The Birthday Girl

by Melissa de la Cruz

  Leo hung back, not quite sure where she fit in. She’d wanted so badly to be at this party and now she had no idea where to go. She didn’t belong anywhere, and it would be weird to hang out with the kids from her class when they didn’t hang out at school. She tried to appear nonchalant and casual, but it was hard when everyone was engaged in conversation, or laughing, or playing some kind of drinking game on the Ping-Pong table.

  “You made it!”

  Leo turned to see Shona Silverstein, grinning widely and holding out her arms for a hug.

  “Oh hey!” said Leo.

  “I thought you guys weren’t going to stop by?” said Shona.

  “Yeah, well, we changed our minds!” said Leo brightly. “Cool party.”

  “There she is!” said Mish, running over to give Shona a big bear hug from behind. “We’re here!”

  Shona laughed and almost spilled her drink. You’d think from the way she and Mish were acting they’d known each other forever.

  “What’s been up? What did you guys do tonight?” asked Shona.

  “Not much. We hit the DQ, then Sparkle,” said Mish, sounding a bit smug and as if they went to nightclubs any old day.

  Shona was impressed. “You guys got in? Who was playing?”

  Leo shrugged; she couldn’t remember.

  “Well, welcome, you guys haven’t missed much,” said Shona with a giggle.

  “Should we say hi to Stacey?” Leo suggested.

  Shona stared at her like it was the dumbest thing she’d ever heard. “Why?”

  Leo colored. Her mom had brought her up to say hello to the host. She’d always drilled manners into her daughter’s head. But it was clear she didn’t know the first thing about high school parties.

  “Half the people here don’t even know whose party this is,” said Mish.

  “Pretty much,” said Shona. “Besides, Stacey’s passed out in the Jacuzzi upstairs. I’m supposed to make sure no one goes in the main house.”

  Mish went to see where Brooks had gone, and Leo followed Shona into the guesthouse. Even in miniature, the place was bigger than her own house. It was two stories, with a full kitchen and dining room. In the living room, a few guys were playing video games on the television and Shona led Leo upstairs to the two bedrooms. A strong smell of pot wafted from the first closed door. “Drug room,” explained Shona. “You want?” she asked, so casually that Leo understood there was no right or wrong answer to this question.

  Leo shook her head.

  “Let’s see what’s happening in here,” her erstwhile host decided, knocking on the next bedroom door. “Hello!” said Shona.

  They found a group of kids sitting in a circle with an empty wine cooler bottle in the middle, including Dave Griffin, from earlier at the mall. He looked up when they entered the room but didn’t say hello.

  “Oh my god, are you guys serious? What is this, middle school?” said Shona. “You’re playing truth or dare?”

  “Shut up, Shona!” yelled one of the girls.

  A few of the boys laughed. “I don’t remember Andie flashing her tits in middle school,” said one of them.

  “She didn’t have tits in middle school, that’s why,” said Dave.

  Andie, who was pulling her shirt down over her bra, stuck her tongue out at them. She crawled to the middle and spun the bottle.

  It pointed at Leo.

  “Truth or dare?” Andie demanded.

  “Oh, I’m not playing,” said Leo.

  “Yeah, it’s her birthday,” said Shona. “Leave her alone.”

  “It’s your birthday?”

  “I thought it was Stacey’s birthday?” someone said.

  As if in answer, the door opened just then, and Mish and Brooks walked in. Mish was holding a plate of cupcakes, with a few candles stuck to the middle of one. Leo could see an S on another one. They were leftover birthday cupcakes from someone else’s birthday, but on the other hand, they were the only birthday cupcakes she would get this evening.

  “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you,” Mish began to sing, and everyone else joined in.

  She held the plate out and Leo leaned over.

  “Wait!” said Mish. “You have to make a wish!”

  Leo thought about it. Would she wish the night was over? Would she wish these were her friends? For another life? Other memories? She made her wish and blew out the candles.

