Nothing Bad Is Going to Happen (11 page)

“It's kinda late,” she says finally and firmly, taking the wheel. “Can I . . . can I sleep over?”

I tell her yeah. It's the least I can do.

I'm psyched, to tell the truth.

Dear Lampy,

Love,

Kippy

“Enjoy those cookies,” Dom
says, all breathless, winking at us as he shuts my bedroom door. He started baking stuff as soon as I walked in and asked permission for a sleepover. I guess he's relieved that I'm back to normal kid things like slumber parties with nonmale characters.

I roll my eyes at Libby. “He's usually meaner than this,” I insist, tossing her a pair of onesie pajamas that I'm pretty sure will fit her in the boobs. “Especially lately. That was basically the first time he's spoken to me in twenty-four hours.” Recaps of parental bloopers feel exaggerated when there isn't proof. “He interrupted my therapy session and got stuck in all of my trip wires. I think it changed him.”

Libby rolls her eyes. “I don't know what that means,
but one time my dad walked in on Colt and me dry humping and next thing I knew Pastor Bill was at the house like I needed an exorcism or something.”

My jaw drops. “Did they actually do an exorcism?”

“No, Lutherans don't do exorcisms. Pastor Bill just stood there feeling awkward while my dad turned red. I kept trying to explain that we weren't even doing anything—at least not what my dad thought we were doing. But it's sort of hard to make a case for yourself when they've already made up their minds.”

I choke on a piece of burnt cookie. Dom tries very hard and wears very frilly aprons, but unfortunately he's not very good with recipes, so every single cookie is burnt and hard enough to crack a tooth on.

“Right?” Libby starts changing into the pajamas I gave her. She buttons the shirt to her neck and expertly removes her bra through one of the sleeves. “Seriously though, Kippy, we need to talk about these.” She nods at the tray of homemade sweets. “They look like coals for a fire—not even my dog could digest them and she eats her own poop.”

“Maybe try sucking on them? That's what I usually do. It softens the charred layers enough to eat. We can flush the rest down the toilet.” Downstairs the Christmas music starts blasting.

I put one of the rock-hard cookies between my lips like a lollipop. The ashy taste brings to mind carcinogens, and memories. “So, Libby,” I say, smacking my lips. I haven't had a sleepover since before Ruth died, and I'm not really sure what you do at them. I think Ruth and I spent a lot of time laughing? “How are you this evening?”

“Um, fine, I guess,” she says, staring at me sullenly. “My boyfriend's cheating on me but other than that I'm okay.

“I know what you're thinking,” she says. “He wasn't my boyfriend.”

“Not at all.” I toss the cookie back on the blackened pile, trying to think of something slumber partyish to distract her. “I could braid your hair?”

“Okay.”

“I don't actually know how.”

“Then why—”

“Sorry.”

She sighs. “Let's talk about me. I just . . . I know this is pathetic, but I'm, like, wondering what I'll do now. Because I obviously . . . I don't want to get back together with him. Or whatever . . . I mean, how did I actually think Colt would be a good boyfriend when the whole reason we got together in the first place was him cheating on his girlfriend? Duh, Libby.” She wrinkles
her nose and takes the cookie out of her mouth. “These are really bad.”

“Yeah, they're gross.”

“But all my friends are his friends. I mean, they're not even my friends, they're just girls I drink with or cheer with. They all love him, I think, secretly.” She plays with the carpet. “Where am I going to sit at lunch now that I'm never talking to him again?”

“With me,” I say.

She smiles a little.

“I was worried about the same thing after Ruth died, if it makes you feel any better. I thought my first reactions would be . . . I don't know. Bigger, but they weren't. Sometimes I even forgot to be sad. Sometimes I
hated
her.” I rake my name into the carpet. “It made me feel like a sociopath, but I was, like, who am I going to stand with in the hallway now?”

She glances up at me, nodding a little.

I shrug. “I'll stand with you.”

She beams. “I have an idea.” She reaches into her humongous purse and pulls out the bottle of vodka she snagged yesterday from Davey's.

I get up and lock the door. “What are you, Mary Poppins?”

“Who?”

