Exposure (6 page)

LATE TO SCHOOL YET AGAIN, I skidded in my Chuck Taylors, rounding the corner of the fluorescent-lit hallway only to run smack into Craig, who reached out to steady me. Not in time, unfortunately, to stop my books from tumbling to the tile floor in total disarray.

“Whoa, Beanpole! Where's the fire?” He grinned before bending to help gather up my scattered belongings.

“Overslept,” I said, while trying to accomplish a couple things at once: checking out how adorably hot he looked in his blue T-shirt while also reaching over to pick up my green leather journal before he could spot it. “What about you? Shouldn't you be in homeroom?”

“I have thoroughly convinced half the staff of this high school that I suffer from an overactive bladder,” he said, digging his cell phone from the front pocket of his jeans. “Pretty much gives me
carte blanche
to roam the hallways at will. Right now I'm arranging refreshments for tonight's festivities. There's a party out at Kristy's dad's hunting shack.” He ran one hand through his dark wavy hair and started dialing with the other. “You should come.”

“Sounds like a teen slasher movie in the making.” I couldn't hide my sarcasm. “Trapped out in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of Future Frat Boys of America, not to mention Beth Morgan. I'm not exactly her favorite person, you know.”

“You should give them a chance,” he said. “You might be surprised…. Yeah, can I speak to Mick,” he said into the phone as he reached down to pick up a stray sheet of paper. “Or, you could go to this instead.” He held up the invitation to Jenna's monthly, and poorly attended, Power to the People Potluck. Rolling my eyes, I reached out to snatch the flyer back. He held it — and my gaze — for about two seconds too long. Then he let it go, turned, and walked out the door to the quad just as the morning bell started to echo through the hallway.

As Friday morning classes wore on I became more and more vexed about my encounter with Craig. Even Mr. Richter's lecture on Man Ray in fourth period failed to distract me from my inner turmoil. How
dare
he continue to pull these “come one, come all” invitations to hang out with his posse, as if I were really welcome? As enticing as it sounded, I figured I'd better pass for the sake of my own sanity and self-preservation. Besides, who knows what I'd say to Craig after guzzling a drink or two? No way did I want to live that down for the rest of the foreseeable future. Still, I was making it just a little too convenient for him to smile and pat me on the back with that “Beanpole” act of his. As if his offer was genuine when we both knew I would never actually take him up on it. Was this his way of feeling less guilty about our pseudo-friendship and the way he'd dropped me with barely a backward glance? And now to pretend that being the odd-girl-out was my own doing. … How thoroughly would he
freak
if I should happen to call his bluff? I knew that it would be asking for trouble, but I didn't have a whole lot to lose at this point. I'd swooned over “Golden Boy” long enough. Now, I decided, I wanted to make him squirm.

• • •

I'd concocted a solid enough plan by the time the noon bell rang, but it was going to require faking my way through some tremendously uncomfortable moments. When I casually strolled over to his crowded table at lunchtime, I felt like Marie Antoinette proudly stepping up to face the guillotine.

“Hey, Craig. Just wanted to let you know that my plans for tonight fell through, so I would love to take you up on your offer to come to the party.”

The dismayed, mouth-agape look on Beth's face was priceless. So far, so good. I held my head up a bit higher now even though I sort of felt like peeing my pants.

Craig placed his half-eaten slice of pizza on his plate and wiped his mouth as the rest of his table waited, like loyal subjects, for him to respond. He could barely look at me as he unenthusiastically replied.

“Umm … okay then. See you there.”

“Where?”

“What?”

“Where's the party? You never gave me an address.”

He concentrated intently now on the wavy white line on his Coke can. Beth wasted no time in shanghaiing the conversation.

“Oh Skye, it's superrrrr far from here and the directions are soooo confusing. I wouldn't even know how to explain it to someone who's never been.”

What would Leonard Livermore do in a situation like this? If my tentative prom date had taught me anything, it was how to win an argument with unflappable confidence and blatant disregard for the chill in the air.

“Hmmm,” I said. “Well then, in that case, it might just be easier if I hitched a ride there with you guys. Craig, you know where my house is. Why don't you just swing by on your way?”

Beth was about to protest, but I saw Craig grab her hand and give it a squeeze, as if reining her in. He mustered a weary smile for me. “Can you be ready at eight thirty?”

“Of course! See you guys then. Can't wait!” Before I turned jauntily on my heel I saw Beth shoot Craig one of her furrowed brow specials.

• • •

My dad chopped organic carrots for Ollie's baby food while I sat at the kitchen counter, a dozen lipsticks pilfered from my mom's makeup drawer arrayed in front of me like pirate booty. She was working the late shift at the Regent, the oldest and best of Beth's uncle's movie theaters and the only one that showed classic films like
Philadelphia Story
and
Casablanca
. When Craig first moved to Anchorage, a noir film series was in full swing and we spent hours, elbow to elbow, in the darkened theater watching sultry scenes between Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly. I could hardly believe the guy I shared Red Vines with back then was the same person who had so grimly accepted my ostensibly bold R.S.V.P. hours earlier.

I carefully applied a cherry-red shade using the silver toaster as a makeshift mirror and was relieved to notice that the zit-zapper cream I'd been applying all week had finally destroyed most of the freakishly large pimple sitting rakishly astride my left nostril. Despite this glimmer of good news on the complexion front, I was not in the best frame of mind to take advice — especially from my dad, who I was fairly certain had absolutely no clue what it was like to be me. If the ink-filled pages of his yearbook were any indication, he'd spent the better part of high school basking in the unadulterated admiration of everyone from fellow jocks to drama geeks. He and my mom, former high school sweethearts, were always after me to be myself. I know they meant well, but really, how cliché can you get? It's easy to be yourself when everyone thinks you're the greatest thing since sliced bread.

