by Natasha West
‘I don’t know’ Izzy yelled back from the living room sofa.
‘I’m starving!’ Simon said, coming to the doorway and looking at his sister, not noticing her low mood.
‘I’m not Mum, Si’ Izzy snapped at him. ‘Just go and have a look for yourself!’
Simon tutted. ‘Alright, moody-tits’ he muttered and went off to the raid the kitchen.
The phone rang again. Izzy jumped up and ran to the kitchen. She had to warn Simon, stop him before he…
‘Hello?’ she heard her brother say into the kitchen extension. And then, ‘Iz! It’s Alicia!’
Izzy moaned. She got up and went into the kitchen, taking the phone from her stupid brother with a fake smile. ‘Hello?’
‘Oi! I’ve been ringing you all morning! Where the hell have you been?’ Alicia demanded.
‘Sorry. I’ve been… asleep’ she lied.
‘Bloody hell, ‘til this time?’ Alicia exclaimed. ‘You must have had a right session last night.’
Izzy faked a laugh.
‘So…’ Alicia said. ‘Let’s have it then.’
Izzy looked at Simon, eating cereal loudly. ‘I’m with my brother.’
Simon swallowed. ‘I’m not listening’ he said.
‘Yeah, right’ Izzy said with a raised eyebrow.
Alicia interrupted. ‘So go to the phone upstairs.’
‘I can’t. He’ll listen in’ Izzy said. It was true, he would. He had the knack down. Whenever Izzy and Simon picked up a ringing phone at the same time, if it turned out to be for her, she’d yell down at Simon to hang up and he’d scream, ‘Alright!’, fake the click of a phone being put down, mute it so you couldn’t hear him breathe and listen until his little ears fell off. Izzy knew his tricks. Because things she’d said in private conversations that he couldn’t have heard any other way would become blackmail material, given time: ‘If you don’t do the washing up instead of me, I’ll tell Dad you drove his car for ten seconds in Asda carpark when he went in to buy sausages!’ He was a tricky little bastard.
‘Fine’ Alicia said. ‘If you won’t talk now, you’ve got no choice. You’ll have to come to Jack’s tonight.’
Izzy couldn’t think of anything worse. The mood she was in today, the idea of being around the ‘cool’ people that populated her school was horrifying. ‘Alicia, no-’
‘Look!’ Alicia broke in. ‘Are we friends or not?’
Izzy was shocked. ‘Of course we are.’
‘Then come to the party tonight. Just this once, do something I ask.’
Izzy was in a bind. Alicia had broken out the big guns, as good as saying that if she didn’t come to this party, Izzy was a bad friend. And Alicia was the only real friend that Izzy had. Sure, she talked to other people, made a stab at being a functioning member of her school. But she couldn’t really say that anyone else really knew her. Not the way Alicia did. And now that was in danger. Even if Izzy knew it was emotional blackmail, this felt like a moment she couldn’t say no.
‘Fine’ Izzy sighed.
A voice broke in from Alicia’s end. ‘Is that Izzy?’ asked Alicia’s dad.
‘None of your business’ Alicia replied, taking her mouth from the phone. Izzy was shocked. She wouldn’t have dared speak to her dad that way.
‘Well, if it is, say hello from me’ Alicia’s dad replied cheerily, untroubled by his daughter’s attitude.
‘Christ, alright then. Can you bugger off now?’ Alicia said and then said to Izzy, ‘Was that a yes? About the party.’
‘Yes. What’s the address?’ she asked, not even trying to sound into it. But Alicia didn’t care. She gave her the address and told her to be there by eight.
Five
Music blared from Jack Miller’s house. It was Razorlight, of course. It was 9.01pm. Izzy knocked on the door. No one answered. They probably couldn’t hear her.
She knocked again, only slightly louder. If no one came to let her in, she couldn’t be at the party, could she? She could tell Alicia that she’d tried and tried but no one answered the door, no matter how hard she banged…
The door opened. Jack Miller looked at her in slight surprise. She wasn’t surprised that Jack didn’t know her. Despite the fact they’d gone to school together for years, they existed on different planes of existence. ‘Yeah?’ he said, as though she were a Jehovah’s witness.
