Authors: Tom Perrotta
Ugh!
she used to say.
I can’t stand that picture. It doesn’t even look like me.
But that wasn’t really the problem.
She heard footsteps and closed the book. Setting it down on the co
ff
ee table, she turned and saw O
ffi
cer Yanuzzi heading in her direction, his uniformed
fi
gure squat and ominous in the murky light, as if he were coming to arrest her. But when his face
fi
nally came into view, he just looked amused.
“Party Girl,” he called out in a friendly voice. “I was wondering where you were hiding.”
“Right here in Siberia,” she told him. “Taking one for the team.”
“Could be worse.” He took a sip of co
ff
ee from a paper cup, surveying the furniture with what appeared to be sincere interest. “You could be stuck outside all night on a folding chair.”
“Least you’re getting paid.”
“Good one.” He chalked up a point for Liz on an imaginary scoreboard. “Guess I can’t complain.”
“Not to mention that you seem to be inside at the moment.”
“Just making my rounds,” he said, threading his way between the couch and the hammock. He opened one of the
fi
re doors and peered into the vestibule, checking for suspicious activity. “
Th
ough I gotta say, it is getting a little chilly out. I shoulda brought a jacket. But it’s June, you know? I’m not really thinking jacket.”
He took a seat on the couch, directly across from Liz, as if she’d invited him to join her. He set his co
ff
ee on the table and held out his hand.
“I’m Brian.”
“Liz.”
“Mercatto, huh?” He studied her name tag with a quizzical expression. “Why do I know that name?”
She was tempted to remind him of their unfortunate encounter on Whitetail Way —
You were rude and you scared my daughter
— but couldn’t see the point of dredging it up at this late date. Besides, it was three in the morning, and she was grateful for the company.
“Mercatto’s my ex-husband’s name. I usually go by Casey.”
“I’m not too good with names,” he said, reaching for his cup. He paused before drinking. “If I’d known you were here, I woulda brought you some.”
“No worries.”
“
Th
ey got those little one-cup things. K-Cups or whatever.” He extended the cup in her direction. “You want a sip? It’s nice and hot.”
“No, thanks. I’m
fi
ne.”
“You sure? I could take the lid o
ff
.
Th
at’s where all the germs are.”
“I’m more of a tea drinker anyway.”
“Well, don’t say I didn’t o
ff
er.”
He kept his eyes on her as he brought the cup to his lips. She got the feeling he was searching his memory, trying to locate a
fi
le marked
Mercatto.
She averted her gaze, found herself staring at the gun in his holster, remembering the way he’d touched it when he yelled at Dana.
“I’m glad I found you,” he said, just as the silence was getting awkward. “I was feeling bad about what I said before.”
“What did you say?”
“You know, about those kids who died.
Th
at they were young and stupid.” He shook his head, as if pained by the memory. “I don’t know why I said that.”
“It’s okay. No big deal.”
“
Th
ey were my friends,” he said. “We went to school together.”
She studied his face, performing some quick mental calculations. He was probably about thirty, so the math worked out.
“Oh, God. I’m sorry.”
Yanuzzi shrugged. He took o
ff
his hat, ran a hand over his gelled buzz cut.
“
Th
e driver was a kid named Jimmy Polito. He was my best friend. We were gonna start a landscaping business.” Yanuzzi closed his eyes for a moment. “Anyway, we were all at the party together, playing quarters, getting drunk o
ff
our asses, when everybody suddenly decided to drive to the beach.
Th
e only reason I didn’t go is that I was trying to hook up with this girl. She was somebody’s cousin. Didn’t even go to our school.” Yanuzzi laughed so
ft
ly. His face looked young and defenseless. “
Th
ey got killed and I got laid.
Th
at’s the whole story.”
“I’m sorry,” Liz said again.
“Not your fault.”
A few seconds went by. Yanuzzi rubbed his jaw, as if checking the closeness of his shave. “I didn’t even really get laid,” he said. “We were both too wasted to make it across the
fi
nish line.”
