Bryce makes his way five steps onto the living room dance floor when someone’s elbow hits him and splashes his Coors can down the front of his shirt. His first thought is to rush to the bathroom and dab it with cold water, but acting like that had gotten him where he is in life. So he stays, “dancing” his way through the crowd (all pressed so close together that he can get away with his limited repertoire of moves). The music changes from Men At Work to Asia. Three girls jump up on the couch to dance to “Heat of the Moment.” Bryce makes a mental note to never host a party at his house, though it’s not like he’s remotely popular enough to attract the type of people who dance on furniture.
Bryce tries making eye contact with one girl, then another, but their eyes land on him and are gone in the heat of the moment. He gets hit again and more beer splashes onto the carpet. Yep, do not have a party at home.
He finally gives up and retreats to the periphery. Maybe this is his role, like The Watcher in Marvel Comics: observe but never interfere. No, he doesn’t want to be The Watcher! The Watcher is the loser who let Liz get away at the end of summer. He wants to be Captain America, charging into action.
He stares at all those people on the couch now. Someone could fall and crack their head open. Someone could get alcohol poisoning. Death is all around.
He sees Susannah on the stairs, drifts toward her while trying not to look like he’s drifting toward her. She’s wearing her new jeans; she’s also obviously drunk. He fake-coughs long enough to palm too many Tic-Tacs into his mouth.
“Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii, Bryce!” Make that extremely drunk. “I’m a little bit sad tonight. My goldfish died.” She tells a story about winning Mr. Sparkly at the state fair, how he was the best fish of all time.
Bryce sits on the stair below her. She doesn’t run away.
“Have you ever been sad?” she asks, leaning forward, her hair brushing his ear. She must’ve shampooed right before coming here, judging by the smell.
Later, he’ll tell himself that the story of Dakota spilled out naturally in response to her question. That he wasn’t using it to score points, that he never would’ve done that. “Now I think about dying all the time. Like, I can’t stop, ever.”
Susannah moves down to Bryce’s step and hugs him. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers. He sits for beat before commanding his arms to hug her back. He’s in close physical contact with Susannah Kramer, her boobs pressing into his shoulder, and she’s not struggling to escape. Even better, she understands him. Through the looking glass.
There won’t ever be a better moment than this. “Will you go out with me?” he asks.
She lifts her head, blinks at him. “Are you joking me?”
He can escape now, no damage done; simply say yes and play it off. “No, I’m not joking. I think you’re super foxy and I want to go out with you.”
She’s out of the hug like a pilot ejecting from a fighter jet. “Was that story about your friend even true?”
“Yes! Totally true. I swear.”
She laughs then. Actually laughs. Isn’t she supposed to be sad? “You think I’d go out with you? I’m so sure, Bryce.”
She’s still laughing when she manages to stand and wobble away, leaving him alone on the staircase. He wants to leave the party then, before Susannah tells everyone and he becomes the center of attention, the freak on display at the carnival. Shrink down and disappear like Ant-Man. No, the last thing Bryce needs is a
shrinking
power.
Maybe Cam found his mystery girl. He won’t want to be interrupted to hear Bryce’s sob story. He won’t want a lame friend interfering with his fun.
The cold outside keeps the backyard crowd small. A circle of patio chairs, most of them occupied by silhouettes. One person who’s out here for sure, given away by the nasally whine of a voice: Daryl Jennings. Daryl’s on the debate team, wears suits to school most days, and is an expert on any topic.
Sure enough, he’s placed himself in the center chair. “…and when they pumped his stomach, guess what they found?” he says.
More people over on the grass. Cigarette tips float like fireflies. Someone hangs on the tire swing, creaking to and fro.
“C’mon, man, I heard this same story about Elton John,” one of the silhouettes tells Daryl.
“Fine, don’t believe me.” Daryl takes a deep drink from a beer can. “But my cousin’s friend works in the hospital where they brought Rod Stewart in. Dude’s a total flamer.” He punctuates this with a lengthy belch.
