fml (5 page)

I rang up Ben and Coop first, but neither answered their phones, which meant either the party was kicking ass and was too loud for them to hear anything, or they were in a dark room groping each other so hard they'd gone temporarily deaf.

The rest of my phone list was sad and short. Friends I rarely talked to and girls I'd sort of dated.

My finger hovered over Aja Bourne's name, but I was not yet that desperate, and I shoved my phone back into my pocket.

I was also not yet desperate enough to call my parents. I knew they were sitting at home watching reruns of bad sitcoms and eating unbuttered, unsalted popcorn, and would have gladly picked me up and taken me to the party. But the only thing more degrading than being chucked into the road by Natalie would have been showing up at Cassie's party in the mom-mobile.

The option wasn't off the table, but I'd probably crawl ten
miles with two broken legs and a stomach covered in road rash before I'd give it serious consideration.

I started walking north toward Cassie's house. It was only a few miles, and I figured that if I didn't stop for any mope breaks, I could make it before the party ended. I envisioned arriving at Cassie's door, finding Ben and Coop partied out and wondering where I'd gotten to. They'd be racked with guilt, apologetic that they'd convinced me to talk to another girl. Cassie would be waiting on a chaise lounge, exhausted from fending off other boys all night. I'd attach myself to her lips like one of Ripley's aliens and never, ever let go.

Or, you know, I'd show up and the keg would be dry, and I'd spend the remainder of my night listening to everyone tell me how great the party
was
because my best friends were too busy to pick up their goddamn phones.

I checked again to see if Coop had called back, but he hadn't. It felt like I'd been walking for hours, but it hadn't even been fifteen minutes. I kept hoping Natalie would realize that I wasn't a complete dick and that leaving me on the side of the road had been a terrible mistake. But I knew that would never happen. I was about to give up and call my dad when a white car with a rusted hood and one dead headlight skidded to a stop, nearly mowing me down.

The driver's-side door opened. “Falcor, wait!” A whitish dog the size of a football darted out and ran straight into the base of a palm tree. The dog stood, stunned for a second, and then lifted his leg and peed on it.

“Show that tree who's boss,” I mumbled.

“Can you grab him?” a voice called from inside the car. I couldn't see a face because of the cyclopean headlight that was trained on me like a laser.

“Sure,” I said. “I hope he's got all his shots.”

“I hope you've got all yours,” said the voice, which sounded distinctly feminine.

I approached the dog slowly. “Nice doggie.” If the dog noticed me, he gave zero indication. After finishing his pee, he began running in tight circles, barking with wild abandon. I picked him up and he seemed startled. He gave a little growl and licked my hand.

Falcor was maybe the ugliest dog I'd ever seen. His freakish underbite and smooshed nose made me think he definitely had some shih tzu in him, but he was misshapen, like someone had put him together wrong. And his eyes were all pupil, black. Creepy.

“Here,” I said, walking up to the open car door.

“I seem to be having a seat belt malfunction.” The girl inside the car was struggling with the locking mechanism, pulling it and beating at it with a pair of shiny handcuffs that I thought better of asking about.

I crouched down so that I was eye level with her. Falcor wiggle-wormed in my arms, but I held him tightly. “Want some help?”

The girl looked at me. Her eyes were big and brown and I don't think I saw her blink once. There was something about
her. Like the dog, she seemed off, the way a movie and the sound are sometimes slightly out of sync.

“I can get it,” the girl said. “Are you a rapist?”

“What?”

“A sexual predator. You're not going to kidnap me and take me to an abandoned house and have your fiendish way with me, are you?”

“Jesus Christ! Of course not!”

“Oh.” The girl eyed me up and down like maybe she wasn't sure she believed me. “I guess you're okay, then.”

I shoved the dog at her and said, “Here's your dog.” Then I stood up to leave, hiking my backpack up on my shoulder.

“Hold your horses, bucko.” The girl gave the seat belt a series of taps, and it released her. “I'm Stella.” She climbed out of the car, her movements oddly insectlike, and when she stood up straight she was so short that I could have rested my chin on the top of her head.

