Risen (11 page)

“Were you drinking last night?”

“No.”

“Then why did you stay out so late and why are you sleeping in your clothes?”

“Because I felt like it.” I move to a sitting position.

Mom searches my face for clues. “Really, Tim? Really? I thought we taught you better than to drink and drive. You could have called us to pick you up.”

Sure, I think. That would have gone over just great. I imagine my dad—it would have been him for sure—carting me home in the middle of the night, not even speaking to me, his eyes locked on the road ahead, mouth shut. Dad’s silences are worse than screaming. There are a thousand times I’ve wished he would show enough interest to actually yell at me.

“I’m telling you, I didn’t do anything,” I groan.

“I don’t like what I’m seeing.”

“I was just out really late hanging out with Jay and the rest of the football team.

They won the game so everyone was hyped up.”

“You’re spending time with Jay Stevens again?”

Another one of mom’s nightmares. “You’d probably prefer me drinking and driving as long as I wasn’t hanging out with Jay.”

“That’s not funny.”

“No, but it’s true.”

“He’s a negative influence on you. You were better off when the two of you weren’t seeing much of each other.”

It’s true that Jay has always gotten me into scrapes. Like the time we were making prank calls and someone got annoyed enough to actually figure out who my parents were and called my mom at work to inform her of our activities. Or the time when Jay convinced me to run away from home with him and we wrote notes and left them for our families and then we spent the night camping in the woods a mile from my house. When I got home the next morning (we were hungry and had run out of candy) there were cops all over the place and my folks were in tears.

“Everyone else was drinking,” I say. “But honestly, I didn’t have any. I told them no. You’d have been proud of me. I even told Jay that I didn’t want to drink and drive, that was like my main reason.” I can’t even believe the lies rolling off my tongue.

“Jay Stevens isn’t going anywhere, Tim. He’s a very troubled young man and I wish you’d stay away from him. I’ve told you before that he’s just going to…”

“…drag me down with him. I know. You’ve told me that a million times already.”

“The two of you have nothing in common.”

“We do.”

“I don’t see it.”

“But we do.” How can I explain it to her? I think back to third grade, when Jay and I met. My family had just moved to Middlebury and I had no friends. I remember being in class the first day and nobody talked to me. I wanted to disappear. But it turned out that Jay had been absent that day, and the next morning he came right over and asked me if I liked video games. A silly question but the first real offer of friendship anyone had given me. I was so grateful that he was even speaking to me. And we just hit it off.

But Jay always did get me into a lot of trouble. And my parents—mom especially—never liked him. They were happy when Jay stopped wanting to hang out with me, even though it made me miserable.

Now that Jay and I have started being friends again, mom’s radar is up and she can smell trouble.

But I have a great GPA, my teachers love me, and I’m headed for MIT or Stanford if all goes according to plan. Which is why even though everything about this situation looks like I must have been drinking and driving, I can still talk my way out of it.

She wants to believe me, of course. Parents are suckers like that. I’ve found that my mom will accept almost any lie I feed her because she wants it to be true.

“Where’s dad?” I say, changing the subject and swinging my legs over the side of the bed. “He said maybe we’d play tennis today.”

“He’s at the club already.”

“Oh.” I try not to look disappointed.

“You weren’t awake and he wanted to get an early start.”

“He could have at least asked. I would have woken up.”

“Tim. You know how your dad is. He was bouncing off the walls at six a.m.”

“Yeah. I know.”

She sits down on the bed next to me. Up close she looks a lot older than at a distance. Mom wears a lot of makeup, and she knows how to hide wrinkles and all of that. But sitting near me, I can see the layers of foundation and the lines underneath it.

Her pores are massive. “He really loves you.”

“He avoids me like the plague.”

“Honey, that isn’t true. Your father works too much, he pushes himself too hard and it doesn’t leave much left over for anything else.”

“And that’s my fault?”

“I didn’t say it was. I’m just explaining.”

“No explanation required.”

Funny, if I wasn’t so genuinely angry I might actually be happy that I was able to deflect the heat off myself and onto dad.

Mom tries to stroke my head but I move away from her. Her eyes look sad and that annoys me even more. Why should I feel bad for her? She’s the one that married the guy.

