“I’m sure, but—”
Zack took a deep breath and held out one hand. I saw my dad inflate at the interruption, but Zack barreled through anyway. I had to say, I was impressed. Terrified, but impressed.
“Mr. Day,” Zack said. “I promise to take care of your daughter. Where she goes, I go. She doesn’t leave my sight unless she’s in the bathroom, and even then I’ll demand she never stop whistling. I searched for Lucy for six hours when she disappeared, and I would have looked for sixty. She might end up hating me, but she won’t be in danger. That I promise.”
I slipped my hand slowly over my mouth during his words, trying to fight an urge to either sob uncontrollably or leap at him and kiss him so hard his shoes would turn to dust.
Dad inflated even more—I half-expected his eyes to turn red—and took a step forward.
Zack and Dad stared at each other, and after a long beat, Dad nodded.
“Home at 10:30,” Dad said to me. “Got it?”
Zack flashed me a
liar
look and crossed his arms. I’d told him 11:30, and he didn’t look joyous about the deception.
“You bet,” I said, and smiled wide. “See ya, Daddy!”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Day,” Zack said, and shook hands with my dad again.
Dad looked suspicious but oddly comforted. Zack touched his hand to my lower back again, a feeling I was definitely not getting tired of, and lead me back to Benny’s car.
The reception was inevitable. As soon as we both got in the car, a chorus of “oooooohs” and “oh yeahs” erupted through the little minivan. I slugged Sara in the arm as hard as I could, not that it mattered. She was solid muscle, and I think I bruised my knuckles.
Benny glanced back at us from the driver’s seat, and Daphne leaned forward to smash her hand against the back of his headrest.
“Hiyo, Silver, away!”
We pulled up to Benny’s and flooded out of the car. Benny and Zack had been engaged in a near-violent discussion of music choice, and as soon as Benny stopped the van in front his house the two of them threw their doors open and power-walked up the front steps, arms waving wildly. Benny was positive that only ’80s punk rock would do, while Zack argued for a more varied palette. The girls and I exchanged amused looks and followed them up.
The house was nice—I’d never been there before, but it was clear evidence of an upper-middle class upbringing. The stereo, currently eclipsed by Zack and Benny’s gesticulating forms, could have been in a professional nightclub. Speakers on stands were arranged at key locations around the living room. Lamps lit the spacious house at the moment, but I spotted a number of theatrical-looking lights scattered around, none of them on. Oh. A disco ball. I laughed and pointed it out to Daphne, Wanda, and Sara, who all groaned in unison. Benny let out a short, sharp bark at our reaction but otherwise kept to his music collection.
We all made sure to locate the bathroom, the door to the backyard—which, just from our quick scan, looked like the Secret Garden of Eden—and the kitchen. When we floated into the dining room, I heard Wanda gasp.
For good reason. The entire white-tile kitchen island bristled with bottles of booze. Not an ounce of spare counter-top shown between the Jack Daniels and the Malibu and a dozen more brands just like them. A stack of red cups I could have made into a second house stood proudly on the kitchen table, next to two-liter bottles of Coke, Sprite, Dr. Pepper, and a prolific plastic serving bowl overflowing with what looked like Cool Ranch Doritos.
“Holy crap,” Sara said.
“I’m home,” Daphne said, and had a red cup filled with Captain and Coke before anyone else even left the doorway.
Wanda grabbed me by the arm and tugged me toward a corner. Sara and Daphne didn’t seem to notice, and were perusing the selection of alcohol like old pros. I’d only ever drank once, at a party last year, and I’d only ended up getting really tired and falling asleep in Morgan’s bed fully clothed. Not terribly exciting, I admit.
“That’s alcohol,” Wanda hissed.
I couldn’t help myself. The shock turned her eyes into beach balls, and her voice even trembled. I flashed her a broad sympathetic grin.
“You don’t have to drink, Wanda,” I said, and squeezed her hand. “There’s plenty of soda.”
“Won’t…won’t people be mad?”
I’d be more amused by her innocence if I hadn’t worried about the same thing just a year ago.
“No,” I said. “That only happens in after school specials, babe.”
“I don’t know,” Wanda said, and turned away from me. Her eyes scanned the bottles of liquor like they were all little individual time bombs and someone had just handed her a pair of wire cutters. I put my hand on her shoulder and nudged her.
“Just walk around with a red cup filled with soda and act drunk,” I said.