“It's open, for Pete's sake—if Sheriff Staake had searched your purse you would have gotten a huge ticket.”

“Oh please,” she says, twisting off the cap. “Sheriff Staake's too obsessed with my boobs to even remember what a ticket is.” She thrusts out her chest. “Everyone's distracted by these guys—my own dad hasn't been able to make eye contact with me for seven years. Now let's get drunk and tell each other secrets. Here”—she holds out the bottle and nods—“tell me something that nobody else knows.”

I cradle the bottle with both hands. “Like what?”

“Something really crazy.”

“Okay.” I glance at the list peeking out of my backpack. Davey's attacker is still out there, but we can figure out the next step tomorrow. Even professionals have to take breaks.

I take a sip and force myself to swallow. Fire fills my stomach. I've never done this before. “Low-judgment zone?”

“Low-judgment zone,” she agrees.

“The night they arrested Ralph, before the cops showed up, and it was still just me and him, I peed my pants,” I say, wiping a noodle of drool from my chin.

Libby ogles me. “Like full-on?”

I nod, bracing myself to faint, but the admission feels
more like a script than a memory. I should probably go easy on the vodka—I mean, I guess this is why Davey used to drink. It lets you remember without thinking you'll die.

“So what?” she snaps, suddenly enlivened. “You had an accident. Don't beat yourself up about it. You thought that dickwad was going to kill you and drink your blood. Every time I've gone hunting the animal has messed itself before it stops bleeding.” She flaps her hand at me like it's all so casual.

This is what it feels like to hang out with girls, I remember—there's this very specific, very intoxicating kind of female support that I've learned to forget. Now that it's back, I realize how much I missed it.

“Hey, look at me.” She pokes my knee and I do. “Animal fear is part of animal instinct—at least that's what my mom says when we're hunting, to remind me to respect the prey.” She shrugs. “Pissing yourself is a part of the same science that lets you survive.”

I roll my eyes, mostly to keep the tears in. “You make it sound like I'm brave.”

“Oh, shut up,” she snaps. “You so are.” She wiggles her fingers for the bottle. “My turn.”

I hand it to her and she takes a long glug, then slams down the bottle and exhales.

“So here it is,” she says finally. “I've heard that if you give more than twenty blow jobs you don't get into heaven.” She takes a deep breath. “And I've given twenty-three.”

I hold my face very still, trying to be respectful.

“Where did you hear that?” I ask.

“I Googled it.”

“You Googled how much oral sex you can—”

“Yes, and there were a lot of different numbers, so I averaged them. And then I rounded down, because I figured rounding down would be the most conservative thing, mathematically. Colt wanted to push it to twenty-four, and I just—I couldn't. I kept imagining the . . . you know”—she flutters a hand at the ceiling—“the flames.”

“Hellfire?”

“Yeah. And it's probably why he started cheating on me today with Sarah McKetta.”

Tears fill her eyes. Now would probably be a good opportunity to tell her that the McKetta thing has, according to rumors, been going on for a while—probably long before the blow-job decision—but I don't want to upset her.

Oh, let's be serious. Despite everything I promised myself, Libby and I are sort of becoming friends, and I don't want her to know I kept it from her.

She scoffs. “In case you're wondering, it's time for you to reassure me.”

“Colt's a jerk,” I snap, feeling genuinely angry on her behalf.

“Thank you!”

“And honestly, Libby,” I add, gaining steam. “I mean, I don't know if this makes you feel any better, but I completely understand your need for rules. I had all these rules laid out for my first time with Davey. I had flash cards and schedules mapped out. I had outfits picked. I wanted to wait until I got my cast off, because I thought it would look better—even though, you know, deep down I didn't
really
want to wait. Like, in my gut I'd been raring to go for a while.

“Honestly? Not to diss your religion or anything, but I think the rules we make for ourselves are more about fearing rejection than fearing mistakes. Colt totally fucked up, but if you and him make up, or whatever—or if you meet someone new, and you really want to give him a blow job, or, I don't know,
get
a blow job—then maybe you should just go for it. And if you don't want to because of some rule you've come up with by averaging a bunch of random numbers and combining them with Bible stuff, maybe it's because you don't particularly trust that person, and maybe you should listen to that.”