“Come down and have breakfast.”

“In a minute,” I say.

She gets up and leaves the room. Queasiness rises from my gut. I just want to crawl under the covers. But I don’t. Instead I put a fake smile on and head down to breakfast.

SEI (6)

Monday at lunch, my status rises to unprecedented levels.

I’m getting in line for the grill where they do hamburgers and hotdogs (it doesn’t taste as good as it sounds), and Nate Diaz is standing with his gaggle of mean stooges near the front.

“Richardson,” Nate says.

Fear rushes into me. What now, I think?

As I stand at the back of the line, everyone else looks at Nate and then at me.

“Come up here with us,” Nate says.

And then the realization hits me.

I’m no longer that kid everyone ignores, the one who barely registers. Nate Diaz, the most feared kid in our school, isn’t embarrassed to associate with me. What’s more, he RESPECTS me.

He gives me a pound and grins. I can smell the faint odor of pot emanating from him and his dull gray t-shirt and faded jeans. His eyelids are heavy, pupils large and glassy. “You and Jay figure out our next victims?” he asks.

“Not yet. Haven’t really seen him today.”

As we move slowly toward the grill, the scent of cooking meat and the sounds of sizzling grow stronger.

“When you see him, let him know I’m ready to put the smack down. Just give me the word and it’s on.” He balls his hands up into fists and holds them up. I can see scarring on some of the knuckles. It seems all too easy to imagine them crashing into my jaw and nose. I don’t get the feeling Nate really cares who he hits, as long as he gets to hit somebody.

“I’ll definitely pass the message along.”

After I get my cheeseburger, I head over to the lunch table with the others. I’m greeted with smiles and respectful nods of the head by the boys, and when I look around, it’s as though the rest of the kids in the cafeteria are looking at us with awe and reverence.

***

That weekend, we have our first official party at Jay’s house.

Only a select group of people have been invited and we have a couple of guys from the football team manning the door to make sure nobody crashes. There’s a guest list and everything.

Candice Simmons shows up with three of her girl friends. She’s wearing a low-cut tank top and even lower-rider jeans. When she steps into the room, everyone turns to look at her.

Jay sees her and approaches, while I fall quietly behind. I don’t want to talk to Candice after what happened at the football game. She never liked me much to begin with and now I’m fairly certain she despises me.

“So you decided to show after all,” Jay says to her. He leans in and gives her a hug.

She puts a hand on his arm and it lingers there. “Hey, I can’t miss the most exclusive party of the year just because the guy hosting it is an asshole.”

“Don’t talk about Richardson that way, you’ll hurt his feelings,” Jay says.

The girls all laugh.

Candice’s eyes widen when she sees how we’re dressed. Jay made the entire crew wear our best suits. He wanted us to stand out as different from everyone else.

“What’s with the outfits?” she asks.

“Nothing. Just trying to show some style. It gets boring always wearing hoodies and jeans all the time,” Jay says. If it were anyone else, they’d be laughed out of the party. But as long as Jay is doing it, it must be cool.

“Okay. Whatever works,” Candice says with a shrug.

“Come in and have a drink. We’ve got a bar here with anything you could want.”

Candice looks over at the makeshift bar where kids are mixing their own drinks.

“Classy party like this and no bartender?”

“Nobody wanted to get stuck behind the bar all night,” Jay says.

In actuality, none of us had thought of having a bartender. We were too busy finding a way to get enough alcohol into the house, since none of us have fake IDs.

“I’ll do it, I love bartending,” Candice says.

“Seriously?” Jay laughs.

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I just thought—“

“You thought I was too much of a stuck up bitch to mix a few cocktails for you and your friends?”

“Well…yeah, sort of.”

“You’ve got a lot to learn about me, Stevens.” She gives him a little smile and then goes to the bar and immediately starts taking orders like a pro.

Jay’s watching her with newfound interest. I’ve seen that look before. It’s the expression he gets when he’s decided he wants something or someone. “Shit, I’m impressed,” he says, almost too low for anyone to hear.

“She’s just sucking up because you punked her cousin,” I say.

Jay glances at me. “Stop hating, Richardson. Makes you seem weak.”

