The Taming of the Drew

by Stephanie Kate Strohm

  “But Heidi, it’s a special night. You know what that means.” Amy waggled her eyebrows suggestively, then burst out laughing. “Cass knows what I mean. She just turned tomato red.”

  “Did not!” I protested.

  “You look like you’re about to spontaneously combust. Thinking some special thoughts?” Amy teased.

  “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

  “Doesn’t matter if she’s a tomato or a cucumber or a carrot or a full-on salad bar. Nothing, special or not, is happening tonight,” Heidi said firmly.

  “But he drew a little heart! It’s so cute!” Amy pleaded. Jeez, it seemed like she wanted this to happen as much as I did.

  “Not cute enough.” Heidi shook her head.

  “Oh, where’s your sense of romance?” Amy scolded, clutching the note to her heart. “Cass, you like him, don’t you?” she prompted.

  “Of course I do.” And I did. That’s why that kiss with Drew hadn’t meant anything. Because I had Taylor. Who I liked. A lot.

  “See, Heidi, she likes him! And that’s why she deserves an extra special night.” She pinched my cheek. “Ah, she’s still red! It’s so cute.”

  If Taylor meant what Amy clearly thought he meant, I couldn’t help but blush. It wasn’t like I was some Twilight vampire waiting for marriage or anything, I’d just never met anyone who seemed like a worthwhile candidate. Most of the boys I knew I barely wanted to have touch me, let alone, you know, touch me. But if anyone had worthwhile candidate stamped on his impeccable shirtless self, it was Taylor Griffith. After all, wasn’t this what summer was for? First loves and bold moves and adventure. Besides, it’s not like I had to hook up with him once I got to the party. I just had a semisuggestive note written in crayon, not a legally binding contract. There was certainly nothing wrong with simply going over there to see what was up. Either way, Taylor was totally awesome and unbelievably hot. And he was nothing like Drew. Not that it mattered. Obviously.

  “No. This is the worst idea I’ve ever heard. Sneaking out of the house the night before the show opens to sally forth once more into that den of non-recycling iniquity? Come on, Cass.” I squirmed under the full force of Heidi’s open, trusting gaze. “Our actions have consequences. That’s not just physics, it’s karma. We act and the universe reacts. That’s why I know you wouldn’t do that to the show. To us. To yourself.” She tapped me gently in the general direction of my heart. “Listen. Here. You know what’s right. I know you do. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m in desperate need of some aromatherapy.”

  “Well, she’s right about one thing,” Amy muttered as Heidi gathered up her body wash and towel. “You should listen to your heart. Not your head. Not to misquote a thousand song lyrics, but we are young. And alive. And free. And we should set the world on fire! Just do it like life’s a mother-eff-ing Nike commercial and you’re wearing rhinestone sneakers. You know?”

  I nodded, staring at Amy in wonder. She was so fired up, eyes sparkling like Joan of Arc or something. I thought back to the first day I’d met her, when she was sitting on the bed awash in tears. It was almost like she was a different person.

  “Cass,” Amy said softly, checking over her shoulder. Heidi was safely ensconced in the bathroom. “You can’t live your whole life onstage, because that’s not really living. Your greatest adventures should be yours. Not Shakespeare’s. Live your life. Don’t just perform someone else’s.”

  I mean, I’m totally on board with seizing the day, but I didn’t want to do anything that would put the show in jeopardy. And when whatever ancient Roman had first said carpe diem, I don’t think he’d been talking about maybe hooking up with a pro skater. But who was to say that my meeting up with Taylor would mess up the show, anyway? We’d snuck out of the boathouse before without anyone noticing. No harm, no foul. I could have my perfect summer fling, then make it back in plenty of time to kick butt on opening night.

  Heidi started singing in the shower. As the sweet refrain of “Look to the Rainbow” floated into my ears, tiny pinpricks of guilt stabbed at my conscience. Her warning about consequences echoed in my mind, like some kind of ominous, sonorous refrain. Amy was still staring at me, perfectly tweezed blond eyebrows arched meaningfully. What would Shakespeare do?

  I knew, of course. The man who had written “Boldness, be my friend! Arm me, audacity, from head to foot!” would have been out the door ten minutes ago.

  Boldness, be my friend, indeed.

  CHAPTER 19

  JJ flung the door to the skaters’ cabin wide open.

