Make Your Home Among Strangers (15 page)

—Is there gonna be a DJ? I asked.

Jaquelin smiled.

—I could lie and say yes, but really? I have no idea. I just know my roommate said there'd be dancing, because she knows otherwise I'm not interested.

I said I'd come and she gave me the details. We arranged to meet just inside the entrance of the off-campus building—another huge, old mansion, this one converted into event space and high-end student housing—playing host to the party.

—That's funny, there's a club called Mansion in Miami, I told her. It'll probably be just like that, right?

—That's hilarious, she said. But you know what? I don't really care if it's lame, I'm wearing my club clothes because why the hell not? I haven't worn them once out here. I'll probably take them back home and leave them there at break. But maybe they deserve a last chance here at Rawlings.

Behind us a clomp of footsteps charged down the stairs, and them coming after her
last chance here at Rawlings
made me wish they'd run me over, grind me into the concrete and make me part of the campus in a way I could live up to and that didn't cost anything. As they passed, Jaquelin scooted closer to me, said Hi! and waved at this group of students—all talking to each other—even though not one of them acknowledged that she stood there.

—I'll wear mine too, I said. You don't want to be the only one.

*   *   *

The night of the party, Jillian caught me sitting on the bathroom floor in front of the full-length mirror, flat-ironing my hair.

—Oh, she said from the doorway. I thought I smelled something burning in here.

She came and stood by me, inspecting the reflection of her outfit. Her black leather boots and the zippers running up their outside seams went to her knees, and under them she wore reddish tights that accented the red gumball-like beads of the necklace wrapped twice around her throat. Her low-cut top was gray and looked like a bodice made out of felt, and it matched perfectly with the fedora tipped forward on her head: she must've bought them as a set. The whole outfit looked too grown up, too coordinated to be any fun. Her makeup case—like a plastic toolbox—hung from her hand as she talked to the mirror.

—From the hallway it smells like there's a fire in here, she said. I was really about to get the RA.

—It's just me, I said.

She moved to the counter and set her case down, placed her fedora next to it. A stream of smoke came up from my flat iron as a twisted strip went in on one side and came out stick-straight and only a little crispy from the other. Straightening my hair made it twice as long: it reached past my waist.

—It can't be good for your hair to have the iron set that hot.

—That's the only way to make it straight, I said. I always do it this hot.

I was wearing a pair of hip-hugger jeans that looked stitched up the sides, but the openings weren't real; I wouldn't end up like those girls on Halloween Jillian's brother had warned her about. I'd never worn jeans to a real club in Miami, only to the places we went as a joke, the places tucked into mini-malls in Broward County that promised free drinks to all females until midnight.

—Am I to take this hair frying as a sign you're actually going out tonight? Or are you staying in to finally call your boyfriend? He's really tired of leaving messages, I'll tell you that.

She pushed her hair back with a hairband, the first move in crafting the layers of makeup that constituted Party Face Jillian.

—I haven't straightened my hair since graduation, I said. I wanted to try it up here. It'll probably last a while in this cold.

I fed another section through the iron, clamped it as close to my scalp as I could stand.

—But yeah, I'm going out tonight, I said. To some party near west campus? Someone told me there'd be dancing, so I figured I'd see if it's true.

—The party at Newman House? Down on Buffalo Street? We're going to that, a bunch of us from the hall. You should go with us. Tracy might drive.

—Tracy might
what
? a voice yelled from the hallway. A second later, Tracy's over-blushed face hovered in the bathroom's entrance. Is someone barbecuing in here?

I put the flat iron down by my leg to hide it, waved away smoke with one hand while finger-combing the freshly straightened piece with the other.

—Sorry, that's me, I said.

—Trace, will you drive everyone down to Newman House? Then we'll only have to walk back. It's
so
cold out.

—I'm not driving, she said. I'm already drinking.

She wrinkled her nose at the air, then said, But we can take my Jeep and you can drive if you want.

