you join the surf team?”
I blinked at him. “That’s your question?”