  “Betty!” he cheered. “Just one Betty?” He looked behind me, squinting into the darkness beyond the porch. “Where’s tallie and smallie?”

  “Just me tonight. Sorry to disappoint.”

  “You could never disappoint, Red Betty! Entrez!”

  As JJ mangled some French, he turned to let me into the cabin. This time his back was adorned with a strange drawing in Sharpie. Was that a slab of ham with angel wings? I squeezed inside and closed the cabin door behind me.

  It wasn’t nearly as crowded as it had been at the last party, and no music was playing. There was just a small group of guys clustered around a keg, talking in a low murmur. The cabin, however, was even messier than the last time I’d seen it. Crushed Monster Energy Drink cans and empty Doritos bags littered the floor. I shook a particularly stubborn Cool Ranch bag off my sneaker.

  “Red!”

  I looked up. Taylor was pushing his way through the small group toward me, holding a red Solo cup aloft. He clinged and clanged as he walked, covered mysteriously in large sparkling pendants and platinum chains. He looked like a refugee from Island Def Jam. The only thing he was missing was a grill.

  “What’s with all the bling?” I asked, lifting up the diamond graffiti print GANGSTA RAW dangling at the end of a long chain around his tan neck.

  “It’s a special night, Red!” he crowed, pounding his fist against his chest. His blinged-out YOLO knuckle ring sparkled in the light. “We’re having a party! And later on, it’s gonna get extra special. Like extra choice special.”

  Wait. Did he just pinch my butt? I looked down. His hands were nowhere near my butt—one clutched a red Solo cup, and the other was flung casually around my waist. I must have imagined it.

  “To the knives, gentleman!”

  The crowd roared like he was Henry V leading the charge at Agincourt. I had no idea why we were going to get knives—maybe a cheese tasting was about to materialize—but regardless, I let Taylor steer me to a large kitchen table with mismatched wooden chairs.

  Taylor sat at the head of the table, cocking the brim of his trucker hat until it perched on his sun-bleached hair at a rakish angle. I had the uncomfortable feeling I was sitting next to a stranger. Had he always looked like such a douchelord, or was this a recent development? Underneath the bling and the Ed Hardy I was sure he was just as mind-numbingly hot as always, but boy, it was hard to tell. He patted one knee for me to sit on it. Please. I looked pointedly at the knee, back up at Taylor, and then pulled out my own chair.

  “Miss Independent,” Taylor said fondly, barely waiting until my butt had touched the seat to scoot it as close to his as humanly possible. Maybe Heidi was right and coming here had been a mistake. I barely recognized the Sean John factory reject sitting beside me. But then he smiled a blessedly grill-free, devastating smile, and something shot right through me. Stay. I should stay. I leaned into the arm Taylor had flung around the back of my chair.

  “What are we doing?” I asked. Taylor, Ragner, JJ, Skittles, Ferret, and some skinny guy with a soul patch I’d never seen before sat around the table. It looked like we were about to have birthday cake. Or play a board game.

  “Tell us, Townie,” Taylor commanded, gesturing grandly at the skinny soul patch guy at the other end of the table.

  “Tonight, the sheep leads,” Ferret giggled, stroking the omnipresent mammal circled around his neck. “Baa ram uu. Baa ram uuu.” He giggled, then oinked like a pig, then di
ssolved back into giggles.

  “Thanks.” Taylor rolled his eyes. “Some people cannot handle their substances,” he whispered to me.

  “Is he okay?” I asked, concerned. Ferret was giggling into a red plastic cup, and the actual ferret somehow managed to maneuver around his human and dip his head in it. “Can ferrets have alcohol?”

  “It’s fine. It’ll probs be hilarious later. Drunk rodents!” Taylor laughed. “The knives, Townie, the knives!”

  Ferret looked like he was about to fall asleep. I turned my attention to the end of the table, where sure enough, there were three knives lined up in front of the Townie guy: a butter knife, a sharp serrated kitchen knife, and some kind of enormous deadly weapon.

  “What the hell kind of knife is that?” I pointed at the mammoth scimitar.

  “The biggest, baddest knife I could find in the state of Vermont,” Townie said a little more lustily than I was comfortable with. He ran his hand carefully around the edge. “Sharp, too.”

  “Are you carving a turkey?”