Jillian daubed a foundation-soaked sponge across her forehead and pouted like a baby. She said, I already did shots with Caroline and them in her room.

—When did you do shots? I said. How long have I been in here?

—
She
can drive, Tracy said, thrusting her chin at me. If she's going.

Jillian said, Who? Then, Oh,
Liz
!

—Or not. Whatever, Tracy said. I don't really care.

Her head disappeared from the doorway, and Jillian said to the mirror, You feel like driving her car to the party? It's one way to guarantee you won't have to walk. I don't know how many people'll end up wanting a ride, if there'll be room.

I picked up the flat iron and grabbed a chunk of hair from the base of my neck, singeing by accident some skin there. If I drove, I'd be warm, but then I imagined what I knew would happen: no parking for blocks around, the girls in the car I didn't know—and Jillian, too, with any more booze in her—all insisting on getting dropped off at the house's gate, leaving me to find a spot big enough for a Jeep on my own; Jaquelin witnessing my devolution into Rawlings chauffeur as she freezes outside; me panicking that, after I tap an Audi behind me, some old dent on Tracy's Jeep is maybe my fault; freezing anyway on a still-long walk from the parking spot to the party, Jaquelin so disgusted by me that she takes off before I make it back.

—I shouldn't drive either, I said. I think I'm – I'm pretty buzzed too, actually.

—Really! No wonder you're OK doing that to your hair, she laughed. No biggie, we'll figure something out.

She swept some colorless powder all over her face. I slid the iron down the last section of hair and headed back to our room. I changed into my strapless bra and pulled on a black tube top, threw on every bracelet I owned, and shoved my biggest set of hoop earrings through my earlobes. Jaquelin would recognize it as a lazy clubbing outfit, but it was more like Miami clothes than anything I'd worn in months. I parted my now-straight hair down the middle, rubbed a little pink lotion on my hands and smoothed it over the ends and the pieces that stuck straight up from the crown. I pulled Omar's silver chain out from where it sat pooled at the bottom of the cup that held my pens and highlighters and draped it around my neck.

After a little while in my room, some fierce makeup on my own face now, I went into the hallway to find Jillian and the other girls. I bumped into the RA in the bathroom.

—Someone was smoking something in here, she said.

—No, it was – people were straightening their hair. With a flat iron. It was on a really high setting.

—You look amazing, she said to me. Jesus, I didn't even recognize you for a second. Your hair is so long.

She reached out her hand to touch it. I let her. It feathered out of her hand and fell back stiff at my side.

—Jillian and them left a couple minutes ago, she said. Were you looking for someone?

—They left? I said. Like all together?

—You can probably still catch them. They said they were taking the campus shuttle.

I thought Jillian would come back to our room, at least to put her makeup away, but the case wasn't on the counter—she must've left it somewhere else. I pulled my hair into a cord and wrapped it around my fist, out of anyone's grip.

—No, it's fine. I wasn't really going with them anyway.

I'm meeting up with a real friend, I almost said, but that would only make my RA ask me questions and act interested in me, since that was essentially her job.

I went back to our room, taking a long body-warming swig from the bottle of vodka Jillian kept on the freezer shelf of her mini-fridge, and when I put it back, I didn't bother to make it look like I hadn't touched it. Let her say something to me about it, I said to the fridge door, then to my reflection as I checked my makeup again. But I knew I was stalling, waiting until I was sure the next campus shuttle had come and gone.

