Those Girls (5 page)

V
eronica’s party was already crawling with the usual cast of heathens and barnyard animals when we got there. Alex was holding court with the stoners on the patio, per usual. Veronica was flitting around in the most aggressively hookertastic neon yellow dress I’d ever seen, batting her tits and eyelashes at anyone who’d listen. Drunk kids sat on marble countertops and played quarters on glass coffee tables. If it were my house, I’d have been having chest palpitations, but Veronica didn’t seem to care—about anything, ever. She was having the best time of anyone, as always.

I left Sam with his posse to get myself a drink and play nice with the senior girls who I knew hated me but kissed my ass because I was dating Sam. I knew I’d get drunk quickly, because I hadn’t eaten dinner. I never ate dinner on Fridays—Sam always got pizza with the team, so I told my parents I was eating with Sam and took the opportunity to skip a meal.

I sat outside with Alex and the ganja mafia for a while and pretended to know about the songs and movies they were talking about. After an hour went by without a peep from Sam (which was always a matter of concern), I got up to find him.

And lo and behold, where do I find him? In the foyer, at the center of a fiery mob flocking Veronica.

“I swear they’re real!” she screamed, drunkenly fondling herself. She squeezed her overflowing tits together and then up toward her chin, then together, then up again. She raised one in her hand, then the other—like some sort of retarded titty line dance.

“Dude,” said some nameless, pockmarked sophomore who I recognized from Sam’s team photos, “real ones don’t stay up like that. Just admit it!”

Veronica took the kid’s hammy paw and placed it on her left breast. “Feel it!” she slurred. “Why would I lie?”

The guys all chuckled and snorted, pawing and prodding, taking turns groping her and snapping iPhone pictures. She squealed like a pig in pretend protest. Next thing I knew, Sam’s hand shot out of the semicircle and grabbed a boob.

“Not bad, Collins,” he said.

From three feet away, I flung myself like a rabid squirrel into the feeding frenzy. Veronica just stood there, pigeon-toed and tongue out like a brain-dead basset hound, Sam squeezing her boob like a rubber fucking ducky.

“What the hell?” I pushed Sam out of the herd. I yanked his arm away and pounded his biceps with my meager fist. “Get your fucking hands off my friend’s boobs!”

“We’re just kidding around, babe. Chill.”

“Yeah, chillllll out,” V said through a string of drool, rolling on her heels, clasping my arm for balance. Her yellow loincloth had begun to droop and was stained with beer and
excess self-tanner. “We’re juss joking. Y’anna feel ’em, too? This guy said he’nt b’lieve me they were real. Tell ’em, Mollie, tell ’em. You’d know if I was lying.”

And then I think I called her something to the effect of cum-guzzling crack whore, and there was a chorus of
ooooooh
s from the lacrosse team, but I didn’t give a shit anymore. I ripped her off me and ran out the door.

“Babe!” Sam screamed, and followed me outside, as I’d hoped he’d do. “We’re just fucking around.”

Tears—drunk beer-flavored tears—started to fall. I knew I was being ridiculous, but I didn’t care, I couldn’t control it, and all I wanted was for Sam to feel bad that I felt bad and try to make me feel better.

“It’s fucking embarrassing, Sam!” I sobbed. “Why do you always need to do shit like this? Why do you have to ruin everything?”

I saw his eyes drift over my right shoulder.

“Can I fucking help you?” he said.

I turned around. Josh Holbrook stood behind me looking all pale and concerned, and Alex-like.

“Mollie, are you okay?” He reached out for me tentatively, but I smacked his hand away, not wanting to provoke Sam.

“I’m fine.” Sam’s attention was wavering—I needed to make a power move. “Can you take me home?” I pleaded with Sam, falling into Josh.

I started to get woozy, see three of him, three of Sam, three of every car in the driveway, every bush on the lawn. I needed to get out of there. I was losing it, and I wanted Sam to notice. And care.

“Are you serious?” Sam asked.

“I’m really drunk.” I steadied myself and looked him dead in the eye.

“Hell no, we’re not going home yet. It’s early.”

My shoulders collapsed, and I started to sob again.

“It’s okay,” Josh said. “I’ll take you.”

Sam made a mock jerk-off splooge gesture and turned back inside.

“Are you sure you’re okay? I don’t know why you let him treat you like that,” Josh said as we headed to his car.

“I really don’t want to fucking hear about it,” I said. I didn’t. Because I knew.

I
t was a typical Veronica party scene, and I was having as good a time as I typically did. Ish. People came and went, swarmed and diffused around the pool and patio table, flowed in and out of the sliding glass doors, laughing and leaning ever so slightly more with each entry and exit. New kids, old kids, young kids, cackling, snorting, having the same conversations they had last week with the same people in new T-shirts. The beat was broken by an occasional splash or squeal; nervous girls and loud boys ebbed and flowed with every thump of the bass.

I kept talking, kept drinking, and kept an eye on Drew and Veronica, who kept crawling in and out of my line of sight. He was wearing my favorite T-shirt, the blue Bucks County YMCA one, the blueberry-cream one that turns his eyes the color of an indoor swimming pool, the one he’d worn the night I fell off my bike at the shore and sprained my ankle, and he carried me piggyback the whole mile home—it smelled soft, like suntan lotion and Downy fabric softener.

