Tell (19 page)

Melody shook her head.  “I didn’t invite Andy.”

“Oh.”

There was a pause.  “Did you want to go?” Melody asked him finally.

He shook his head, smiling slightly.  “I don’t really fit in with that crowd,” he replied.

“Oh.”

“You don’t really fit in with that crowd, either,” he said.  “And I mean that in a good way.”

Their conversation was interrupted by a scuffle about ten yards away.  They turned and saw Kristy storming off towards the bleachers, leaving a dejected-looking Neil behind.

Sixteen

Cadie, feeling the party that night was an important event, had enlisted both Stacy and Melody’s help in coming up with an appropriate outfit. 
They had finally settled on a peach halter top with a white knit skirt and Gladiator sandals.  Cadie unearthed a pair of silver zigzag earrings that complemented the criss-cross pattern of the sandals.

Melody had also packed clothes in her backpack to change into after the football game.  She wore
a teal and white patterned blouse, skinny jeans, and teal flats.  Her white pearl earrings and matching necklace went well with the ensemble.  Cadie thought they both looked exceptionally good tonight.

They entered the party together and Stacy flagged them down immediately.  She was still sober.  “Hey, why don’t you girls get yourselves a beer and join us in the den,” she said.

“Why?  What’s going on in the den?” Cadie wanted to know.

“We’re about to start a rousing game of Never Have I Ever.”

“Oh, joy.”  Cadie looked at her sister.  “Well, what do you say, Mel?  Shall we go embarrass ourselves in front of a bunch of people?”

Melody, however, was not paying too much attention to the conversation.  Her eyes were trained across the living room.  “Andy’s here,” she said tonelessly.

Cadie and Stacy followed her stare.  “Oh.  Yeah.  So?” Cadie asked.

“So, he came without me,” Melody answered.

“So?” Cadie said again.  “You came without him.”

“Yeah, but…”  She trailed off.

Stacy shifted her weight.  “So, we’re heading for the keg, right?  I’ll show you where it is.”

“You go ahead,” Melody said distractedly.

Cadie reached out and grabbed her arm.  “Are you okay?”

Melody turned and smiled at her, though it was obviously forced.  “I’m fine.  I just think it’d be rude for me to not say hi to Andy.”

Cadie had a feeling that “hi” was not what Melody was planning on saying to Andy, but she did not pursue the topic any further.  Stacy was waiting impatiently, and Stacy was the reason she had come to this party in the first place.  Allegedly.  “Okay, well, I’ll see you later then.”  Cadie allowed herself to be led into the kitchen, where they found a big silver keg gleaming in a plastic tub of ice.

“So, Never Have I Ever, huh?” Cadie asked conversationally as Stacy began pouring two beers for them both.

“I know, I think it’s a stupid game, too,” Stacy remarked, “but Shane is in there.”

Cadie’s ears perked up, but she tried to appear nonchalant.  “That’s nice,” she said casually.

“He looks good,” Stacy commented, her eyes flashing, as she handed a beer to Cadie.

“He always does,” Cadie muttered bitterly.

“No, I mean, he looks like he
tried
to look good,” Stacy explained.  “All the other guys look like they just came off the field—you know, still wearing jerseys and everything—and he definitely changed.  He looks like he brushed his hair, too.”

“Shane owns a brush?”

“I never would have guessed, either.  Come on.  Let’s go play the game.”

“Uh,” said Cadie, following Stacy somewhat reluctantly, “I’m not sure I’m ready to play this in front of a people I don’t know very well.  I’m going to be thoroughly embarrassed.”

“Why?  Take off your jacket,” she commanded.

Cadie did, obediently, then continued, “Well, I just don’t know anybody very well and I don’t want to be too—
revealing
—with people I don’t know.”

“Oh.”  Stacy nodded knowingly.  “I hear you.  It’s kind of like your first date with Shane and you have to be kind of modest.”

“It is not!” Cadie protested.  “That’s not—”

“I’ll take care of it,” Stacy interrupted, grabbing Cadie’s hand and dragging her into the den.