‘Alicia asked me to come’ Izzy said quickly.
‘Oh’ Jack said, relaxing and standing back. ‘Get in, then. She’s in the kitchen, I think, doing shots.’
Izzy stepped in and nearly ran down the hallway to the kitchen. She filed in to find Alicia lying on the kitchen table, some boy Izzy didn’t know sucking tequila out of Alicia’s belly button. Izzy had always suspected this level of debauchery was going on at parties. But to have it confirmed was shocking. ‘Hi?’ she said.
Alicia – giggling a moment ago as the strange guy lapped booze from her stomach – turned and gasped. ‘Oh my god!’ She shoved the guy away, her attention fully on Izzy. ‘You came! You’re late. But you came!’ she almost screamed, getting off the table and pulling her vest-top down. She ran to Izzy and grabbed her in a hug.
Izzy accepted the hug, enjoying it. She hadn’t realised until now how much she’d needed it. It was a warm compress applied directly to her cold little soul. ‘I said I would, didn’t it?’
‘I didn’t believe you’ Alicia told her, as she pulled back from the hug. Izzy looked at her friend, tall, skinny, gorgeous, with her long dark hair, bright blue sparkly eyes, porcelain skin and sharp cheekbones. Not for the first time, she couldn’t understand how this person was her friend. Izzy was from the planet Dork. Alicia was some kind of intergalactic superhero, spreading her cool everywhere she went.
Alicia turned back to the table, grabbing the tequila bottle and a shot glass. ‘Right. Let’s get you caught up.’
***
Izzy sat on the sofa, three sheets to the wind. It wasn’t like last night’s glass of red wine, passing through her system the moment the shit hit the fan. This was hard liquor and for the first time in Izzy’s life, she was drunk.
Alicia was sat next to her, sipping a glass of… What the hell was that and why was it pink? ‘OK, so what happened then?’ she prompted. Izzy, despite how hammered she felt, had yet to fully spill her beans. She was telling the story sequentially, working up to its disappointing conclusion. ‘So then I took my dress off. Well, not off off. I sort of got it halfway down’ she said, gesturing at her waist.
‘Yeah…’ Alicia said, clearly wanting Izzy to get to the mucky stuff.
‘So then…’ Izzy started, before pausing to take another sip of horrible tequila, gagging immediately after. She did it every sip. ‘…He kind of, like, climbed on top of me…’
‘Yes?’
‘And then… We stopped. And then we went downstairs and watched telly’ Izzy said quickly.
‘You stopped?’
Izzy nodded, embarrassed.
‘I don’t get it, what went wrong? I thought you guys… Weren’t you ready to go?’
Izzy looked away. That was the whole problem. She hadn’t been ready. And she probably never would be. Alicia had been born ready. How could she begin to explain this to her?
‘Hey!’ Alicia yelled. ‘Why are you crying?’
Izzy was shocked to find Alicia was right. There were tears on her cheeks. How humiliating. Her first time really drinking and she was finding out she was a tearful, sloppy drunk. ‘I don’t know!’ she wailed.
‘Come here, idiot’ Alicia said and grabbed Izzy in a hug that was half wrestling move, half affectionate. But Izzy was crying. She didn’t like to be touched when she was upset. She never had. Izzy shook herself out of the hug. ‘No, don’t. I’m fine.’
She looked at Alicia to see something surprising. Hurt. But Alicia quickly cast the look off, saying, ‘Alright, god, whatever weirdo. I was just trying to be nice.’
Izzy didn’t know what to say. But she didn’t get the cha
nce. Alicia suddenly jumped up, saying, ‘I love this song!’ It was some generic indie tune that Izzy didn’t know, but Alicia was dancing like it was the greatest song she’d ever heard, swaying, her hands in her hair, sexy without trying. Several guys appeared out of nowhere to dance around her. Alicia bumped them away with her hips, eyes closed. Izzy watched her, amazed as ever by the way she didn’t seem to care how cool she was, which of course only made her cooler.
