End of the Innocence (13 page)

“I’m sorry. I was just imagining you looking at the freckles on your wrist,” she said, smiling. “But it does sound horrible, though.”

And then The Idea hit me.

“You should go,” I said, almost jumping up in excitement.

She gave me a look I imagined I would get if I had offered her a fresh bowl of cow manure. “You’re kidding, of course.” I was surprised her words didn’t drip acid into the concrete and leave pockmarks like alien blood.

“No! It’s genius!” I said, ignoring her complete and utter disdain for the suggestion. “Look, the whole point of us going— Well, I’m not clear on the
whole
point, but Jennifer seems to think me going is important. She said something about standing up and proving that different isn’t bad. Am I right?” She nodded hesitantly. “So then why does that have to stop with me and Brad? Why can’t it include you and Jeremy and everyone? If we want to make a statement, everyone should show up. The way to make it The Party is to make it a party for everyone.” She didn’t say anything, but at least she wasn’t arguing anymore.

“Look, we’ve been here four years just like them, and the only people who go to that damn thing are them.” I nodded toward Jennifer and Brad. “Let’s show them they have been wrong this entire time. What are they going to do? Call the cops?”

“Kick our asses?” she countered.

“Not if there are more of us than them.” I gave her a smile, and I saw her eyes light up. “Forget the party… let’s call it Occupy Foster.”

“No more 1 percent?” She was grinning now.

“No, let them keep their 1 percent. I just want to show them the other 99 percent.” The Idea felt right. Well no, not right, it felt very, very Wrong, and that felt completely Right. If Jennifer thought Brad and I showing up would make a statement about equality, then let’s make a real statement.

“Do we tell them?” she asked me, looking at Brad and Jennifer.

My first impulse was to say no, but I knew that was the wrong approach.

“Hey,” I said, leaning forward toward Brad. “Isn’t Friday night your D&D night with the council of nerds?”

He squinted and frowned at me, because he knew I knew Friday was D&D night. Though he liked his role-playing group, he didn’t make it public knowledge. “Yeah, why?” he asked, trying to play off being a D&D nerd like it was no big deal.

“Did you tell them you weren’t showing up this week?” I knew he hadn’t.

“Um, not yet,” he replied, hesitating, not really
sure
about the presence of a trap, but not really sure about his safety, either. He looked the same way a stalked deer might look before it ventured into a clearing. “Why?”

“Well, I was thinking. This whole ‘going to The Party’ thing is about us showing your ex-friends how wrong they were to disinclude people for various reasons, right?” This time I asked Jennifer. She nodded slowly, no doubt sharing Brad’s building sense of impending doom. “So then, why don’t we bring them to the party too?” Neither one of them even blinked. “In fact, why don’t we bring a lot of people? Like Sammy and her drama friends, the library guys, heck, anyone who wants to go.”

Brad’s face remained neutral, but Jennifer automatically rejected it. “But they weren’t invited,” she tried.

“So? Neither were Brad or me, for that matter.” Jennifer winced microscopically; she did not like where this was going.

Sammy chimed in. “Didn’t you say it wasn’t that kind of party? That people just showed up? So what if we all just showed up?”

You could see the wheels turning in Jennifer’s mind as she tried to find words that wouldn’t come out sounding like she was insulting us. “I am just saying, I have no problem bringing people I know to a party, but strangers who I don’t know at all—”

“I know the drama crew,” Sammy interrupted her. “And Brad obviously knows the library guys.”

“Brad,” she said, looking over at him desperately. “Help me out here.”

He glanced at me, and I saw him smile. Then, turning back at her, he shrugged. “I’m with them. If we’re going to do this, why not do this right? We aren’t talking about posting an open invite on Craigslist. We are just saying to invite a few of our friends who would never get to go.”

“Do you know what they would do if all those kinds of people showed up?” she asked.

“What kind?” Sammy asked. I imagined fog coming out of her mouth, the tone was so cold.

“I mean, people who normally don’t go,” Jennifer added quickly.

“No you didn’t,” Brad said, not giving Sammy the chance to get started. “And we know it,” he said in a softer tone. “Look Jen, you were right. Those people are assholes, and we both knew it when we were part of the asshole group. It’s time to shake things up. Let’s do this right and invite everyone who never got a chance to go. You wanted to make a statement, let’s make one.”