There were a lot of people in there, gathered around a coffee table, evidently ready for the game to begin, unless it already had.  Shane was in there, as Stacy had already said, along with Will and a couple other football players that Cadie recognized—Tyson Claar, Adam Benson, and Kevin Bauer.  The girls were all cheerleaders, she noted—Amanda Teller, Meredith Wachniki, and Erica Young.  Cadie was perturbed to see that Shane was sitting next to Amanda on the couch.

“What are we playing?” Stacy asked.

Will rolled his eyes.  “I
told
you we were going to play Never Have I Ever.”

“I don’t want to play that game,” Stacy protested.  “It’s stupid.”

Erica threw up her hands.  “
Thank
you.  I
said
that game was stupid.”

During the exchange, Cadie stood in the doorway, trying not to look at Shane.  He was irritatingly good-looking.  He was wearing a green polo shirt with a collar that was, thankfully, not popped.  He was slouched back on the couch, his right thumb hooked casually through his belt loop and his left hand holding a red Solo cup, along with everybody else in the room.

Cadie was so busy
not
looking at Shane that she had barely noticed an argument had broken out among the group of people around the coffee table over whether or not to play Never Have I Ever.  Finally, the argument was ended with Stacy’s declaration of, “It’s my birthday and I don’t want to play Never Have I Ever!”

“So what do
you
want to play, charming birthday girl?” Will snapped.

Stacy paused and thought a moment.  “Kings,” she announced.

This was met with cheering.  Apparently nobody had a problem with playing Kings.  Stacy grabbed Cadie’s wrist and pulled her to the other side of the couch near Shane.  She immediately sat on the floor next to Will.  Cadie stood awkwardly for a moment, wondering if she should try to sit on the floor or possibly the arm rest of the couch.

This decision was solved when Stacy narrowed her eyes at Shane and said, “Move over for Cadie.”

He did.  Amanda had gotten up, and he took her original spot on the couch beside Erica.  Cadie sat down next to him, taking the spot that was still warm from his body heat.  Once Amanda returned, with a deck of cards and an empty Solo cup, she sat down on Erica’s left, causing the four of them to be pressed tightly together on the couch.  Cadie was definitely too close to Shane for comfort.  Their legs and shoulders were pressed together and he smelled way too good.

Stacy began spreading the deck of cards
face down in a circle formation on the coffee table, and she put the empty cup in the center.

Cadie turned to Shane.  “What’s Kings?” she asked him.

Andy was drunk.  Melody was sure of it.  She was not sure how he managed to get drunk so quickly, because he could not have gotten there much sooner than she had.  She had no idea how much he had had to drink.  All she knew was that he was noticeably drunk, and she wished she could just walk away and ignore him, but she knew in her heart that she could not.

He was leaning against the side of the fireplace when she saw him, a beer in his hand.  She took it as a good sign that he was still standing, but this was obviously difficult for him.  He saw her coming toward him and watched her approach with a blank expression.

“Hey,” he said when she was near enough.

“Oh, good, you recognized me,” Melody answered dryly.

“Yeah.”  He gave no indication as to whether or not he heard her condescending tone.  He took a long sip of his beer.  “What are you doing here?” he asked, turning his bleary stare toward her.

“I came with Cadie,” replied Melody.  “What are
you
doing here?”

He burst out laughing, though Melody could see nothing amusing about her inquiry.  “That is a
great
question,” he announced.  “What am I doing here?  Damned if I know.  I’m getting drunk, I guess.  I guess that’s what I’m doing here.”

Melody took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  “Well, why don’t you slow down?” she suggested carefully, not wanting another explosion like the one she had just caused by asking a simple question.  “It’s still early.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he muttered bitterly.  “Nothing I do matters.”

“Why do you say that?”  She had the strange experience of feeling two very conflicting emotions toward him.  The first was sympathy, because he was obviously very upset about something.  The second was annoyance, because she did not come to this party to baby-sit him and his drunkenness
; she had come to spend some time with her sister and try to have some fun without him.  She had not even wanted to see him tonight.

“I came here because she said it was good talking to me,” Andy slurred.  “She
said
that she was glad I came when I was at the last one.  Now she’s in there with him and I may as well not be here.”