  Mish brought out her camera again and asked Shona to take a photo of the three of them. Leo held up her cupcake, Brooks and Mish on either side of her.

  “There you go,” said Shona, handing Mish back her camera and handing Leo the photo. “Cute.”

  Leo waved it a few times, watching as the picture slowly developed. There they were, the three of them. She grimaced. Was that what she really looked like? She should brush her hair, and she’d thought she looked so cute at the beginning of the night, but now she just looked tired.

  “Ew, I look awful,” she said.

  Brooks took it from her hand. “I think we look great,” he said, and put it in his pocket.

  “Um, what if she wanted that?” Mish scolded.

  “You want it?”

  “No, you can keep it,” Leo told him. She liked that he wanted to have a picture of her, something to remember her by.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Four and Twenty

  October 19

  The Present

  11:00 P.M.

  Even if pot was sort of legal in Los Angeles now—and it would be a few years until it was fully legal—at this moment in time, you still needed a doctor’s prescription to get ahold of it. And they couldn’t prescribe it for anxiety or stress or any psychological issue either—Todd learned that the hard way. You had to say you had back pain, or some kind of chronic physical condition. Todd wished he’d been able to get some for his dad, who’d died of cancer a few years back. Dad had said he wanted to try it, because he never had, and he was curious especially now that he had cancer and was dying.

  Todd had offered to get some for him, but his mom had said no. His mother, who even at the end of his father’s life, forbade her husband from having any sort of fun. They were happily married for fifty years, strict Catholics, and his mother was horrified to think her husband would turn into a pothead right before the end. She’d shaken her head firmly no, and that had settled it. Dad meekly complied as he always did. Perhaps that’s what a happy marriage was about, subsuming your own desires for the happiness of your spouse. Even, you know, on your deathbed.

  Dad died before ever taking a toke.

  Not Todd, though.

  But yeah, even if pot was sort of legal, Todd still found he needed to hide from his guests when he took a hit. He had a legal license and everything, procured from a seedy “doctor” whose office was conveniently down the street from the Ventura Boulevard pot emporiums. The Valley was riddled with pot joints; you couldn’t turn a corner without running into one: the Weed, Buds & Roses, 420 Docs, the Stash, the Collective, WHTC, Urban Treez. Todd passed them every day when he dropped off the twins at Glenwood Prep. No wonder even the headmaster’s kid was caught dealing; pot was everywhere.

  Supposedly, there were Hollywood parties where they passed around trays of joints and lines of coke like they were candy, but again, he’d never been to one. Maybe he didn’t have the right friends; maybe because he’d been the boss for all those years, people didn’t invite him to those kinds of events. At every party he went to, people still hid in the bathrooms or in the bushes to do their drugs. It was only polite after all.

  Right now he was standing in the alley behind his house, behind the hedges, and he brought out the joint he’d rolled earlier. When Sam was twelve, he’d thrown out all the drugs in his house—the Adderall, the Ritalin, the vials of coke, the dime bags of pot. He didn’t want her snooping around and finding it. It
was bad enough that her mother didn’t hide her addictions. Montserrat was the worst about that sort of thing—one of her boyfriends (the one after the real estate guy, the plastic surgeon) died of a heroin overdose. Todd wanted Sam to know at least one parent who didn’t partake. So for years while Sam was in middle school and high school, he’d stopped doing drugs. Ellie wasn’t a big druggie anyway—she was a model and wasn’t averse to doing a line here or there or eating a pot gummy once in a while. But she mainlined her career. That’s what got her high.

  It was like that when he’d run the network too; he wasn’t a partyer. He didn’t go to nightclubs; he used it to stay up at work, to get everything done. Okay, sometimes he did it for fun, but mostly it was to stay up late in the editing room or to read scripts, but that all ended once Sam was old enough to notice.

  Now he just smoked pot. Once in a while. At parties, in the bushes. He lit the joint and took a long drag. He’d have to give a speech before the slideshow soon.