I want to respond, but decide against it. Seems like Jay and Candice have decided that it’s easier to make love then war. Who am I to say otherwise?

Instead I go back to sipping my warm beer and watching the party unfold.

The next hour or so is pretty uneventful. Jay has me and the others running around getting more cups or picking up drinks, talking to “VIPs” (mostly hot girls Jay wants to impress), that kind of thing.

When he’s not giving orders, Jay is spending time at the bar, flirting with Candice. She seems to be flirting right back from what I can tell.

The party is fairly crowded by now, and hot too. I take a break and mop some sweat from my brow with a small napkin. I’m standing just to Jay’s left, close enough that I hear him tell Candice there’s enough rooms upstairs for her and her friends to crash tonight if they want.

I shake my head in disgust, but not obviously enough for anyone to notice.

Suddenly Alec approaches from out of the mass of partygoers with a concerned look on his face. “We have a problem, boss.”

Jay doesn’t hear him, he’s too busy hitting on the bartender.

“Jay,” Alec repeats even more loudly.

Still, Jay can’t be bothered. I grab Jay’s arm—a bit rougher then I’d intended—

and he spills some of his drink. He turns and glares at me.

“What the fuck Richardson?”

“Someone’s trying to get your attention,” I say.

“What’s going on?” Jay asks, as he wipes his wet hand down the front of my shirt.

“Thanks,” I mutter, but nobody’s paying any attention to me.

“We’ve got trouble over there,” Alec says, pointing into the throng.

“Who is it?” Jay says. He’s now alert and tuned in. He LIKES trouble.

Alec nods to Leo’s uncle Dillon and his two friends standing by the sliding glass door. “Leo’s uncle and his buddies are a little drunk and they’ve been making comments about us,” Alec says. “Mostly about the way we’re dressed.”

“They don’t seem like they’re doing much of anything,” Jay says, losing interest.

His gaze darts back to Candice.

“They’re going to be trouble,” Alec says. “I’m telling you.”

“If they make trouble, they’ll get a lot more then they bargained for,” Jay says.

“Just thought you should know.”

“Okay, keep me posted.” Jay walks back to where Candice is bartending and whispers something in her ear. She looks at him and laughs. He leans in and kisses her neck and she smiles again, a sexy smile.

“Great,” Alec says, shaking his head.

“Tell me about it,” I say.

I look around at the room and see a pretty happy crowd. There’s probably about twenty-five people drinking and talking. We’ve got a DJ playing stuff off his iPod (he’s got like two thousand songs to choose from). There’s an even mix of girls and guys, each hand-selected by Jay and our crew.

We did let in three guys who we weren’t sure about. Only one of them was invited, Leo’s older uncle, Dillon. Jay didn’t want to invite the guy but Leo begged and begged. And then Dillon showed up with his two asshole friends.

I see one of Dillon’s buddies try and grab Jenna Thompson’s ass. She turns around and says something to him and he just laughs and makes another comment.

I point at them. “That guy just tried to grab—“

“I saw, I saw,” Alec says.

I wonder if Jay noticed, but he’s totally engrossed in conversation with Candice, he’s missing everything.

“Go get Leo,” I tell Alec. “Maybe he can make his uncle chill out.”

Leo is outside drinking and smoking. Alec goes out to get him. That same rowdy guy says something to Alec as he walks by, but Alec ignores him.

I wish these three guys were pussies, but the truth is, they’re nasty looking characters. Then I wish that we had thought to invite Nate Diaz to the party. He would have loved to play the role of enforcer.

Alec comes back a few minutes later with Leo in tow. Leo’s suit is rumpled and stained and he looks a wreck. “What’s up,” he says, his words slurring a tiny bit.

“I thought Jay said no getting drunk,” I tell him.

Leo sneers at me. “What business is it of yours?”

“I’m Jay’s consigliere.”

“You’re nothing but plain old Richardson to me, you skinny bastard.” He belches and blows it towards my face. I smell stale peanuts and even staler beer.

“Look, you need to tell your uncle to chill the fuck out. He’s bothering everyone.”

“That’s just Dillon being Dillon. I can’t stop him.”