“Skye, I know I'm not supposed to say this,” Dad said, “but when it comes to teenage boys, I think you shouldn't be above playing hard-to-get.”

Sometimes I appreciated the fact that my dad was comfortable enough to talk to me about anything — and I mean
anything
. This was not one of those times. Now that I had to face the repercussions of my inspired lunchtime performance, I could feel my confidence take a slow dive. It was going to be a long and trying night for me, and I was attempting to shore up my tough-girl exterior to hide how terrified I really felt. I looked up at my dad and scoffed.

“First of all, like I've told you a couple million times already, Craig and I are just friends. And secondly,” and here's where I really screwed up, “why don't you try taking your own advice for a change?” Dad looked stricken and Ollie, as if in protest, began to howl.

It was a low blow and I knew it. My mom had recently gone back to school to study medicine and my dad had become a veritable Mr. Mom, taking care of Ollie and the house when he wasn't working as the manager at a hardware store. I helped out too, when I could spare the time from school, homework, and the paper. At first it seemed to be working out great, but then Mom started clocking more hours with her study group. Between that and her part-time job at the Regent, she was spending less and less time with us. The harder my dad tried, the farther away she seemed to get. When I slammed the front door shut on the way out an hour later, I was still giving Dad the silent treatment as if he'd actually done something wrong, rather than the other way around.

Beth didn't even attempt to push her seat forward as I squeezed in behind her and tumbled into the back seat of Craig's Jeep Wrangler. Ever in a state of denial, Craig tried to pretend like the situation was one hundred percent normal. At least Beth had the dignity to be honest about her feelings. She certainly didn't attempt to veil her disgust with me as we merged onto the highway that led out of town. The ride was strained, to say the least, and her occasional grimaces in my direction were reminiscent of a teenage Medusa. She used every opportunity to blatantly caress Craig's leg or entwine her manicured fingers in his hair while giving me tight-lipped smiles that seemed to say, “Jealous much?” She even rolled down her window completely to blast me with arctic air while she tapped the ash of her cigarette into the wind.

“Oh, is that too much air for you, honey?” she said, when she saw my now-knotted red hair plastered against my face. “I didn't want to bother you with my smoke.”

Turning onto a winding rural road, we careened over icy patches as the outline of snow-covered trees, illuminated by the headlights, narrowed in on us. I could swear I saw the glowing eyes of some forest creature — a moose no doubt, or perhaps some enormous she-wolf — peering at us ominously from the depths of the forest. Whether inside or outside the car, I was not in safe territory. When we reached the end of a long sloped driveway, my relief at having finally arrived was short-lived. A warm, but not welcoming, bonfire raged in front of the cabin. Every window of the old domicile was lit up, and the silhouettes of drunken seventeen-year-olds made me sigh in trepidation. These people obviously didn't have a care in the world. I couldn't even begin to imagine what that must have felt like.

TYPICALLY I'D ONLY OVERHEARD TALES of the epic parties held here as they were retold during hasty Monday morning postmortems. Details would emerge in hushed tones at the back of the rancid-smelling senior study hall presided over by an overscrupulous and ancient guidance counselor, Mr. Kirkpatrick, who still threw around words like
skullduggery
as if they were part of your average twenty-first-century teen's lexicon. Now, I'd actually stepped over the threshold and into the crème de la crème of East Anchorage High's party central.

All was confusion and noise as my eyes adjusted to the room; that too-familiar feeling of panic rose and I knew instantly that my skin was probably the crimson shade of a boiled lobster. Luckily it was too dark inside for anyone to see much, and anyway, everyone was apparently utterly bewitched by über-couple Craig and Beth whose big entrance preceded my inconsequential one. Damn, you'd think they were royalty or something the way everyone seemed to bow and curtsey in their presence.

My first thought was that even though I'd only ever heard the place called a “shack,” it was really a sprawling conglomeration of rooms that branched off from what had evidently been the original homestead. I didn't know how many rooms there were, but at least three doors led away from the small shack into other parts of the structure that, judging from what I could see, must have been added on in different decades. Scattered throughout were abandoned pieces of furniture. Here a stained couch gradually losing its stuffing, there a rickety table and stool. Empty, it would make an excellent spot for a photo shoot. A beer can flew across the room, landing on a pile in the corner.

“Hey,” someone in the crowd joked, “better recycle that or Jenna will have your ass!”

“Craig!” Duncan waved from a corner of the room looking more brawny and barrel-chested than ever. I tried to act nonchalant as I shadowed Craig and Beth over to where Duncan stood surrounded by a rapt group of freshmen and sophomores, including the vapidly pretty Tiffany Towers, his girlfriend-of-the-month and the police chief's daughter.

“No paparazzi allowed.” Duncan flashed a quick smile to let me know he was joking, but when he glanced at Beth, his smile faded.

Under her breath, Beth hissed, “Skye, maybe you should go make some new friends.”

Craig looked the other way, pretending not to hear.

Feeling like a complete jackass, I slunk off, mortified and hating myself for letting Beth have all the power once again. As I crossed the threshold into the next room, I tripped over a keg hose and ended up face to face with Beth's best friend, Kristy. Just my luck to step out of the frying pan and into the fire, I thought.

“Drink this,” she said, handing me a neon green Jello shot. I tossed it down as if it was something I did every Friday night.