Melody felt a sinking feeling in her stomach.

It had never occurred to her that there might be a different reason that Andy had gone with her to that party in the first place.  He had not gone to spend time with her.  He had gone to see another girl.  Melody had been putting in time with him for years, being his friend, making efforts, and at the first opportunity, he shunted her aside for another girl.  Not only that, but he had apparently spent time with her at the
last
party, the one that he and Melody had gone to together.  She could not take it in.

Melody managed to swallow around the hard knot that had formed in her throat.  “Who’s in there with who?” she asked in a quiet, dangerous voice that did not sound like her own.

“Amanda,” Andy shot back, and Melody felt as if a knife had slashed through her abdomen.  “Amanda’s in there with Shane.”

Amanda?
  Her mind could not grasp it. 
What the hell?  Where did Amanda come from?

Her jaw dropped open slightly as she remembered.  He had asked about Amanda on the first day of school.  It had escaped her memory, but now—now she remembered with a startling realization.  He had asked about her and had seemed completely scandalized when she had told him that Amanda had had sex with Shane.  Now he was drunk and seemingly wounded that she was in a room with him.

Well, what the hell did he expect?
she thought bitterly.  But, then another discovery occurred to her, and this time she spoke aloud.  “Chorus,” she said.  “Is that why you decided to join chorus this year?”

Andy shrugged, but in his drunken stupor, his eyes could not conceal the truth.

“You—”  She felt a wave of anger swell up in her throat, threatening to dislodge a lot of nasty words in his direction.  She swallowed again, this time with even more difficulty, and made an effort to calm herself.

She would not blow up at him, here, in front of all of these people.  Actually, she would not blow up at him at all.  He did not deserve the string of insults she was prepared to unload upon him.  He did not deserve any more attention from her than he had already gotten.

Melody took a deep breath.  “You should drink more,” was all she said before turning and walking away.

Kings was not a difficult game to play, though it tended to be chaotic at times.  Every time a player drew a card from the circle, there was a different rule to follow, depending on what card was drawn.  Cadie could see that this was a game not intended to get everybody completely drunk, but more geared toward making the people who were already drunk look like complete idiots.

Shane had made more room for them on the couch by putting his right arm around Cadie.  Cadie had not minded the physical contact, but this gesture had earned them a few suspicious glances from the others in the circle.

“How come you didn’t cuddle with
me
, Shane?” Erica teased him.

Shane held up the Solo cup in his left hand.  “This hand has the beer,” he answered easily, and everyone laughed.

Stacy, who was sitting immediately to Cadie’s right, drew a nine.  “Nine, nine, bust a rhyme,” she announced.  She paused, trying to come up with a word that everyone would be forced to rhyme.

“
Not
‘orange,’ ” Will declared.  “That’s jacked up.  You can’t say ‘orange.’ ”

“Okay, then… red,” Stacy said.

“Dead,” Cadie said immediately.

“Head,” said Shane.

“Fed,” Erica piped up.

“Bed,” Amanda chimed in.

“You
would
say ‘bed,’ ” Will teased her.

“Shane said ‘head,’
” Amanda pointed out.

Kevin continued the turn.  “Led.”

“Lead,” said Adam.

“I just
said
that,” Kevin argued.

“No, I said L-E-A-D, like in pencil lead,” Adam answered defensively.

“How do you know that’s not what
I
said?” Kevin shot back.

Adam paused.  “Oh.”  He drank.

Kevin shook his head at the group.  “I definitely didn’t mean pencil lead.”

“Bread!” announced Meredith triumphantly.

“Meredith, we’re done.  Adam already drank,” Tyson told her.

“Oh.”

Following that, Cadie pulled a seven.  “What’s seven again?” she asked.  Her response was to see everyone’s hands shoot up in the air.  By the time she caught on, she was the last one.  She could not help laughing at herself as she took a sip of her beer.

Shane drew a ten.  “Waterfall,” he announced.  “Everybody up.”  He stood and held out a hand to pull Cadie to her feet.  Everyone around them stood as well.