“I guess part of it
was
knowing he'd tell everyone,” she says gruffly.

“Whoever you're with should feel lucky, not entitled. Right now Colt might be the only person in this town who's up to your physical standards—”

“He is,” she says, sighing. “Compared to him, the men in this town look like garbage animals.” She glances at me guiltily. “No offense to Davey.”

“None taken because he's objectively the hottest person I've ever seen, no offense to Colt.”

She smiles.

“Anyway, just think how many other people there are in this state, or even in the country, or even in the world,” I continue. “What if you, like, studied abroad one year? You could go anywhere and find anyone. Colt isn't your only option.”

“Guys in Brazil are really hot, I've heard.”

“Fine.”

She makes a face. “But I've also heard they wear thongs.”

“Kippy!” Dom yells from downstairs. “Food's ready!”

“One sec,” I tell Libby, climbing to my feet.

It takes Dom and I awhile to arrange the utensils, napkins, glasses of milk, and bowls of macaroni on the breakfast-in-bed tray. “Can we have some orange juice,
too?” I ask, thinking of the vodka.

“That tray's gonna be too heavy for you to carry,” he says.

“I got it, I promise.”

“I was thinking of going to Rosa's tonight, then swinging back in the morning so we can all go to the Frostbite Challenge. Can I trust you two ladies to—”

“Dom, come on,” I say, cutting him off. He's giving me the weirdest look and for a second I'm worried he's going to say something about Libby and me having sex. (I'm sick of fighting with him about sex I'm not having.)

“No séances,” he says instead.

“What the eff?”

“Don't sass me, Miss Pickle,” he says, crossing his arms. “I know what today's youth gets up to, with your bonfires and witchy-craft and eyeliner and things.” He looks so old and out of it in his pink frilly apron that I almost start to cry. “Don't fool around with the devil, is what I'm saying.”

Up until right now I had no idea that Dom even believed in the devil. “Okay,” I tell him, nodding hard. He looks so concerned about the occult that I can't even tease him.

I turn and trudge up the stairs.

“Sorry that took so long,” I shout, huffing up the last few
steps. Months in a cast will make you super out of shape. “Apparently my dad believes in magic.” I turn the corner to my bedroom and set down the tray on the carpet.

“What's going on?” I ask stupidly. Libby's gotten dressed. Her purse is packed and the vodka is gone.

She holds up my most recent letter to Ralph and slings her purse over her shoulder.

I shut the door behind me. “You went through my backpack?”

“‘She's busy singing along to Beyoncé, which is kind of ironic when you consider the fact that the lyrics are mostly about self-empowerment and Libby's stuck catering to Colt's every whim,'” she reads aloud. “‘I mean, we're not really
friends
or anything—she's sort of just my driver—but if we were, I'd definitely tell her about the rumors that Colt's hooking up with Sarah McKetta.'”

I open my mouth a couple of times but can't think of how to explain.

“‘Libby's a pretty good wingman,'” she continues reading, “‘but—well, you've met her. Her boobs are bigger than her brain and she's so used to getting what she wants, she thinks the answers are gonna fall straight from heaven.'” Libby stares at me, furious. “What exactly does it take, Kippy Bushman? Do I have to be ambidextrous or say
thrilling
or
brilliant
instead of
cool
for you to think I'm
not retarded? Do we all have to be atheists and skip grades and go around acting awkward and, like, soooooo over it to be smart like you?”

“I do think you're smart,” I say quietly.

“Thanks.” Her eyes narrow like this is the worst possible thing I could have said. “You're the most selfish person I've ever met,” she says. “I used to make all these excuses for you in my head—I used to think you were autistic or something, I felt bad for you, but now I just think you're a dickhead.”

“I was going to tell you about McKetta, really, but—”

“But what? But you decided it was easier to not mess up your ride situation?”

“I didn't even know we were friends! You kept saying that you were only hanging out with me because of . . . Gah and—”

“Have you ever hooked up with Colt?” she asks. I can hear the garage door opening. Dom's leaving for the night.