  He needed to calm his nerves.

  Sure, he could give a speech. For the longest time, that was the biggest part of his job, giving speeches about their programming slate. Also part of his job was congratulating everyone. He was good at it. Everyone said Todd made them feel appreciated. The biggest showrunners wanted to work for him because he made them all feel loved. It was silly what people wanted, how a little gratitude went a long way. If people asked, Todd would say almost ninety percent of his success came from being able to communicate well. Except why couldn’t he talk to his wife? Why couldn’t he tell her?

  Ellie was the love of his life, his one true love, but she wasn’t even his second wife. She was his fourth. She’d laughed when she found out. “Wife number four; are you fucking kidding me, Todd? You’re only thirty-five!” she’d cackled.

  How had he married so many people in so short a time? Well, his first wife, Amy, was his high school sweetheart. They’d eloped after graduation, to Atlantic City. It was a mistake. He was going to Harvard, he was ruining his entire future. He reneged on the deal. They never filed the marriage certificate, so in a way, they’d never been married. Wife number two was his college sweetheart. He had a pattern. Once again, married right after graduation and divorced while he was still in business school. She’d cheated on him with his best friend, Dan. Goodbye, Heather. Heather was one of those formidable mommy moguls now. She’d started some new media company for moms by moms. She and Dan dated for a while but broke up a few months later. She was married to some top music exec; when Todd was at the network, he’d run into him once in a while. The guy didn’t seem to know Todd had once been married to his wife.

  Wife number three was Montserrat, and everyone knew that story. But as he liked to tell Ellie, he’d gotten it right on the fourth try. Ellie was the only one for him. He only wished they’d met sooner. And even in his earlier, unhappier relationships, he’d been faithful. He’d never cheated on any of his wives. Never. He was—what did they call it—a serial monogamist.

  But Ellie, Ellie had a wild past. He figured as much when he’d taken her to the Oscars one year and they’d bumped into one of those actors every girl had a crush on in high school. That guy. He couldn’t remember his name, but the guy had leered at Ellie and said, “Oh, we’ve met,” in this meaningful way. Todd knew that meant the guy had jumped her bones. Later, when he asked her about it, Ellie had laughed and told him yeah, she’d slept with him all right; she could never forget because he had the smallest wiener she’d ever seen. It made him feel better, sort of.

  At least that strange dude at the party turned out to be a process server—for their dog, of all things! But still, it didn’t explain the texts on her phone. Those texts on the phone . . . That was a bummer. And he was supposed to make a speech? About how much he loved her? When she was cheating on him with someone?

  I need you.

  Don’t leave me.

  Had she ever texted Todd those words?

  There was a rustling noise as someone came through the hedges and into his hiding place. Todd tensed.

  “Hey, man, what’s up?”

  Todd looked up apprehensively, but relaxed into a smile. He clapped the guy on the back. “Hey, Sanjay.”

  He liked Sanjay. Sanjay was his friend too. Maybe the guy had started out as Archer’s connection and was one of Ellie’s best friends, but he and Sanjay were buds. He passed the joint over.

  “Thanks,” Sanjay said, taking a long puff. “So what’s going on?”

  “Not much,” said Todd. “That’s the problem.”

  “Are you looking?” asked Sanjay.

  Todd shrugged. “No one wants an old media dude to run their new media companies.”

  Sanjay made a sympathetic grunt.

  “It’s fine, I’ll figure something out. Maybe go back to producing,” he said. Maybe, there was always a maybe. Maybe he could even go back to what he learned in college. Architecture. Why not?

  “If you ever need anything . . .” said Sanjay, passing the joint back.

  Todd nodded. “Thanks, man.”

  “Everything all right?”

  “Other than the fact that we’re almost bankrupt?”

  “No!”