At last, something more unpleasant than regular Daryl: drunk Daryl. Bryce weighs going back and facing Susannah, or staying out here and listening to this. Like choosing between syphilis and gonorrhea.
Daryl’s on the topic of catching herpes from a toilet seat when someone inside shouts, “Cops!” A siren chirps out front. Red and blue lights on the tree branches. Chaos in the house. Everyone on the patio jumps up, runs across the yard to the side gate. Bryce follows the frightened stampede.
“My parents will totally murder me.”
“Throw it over the fence.”
“I’m, like, over the limit for sure.”
In front of the house, a police car blocks the driveway. Another pulls up onto the grass. More partygoers pour out the front door. Flashlight beams sweep across faces. A female officer yells something.
Bryce runs down the sidewalk without stopping to think that he hasn’t done anything illegal (unless they’ve started arresting people for spectacular failures with girls). Faces fly by. Tires peal out. No Cam. He could check for the car, but it’s in the opposite direction.
“Bryce!” Trevor Sargent waves from the driver’s seat of a white Volvo across the street. “C’mon, dude!” Bryce jumps in the back, Trevor executes a U-turn that takes them up onto the sidewalk, and they’re gone.
“Holy shit, that was crazy!” Trevor says. He keeps checking the rearview mirror, banging the wheel, laughing.
Way too many people in this car. Bryce is squished against the door by Vadim (who everyone jokes is a Russian spy). Two blond heads in the front seat, next to Trevor; four more legs on the other side of Vadim. Bryce doesn’t even glance sideways, in case one of them is Susannah.
Trevor swerves to the opposite side of the street, corrects himself just in time to jet past a stop sign without slowing.
Headlights come fast from the right.
“Trevor, look out!” Bryce closes his eyes, ready for impact. Paralyzed or disfigured. This time is really it.
A horn
beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeps
from what sounds like two inches outside the window. Bryce can feel the headlights on his skin. No collision, the sound fading behind them. Their car bounces across a dip in the street. Everyone laughing. Except Bryce.
“Anyone know another party?” one of the blond heads asks at the next intersection.
“Let’s go egg someone’s house,” a voice next to Vadim says.
Trevor bangs his fist on the horn over and over. “Yes! Right now!” During the debate on which victim, Bryce pinpoints the voices of Max Avery and Tess Banks.
Max says, “Let’s get Bryce Rollins.” Two others agree.
“You guys, he’s right there,” Trevor says. The blond heads turn around: Tess and Jody Carbonel. The two on the other side of Vadim lean forward: Max, Megan-something.
Sorry, We didn’t see you, Just kidding. When Trevor pulls up to Safeway to buy eggs, his car straddling two spaces, everyone topples out like a Volkswagen full of clowns at the circus.
The clowns go inside the store; Bryce stays behind. He could follow along and then what? They didn’t know he was there, will they know if he’s gone? Besides Trevor, he doesn’t much like any of these people.
And where the hell is Cam?
Why had they thought this night would possibly be fun?
Cameron is in the middle of his story about getting locked out of his hotel room on the eighth grade trip to San Francisco when someone out in the hall yells, “Cops!” He jumps up, unsure of what to do. He and Rosemary go downstairs, where most of the partiers have vanished, leaving a village of beer cans to mark their passing. Blue and red lights strobe in through the front window.
Asia sings to an empty room.
Here in the light, it’s like he’s seeing her for the first time, losing his mind all over again.
Plump Andrea Samson runs up to them, carrying her sandals in her hand. “Rosie, are you ok? We haveta go, like, now.” She pulls Rosemary toward the back door. Cameron follows them outside.
Stern voices keep repeating, “Party’s over. Time to go home.” Two police cars out front. Cameron watches the officers herd people out of the house but doesn’t see Bryce. Andrea and Rosemary get into a waiting green car up the block from Katrina’s house. As they pull away, Rosemary waves to Cameron through the window. She looks so cute right then he wants to run after the car and pull her out, not take the chance that he might never see her again or that this is all some gag the universe is playing on him.
Her face stays imprinted behind his eyes long after the green car is gone.
