“That’s insane!” I blurted out, scooting to the end of the chair and leaning toward them. “Miss Piggy is a mammal. She can’t give birth to amphibians! Amphibians have to hatch in water and—” I paused and pressed my fingertips to my eyelids. “What the hell am I saying? It’s a freaking kid’s show! It won’t happen.”
“Man,” Lyle drawled, giving me wary look. “You’re, like, Katie-the-Grouch today.”
“She’s right, though,” Kinky said, nodding. “It would never happen. Kermit just isn’t all that into Piggy.”
I groaned and sank back against the chair cushions again. I wanted to dissolve away and become nothing for a while. Just a free-floating mass of particles. A nebulous blob that didn’t have to deal with hyper pets or nosy moms or weird roommates. Closing my eyes, I strained to concentrate on nothing. . . .
“You okay?” came Lyle’s twangy voice.
I could hear Robot mumble something about “being mental,” followed by Elmo’s falsetto laugh.
“Sorry,” I said, struggling upright. “I’m just really, really tired.”
“Yeah, you do look pretty bad,” Kinky said sympathetically.
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
A loud bang made me jump. Then a scratchy, rapping noise that could only be my dog’s toenails on glass. It sounded like Seamus was throwing himself against the patio door.
“Time for walkies,” Lyle sang out.
“Great,” I grumbled, forcing my tired muscles to move me up and out of the chair. My head throbbed from the change in altitude.
As soon as I opened the patio door, Seamus charged past me and headed straight for the front door.
“Okay, okay,” I said, hurrying to clip the leash on him. Now that I’d discovered his secret potty place and barricaded the railing, I had no idea what he might do—or when he might do.
As I slipped on my sandals and headed out into the foyer, I overheard Kinky musing aloud, “So like, if Pepé Le Pew and that cat had babies, they’d probably be—”
“Dude,” Lyle interrupted. “Don’t go there.”
I returned forty-five minutes later, red-faced and limping. The good news was that Seamus didn’t come back in desperate need of a bath. However . . .
“Freaking dog,” I grumbled, wincing with every step. Blood was trickling from a gash over my left kneecap. I’d tripped over the leash trying to grab Seamus, who had just stolen a cracker from a kid in a stroller.
Of course, Seamus was completely clueless to the fact that he’d done something wrong. He glanced up at me as I fumbled with the keys, his tail wagging so hard his whole back end was doing a shimmy.
“Quit being so damn happy. You got me in trouble. Again, ” I snapped, remembering the toddler’s yowls of protest and the mother’s irate glare.
Seamus made a small, guttural bark and danced about the welcome mat, thrilled just to be talked to.
Finally I unlocked the door and Seamus rushed inside, pulling me with him. “Hang on,” I said, freeing my keys from the knob. I turned to set them on the small console table—only the table wasn’t there. My keys plummeted right to the carpet. “What the . . . ?”
I glanced around the living room in shock. All the furniture had been pushed up against the far wall and draped with sheets. Even Seamus looked taken aback, his tail lowered as he sniffed the air cautiously, backing up against my legs.
“Christine?” I called shakily. There was no answer.
I looked up at the number on the front door, just to make sure I was in the right place. I was.
“Okay. Don’t panic,” I mumbled, slowly pushing the door shut.
“Don’t close it!” came a voice from behind me. It was Lyle coming out of the service elevator, balancing two round black boxes in his arms. “Thanks,” he said as he lurched past me and set the teetering stack on the floor.
“Uh . . . Lyle? What’s going on?”
“Setting up my drum set,” he replied, unclasping the top case.
“Yeah, I see. But why?”
He gave me a puzzled look. “For the party,” he said slowly, as if I hadn’t quite mastered English yet.
“What are you talking about?”
At that moment, Robot and Kinky ambled through the open door, each one lugging a boxy black amp. Christine sashayed in behind them. She paused when she saw me and pointed at my leg. “Oh my God, Katie. Do you know you’re bleeding?”
“We’re having a party?” I asked, too stunned even to feel pain anymore.