IT MUST
have been close to four in the morning when she set o
ff
for the restroom. O
ffi
cer Yanuzzi kindly agreed to hold down the fort until she returned.
“No problem,” he said. “I’d stay here the rest of the night if I could.
Th
is is a really comfortable couch.”
“Just don’t fall asleep on me, okay?”
“Don’t worry about that.” He had his hands behind his head, his bulky cop shoes resting on the co
ff
ee table. “I’ve had at least ten cups of co
ff
ee since I started my shi
ft
. I’ll be wide awake until noon.”
Th
ey’d been talking for almost an hour at that point, not just about the tragedy of his graduation night, but about her divorce, and the engagement he’d broken o
ff
the previous summer, the su
ff
ocating sense he’d had that he was dri
ft
ing into marriage because other people expected it, not because he’d made a choice to spend his life with Katie. He’d bailed out two months before the wedding, alienating lots of friends and even a few relatives, but he knew he’d done the right thing.
“Every morning I wake up and thank God I dodged that bullet.”
It was almost embarrassing how badly she’d misjudged him. Brian was a sweet guy, way more thoughtful and self-aware than Tony or any of the jerks she’d corresponded with on Match.com, the handful that would stoop to consider a woman on the wrong side of forty. He was kinda cute, too, if you could get past the gym-rat muscles and the look of squinty irritation that seemed to be his default expression, not that she was su
ff
ering from any romantic delusions. What was the point? She was twelve years his senior, a divorcée with a teenaged daughter, and no cougar by any stretch of the imagination. Even so, it was encouraging just to know that she was still in the game, that a guy like Brian would take the trouble to seek her out for a conversation, even if he was just trying to kill some time on the night shi
ft
.
She walked quickly past the phalanx of cardboard movie stars — they gave her the willies, all those famous people frozen in mid-gesture, grinning with manic intensity — and then turned le
ft
, onto an even more desolate hallway, in search of the faculty women’s room Sally had told her about.
Trust me,
she’d said.
It’s a lot cleaner than the other one.
She found it on the right, beyond two science labs and a bulletin board dedicated to the subject of “Careers in Health Care: A Growing Sector of Our Economy!” Liz stepped inside. She’d thought the restroom might be single occupancy, but it turned out to be large and well lit, four stalls facing a row of sinks and mirrors.
It took her a moment or two to realize that something was wrong — a sour smell in the air, a barely audible whimper — and by then she was already peering into the
fi
rst stall, the door of which was slightly ajar.
“Oh, you poor thing.”
Th
e girl was splayed awkwardly on the
fl
oor, her forehead resting on the lip of the bowl. Liz couldn’t see her face — too much dark hair was hanging in the way — but she recognized the orange T-shirt and these awful denim shorts.
“Sweetie,” Liz murmured, kneeling down, carefully extracting a strand of hair from inside the bowl. “I’m right here.”
LIZ WIPED
the girl’s face and neck with a moist paper towel, as if she were a baby who’d just eaten a messy dinner. Her hair was harder to deal with, the sour smell lingering even a
ft
er all the visible residue had been removed. A few stray clumps remained on her shirt, but she’d have to deal with those on her own.
“Your name’s Jenna, right?”
“Yeah,” she said, a
ft
er a long hesitation.
“What were you drinking, Jenna?”
Th
e girl’s eyes were cloudy, her expression somehow pathetic and de
fi
ant at the same time.
“Vodka,” she muttered in a feeble voice. “I fucking hate that shit.”
“How much?”
Jenna glanced at the toilet, which was going to spoil some poor janitor’s morning.
“Too much. Obviously.”
“Am I gonna have to call an ambulance?”
Th
e girl bristled at the question.
“I just puked. I’m hardly even drunk anymore.”
Liz remembered the phenomenon from her own drinking days, the sudden bleak sobriety that follows the purge. She knew girls in college who carried little bottles of mouthwash in their purse so they could return to the party and get wasted all over again. She’d done it herself, once or twice.