He waits at the corner for Bryce, then in his car with the heater running, then finally gives up and drives home.
He definitely likes Rosemary.
Bryce lies in bed, ears still ringing from the party, left hand in its default resting position inside his underwear. He keeps picturing the near-collision. The way the others laughed, not even caring how close they came. Maybe not even knowing.
You kids think you’re immortal
.
A lump. On his left testicle.
He’s never noticed that before, and he’s had a lot of chances to notice. Like a pencil eraser grew there overnight. There was something in Health class last year about lumps on balls. If Phoebe Weatherfield hadn’t sat in front of him, he might’ve paid more attention.
He checks the right ball: all clear. Back to the left. Maybe it’s the angle he’s at; he shifts, but the lump remains.
Somewhere in his closet is a folder full of old school handouts. He’ll look for it in the morning. Just go to sleep now. It can wait.
Two minutes later, he’s kneeling in the closet, tearing through random boxes and folders.
He finds a drawing of their former English teacher, Mrs. Webster, with her butt blown up to the proportions of two balloons in her pants. Bryce had done the drawing while Cam filled in the word balloons (all verbatim quotes):
I don’t get paid enough to deal with stupid people.
If I have to stop because of you, you’re out of here.
These keys around my neck mean I am an authority figure.
It was signed
F.T.E.
They planned to sneak into her room during her prep period and hang it up out of her reach, until Cam decided to become every teacher’s favorite student. You know it’s bad when you have
them
asking
you
if they can write your college recommendations.
Keep digging. Ah hah, the Health folder.
Common Venereal Diseases
is the first ditto. No, none of these have lumps.
Next ditto:
Cancers Among the Young
. Testicular cancer afflicts men under 25. Presents as a lump on the testicle.
Wait,
cancer
?
Holy. No, he can’t have cancer. Teenagers don’t get cancer. It must be something else – like a monster pimple. But can balls get pimples on them?
He turns on his desk lamp and tries to measure the lump with a ruler, but can’t get a good angle.
It’s not cancer.
Shadows arc across the ceiling. A daddy longlegs hangs in the corner. His science and Spanish textbooks on his desk, homework for tomorrow.
Next to the books, his wallet with the two condoms inside. What a joke that turned out to be.
“It’s not cancer,” he says aloud.
Would you rather know the when or the how?
Claire’s been going to lunch with Ricky and his friends most days. He always saves her a spot next to him at whatever restaurant. She always gets to sit shotgun if he drives; if he doesn’t she’s with him in the back. Maybe he’s being polite. Maybe more.
After school, the group (or some combination of them) stops at Circle K because Ricky wants to stay away from home as long as possible. He works part time at his dad’s gas station, and always has a roll of money bulging in his pocket. At Circle K they drink sodas and smoke in the parking lot. Claire doesn’t like how cigarettes make her feel past a couple of puffs – when the pleasant jitters are replaced by an upset stomach – so she keeps the smoke in her mouth and blows it out the way she’s seen in movies.
Someone is usually signing a parent’s name on someone else’s test or attendance contract.
“Screw that noise,” Ricky says one day when Claire mentions needing to get home and do homework. She seems to be the only one of the group who ever has any.
“School is like one of those labor camps,” Stringy Hair says.
“A gulag.” Ricky finishes his soda, tosses the cup onto the ground. “I cannot fucking wait to be done with this fucking place. Just gotta pass my classes and I get my exit ticket.” His eyes hidden behind mirrors.
“Then what?” Claire asks.
“Then I’m outta here and never looking back. New York city.”
“Cool. What college there?” Claire hates asking questions because she sounds like her mom.
Ricky laughs. “I’m done with school for good. All the other lemmings can stress out about getting into college.” He taps the Marlboro pack against his palm. “So many things you can do in New York and no one cares about a degree.”
From inside the car, CAT asks, “Lemming’s a fish, right?”
“How is it a fish, dumbshit? They walk on the beach.”
“But they swim.”
Ricky says to Claire, “In New York they have these things called bike messengers. You get paid to ride around delivering mail.”