She shook her head. “You do know most of the people there will just leave.”

“Let them,” I said, resisting the urge to just leap up and hug Brad because I was so proud of him. “We’ll have our own party.”

She looked at the three of us and then laughed. “Okay, I know when I’m outvoted. But I would suggest not telling Kelly.” She thought for a second and amended that to “No. Don’t tell a soul. If word gets out, everything will be over before it starts. The only way this works is if we all show up out of nowhere.”

I was about to say something when Sammy burst out with, “Wait. So you’re going to go along with it?” She stared intently at Jennifer.

She thought about it a second and nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I was trying to make a statement, not ruin the whole party, but if we have to ruin the party to make the statement, fuck it.”

“Wow, you really aren’t a bitch.” As soon as Sammy said it, she clasped both hands over her mouth. “I am so sorry, that was mean.”

Jennifer laughed. “I am a bitch, born and bred.” She looked at Brad and smiled. “Maybe it’s time I aspire to be more than that, huh?”

And that was how The Party became The Event.

Sammy told her friends and swore them to secrecy, and Brad talked to Andy, Jeff, and Mike, who, of course, turned him down. It took him the better part of an hour to convince them he wasn’t setting them up, and he really wanted them to come to an actual party. Finally I had to cut in and talk to them in a way they would understand.

“Look, guys,” I said, interrupting Brad. “This is your moment. You have the opportunity to show everyone else that you are real people and are cool. Or you can refuse and spend the rest of your high school life as Morlocks.” They got the reference, but Brad looked at me, confused. “Subterranean race of mutants that live under New York.” To the guys, I continued, “Or you come out of the dark and become X-Men. That’s your choice. But you don’t get to complain later and tell your friends you never get invited anywhere. This is your invitation. Take it or don’t, but you lose the right to bitch about it forever.”

The one with the curly hair—Jeff, I think—asked me, “Are you going?”

I nodded.

“We’re in,” he said, speaking for all of them.

Brad looked dumbfounded. “Just like that?”

The one with black hair, Mike, said, “Well, we didn’t know Kyle was going. And he made the very cool X-Men reference.”

Brad shook his head and wrote down Kelly’s address. “Don’t spread this around, okay? It’s kind of a surprise.”

The biggest of the three—that one was Andy—took the paper and added, “Who would we tell?”

I saw Brad had forgotten who he was talking to.

“Well, just make sure you’re there no earlier than nine. No one shows up early,” he added as we were leaving.

“Should we bring something to eat?” one of them asked.

He shook his head and looked over at me. “I am so blaming you if this goes south.”

I just smiled and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “You worry too much.”

Turns out, we did not worry enough.

B
RAD

I
AM
a lousy liar.

You would think that wouldn’t be the case since I spent most of my life pretending to be someone I’m not, but it was true. When it came to lying, I sucked. I think it was just the fact I only had so much space in my head to keep Fake Brad running, so there was just no room for me to learn how to lie about little things. I also think subconsciously it helped people believe there was no way I could be lying about my sexuality if I couldn’t keep my mouth shut about a surprise party.

So when Kyle and I left the library, it was just a matter of time before I broke.

The last few periods, I kept to myself, which wasn’t hard since I hadn’t been let back into the pack of popular guys who sat together. For once I didn’t mind because I knew they were talking about The Party, and that was a subject I needed to stay away from. So by the time school was over, I found myself half sprinting to practice before someone asked me whether I was going or not.

I slammed into Kelly because I was too busy looking behind me.

We both crashed back onto our respective asses, stunned from the impact.

“Hey,” I said, getting up quickly. “Practice,” I added, pointing at the gym.

He scrambled to his feet and grabbed my shirt before I could take off. “Hold on, I need to ask you something.”

Damn.

I turned back toward him. “What’s up?”

Please don’t ask me about The Party. Please don’t ask me about The Party. Please don’t ask me about The Party.

“It’s about The Party,” he said.

Fuck
.

“Um, okay,” I said, looking for an escape route.

“You’re coming, right?” he asked. The emotion in his voice made me feel uncomfortable because it just reminded me of how shittily I had treated him in the past. I nodded, keeping my mouth shut. “And you’re not bringing anyone, right?”

