Butter (22 page)

“It's just risky getting wasted at the bowling alley,” she said. “And liquor has a lot fewer calories than that keg.” She tilted her head back to the big silver can in the kitchen, then raised her shot glass to me. “Besides, it's New Year's Eve. Cheers.”

I lifted my can of diet soda to clink her glass.

“Why aren't you drinking?” she asked.

“I am,” I lied. “I'm just taking a break.”

I had planned to start drinking the second I hit the party, but I found my pulse racing and my brain fuzzy even without the booze. All of my senses were buzzing with paranoia that I'd be kicked out at any moment and sent home to do my business, so I paced myself on the drinking.

And by paced myself, I mean an hour after I'd arrived, I still hadn't had a sip.

Now I was watching Anna down drinks like it was her job. She chased her shot with a tall glass of something faintly pink, then accepted another cup from a guy playing bartender to her right.

She stretched across the counter toward me again.

“It's hot in here.” She hiccupped.

“And loud,” I shouted.

“And my feet are sticking to the floor!”

We both laughed.

“Want to go outside to cool off?” I asked.

“Yeah, but I'm stuck.” She pointed at the kids around her, packed into the kitchen like sardines. “Here, give me a hand.”

Anna wormed her torso up onto the counter and stretched an arm out to me. Her hand felt like silk in mine. I wished I'd
thought to wipe my sweaty palms on my pants before touching her soft skin. She slid across the counter and hopped down on my side.

“Thanks.”

“Sure.” I took extra care to shrug and make my voice sound casual. Any sign of puppy love from me, and she could ice me out again. And more than anything, right then, I just needed a friend at the party—someone to keep me from looking around, watching for people watching me.

Anna pointed to a set of sliding-glass doors leading outside. I followed her out to a patio where the crowds were worse, but at least the music was muffled. Unlike the DJ inside with his volume constantly set to max, the live band playing in Parker's backyard was keeping the noise to a minimum.

Unfortunately, they were keeping the talent to a minimum too. The lead guitarist knew how to handle his instrument, but the bassist and the drummer were a complete disaster. Of course, no one at the party seemed to notice. All that mattered was what they were wearing, how cool they looked to the guys, and how often they winked at the girls—more proof that a career in music was about appealing to the eyes, not the ears.

Jeanie was among a crowd of girls hovering near the front of the stage. She was swaying back and forth, but not in time with the beat; her sway looked like the result of too much vodka.

Anna rushed up to hug Jeanie from behind. They did the drunk-girl-hug-stumble over to a deck chair next to Parker's Olympic-size pool. I followed like a dog.

“Jeanie, you're wasted!” Anna laughed.

Jeanie tried to lift her head but gave up and leaned it back on the chair. “No,
you're
wasted.”

“I'm tipsy,” Anna corrected. “But you're a mess. You better sober up before J.P. gets here, or you'll embarrass me.”

“What ever. J.P., shmay-pee.” Jeanie rolled her eyes and slurred. “He's not coming.”

“What?” Anna had been stroking Jeanie's hair, but now she pulled away.

“I said, he's. Not. Coming.”

“Screw you, Jeanie,” Anna said. I noticed her hiccups were gone.

Jeanie rocked in the chair, then leaned over and puked. A little stream of vomit slithered across the concrete and into the pool.

“Gross!” Anna jumped up from the deck chair.

I caught her elbow. She wasn't too steady on her feet.

“That was rude.” I nodded at Jeanie, who had promptly passed out with her face half hanging off the lounger.

“She can't help it if she has to puke.”

“No, the bit about your boyfriend not coming.”

“How do you know he's my boyfriend?”

“Just a guess. He's the guy from the Internet, right?”

Anna blushed. “Oh, right. I forgot
somebody
told everyone I met J.P. online.” She kicked the lounger. Jeanie stirred but didn't wake.

“At least she's nasty to your face too and not just behind your back, like the guys. You should have heard the stuff Trent and Parker said about—”

“You're doing it again.” Anna frowned.

“Doing what?”

“Trash-talking my friends.”