Abruptly, Izzy became aware of how much booze was in her bladder. She got up, leaving Alicia to dance, stumbling down the dim hallway, past a snogging couple, up the stairs.
It was dark in the upper hall. She pushed at a door, hoping to find the bathroom, but when the door swung open, she realised it was a bedroom. It was inhabited. ‘Hey!’ called a girl with red hair, Izzy thought her name was Jenny Barnes. She was with a guy Izzy recognised, Mark Foster. He played mediocre guitar in a band that gigged at grotty pubs. That apparently had a lot of caché with Jenny, because her top was basically open. ‘Shut the door’ the girl shouted.
Mark leaned up to see Izzy. He looked back to Jenny with a salacious grin. ‘Hang on a sec, let’s not be too hasty. Maybe she could stay?’
Jenny turned on him at speed. ‘Fuck you, pervert! I’m not doing that!’
‘It was a joke!’ Mark protested.
‘What, I’m not enough for you?’ Jenny said, now sat up, buttoning her shirt.
‘Babe, don’t be crazy!’ Mark protested.
Izzy had had enough. She closed the door on the burgeoning argument and went on with her search for a lav. As she carried on, she heard Jenny say with passion, ‘You think you’re Brandon Flowers. Well, you know what? You’d be lucky to be Chris Martin!’
Izzy winced. That had to hurt.
She kept walking, moving away from the row. She saw a door ajar, tile visible and she opened it with relief. A toilet. She locked the door and threw her jeans down, letting out the liquid that felt like it had been trying to kill her for the last few minutes. When she was done, she went back out. The bedroom door was now wide open, the room vacated. Jenny and Mark had obviously gone to have their fight somewhere a bit more public.
Izzy looked in at the bedroom. It was a parent’s room, tidy, beige, paintings on the wall of nature scenes. The bed was still quite neat, Jenny and Mark hadn’t really had the chance to ruffle the covers yet. Izzy thought it looked rather comfortable. She walked straight in and slipped off her shoes. As she lay down, the room spun a bit. Izzy fixed that problem by closing her eyes. The thump of music from below seemed to fade.
Six
The door was thrown open with a creak. Izzy sat up. Had she been asleep?
‘I can’t believe this’ Alicia said from the doorway, delighted. ‘Only you would come to a party and have a nap.’
Izzy sat up, discombobulated. ‘Oh. Erm…’
Alicia walked over and sat on the bed. ‘That’s a serious party foul, you realise that?
Izzy laughed. ‘I’m sorry. That tequila was strong.’
‘You’re not kidding. I just spent the last ten minutes fighting the urge to puke. But I won, thank god’ she said with a happy air of victory. ‘I hate puking in public. Oh, speaking of embarrassing yourself, Mark and Jenny are having a right old barney downstairs. Those two are such drama queens’ Alicia said with disgust.
Izzy’s cheeks flushed. ‘Yeah, I caught the opening act of that.’
‘You know what it was about? They’re not making any sense. I thought I heard Mark say something about Chris Martin’ Alicia said, mystified.
Izzy cleared her throat. ‘Actually, it was sort of, well, not really but kind of my fault. I walked in on them.’
‘Were they doing it?’ Alicia gasped.
‘Not quite. But I think that was the direction it was going. Until Mark made a joke about me having a threesome with them.’
Alicia clapped her hands and whooped with laughter. Izzy was pleased. She loved making Alicia laugh. ‘Oh shit! Really?’
‘I think she thought he was serious.’
‘Are you kidding? Of course he was serious’ Alicia said casually.
Izzy tutted. ‘Don’t be daft. Mark Foster gets his pick. He’s not gonna want to have sex with me. I mean, I don’t wanna have sex with him either, but-’
Alicia shoved Izzy’s shoulder. ‘You’re the stupid one. Why wouldn’t he?’