I kept my usual post on the patio for most of the night while Drew’s friends all talked at me about music, but it’s amazing how possible it is to appear fully engaged in a conversation
while entirely absorbing every nauseatingly vapid remark from another one four feet away.

Oh, Drew, who makes your shirt? I love it.…

You throw the best parties, Veronica.…

Fucking club me in the face with a rusty crowbar—it was like she learned how to flirt from eighties porn.

I checked my phone to see if the boys from the band were coming. I wanted them to come as much as I didn’t. My intention in joining this band was to make a new world for myself, separate from the fascist regime of the threesome. On the one hand, maybe having those boys at this party would defeat the entire purpose of the venture, but on the other hand, I kind of wanted everyone to wonder who my new, cool, interesting friends were.

I went inside to pee, only to be immediately poached by a half-keeled-over, half-dead-eyed Veronica. She yanked me into the black granite powder room with too many mirrors and a weird echo.

“Drew and I made out!” she said.

A faint, fading
nooooooo…
resounded from somewhere in the distant mine shafts of my mind. How had I let this happen? I feigned a smile as the blood drained from my face.

“That’s awesome!” I said.

Like a fist in my throat, choking me from the inside.

Her usually wide sea-foam eyes were wet and pink. Her usually slick dark hair, fuzzy and tangled.

She hugged me, her body coated in a moist film. “I don’t know what you said, but he’s, like, so adorbs. I love you!”

And she stumbled out of the bathroom and was absorbed back into the party.

I stood by the patio door just breathing for a minute, processing what I’d heard, wishing I could unhear it, wondering if I could pretend that I hadn’t. I stood for a moment while the party buzzed around me. Maybe two. Veronica was hammered—she’d probably mouth-raped Drew in a corner somewhere, and they’d both be embarrassed and awkward about it tomorrow. Maybe they’d gotten it out of their systems; maybe she’d have fucked a lacrosse player by the end of the night; it’d be fine. I kept breathing.

When I got back outside, Fernando and the Farber twins were standing by my spot on the patio, each holding a thirty rack of Natty Light. To my surprise, I was relieved to see them.

“This house is ridiculous!” said Ned, dropping the case on the terrace. Pete echoed the sentiment. I was starting to see how this Farber twin dynamic worked.

“We need to hang out with private school chicks more often,” Fernando said.

He was wearing a white linen shirt and ripped jeans, lighter wash than a Crawford boy’s, whose look was more khakis or corduroys, boat shoes, and belts with whales on them. He wasn’t wearing his beanie, and I hadn’t realized how long his hair was. His dark curls fell around his face—Mollie and Veronica would definitely think he was cute. I wondered if maybe I shouldn’t have brought them here, if Veronica was going to ruin this for me, too.

I sat with them for the rest of the night. Smoked, drank,
talked about music, the band, about how flattered I was that they let me in. I tried not to think about Drew’s tongue down Veronica’s throat or god knows what else down god knows where else. It was nice talking to the guys. It had been a long time since I’d met anyone new, had an opportunity to be seen as anything but what I, over the course of my sixteen years in Greencliff, had accidentally given people the impression that I was—to not be the
chill
one, the least cute one who smokes weed and talks music and holds her liquor. It was nice to just be me, alone, whoever that was, not within the context of the other two. I introduced them to Marc Seidman and the rest of Drew’s crew—naturally, the shared interest in pot and music united them instantly.

Fernando poked my side. “We’re just psyched to have a hot, talented chick in the band, Alex.”

I liked the way he inflected the
exxxxx
in my name. No one had ever called me
hot
before, at least not to my face, but I assumed not behind my back, either. Drew was nowhere in sight; I’d hoped maybe he’d heard it.

“Totally,” said Ned, leaning over his furry forearms. “Just gotta get you to agree to sing at the show.”

Pete nodded, puffed away at a blunt, and stared at the stars.

“I told you, I don’t sing in public,” I said. “It was a big step for me to even do it in practice!”

Eventually, Drew emerged from behind the glass doors looking lost. He walked out and stood over us.

“Where have you been all night?” I asked. I smiled and tossed my hair, acting drunker and dumber than I actually felt.

“Inside,” he said.

“Drew, this is Ned, Pete, and Fernando. The guys from my new band. What are we called again? Adios Pantalones?”

“No!” Fernando said. “No, that was our old name. We’re a new band now that you’re here. Now we’re the Cunning Runts, remember?” We all broke down in hysterics.

“We’re between names at the moment,” I said with a hint of a giggle—hoping Drew would see that he wasn’t the only boy who’d ever made me laugh.

He shook their hands in that sincere way that guys do, still hovering over us, uncomfortably realizing he had nowhere to sit.

“The Cunning Runts,” he said. “Clever.”

I tried to gauge his reaction. Was he jealous? Happy for me? Was he looking for Veronica? And where was Veronica if not with him? I hadn’t seen her in hours.