She shook her head.
“Act like you’re kind of tired but everything is funny. And occasionally just sort of stare into space,” I said. “No one will suspect.”
Wanda twisted a lock of her hair so hard it made
my
scalp hurt.
“Luce…”
“I won’t tell anyone,” I said, and raised two fingers. “Strike me down with great vengeance and furious anger if I’m lyin’.”
Wanda nodded, but I wasn’t convinced. Not that I had to be—as bitchy as it sounds, she really had no alternatives. Her only other option was to ask to be taken home, which she wasn’t going to do, or have her parents come pick her up. Wanda was way too loyal to subject us all to parental doom, so that was out. I felt bad for her, and I was pretty nervous myself, but it was an adapt-or-die situation now. For both of us.
“You’ll be okay,” I said. “Promise.”
She nodded again, and it looked a little more confident. That’s something I suppose.
With Daphne’s urging, and hoping it would calm my nerves, I took one of her patented Captain and Coke’s and took a sip. It tasted like CAPTAIN and Coke, and when I made a pucker-face Daphne tossed another splash of rum in there for good measure. I want to stab her in the leg sometimes, I’m gonna be honest.
I floated back to the living room and sank into the thick plush cushions of the sofa. The drink had hit me hard, and I was in no mood to watch Daphne preen or Wanda cringe. My head felt heavy, and my eyes felt bigger than normal. I let out a deep whooshing breath and let my head cant sideways on the cushion behind me.
I sat on the couch alone for a time, with Wanda and Daph and Sara for a while, then with Benny as the guests filtered in. Benny and Zack had been worried at first—but the party-goers came in at a trickle, then a rush, and finally a biblical flood.
The living room, kitchen, and backyard swelled with kids. They seemed to breathe as one, causing the house to expand and creak at the joints. The music, a medley of ’90s songs, ’80s punk songs and top forty spoke to Zack’s influence on the soundtrack. I didn’t know why, but the thought of Zack winning the pointless soundtrack argument made me smile.
I stuck to my lone drink at first, nursing it for the better part of an hour, hoping no one would notice. The drink left me fuzzy but not much else—either I didn’t possess the gumption to throw myself completely over the deep end or some background track of my brain still kept a judo-grip on an endless strung-together litany of parental warnings and cautionary tales. Actually, the more I thought about it, the more I was sure it was the latter.
Sara disappeared completely—it didn’t surprise me. She wasn’t a huge fan of drinking but she’d smoke if there were smokers, and there were. I’d seen them gathered in a circle in the muggy darkness of Benny’s parent’s garden, barely illuminated by a single porch bulb burning behind thick amber glass. Daphne never stopped circling—she’d orbit a group of talkers, shoot in a few choice interjections, and move on. When she floated past me and I called her on her nomadic tendencies, she rebuffed me handily with a strangely appealing explanation.
“Luce,” Daphne said, and kissed me on the cheek. “I’m a shark. If I stop swimming, I die.”
Wanda mingled—much to my surprise, she wasn’t nearly the social caterpillar I had been expecting. She rotated through groups at a respectable pace, and I even saw her laughing a few times. Granted, her whole body threw off the
no sudden movements
vibe, and she looked ready to bolt most of the time, but she still hung in there. I had to give her credit.
I did okay—I talked to almost everyone, but I couldn’t repeat half of their names or three-quarters of their stories without a gun pressed firmly to my temple. Or my stomach. Ha,
ha.
Even my metaphors were Freudian.
Mostly I watched. I enjoy people-watching—I always have. But part of me was clenched, ready, waiting for the hammer to fall. I couldn’t explain the sensation—a kind of loose worry of an unnamed thing. Maybe it was the booze. Maybe it was the party. Maybe it was the fact that after an hour and a half, Zack hadn’t come looking for me once. Hadn’t even waved or checked up on me or—
I swallowed and shook my head.
I tried to pull myself into the
now
, a task not even remotely helped along by having to return to an agonizing conversation with a senior about his burnt orange 1965 Mustang Convertible. And the worst part? He wasn’t even hitting on me. It might have been an ego upswing if he was. Instead his eyes strayed not a centimeter from the eyes and overly exposed chest of one Emelia Beryl. A junior, cute, wearing too much eye make-up and not enough shirt. She didn’t fit the hot girl stereotype, and in fact looked a little too Goth-punk for my tastes, but this guy would not let up. I sighed and tried to find my place in the conversation.