  “You’re hilarious.” Taylor squeezed my side. “Tell the girl the game, Townie!”

  “The game of knives begins thusly,” Townie began with great relish. “We start off with this little baby.” He held up the butter knife. “We toss the knife around the circle, one to the other. Anyone can toss the knife to anyone else at any given time. If you miss the knife, or puss out, you drink. If you catch it, you don’t drink. Once we establish a pattern, we move on to this beauty.” He held up the serrated kitchen knife. “And, finally, Big Bertha.” He gestured to the knife that looked, in my opinion, much more like a sword than a knife. They were seriously going to throw that thing at each other? While drinking? This had to be the worse idea I’d ever heard. “The game ends when our hands are too slippery with blood to successfully hold any knives.”

  “When what?” I shrieked.

  “Shh, Red, it’s cool,” Taylor whispered.

  “Cool? Really?” I whispered back. “This seems insane! Tell me you’re not doing this.”

  “Hell naw. I’m not that dumb.” Taylor squeezed my hand. “We’ll just watch. And record it for posteriors.”

  “Posterity,” I muttered under my breath.

  “I just wanna watch theses dumbasses maim themselves.” Taylor pulled out an iPhone.

  “Your phone works here?” I asked, shocked. Of course, I should have been more shocked that a room full of sort-of-almost-adults was about to fling knives at each other, but I hadn’t seen a working cell phone in who knows how long.

  “Naw, Red. Just use it for the camera.” He held it up, starting to frame a shot. “Throw, son, throw!”

  The butter knife wasn’t that big of a deal. They threw a few rounds with it, until they got bored or deemed themselves successful enough to move on—who knew which.

  Thiago turned out to be some kind of deadly assassin knife-throwing genius.

  He never missed a single throw, never caught it on the sharp end, and threw each knife with surgical precision. His knitted cap was pulled so low over his eyes I wasn’t even sure how he was seeing anything, but he must have had the eyes of a hawk.

  The others, however, weren’t faring quite so well. Ferret and his ferret had fallen asleep and were curled up under the table, which was probably for the best. Big blond Ragner was getting increasingly frustrated with his poor catching skills, cursing in Norwegian until the roof shook. The more frustrated he got, the more he missed, and the more he drank. Each time JJ flung the knife with great velocity but little accuracy, I cringed, hoping my life wouldn’t end in a hoarders-worthy cabin in rural Vermont. And Skittles—well, I had yet to hear him utter a word. He was just a giant splatter-paint hoodie with eyes.

  By the time the biggest knife came out, everyone except Thiago was bleeding. They were all now drunk enough that their tosses were getting less accurate and their catches less frequent. Townie, however, was by far in the worst shape. Warm, wet rivers of blood dripped down his palms, puddling onto his Carhartts and staining the blade of the knife a bright Macbeth red.

  “Taylor”—I tugged on his iPhone recording arm—“we have to stop this. Some of them are bleeding pretty, um, profusely.”

  “Everybody seems fine.” He shrugged. “Look, they’re laughing!”

  Townie used his bloody hands to put two handprints on his T-shirt, like some kind of gruesome Little Mermaid seashell bra. Bile rose in my throat.

  “Seriously, Taylor, I’m gonna be sick. We have to stop this. They’re losing a lot of blood, and their throws are getting worse.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Taylor said disappointedly, clicking the camera app on his iPhone shut. “Their skills are not maintaining. Except for Thiago, you guys suck!” he shouted, and threw his empty cup at JJ. “Game over!”

  “At least we played!” JJ said defensively. “Didn’t puss out like you, knuckle-dragger. Not even sure you’re the Bowser anymore, man.”

  “Dude. I am the Bowser. Always.” Taylor fixed JJ with an icy stare, then broke into an easy grin as soon as JJ looked away. “Come on, man, I’d play if I could. Gotta keep my hands clean for later tonight.”

  Taylor help up his hands and wiggled his fingers, as the rest of the table looked at me and laughed. As they howled like dogs, that trademark “bow-ow-ow,” I cringed and turned bright red, sinking lower in my seat. Blessedly, conversation soon turned to a lively debate over what the next game should be. No one, unfortunately, seemed in a hurry to look for Band-Aids.

  “Sorry, Red,” Taylor leaned in to whisper, his warm breath tickling my neck. “That was not my most couth.”