I briefly entertained the idea of giving Stella a fake name in case she turned out to be an escapee from an asylum for the criminally insane or something, but I couldn't choose between Alejandro Von Tittlesworth or Roger, so I told her the name I'd been saddled with at birth.

Stella cocked her head to the side. “You look familiar. Are you an actor?”

“No,” I said, unsure what to say next. Stella was equal parts confusing and exciting.

“Hm. You look like that guy in the gonorrhea PSAs.” Stella
lowered her voice and put on a grim expression. “I may look like a nice guy, but I've been in more dark holes than a professional spelunker. And that was just last week!”

“Gonorrhea free,” I said. “In fact, the closest I've ever come to catching an STD was the time I accidentally used the same spoon as Foster Jefferies at lunch. He has chronic cold sores.”

“So, if you're not out here collecting sexually transmitted diseases, what are you doing?” Stella kicked at the sidewalk with the toe of her lime-green sneaker. She was a kaleidoscope of colors, from her red hair to her yellow tank to her limey shoes. It looked like she'd been dressed by a color-blind kindergartner.

The thought of concocting a lie occurred to me. It more than occurred. I thought lying might offer me the only opportunity to escape with my dignity more or less intact. But in the end I told Stella what had actually happened. There was some kind of gravity in her smile, in her eyes, that sucked the whole stupid truth, in all its excruciating glory, right out of me.

“You're a dick,” Stella said when I'd finished.

“I just have dick tendencies,” I said. “I'm actually pretty nice.”

Stella seemed to consider this. “You did save my dog from that vicious tree.”

“What's wrong with him?”

“Blind,” she said. “He was born that way.”

“He's fugly.”

“You're not so great yourself.” Her smile revealed her lie, and I couldn't help but grin back.

“I should get going,” Stella said.

“Yeah, okay. I should call the Taxi de la Parents, anyway. Get them to come pick me up.”

Stella leaned against her car and pursed her lips at me. They were nice lips, not too thin, but not overly full, either. Stella was different. Not Cassie, for sure, but not like any other girl I knew either. Other girls worked tirelessly to keep up with every ridiculous fad so that they could cling to popularity. But Stella wasn't trying to be anyone other than herself. And that gave me a boner.

“You're not so bad for a dick,” she said. “Wanna ride?”

“Dick tendencies,” I corrected. “To the party?”

“It's on my way?”

“Really?”

Stella shook her head. “Not really, but I was about to spend my entire night listening to ABBA and putting makeup on dead people.”

“Ew,” I said reflexively.

“I know. My mom's a funeral director, and she always ropes me into helping her with the bodies. She claims I have a natural talent for making the best of a dead situation, but I think she's just too cheap to hire an assistant.”

“I was talking about ABBA,” I said. “But the corpses are freaky too.”

Stella slapped me on the arm. It stung, but I refused to flinch. “ABBA is only the best pop band of the last fifty
forever
.”

“You have a sickness,” I said. “My dad listens to them nonstop
during tax season. He works out of the house, and for three agonizing months we all become dancing queens. It's a serious disease.”

“I think I love your dad.” Stella pulled her keys from her jeans pocket and jingled them. “You want a ride or not?”

I accepted without hesitation.

The Castillo house is a startling departure from the norm in the garden of McMansions that line Windsong Lane. Mr. Castillo had not been content to build a house that looked like everyone else's. The Castillo house stands out with its clay roof tiles and bright Spanish flair.

The front lawn, which had been meticulously manicured the last time I'd been there, was scarred by tire tracks and littered with cars of every make and model.

Stella pulled to a stop in front of Cassie's house. Falcor was sitting quietly in her lap, resting his head on the e-break.

I toyed with the zipper on my backpack, opening it and closing it. I knew this was the part where I was supposed to get out and go into the party. But I didn't want to. I wanted Stella to put her foot on the gas and take us anywhere else. Some of that was because I was having fun talking with her, but most of it was because I knew that if I went into that party, I'd see Cassie, and I'd want Cassie, and I'd spend the entire night mired in the soupy pit of despair. Which was exactly what I'd been trying to avoid when I'd nutted up at Gobbler's and talked to Natalie.