I’d only even been involved in the conversation because I happened to be leaning against the same wall as Emelia, and I think Mustang guy was just trying to hit up as many targets as possible. Still, Emelia seemed to be the primary, and so after a few pleasant smiles and nods I managed to fade away.
Without even trying, and angry at myself for succeeding, I spotted Zack. Standing next to Benny, both of them gesturing in unison and telling a loud story. I couldn’t tell if they had practiced it or just told it too many times. Three girls hung off their words like the last helicopter out of Fallujah. Groan.
I was torn—break into the group and force my awesomeness on him, or bail and leave him high and dry. My phone buzzed in my purse instead. It was the first herald of a terrible night, and I wish I’d been lucky enough to suspect it. Instead, I flipped my phone and saw a name I didn’t expect—Morgan.
“Morgan?”
“What’s up?” she asked.
I frowned. Hadn’t she called me?
“Just…just the party.”
“Oh. Right,” she said. Even through the phone, her voice sounded clipped. Harsh. Uh-oh.
She tried again.
“How is it?”
I shrugged to no one. “It’s okay. Wanda seems to be in the lead for most-improved. I didn’t know that girl could schmooze.”
“She is on ASB,” Morgan said. Robotic.
“I guess,” I said. “Sorry you can’t-”
“Me too,” she spat, and I frowned.
What the hell
?
“Morgan what—?”
“Forget it, Lucy. Say hey to Benny for me, okay?”
Benny?
“Morgan, what’s up?”
“You don’t know?”
I thought my question had made that obvious. I took a deep breath.
“Know what, hon?”
“Just forget it. Have a great party.”
Cell phones don’t click, and thus, don’t dramatically hang-up very well. I took the long ache of profound silence as her disconnecting. I stared at my phone like the traitor it was and exiled it to the bottom of my purse.
Benny? I didn’t expect Morgan to be happy about being so thoroughly and inescapably grounded, but why had she bitten my head off? I looked around, anxious to spread my annoyance to someone else, but none of my friends were in sight. None except Zack, laughing with a trio of junior girls.
I turned toward the kitchen at speeds blurrable. I blasted through the swinging double-hinged door and went for the counter with my still-outstretched hand. My fingers clenched around glass, and I spun it in my fingers. Jack. Okay. In the cup.
I closed my eyes and grabbed again. Smirnoff? In the cup.
Grab. Margarita mix? In the cup.
Grab. Fumble. Break. Cringe.
Shrug. Grab. Orange Juice, Triple Sec, Grenadine. Cup-Cup-Cup.
Tequila. Bleh. Double-cup.
I swished the devil’s brew I’d concocted and stared down the business end of the red plastic cup. It looked…orange. It wasn’t brown or gray or green—none of the real evil colors. Okay. I plopped a handful of ice in and swished again. It didn’t seem to help the smell—a one-two combo of kerosene and Otter Pops.
“You’re not drinking that,” a voice said, stiffening my muscles in unnecessary alarm.
I didn’t turn once I’d recognized the voice. I wrapped both hands around the cup and touched the rim to my chin. I tried to hone in on the particular Otter Pop—it was a toss-up between Sir Isaac Lime and Little Orphan Orange. And kerosene.
“Daph, shush,” I said.
“What’s up?”
Her words were slurred, but genuine. I sighed and turned around. She was leaning in the door frame of the kitchen, the swinging door hanging behind her, held open only by her butt.
“Nothing, Daph,” I said. “Come drink with me.”
Daphne fluttered over, managing to control her gait with a determined nose-crinkle. I wasn’t positive, but I got the feeling she was overplaying her inebriation. Daphne and melodrama go hand-in-hand. Maybe mouth-and-mouth. Tongue-in-mouth.
I missed Zack.
Ugh
.
I tipped the cup back and took a huge swig of the foul drink. I gagged and clapped a hand over my mouth, but somehow managed to keep it down. I petted my stomach, trying to reassure it about the poison rocketing its way. By its violent thrashing, I don’t think I fooled it.
Daphne made the
gimme
gesture, and when I handed her the cup, she took a swig herself. She made a wine-tasting face, swished it around, and swallowed. She handed the cup back to me and shrugged.
“Little Orphan Orange,” Daphne concluded.
“That’s what I thought.”