She grinned gigantically. “Yeah! It was Robot’s idea.”
“Um . . . are you sure we should? I mean, we are, you know, renting.”
“Who gives a crap?” she snapped. “It’s the last weekend before school starts. We deserve some fun, don’t we?”
“I guess,” I said lamely.
“Come on! You’ve got to go with the flow,” she said, nudging me with her elbow. “Besides, if you don’t, I can always tell your mom you’ve been hosting orgies.” She threw back her head and laughed.
I chuckled nervously, wondering if her threat was serious or not. Before I could figure it out, Christine had trotted off in the direction of her room, leaving me standing there in a daze.
I didn’t know what to do. There were no chairs to sit on or tables to set my things on. For the next couple of minutes I watched helplessly as the guys unloaded different bits of equipment and plugged in different colored cords. Seamus kept whining and weaving around my legs, binding me up with his leash.
Kinky plugged in a shiny white bass guitar and began plucking the strings. The deep, trembly notes reverberated throughout the condo, vibrating my sternum. A throaty growl emanated from Seamus, and he backed against my legs, his whole body shaking. I had to brace myself against the wall to keep from falling again.
Freeing myself from his leash by twirling around a few times, I carefully picked him up and took him over to the patio. As soon as I set him outside, he ran to the far railing and stood there, still growling and shuddering.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m going to fix my knee and then I’ll be right back.”
“You say something, love?”
I shut the door and whirled about to find Robot standing behind me.
“Uh, no. I mean, yeah. I was talking to Seamus,” I replied, ducking my head to hide my blazing cheeks. I was getting as bad as Mrs. Krantz.
Robot smiled crookedly. “Whatever you say, love.”
I headed into the bathroom and shut the door, immediately comforted by the cramped, solitary space.
“What the hell is going on?” I mumbled as I carefully washed my wound with a damp washcloth. “Everything’s out of control.”
Ever since I’d arrived in Austin, I’d been dealing with one major surprise after another, and I knew my stress was building on some subterranean level. I could feel it inside me, twisting and expanding into various shapes, like some radioactive, hell-spawned amoeba. Any day now it would burst out of me in all its hideous glory in a scene to rival any sci-fi horror flick.
And now it had this to feed on.
A party? With a rock band and a condo full of Christine and Robot’s friends? That seemed to me a bad idea on so many levels. My mind reeled with images of angry-looking police officers storming our living room. I wondered how Mom would react if I called her in the middle of the night from the slammer, or if my mug shot appeared in the society section of the San Marcos Daily Record. Most likely I’d be spending my senior year with Grandma Hattie, watching Lawrence Welk reruns and learning how to knit.
But then, there really wasn’t anything I could do about it. If I complained, Christine was likely to wield her greatest power of all—squealing to Mom about Seamus and anything else she could dream up.
So which would I rather face . . . jail or Mom?
The rest of the day I didn’t utter a single complaint about the impending party. I held my tongue when Robot dug my spare sheets out of the linen closet and used them to drape the stacked-up fur
niture. And I said absolutely nothing when I saw Christine open my bags of pretzels and pour them into large plastic bowls for the guests to munch on. When Kinky and Lyle carried in a giant rubber trash can with the keg floating in it, I dutifully scooped up Seamus from the balcony and took him to my room.
At first Seamus ran around like a furry motorized toy, leaping on everything and play-fighting with anything not nailed down. Eventually he settled down a bit, and I tried to pass the time by aimlessly flipping through an issue of Cosmopolitan. A few minutes later the band started practicing in the living room.
Wang! Wang! Wa-a-a-aaannngg! went Robot’s guitar.
Blangity, blangity, bow, bow, bow! went Kinky’s bass.
Tappity, boppity, crash, boom, thud! went Lyle’s drumming.
Bark! Bark! Growl! Whimper! went Seamus beside me.
I lay on my side with my pillow wrapped around my head, trying desperately to concentrate on the “Is He a Commitment-Phobe?” quiz, but it was no use. All I could do was stare at the graphic—a guy holding hands with one girl while putting the moves on a red-head behind her back—while Robot, Lyle and Kinky provided a weird, dissonant sound track.