Drew put his hand on my shoulder, sending a chill up my arm.

“It’s almost eleven thirty.”

“Fuck,” I said, looking at my watch. “Why am I the only person who still has a curfew?”

“Do you need a ride home? I can drive you,” Fernando offered.

“It’s cool. I’m going her way anyway,” Drew said without pause. “Was great to meet you guys. I can’t wait to hear you play.”

I stood up and looked at Fernando, then over to the twins, then back to Fernando, who sat back with his wide grin and wily brown eyes. I couldn’t tell if the grin was directed at me or if it was just a general oblivious, drunken grin.

“Definitely, dude,” Fernando said to Drew. “Your girl’s gonna make us rock stars.”

“I bet,” he replied.

We said our good-byes, and I thanked the boys for coming. Told them I’d see them the next day at practice.

We drove along Blackrock Road in silence, the dark tree-lined streets and curves of the road swaying me into a half-drunk half sleep. The glowing green car clock read
11:48
.

“Fuck, I’m totally going to be late,” I moaned.

“Chill out. You’ll be home in ten minutes.”

I shut my eyes and rolled my head back on the headrest.

“The guys in the band seem cool,” Drew said, eyes fixed on the road.

“They are. I’m psyched they came.”

“You like Fernando, don’t you?”

What? No! The question was supposed to be phrased the other way. Fernando liked
me
. Fuck, this whole thing was going to backfire, wasn’t it?

“Oh, stop it,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I do not. He’s just flirty.”

“Whatever, Miss Oh-ha-ha-Cunning-Runts-we’re-so-funny-with-all-our-inside-band-jokes-all-night.”

“Whatever, Mr. Oh-Veronica-you-throw-the-best-parties-let-me-follow-you-around-and-carry-your-beer-all-night—like you should talk.”

“Whatever. You should call your mom; we’re probably going to be a little late.”

B
y the time I finally made it upstairs, I had to lie on my bed for a minute. The glow-in-the-dark stick-on stars on my ceiling blurred and spun in and out of focus, and I opened and closed my eyes to make them stop. They didn’t. I sat up again, went to the bathroom, and kneeled over the toilet hoping I might puke, but I didn’t do that, either. I just knelt there on the cold tiles with my head on my wrists, listening to the distant bass that was so loud the house shook. I decided maybe I shouldn’t puke anyway, in case I went back downstairs and Drew wanted to make out more. I re-eyelinered, resituated my boobs, slapped my cheeks, and walked out of my bathroom as refreshed as I could be, prepared to reemerge, only to find one Mr. Sam Fuchs nosing around my room.

“Need the bathroom?” I asked, hoping he hadn’t found anything embarrassing, like a cutout picture of himself from an eighth-grade yearbook.

“Yeah, can I use yours?” I could smell the whiskey on him from three feet away, and it turned my stomach. He stumbled closer to me and ran the back of his hand down my goose-bumped arm. “You’re lookin’ good tonight, Collins. Really good.”

I smiled and looked up at his three beautiful blue eyes.

“You know, I’ve always had a thing for you,” he said.

He kissed my cheek and I didn’t stop him, then my neck, then shoulder. The room and stars on my ceiling still spun. I meant to slap him and run and tell Mollie what a creep her boyfriend was, but the words weren’t coming out, my legs weren’t moving, just crumbling underneath me.

“What about Mollie?” I managed to stutter, still thinking about pushing him away.

“You know you won’t tell her. You know you want me, too.” And he kissed me on the mouth. A wet, sour whiskey kiss, strong and long, forceful and passionate. I completely collapsed into it. Into him.

“This is wrong,” I gasped.

Sam shushed me and locked the bedroom door. And I knew at that point that I was going to let this happen. The alcohol sloshed around in my brain and body. Images swirled, and words and thoughts and conclusions drained before they congealed. I had a quick flash of my kiss with Drew, which instantly faded into a montage of images of Mollie reaming me out in various scenarios—screaming at me in school, writing a mass e-mail or something announcing to the world what a slut I was, maybe even physically assaulting me. Maybe I’d tell her, maybe this would be exactly what she needed to hear to know what a jerk Sam really was. But I knew Mollie, and I knew that telling her that Sam came on to me would start a fight between the two of us rather than a fight between her and Sam. It wouldn’t be worth it.

Fuck her and her self-righteous
monogamous
relationship. Fuck her for always calling me a slut. Look who she was dating. Look what he was doing.

We made out on my bed, and I ran my unfocused hands down his broad back. He’d said he’d always had a thing for me. I used to wonder what I had done that made him choose Mollie over me. That night freshman year at that party, I could’ve sworn I’d felt a heat between us, but then the next thing I knew he was dating Mollie. I pictured him telling her off. Me standing on his arm, him telling her that she was a miserable, anorexic bitch with an attitude problem who took him for granted and that he was going to be with a happy, fun-loving girl like me now. She’d go ape-shit.

He felt good on top of me, strong, powerful. He ripped my dress over my head and flipped me over. He was pretty rough, but I was so drunk I didn’t even notice when he’d finished.