“No, I'm telling you your friends were trash-talking
you.
” I sighed. I didn't want to piss her off again. “Never mind. You're right. I didn't mean to talk shit.”

But Anna had already turned her back to me. She sipped her drink, staring at the sliding-glass doors, monitoring everyone who came outside.

“So you'll recognize this guy when he shows up?” I asked. “You've seen pictures?”

Anna spun back to me. “Did Jeanie tell you to ask me that?”

“No, honest.”

“Well, the answer is no, I haven't seen his picture, but yes, I will recognize him.”

“How's that?”

Anna allowed a goofy smile to slip onto her lips. “I'll just know. I can't explain it.”

The deck chair creaked, and Jeanie's head appeared on one side, her hand clutching the back of the chair for support. “You'll know because he'll be some four-foot-tall guy with acne,” she slurred.

Anna smiled to herself. “Or one arm and three eyeballs.”

“What?” Jeanie pinched her face together. “And you think I'm drunk?” She rolled back over and closed her eyes again.

“Inside joke?” I asked.

That secretive smile was still stuck to Anna's face. “Kind of. Look, I know everyone thinks I'm crazy, but I just
know
him,
y'know? And even if he is four feet tall with zits, I won't care—or at least I'll get over it or whatever.”

Anna's liquid expressions were too revealing to mask a lie. I knew the dreamy look on her face was genuine, that she at least believed she could see through a rough exterior to find her J.P. on the inside. For the first time, I felt like I was seeing my Anna in the flesh—the girl who took a chance on a guy without a picture, the girl who secretly hated shopping and might learn to love jazz. I had been angry with Anna for judging me, but maybe I hadn't been fair to her either. She claimed she could love J.P. in any form. And she deserved a chance to prove it.

Look, I was a reasonable guy. I realized someone my size didn't have a prayer with a tiny, beautiful thing like Anna, but the sincerity in her animated face made me delirious with hope. Or maybe I wanted so badly for it to be true, I let logic fly away. Or just maybe the sparkles in those blue eyes were like pixie dust—magical pixie dust that makes you do stupid shit like decide to come clean.

“Stay right here,” I ordered.

“Where are you going?” she called, but I was already halfway to the sliding-glass doors leading back into the house.

I pushed through a pack of kids going nuts dancing in the living room; I squeezed past the group of guys doing keg stands in the kitchen; I even made it out the front door despite Nate-the-prescription-pusher sticking a handful of pills in my face and urging me to join him in the bathroom.

“Okay, I'll save you some,” he shouted after me.

I didn't look back. I was on a mission, and I could still see one obstacle ahead of me.

Trent and Parker were directly in my path as I stepped onto the sweeping cobblestone drive in front of the mansion.

“What's the rush?” Trent asked. He slurred his words even worse than Jeanie had.

“Just getting something from my car. Where were you guys?”

“Reinforcements,” Parker said, holding up a heavy bottle of tequila.

Trent juggled his own armload of huge bottles. “Had to restock, so we stole these from Jeremy's bar. Gotta warm up the insides before we get in the pool. You in?”

“In the pool? Hell no. I just saw Jeanie puke in it.”

“Ah, whatever.” Parker waved his bottle. “I've put worse things in there.”

The boys exploded into hysterical laughter. I thought about asking what kinds of things but decided I probably wouldn't want to know. Plus, I didn't want to get blown off course. I had something to do.

“Well, I'll pass on the pool, but have fun.”

“No pass.” Trent wobbled on his feet. “You're doing a cannonball.”

“Not a cannonball,” Parker corrected, laughing again. “A Butter ball!”

Man, was I getting tired of that joke.

“Yeah!” Trent cheered. “Come on!”

The drunks kept bumping into each other as the laughter
threw off their balance. I saw one bottle slip dangerously low in Trent's arms.

“Okay, I'll be there in a minute,” I said. “I just have to get that thing from my car.”

“It better be your swim trunks, dude, 'cause you're going in the pool,” Trent said.

I had no intention of going in the pool, but I did plan to make a splash.