“Come to the party with me,” I blurted. And even though I
knew I'd said it, I wasn't sure that I'd meant to. I was glad that I had, though, if that makes sense on any planet other than the one I inhabit.

“I have Falcor,” Stella said. Falcor's ears perked up at his name.

“There are bound to be crazier things inside than a blind dog. It's a barter party.”

Stella rolled her eyes. “I'm not dressed to party. I don't even have my saddle.”

“You look fine.”

“You sure know how to make a girl feel special.”

“I only meant—”

“No, Simon, stick to your guns. I look
fine
.” Stella dragged out that last word and then licked her pale peach lips in a mockery of sexy that drew reluctant laughter out of me.

“There'll be booze and dancing and bartering,” I said, managing to make what Cassie had declared would be the greatest party of our high school lives sound überlame.

I unzipped my backpack and dug around until I found the small velvet bag I'd been looking for. I pulled open the drawstrings and emptied a pair of dice into my palm. “My mom got me these from Vegas. They were used at a real craps table. Mom said she saw someone win ten grand with these babies.” I held the dice closer to her face, trying to make them seem as enticing as possible. “For the superlow price of spending one hour at this party with moi, these dice can be all yours.”

Stella frowned at the dice and then took them from me.
She shook them in her closed fist, listening to the sharp clack they made. “I'll stay twenty minutes,” she said. “And no dancing.”

“Deal.”

Stella pocketed the dice and looked for a place to park.

We found a spot on the side of the road and walked up the driveway. Music pounded at the windows and the doors and even the roof, straining the joints and leaking out of every crack it could find. It was the kind of music Coop abhors, the kind that thumps out of control, with lyrics that dig into your ears and squat there for days.

“Did she hire a DJ?” Stella asked.

“That's DJ Leo,” I said. “He wants to be the next Daft Punk or something. No one really invites him, he just shows up.”

Stella turned her ear to the house. “He's brilliant.”

I took Stella's free hand and led her to the doorstep. As I reached for the doorknob, I was momentarily stunned by the memories of the last time I'd stood in that same spot. I half expected Mr. Castillo to be waiting behind the door, holding a Louisville Slugger in one hand and a fat cigar in the other.

But he wasn't. When I opened the door, the party rushed out like the leading edge of a tsunami. The sounds and smells and music and laughter carried on a wave of entropy that would eventually dissolve into utter chaos.

And then there was Cassie.

She stood in the space between the door and the jamb, leaning with one arm up and one arm hidden behind her
back. She was wearing a black dress that hugged her curves and left very little to my overheated imagination. She smiled at first with her honey-colored eyes, and then with her lips, revealing that little gap that I'd been in love with for years. Even Cassie's imperfections were perfect.

“Simon! And other girl!”

The smell of tequila wafted from Cassie like a heavy fog, and I wondered how much she'd had to drink. It was barely ten.

“Heya, Cass.” I coughed and said it again, unsure of my voice.

“Welcome to my barter party,” Cassie said.

“Thanks,” I said.

Stella whistled a tune, and I admit that I'd momentarily forgotten about her.

I was about to introduce Stella when Cassie said, “There's a price for admission.” She had a devious look in her eyes. “And I think I'll take a kiss.” I forgot about Stella all over again.

Everything was moving so quickly, and I couldn't get a grip. I hadn't even gotten through the front door and Cassie wanted me to kiss her? My lips and her lips. I'd resigned myself to forgetting about Cassie, and now she was inviting me to kiss her. It was maddening and terrifying and other words that I was sure I'd missed on my SATs.

“Really?” I asked.

“Nothing in life is free, Simon Cross,” Cassie said. “Pay up, unless you want to spend your night on the front lawn.”

Ben and Coop had been so wrong. They'd said it was
impossible. They'd said it was never going to happen. But here I was, about to make my dreams come true.