All that suppressed frustration felt like a tumor inside me. It didn’t help that the guy in the magazine photo looked amazingly like Chuck, only in hipster clothes and with longer hair. I answered the quiz questions as if it were two weeks ago and Chuck and I had never broken up. After tallying up the answers, I read the corresponding analysis, which—surprise, surprise!— diagnosed our relationship as “rocky” and “imbalanced.” Their so-called expert advice was for me to stop surrendering so much control to my boyfriend. “Show him you have more in your life than just him. Join a cool club and hang out with friends now and then. Be more mysterious. Guys who think there’s nothing more to learn about you will want to move on.”
Sadly, it made some sense. Looking back, it was obvious I had let my social life revolve around Chuck. And now here I was with no social life whatsoever. With a roommate who had a constant good time, as if it was her birthright, her superpower. Christine had so much social life it followed her all the way to Austin. Unfortunately, it didn’t extend to me.
Wang, wang, waaaaanggg! Tappity, tappity!
Except for tonight. Christine’s fun-filled existence was going to be rubbed in my face all night long. I knew that I was invited, but I also knew it was a mere technicality—a default caused by my living arrangements. If I didn’t live here, Christine would have never included me.
I rolled over, letting my arm dangle lazily over the side of the bed. My fingers brushed against something soft and wet. Sensing something was wrong, I raised up and peered over the edge. The floor was completely white, as if a freak blizzard had hit the confines of my room. Seamus had somehow gotten my new carton of Kleenex off the desk and had ripped the box and all five hundred white tissues into small, soggy bits. I must not have heard it with the band so loud in the next room.
“Seamus!” I yelled, glancing around for him. I finally spotted him in the corner, chewing on the remainder of the box. He saw me and abandoned it, trotting forward with a satisfied look on his face. I was all ready to scold him loudly when I thought, What’s the use? It wasn’t like he understood what I was saying. No one ever listened to me, so why should I expect him to?
I forced myself upright and cleaned up the mess, muttering the whole time. As soon as I’d finished and sprawled back across my mattress, someone knocked. I didn’t actually hear it, but Seamus’s ears pricked and he ran to the door, barking so hard his whole body scooted backward a few millimeters with every yap.
“Come in!” I hollered, too lazy with self-pity to get off the bed.
The door cracked open and Christine poked her head in. “You got any nail clippers I can borrow?” she asked.
“Sure. On top of the dresser,” I said with a sloppy wave.
“Thanks.” Pushing Seamus gently with her foot to keep him from escaping, she slipped around the door and shut it behind her. She was already dressed in a short black skirt, black-and-red Ramones T-shirt, red Pumas, and studded leather bands on each wrist, and her hair was perfectly messed up and slightly greased. She looked like a rock chick superhero.
Midway to my dresser she paused and frowned at me. “Why aren’t you dressed?”
I shrugged lamely.
“Come on! People will start showing up soon.” She did a quick about-face and headed for my closet. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Without even asking, she pulled open the louvered doors of my closet and with amazing speed began flipping through my clothes, the thick plastic hangers making a rhythmic thwacking sound as she pushed them aside. Seamus trotted up beside her and watched, utterly fascinated.
“You don’t have to do this,” I protested from my prone position.
Christine ignored me. “No, no, no . . . ,” she mumbled as she pawed through the rack. She was already halfway down the row of garments and nothing had passed inspection yet. Obviously in her eyes I even dressed like a loser.
I felt like a sniffly serving wench—a clueless Cinderella being aided by a pushy, gum-smacking, whippet-thin fairy godmother.
Then suddenly she halted and lifted out one of my blouses—a green-and-black-striped wraparound cami. “This is awesome. It’s, like, mod or something. Where’d you get it?”
“Ireland.” I’d forgotten I’d packed it. It had been a thrift store find in Cork. I’d thought it looked cool, and it was the same Kelly green as all the souvenirs. Even though it was low-cut, Mom let me keep it as a novelty memento of our trip.