 

13

APPARENTLY JAQUELIN DIDN'T FUNCTION ON
the half-Mexican, half-Honduran equivalent of Cuban Time: I was almost an hour late—so pretty much on time by our standards—but she wasn't standing just inside the foyer like we'd planned, and as someone took my coat and someone else put a paper wristband on my outstretched arm, I searched for anyone I recognized. The only thing that kept me from panicking about being there alone was the music—hip-hop playing so loud that I'd heard it from a block away, meaning actual speakers and not some shitty computer ones buzzing a song beyond recognition. Meaning, at the very least, a PA system—maybe even an actual DJ. Huddles of females tittered just inside the door, screaming nonsense over the music into each other's ears, radiating a kind of fear I'd never seen on them: no one in their pack was willing to take the lead and go in. But the music gave me the courage to walk down the gauntlet of males holding up the entrance's walls while they sipped like mad from their beers. I safety-hoisted my tube top—made sure things were as secure as they got in a shirt like that—and strutted down the long foyer past all of them, flipping my hair over my shoulders and showing off my collarbone, refusing to make eye contact with even a single person, my face set to look as bored and unimpressed as possible.
This is how you enter a club, motherfuckers
, I thought, and I knew they could hear me thinking it, because they all turned and watched me.

A few steps before the archway leading to the dance floor, I heard a guy's voice yell, Hey you!—a little different from the
Hey girl, come here
, or the
Hey baby, lemme talk to you
one normally heard while traversing the male-lined entryway of a Miami club, but it would do. I kept my eyes on the dark room in front of me, where the music came from, picturing those girls in the herds behind me totally incapable of taking even one step forward, until I heard, Hey OK! Hey OK! OK OK OK!

I tilted my head so I could see (without obviously looking) who was having some kind of OK-breakdown against the wall—but he
wasn't
against the wall: he was lunging forward, reaching toward me, beer in one hand, the other hand and its different color wristband going for my arm as he yelled, OK! OK, hey!

When his fingers glanced the top of my arm, I swung out of his way and said, Who are
you
, trying to touch me? I scowled at his hand in the air between us, but even in the dim, red light, I could make out the freckles dotting his knuckles.

—It's Ethan, remember! From the library? And you're OK! You're OK, get it?

I did. It was lame enough to remind me where I really was.

—You straightened your hair, he said. It looks rad.

I dipped my head forward to bring my hair in front of me, then pushed it back again like it was
so annoying
to have to deal repeatedly with something so substantial. Then I pretended to yawn.

—I have a boyfriend, I said.

He didn't even blink. Good for you, he said.

He glanced around, trying to nod with the beat but missing it by a little each time. Now that I stood next to him (instead of towering above from my library desk), I saw he was thin and a good eight inches taller than me. He kept leaning down, as if trying to see the room from my height, and the terrible plaid shirt he wore over some faded T-shirt kept falling open in my direction, as if lined inside with stolen watches he wanted me to check out.

—This party is way loud, he yelled into my ear.

The red light bulbs illuminating the entrance made his already-red hair look orange. Disorganized red scruff glinted from his chin.

—I know, he said, I'm a freak, right? This light. It's like I'm glowing.

He'd caught me staring, so I said, Sorry.

—Nah, it's cool, he said.

One team of girls from the front door grew a little brave, tiptoed their way behind me. I didn't want to move—I wanted to break them up like a school of fish around a shark—but Ethan touched the top of my half-exposed back and scooted me closer to the wall. It was a little quieter there, without the beam of sound from the dance floor's entrance directly hitting us.

—So I can keep calling you OK, he said. But if you have an actual name, you can tell me what that is at any point.

—Okay, I said.

And I couldn't help it; I laughed. So did he, his throat flashing as he sent the boom of it toward the ceiling.

A pair of hands clamped down on my shoulders from behind me.

—Liiiiiiz, Jillian slurred when I turned around. Where
were
you? We were
looking
for you!

Her necklace was now wrapped around her wrist. Her hat was gone, her face glazed with so much sweat I would've guessed she'd just been jogging.

—You guys left me at the dorm, I said.

—Wha? No we
did-it.
Tracy said she could-it
find
you when you left the
bathroom
.

Ethan yelled over the music, Who's your friend? and I said, She's not my friend, she's my roommate.

—She's pretty wrecked, he said.

—No, she's just a little sloppy, I said. Right, Jillian?

—Li-
zet
! she said, a hand still on each of my shoulders. I.
Love.
Dancing!