Izzy didn’t really know how to answer that. She just knew that the Marks of the world wanted a certain type of girl. And she was quite sure she was never going to be that girl. Ben was the limit of what she could achieve. There was nothing wrong with him as such, but he was like her. Middling.
Alicia gave her a serious look, rarely seen. ‘You don’t know… You don’t know you’re cute, do you?’
Izzy frowned. Was Alicia drunk? She was the beautiful one. Izzy was the plain one. Everybody knew that. ‘I think you need to have a glass of water’ she told her friend, trying to kid her way out of the situation.
But Alicia had the bit between her teeth. ‘I’m serious. You don’t, do you?’
Izzy stood. It was time to go home. ‘What time is it?’ she asked, slipping on her left shoe.
‘What? You’re not going! It’s not even eleven!’
Izzy was trying to get the right one on now, but it wouldn’t go over her heel, the stubborn bastard.
Alicia suddenly leaned over and grabbed the shoe, ripping it off Izzy’s foot.
‘What are you doing, you maniac!’ Izzy screamed, lunging for the shoe.
But Alicia was fast, stepping back and holding the shoe out of reach. ‘You’re not going.’
‘I am’ Izzy said firmly. ‘Gimme the shoe.’
‘No. You were supposed to stay ‘til they chucked us out and then I wanted to go and get a kebab with you from that place down the road. I thought you might, I dunno, might wanna stay at mine tonight?’
‘There’s plenty of people you could do that with, ‘Licia’ Izzy said, trying not to react to Alicia’s statement. It amazed her that Alicia had even had such a goal in mind. Though Izzy considered Alicia her best friend, she didn’t kid herself for a second that it went the other way. Alicia could have done those things with anyone and frequently did. She was the centre of their little world. She wasn’t serious.
But Alicia looked at Izzy and she was as serious as a heart attack. ‘But I thought for once I might get to do them with you.’
Izzy reached for her shoe again, leaning forward. Alicia leaned back further, and Izzy was right up against her now, fingers outstretched. She gave one last little push and they overbalanced, tumbling onto the bed. Izzy saw her chance and tried to crawl over Alicia, the shoe almost within her grasp. She realised she was right on top of Alicia. Astride her, in fact. She looked down at her oldest friend. Alicia was looking right up at her, the shoe forgotten, a strange look on her face. Izzy felt blood rush to her cheeks as they looked at each other. She felt hot, confused.
And it happened. Alicia leaned up and pushed her lips against Izzy’s. Izzy’s eyes fluttered shut, everything seemed to go dark. Izzy’s heart felt like it was pumping with rocket fuel as Alicia’s lips moved softly against hers.
A moment later, Alicia drew away and lay back on the bed, looking at Izzy, smiling shyly. Izzy didn’t smile back. She sat up and climbed off Alicia, off the bed. She realised she still needed her shoe and she walked around the bed to pick it up from the other end. She sat down on the edge of the bed, her back to Alicia, and put it on her foot. She stood up and walked to the door.
‘Are you ok?’ Alicia asked in a shaky voice.
Izzy turned without looking directly at Alicia. ‘Fine. I’m gonna go.’
‘Oh. Alright’ Alicia said. Izzy heard the hurt in her voice for the second time that night. She didn’t want to hear it, she especially didn’t want to be the cause of it. But she was scared. Whatever had just happened, it was terrifying. The room had become quicksand and it was sucking her in, taking her down to something she didn’
t want to see. If she didn’t climb out right now, she didn’t know what might happen.
‘I knew you’d be like this’ Alicia said.
Izzy turned to look at Alicia, now sat up on the bed, her eyes cast down. ‘What do you mean?’ Izzy asked.
‘I shouldn’t have… It doesn’t matter’ Alicia said. ‘Go if you want. This was stupid. I’m just drunk. We’re both drunk.’
Izzy wasn’t drunk anymore. She didn’t think Alicia seemed drunk either. She looked stone cold sober.