Christine dangled the top by the crook of the hanger and turned it around, admiring it from all angles. “Man, if I had boobs I would totally wear this.” She turned and thrust it toward me. “Okay, you need to wear this tonight. Do you have a black skirt?”
I squinted at her, trying to figure out why she was helping me. Did she pity me? Was she afraid I’d embarrass her? Or did she actually think of me as a friend?
“I have a black pleated mini,” I replied.
“Perfect.” She tossed the blouse next to me. Seamus immediately jumped on the bed and began sniffing and walking all over it. “You should probably hurry. People will be here any minute.”
As she resumed her trajectory toward the dresser for the clippers, I bit my lip, wondering how I should tell her I was planning on hiding out in the bedroom all night. “Umm . . . Christine?”
“Yeah?” she said, without looking around at me.
“I don’t know about tonight. I was sort of thinking I should stay in here.”
She turned and gaped at me. “Why the hell would you want to do that?”
I bit the inside of my cheek, unsure how to explain. She obviously wouldn’t understand my fear—fear of not fitting in, fear of meeting new people, fear of getting thrown in the slammer. “What about Seamus?” I said, scooping him up off my blouse. “I can’t just leave him in here by himself.” That was another fear. One she could probably grasp.
“Why can’t you?”
“Well . . . what if he gets out?”
“Can he turn doorknobs?”
“No.”
“Then he can’t get out. He’ll probably just sleep through the whole thing.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Quit making excuses. You need this party more than anyone. That was part of the reason I thought it was such a good idea.”
“Really?” My mood lifted a bit. So she had been thinking of me.
“Yeah. You need to forget all about what’s-his-name and meet some new guys. I’m tired of you moping around.”
My eyes widened. “Have I been moping?” I asked as my face went all tingly. I really thought I’d been doing a good job of playing it cool.
Christine sat down on the end of my bed. “You haven’t been whining and crying or anything—which, by the way, thank you for that—but yeah, you’ve been kind of out of it. You have this perpetual crack in the middle of your forehead.” She lean
ed over and tapped me right above the eyebrows with my nail clippers. “Makes you look fragile, like if someone yells boo! loud enough, you would split right down the middle.”
I didn’t know what to say. I had no idea Christine had been paying that much attention to me.
“So that’s that,” she said, heading for the door. “Get dressed pronto and get your ass out there and have fun.” She flashed me one last stern glance and marched out of the room.
I looked down at Seamus and ran my hand through his bristly fur. She was right. He probably would just crash all night. And it wasn’t like I had to rock him to sleep or anything.
I smiled slightly as I fingered the smooth fabric of my striped top. So Christine really had been playing fairy godmother—in her own stone-ground, abrasive way. A little more “boo” and a little less “bibbity-bobbity.”
Fine. I would give the party a chance. And who knew? Maybe a little fairy-tale magic would come my way.
An hour or so later I was studying my new party self in the dresser mirror. I was packed tight in the green-striped top, which I’d paired with my pleated mini and scuffed, clunky Mary Janes. My eyes and lips were freshly painted in the darkest makeup shades I owned. And after wrangling my hair into a dozen different twists and shoots, I’d finally given up and let it hang loose. Ironically, though, all that battling with it created an ideal mussed-up look.
Judging from the rumbling of voices on the other side of the door, the party was officially under way. I turned toward Seamus, who was rolling on my bed, growling and chewing up my headband.
“Be good,” I said, backing toward the door. My voice came out low and wavery. Was I hesitant to leave him or hesitant to go out there? Probably both.
Seamus leaped off the bed and ran over.
“No, no. You’re not coming,” I said.
He cocked his head and looked at me quizzically. I opened the door behind me and slowly backed out.
“Stay,” I said, blocking the way out with my foot. “Good boy. Go to sleep.”
The last thing I saw before shutting the door was Seamus’s baby-deer eyes gazing up at me sadly. As soon as the latch clicked, I turned around with my back to the door, facing our transformed condo.
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