“Can you stand up?”
Jenna gave a tentative nod and took hold of Liz’s pro
ff
ered hand. It wasn’t easy to get her on her feet; she was either denser than she looked or drunker than she claimed.
“What about your boyfriend?” Liz asked. “Was he drinking, too?”
Jenna wobbled a bit, using the wall for balance.
“I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“Come on,” Liz said. “I saw you with him. When you snuck in?”
“Who, Quinn?” Jenna made a hocking sound in her throat, then swirled her studded tongue around her lips. She didn’t look too happy about the taste in her mouth. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
“All right, whatever. I’m just trying to — ”
Jenna leaned closer to Liz, as if sharing a secret.
“You know who his girlfriend is?”
Th
ere was an odd sort of pride in her voice. “Mandy Gleason. Can you believe that? Quinn’s fucking Mandy Gleason.
Th
ey’re dancing together right now.”
Liz had never seen Mandy Gleason, but she’d heard of her. Her beauty was common knowledge, the gold standard for Gi
ff
ord girls. She was smart and athletic, too, captain of the tennis team, headed for Dartmouth in the fall. Lots of people said Dana reminded them of Mandy.
“Oh,” Liz said. “So you and Quinn aren’t . . .”
“She’s his girlfriend,” Jenna explained matter-of-factly. “I just suck his dick.”
She made a brave attempt at a smile, as if to say,
Th
at’s how it is and I’m cool with it,
but it didn’t work, and she burst into tears. Liz held her while she sobbed, wishing there were something she could say to salvage the girl’s graduation night, a little adult wisdom that would take the edge o
ff
her pain, maybe put things in perspective. But when she did
fi
nally manage to speak, she found that she was crying, too.
“It hurts,” she heard herself whisper. “It just hurts so much.”
A SUBTLE
odor of vomit clung to Liz for the rest of the night, like a badly chosen perfume. It was unfortunate, because the Chilling Station grew increasingly popular as the party wound down. Exhausted kids began trickling in around four-thirty, occupying the couches and chairs, the army cots and the hammock, and then, when all the furniture was spoken for, just giving up and stretching out on the
fl
oor like travelers stranded in an airport.
Th
ere was something sweet about the way they curled up together, bodies innocently touching, heads resting on laps or shoulders. Even the ones who kept their eyes open didn’t have much to say.
Th
ey seemed content to just pass the time, surrounded by classmates, silently marking the end of an era.
By then Liz was pretty tired herself — light-headed and achy in her joints — but she did what she could, o
ff
ering bottled water and energy bars to the new arrivals, making small talk with the handful of kids she recognized, mostly from Dana’s soccer team. It was the busiest she’d been all night.
She might have enjoyed herself more if she hadn’t been so worried about Jenna. Liz wasn’t sure if she’d done the right thing, letting her sneak out of the party and walk home half-drunk in the predawn darkness, but that was the girl’s choice. She just wanted to get the hell out of the building, to put high school behind her once and for all, to not have to look at Quinn and Mandy or put on a happy face for a bunch of people who didn’t like her and wouldn’t even remember her name in a couple of months.
Liz felt guilty about lying to O
ffi
cer Yanuzzi as well, telling him that Jenna was having severe menstrual cramps and needed to lie down for a while. He was suspicious — asked Liz twice if the girl needed medical attention — but Liz had kept her arm tight around Jenna’s shoulder, insisting that everything was under control, that she would take care of it.
It’s been really nice talking to you,
she told him, trying to dismiss him and apologize at the same time.
Same here,
he said, a bit grudgingly.
Guess I better head back.
As soon as he was gone, Liz opened the
fi
re doors and led Jenna through the vestibule to the emergency exit.
You take care of yourself.
Liz touched her lightly on the shoulder.
Go straight home, okay?
Jenna nodded and stepped outside, into the chilly night. Liz remained in the doorway, following the girl’s slow, unsteady progress across the athletic
fi
elds until she was lost to the darkness.