This was it; this was my chance to show Anna who I really was, to show
everyone
I was more than the pathetic fat kid threatening to eat himself to death online, more than Trent's friend-ofthe-month, more than their gossip du jour.

I found my car blocked in by a Lexus and a Hummer. It was a tight fit to get between my passenger-side door and the car next to me, but I held my breath and sucked in. I only needed to get one arm in the door anyway—just far enough to reach my saxophone.

I had brought the sax on a whim, thinking I might want one last howl at the moon on my way home. Now I had bigger plans.

I shimmied the sax out of its case and dove back into the party. I was recklessly hopeful. When I left Anna by the pool, I only knew I had to give her a chance to prove she wasn't full of shit, but by the time I reached for my sax, I knew I needed to give all of them a chance. Now my brain was buzzing to the beat of the music inside Parker's house, daydreams firing across all of my synapses. They would beg for me to stay, to not go through with my plan. They would see me—the real me—for
the first time. And Anna would see me more clearly than anyone—see that I was her J.P., and that she was my Anna.

She ran up to me the second I stepped onto the patio. Her face was flushed, her eyes on my saxophone, her perfect smile stretching from ear to ear.

I knew it! I knew it!

“Butter!” She was breathless with excitement. “I had no idea!”

“I wanted to tell—”

“My boyfriend plays sax too!”

My turn to be breathless. I'd had the wind knocked out of me.

I opened my mouth to tell her—
tell her, damn it!
—but no words came out.

“Are you going to play?” she asked. “Maybe you and J.P. can both play when he gets here.”

The words still wouldn't come. I was mute with fear.
Say something,
I commanded myself.
Say anything!

“I was kind of hoping he'd bring his sax, because I want to hear this song he wrote for me, but I was going to have him play it for me in private.”

Words. Make words. Speak!

But I couldn't process my thoughts while Anna was still shooting her own stream of consciousness out of her mouth. “I was thinking I could take him to that mountain you showed me—that little outcrop—and he could play it for me there. We could make it, like,
our
spot …”

Bitch. Selfish. Blind.
The words were coming now, but my lips were frozen shut. I began to shake from the inside out.

“… but he could play here first. Jeanie would
die
if he got on stage. She'd be so jealous.”

My sax trembled in one hand, and I gripped it with the other, to hide the rattle from Anna.

“And he's pretty awesome,” Anna teased. “So you better bring it if you don't want to get shown up. Butter? Are you okay?”

I swallowed the cotton balls in my mouth and unstuck my lips.

“Um, yeah, I'm fine.”

That's it? That's all you have to say, jackass?

I buried my gaze in the brass between my hands. I couldn't look her in the eye, couldn't stomach the sight of that bright-blue happiness.

“I'm—I'm just gonna jam out a little bit,” I managed.

“Awesome!” Anna turned to a group of girls huddled next to the sliding-glass doors. “Tell everyone to come outside. Butter's going to play with the band!”

The girls dutifully disappeared inside to spread the word, and I moved like a zombie to the stage. I didn't even have to ask for permission to join the group. The bass player saw my sax and waved me up midsong. My legs felt like lead as I stepped up to the platform. I was at a total loss for what to do or say, and as the crowd thickened around the stage, I felt more confused than ever. So I just did what had always come naturally to me. I lifted the sax to my lips and began to blow.

I had always let music transport me to another world. But where do you go when the world you usually fantasize about is the one you're now standing in? I closed my eyes as the first notes escaped my sax, but I traveled nowhere. I was rooted inside a daydream come alive.

The guitarist followed my lead, creating a secondary melody over the top of the jam I'd started. The bassist struggled, but he kept up. The drummer was hopelessly lost and finally just settled on a simple background beat. I embraced the impromptu song and let myself be carried away—at least from Anna—for a moment.

I was a rock star. Even Jeanie had arisen from her drunken coma to join the crowd going wild at my feet. It was just how I'd pictured it—all of them seeing me for the first time, all of
them rooting for me to live it up instead of rooting for me to die. I'd given Scottsdale High another reason to celebrate me and maybe even a reason to keep me around. The guys screamed; the girls swooned.