  “Ya think?” I shot back, as I tried to remember whether or not couth was a word. “I should probably just go.”

  “Don’t go! Please. Cass. Please.” Before I could even stand all the way up, Taylor grabbed my wrist and turned the full force of his hotness upon me. “I was just frontin’. Have to prove it with these guys, you know. Stay. Please.”

  “That was lame, Taylor.” I glared at him.

  “The lamest. I’ll make it up to you. Promise.”

  He stroked my hand so tenderly, and his eyes looked so sincere, I melted like a Kit Kat in the sun. Had ever a girl been such a fool for lust? Ugh. I was making bad choices every which way, and yet I just couldn’t bring myself to get up and walk out of the cabin.

  “Spin the Shotgun!” JJ shouted suddenly. “I choose Spin the Shotgun!”

  “If someone pulls out a gun, I’m leaving,” I said flatly. There are limits to even my idiocy.

  “No guns. Just this beauty.” Townie brandished the giant knife again and slid it to the center of the table. Great. Just what this evening needed. More knives.

  Weaving slightly, JJ tottered into the kitchen and returned with his arms full of beer cans. He triumphantly placed one in the center of the table. “Your highness.” JJ bowed sarcastically to Ragner. “Worst goes first.”

  “Dra til helvete,” Ragner rumbled, but he approached the knife anyway. He spun it, like we were beginning a deadly game of spin the bottle. The knife’s tip stopped directly in front of Thiago, who leapt up onto his chair, grasped the knife by its handle, and plunged it into the heart of the beer can. As the foam exploded, splattering the room, Thiago placed his lips to the hole in the can and gulped the beer. The boys roared with appreciation as Thiago finished his beer and crushed the can, tossing it to the floor.

  “Rule number one: no one leaves the table! The game ends when someone pukes, passes out, or pisses themselves!” Townie shouted.

  “That’s not a rule. That’s torture! Taylor, this game is ridiculous. Everyone is still bleeding. How ’bout we play a game called Seeking Medical Attention?”

  “Relax, Red. It’s fine.” He’d gotten his iPhone out again. “No one’s gonna pass out. Just a little bit of on-the-road fun.”

  I bit my lip—I didn’t want to seem lame, but I was getting progressively more uncomfortable. I had thought this night would be some kind of carefr
ee fun adventure, like in a movie, but it felt more like a mash-up of American Pie and Friday the 13th than the summer lovin’ I had envisioned. Olivia Newton-John would certainly never sing about any of this. At that moment I would have given anything to be tucked safely into my bunk bed, listening to Heidi’s garbled Sanskrit dreams. I shouldn’t have come. Or I should have left the minute the first knife came out.

  Thiago spun the knife, and it stopped, pointing at Townie. He stabbed the can wildly. I shielded my face as foam exploded everywhere. He brought it to his lips, but he seemed to have trouble getting it down.

  “Hurl alert!” JJ screamed. “He’s hurling!”

  “Oh, my God.” I leapt away from the table, determined to put as much distance between myself and the vomiting man as possible.

  “Dude, I think he pissed himself, too!” JJ cackled. “This is epic!”

  Epically gross. The room started to spin, and my knees went all wobbly—and not in the good way. Heidi was right—our actions did have consequences. I had always thought that consequences just came from the outside, like getting in trouble with teachers or adults or whatever, but just being here felt like a punishment, and I had no one to blame but myself. If this was the universe telling me that sneaking out of the house was wrong, I heard it loud and clear. I was in way over my head. And I had let down Heidi and Amy and everyone in the show. Whether I got caught or not, my selfishness was betrayal enough. I never should have jeopardized the show by coming here.

  “Dag, Red, you’re turning green.” Suddenly Taylor was beside me, and I felt myself sort of half collapsing into him. “Let’s get you out of here,” he said firmly, and whisked me straight up the stairs. Thank God. I had to get out of there. And sit. Sitting would be good. Everything was so spinny.

  It was such a relief to be upstairs, away from that circus in the kitchen, that I could have cried. As Taylor ushered me into a lowly lit room and sat me down on the bed’s pine cone–printed counterpane, I felt distressingly queasy.

  “You gonna ralph on me, Red?”

  “Potentially,” I muttered, sticking my head between my knees.