Fuck.
Fuck!

“No. No I’m not. Who told you I was bringing someone? Why would I do that? I mean… what?” The words came shooting out my mouth like verbal diarrhea, and I just couldn’t stop them. “Whoever told you that is wrong, really wrong. I mean why would I lie? What was the question again?”

See what I mean? I was never going to be James Bond.

“I just wanted to make sure,” he said, confused by the vocal explosion of words. “So we’re good?”

“Good. Great. Perfect. Yeah—” I forced my mouth shut before “okey-dokey” escaped.

“Cool,” he said, mentally taking a half step away from me. “Uh, you okay?”

I nodded and commanded my mouth to stay shut.

“Well, okay… good practice,” he finished, backing up a few steps.

I held up a hand and nodded. I waited until he turned and walked away before I let out a huge sigh. “Okey-dokey?” I berated myself. “What the hell, man?”

I shook the memory of my general idiocy off, and I jogged into the locker room and changed for practice.

K
YLE

I
T
took very little effort on my part to convince Sammy to skip her last class and head over to Robbie’s with me to find some clothes.

I figured if I had a civilian with me, he wouldn’t make me beg as much as if I showed up alone. I was counting on the fact that Robbie would understand the social convention that involved not making a scene in front of strangers and abide by it. Both points were long shots, given the way Jennifer had described him to me, but I had to try.

As soon as I pushed open the door of the store, I knew my plan was for shit.

“J’accuse!” he proclaimed loudly from behind the counter.

My first impulse was to turn around and walk out.

Sammy pushed me from behind. “Come on! I’m burning up out here.” She cursed. “Lemme at the AC.”

I had no choice but to walk in, which was definitely the wrong move.

Robbie charged around the counter and pointed a finger at me. “J’accuse! Mon petit citron!”

I paused. “Did you just call me your little lemon?”

He stopped and thought about it. “Perhaps, but it’s the only French I know. So… j’accuse!”

I sighed as I rubbed my temples. “Sammy, that is Robbie; he’s crazy. Robbie, this is Sammy; be nice.”

He put a hand to his chest and did a pretty convincing display of being wounded. “Moi? You ask moi to be nice? When am I ever not nice?” he protested, taking Sammy’s hand and kissing it lightly. “When have I ever been anything but the sweetest, most delightful person you ever met?”

“Every day I have ever known you,” I said, trying to get him off Sammy’s hand.

“You wound me,” he proclaimed loudly. “To the very quick, sir, to the very quick.” When he realized I wasn’t going to respond to his theatrics, he stood up straight and asked, “So what’s this little visit about?” He winked. “As if I didn’t know.”

“I am not going because of you,” I shot back instantly. “This has nothing to do with you!”

Oh yeah, Kyle, that’s the way to get him to give you free clothes.

“Uh-huh,” he said, casually examining his nails. “Tell me another one.”

“Do you guys, like, need some time alone?” Sammy asked uncomfortably.

“He needs meds,” I said, glaring at Robbie.

“And you need clothes, Cinderella,” he retorted, leaning toward me. “So I would lose the ’tude and get with the kissing.” To solidify his point, he smacked the left cheek of his ass.

“Screw this. I’ll go naked,” I said, turning around.

“Least that decision shows courage!” he shouted back at me.

I spun back to look at him. “I have courage! I just don’t believe in what you believe in. Why is that so bad?”

I expected him to shout back and say something sarcastic, but instead his face got somber. “You’ll figure it out. The hard way, but you will figure it out.” He looked over at Sammy and smiled. “And that is easily the coolest color blue I have ever seen in Foster.” He gave me an exaggerated glance and then, in a stage whisper, he said to her, “You are way too cool to be with him.”

I closed the store door knowing this round of drama was over.

She laughed at him and did a small pose as she cupped her hair with a hand. “What can I say? I was in a blue mood.”

“Well, we should all be so blue,” he said, leading her toward a rack of dresses. “I call this rack of dresses my Helena Bonham Carter collection. They are dresses that are too dark for anyone normal to wear.” He pulled out a raven black dress that had been slashed diagonally across the front as if it had been attacked by a giant wolverine. Inside the cuts, though, a shocking blue lining of satin gave the illusion that a second dress fitted underneath the outer layer.