  Todd shrugged. “It’ll be all right.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.” He shrugged. One way or another, they’d be all right. Maybe they wouldn’t be able to live like this anymore, maybe they’d lose all their friends; no one liked poor. Poor smelled. Poor was catching. This crowd tolerated his failure only because his wife was such a success. But once they found out Ellie’s company was floundering? That she and Todd couldn’t be counted on to buy that ten-thousand-dollar table at the gala or jet down to Cabo at a moment’s notice? Who’d hang out with them then?

  He’d made the mistake of thinking all those people he worked with—all those fancy producers with their bungalows on the lot and those famous actors who always took him to Lakers games and those hot actresses who laughed at all his jokes—were his friends. Maybe some of them were; a few of them were here tonight—guys from HBS who ran the big agencies now, his old mentor at the network, but no one else. Those other people who’d kissed his ass all those years were never his friends; they were his subjects, and the king was dead.

  Sanjay had a quizzical look on his face. “What’s going on with Ellie’s company? I thought she found a partner?”

  “Did she? Beats me. She never tells me anything,” said Todd.

  “Hmmm,” said Sanjay, who was too polite to comment.

  Todd flicked the last of the joint into the grass and stubbed it out. “Come on, I’ve got to make a speech. Pretty sure my wife is freaking out by now.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Dare

  October 19

  Twenty-Four Years Ago

  11:15 P.M.

  They ended up playing truth or dare, because it turned out that no one could say no to Shona. Leo sat cross-legged against the wall. So far, the bottle had eluded her, and she had watched in amusement as a few of the boys failed at some party tricks, and a few of the girls flashed their bras or had to pull their underwear up from their jeans to show them what they were wearing.

  The bottle landed on Scott, one of the lacrosse players on Brooks’s team. “Truth or dare,” said Andie, the bossy senior who seemed to run the game.

  “Truth,” said Scott.

  “Who do you think is prettier, Leo or Mish?” asked Andie.

  The crowd hooted. Pitting two girls against each other was a favorite question. So far, they’d done Megan versus Shona (Megan), Andie versus Lila (Lila), and now Leo versus Mish.

  “You don’t have to answer that,” said Leo, shaking her head.

  “Oh, but that one’s easy. Leo,” said Scott with a grin.

  “Fuck you, Scott!” said Mish from the back, where she was cuddled with Brooks.

  Le
o laughed, trying not to feel too pleased, too smug. The bottle spun again, and the next few people chose dares, which were pretty mild. Dave Griffin had to sniff everyone’s armpits, Olivia Chang had to do four cartwheels in a row, then Deacon Walker had to switch clothes with Avery O’Rourke, which took a while since they had to trade turns in the bathroom to do it.

  While they were waiting, the seniors started talking about—what else—college.

  “So are you doing Early Decision or Early Action at Brown?” Shona asked Dave.

  “Probably Early Action; I don’t want to be tied down too much. What if I get into Harvard?” he said.

  “My mom is going to kill me if I don’t get into Yale,” said Olivia, who was probably going to be valedictorian.

  “Same,” lamented Andie. “What about you, Brooks?”

  “U of Michigan is my top choice; my dad went there. Notre Dame is my safety,” he said.

  “What about you guys?” Shona asked, turning to Mish and Leo. “I mean, I know you guys are sophomores, so you have some time.”

  Mish snort-laughed and didn’t answer. Leo hid her face behind her hair and took another sip of her beer. “I don’t know, maybe just Lake.”

  “The community college?” gagged Andie, overhearing their conversation.

  “Harvard on the Hill,” smirked Dave.

  Shona slapped him on the arm. “RUDE! What’s wrong with Lake?”

  “Nothing but everything,” joked Deacon, returning from the bathroom, wearing Avery’s tube top.

  “Lake! Ew!” laughed Avery, who was swimming in Deacon’s striped rugby jersey.

  Leo cringed, and Mish met her eyes. Leo understood now, how hard it was for Mish to hang out with Brooks’s crowd.