Stringy Hair asks, “What if it’s raining or snowing?”
“I dunno. I don’t have the job, do I? Point is, anything’s better than this.”
Neither Claire nor the other two can argue with that.
* * *
One day she, Ricky, and Buzzed Head go to a park, where Ricky pulls out a little black pipe in the shape of a skull. They sit in a circle around the corner from the playground, where no one will see them. All Claire knows about marijuana is what she learned from the Nancy Reagan drug film they watched in middle school. One time she’d been gardening for Steve and Bo and pulled out some weeds that made them so mad. Dakota said it was a pot plant. Claire looked in the encyclopedia and, sure enough, the picture looked just like what she’d pulled out of the ground.
Now here she sits, like a character on an Afterschool Special, being introduced to the evils of drugs.
The boys clench their faces and suck the skull, then Ricky holds it toward her. Smoke worms out from the top. Claire takes it and copies them; her lungs explode in pain. She coughs, coughs, coughs until she thinks her eyeballs might pop out onto the grass. Around the corner, two kids go up and down on the teeter-totter.
“First time?” Buzzed Head asks.
Claire nods because she can’t speak, wipes the tears off her face with her sleeve.
“Don’t suck so hard,” Ricky says.
Then the smoke hits her, really hits her, and it’s like sinking into warm water. Life slips out of focus. She watches the kids – up, down, up, down – and could happily do so all day.
Nothing matters. Bliss.
Claire goes home afterwards and eats Cinnamon Life cereal by the handful, then two popsicles. She hears Bryce coming up from the basement and runs up to her room, convinced he’ll be able to smell it on her and call their mom.
* * *
She opens her locker at school the next day to find a folded piece of paper, apparently slipped in through the slot.
Dear Claire,
I awaken to find you are not by my side
My dreams give the pleasure that you have denied
Your beauty continuously haunts me by night
By day your the angel who brings the world light
No signature. She looks around to see if the author might be watching, but it’s the same parade of faces as every day. The only guys that have ever talked to her at school are the ones who have to do so in class. And Ricky’s group. She can’t imagine any of them writing a poem, though.
Meredith is already at the arroyo, sitting on the tree stump. “Notice anything different?” she asks, smiling. No more braces – her teeth are the color of paper.
Claire takes the camera from her backpack. “I have to get a picture of this historical occasion.” Meredith poses with a hand behind her head and her chin up, like a movie star. Claire checks the F stop, then clicks away, saying to show your teeth when Meredith does a pouty face.
“Remember my marionette poem?” Meredith says. “My teacher wants me to submit it to the school magazine, but I don’t know.”
“You should do it and use a fake name.”
“Oh, totally! I could be something sophisticated, like Penelope.”
“Or Joan Jett!”
“I wish Pat had named me Joan Jett. That’s literally the greatest name of all time.” They start on the path toward home. “You’ll be happy to know I’m inviting Justin to my birthday party.”
It actually takes Claire a moment to remember Justin’s last name. Vance. Justin Vance.
“Aren’t you psyched?”
“Whatever,” Claire says. “It’s your party.” She hands over the folded paper.
“Oh. My. God. Who wrote this?”
Claire shrugs. “Someone stuck it in my locker.”
“‘My dreams give the pleasure that you have denied’? You know what he’s talking about, right?” Meredith hands it back. “That’s awesome if it’s someone hot.”
“I’ve been eating lunch with these senior guys.”
“For reals?”
Claire talks about Ricky’s gang, the car trips, the cigarettes. She leaves out the pot.
“That’s so cool,” Meredith says. “The seniors at Sandia are all totally stuck up around freshmen.”
A few feet off their path lie the remains of a brown rabbit, its front legs splayed open like scissors. A globe of flies hovers over its wet guts.
“A coyote or something,” Claire replies. She gets the camera back out.
“Grody! Why do you want a picture of that?” Meredith asks with a hand over her mouth.
“Cuz no one else in my class will have one. Maybe we should take a foot for good luck.” The girls stand in the sun, daring each other to actually touch it, before they give up and walk home.