“How does this one work?” asked Cadie.

“We all start drinking at the same time,” Shane explained.  He pointed to Erica on his left.  “Erica can’t stop drinking until I stop, Amanda can’t stop drinking until Erica stops, and so on.  You’re the last one.”

“Oh.  So I’m pretty much screwed,” Cadie said brightly.

He grinned at her.  “Pretty much.”

They started the waterfall.  Shane stopped drinking rather soon, but a few people around the table took their time before deciding to stop and relieve the people after them.  Because there were ten people playing the game, it took quite some time before Cadie was allowed to pull the drink away from her lips.  She felt slightly unsteady on her feet.

“Are you okay?” Shane asked, laughing.  His hand went to the small of her back to steady her.

“I’m fine,” she answered, smiling in return.

When they sat back down, his hand stayed on her back and she let it.

Melody had disappeared some time before, and since then, Andy had given himself several refills from the keg.  Truth be told, he had sort of lost count of how many drinks he had had.  He stood leaning against the island in Amanda’s kitchen, trying to figure out what to do next.  Amanda had been in the den with Shane all night, and he had not felt welcome enough to go in there and see what was going on.  He had been kind of relieved to see Melody, an advocate at this party, but she had seemed mad at him for some reason and had taken off.

He blearily rubbed his face with his hands.  It was too warm in this house and the music was too loud.  And he suddenly felt desperately lonely.  He wished Melody would come back.  Or, failing that, he wished he could get his legs to function enough to go looking for her, but that seemed unlikely, too.

Like a beacon of light when he was lost at sea, he spotted Amanda enter the kitchen with a cup in her hands.  He had to blink a few times to make sure he was seeing correctly, but yes, it was her.  She had gotten bored of Shane.  Andy pushed himself away from the island and stumbled over to her.

“Hey,” he greeted her.  His voice might have been a little slurred, but not enough that she would notice.  “Where you been all night?”

Amanda smiled at him.  He thought she looked kind of confused, but she had smiled just the same.  “We’re playing Kings in the den,” she responded.  “I just came to get a refill.”

Andy nodded.  “Been looking for you,” he said sluggishly.

“Oh?”  Did she sound interested?  He could not tell.  “Why have you been looking for me?”

He shrugged in a bad parody of nonchalance.  “Just thought we could hang out.”  He reached to put his hand on her arm, but he missed and got a handful of air.  He tried again and this time succeeded.

She pulled her arm away abruptly and glared at him for a moment.  Then her expression softened.  “Tell you what,” she said.  “It’s quieter upstairs.  Why don’t I take you up there, and then when I finish the game, I’ll come up.”

“’Kay,” he said.  “Let’s go.  I’ll just get my—”

“Don’t worry about your drink,” she interrupted.  “I’ll bring you a new one when I come up later.”

He let her lead him upstairs, though this seemed to take awhile.  The stairs just did not seem wide enough, and he stumbled several times and had to lean on Amanda for support.  Finally, they reached the second floor landing and she led him into a darkened room.

“This your room?” he asked.

“No,” she replied, forgoing the overhead light and instead switching on a lamp.  “It’s our guest room.  Lie down on the bed.”

“Not tired,” he responded.

“I know, but the game isn’t done yet, so it might be awhile before I come back up,” she said soothingly.

“Oh.”  He lay down on the bed.  He also obeyed when she told him to take off his shoes, and she switched the lamp off when she left.

“I’ll be back in a little while,” she promised, walking out and shutting the door behind her.

Andy rolled over in the guest bed, closing his eyes and smiling to himself as he thought how obvious it was that Amanda Teller was into him.

“Where have you been?” Tyson demanded when Amanda finally came back to the game in the den.  “You went to get a refill in like 1963.”

“Sorry, there was a drunk kid hitting on me,” Amanda responded.  “It took me awhile to shake him off.  Is it my turn?”

“No, we skipped you,” Erica answered.  “It’s Meredith’s turn.”

Shane avoided Amanda’s eye as she sat back down on the couch.  His hand had not moved from Cadie’s back since he had first put it there, other than to slip to her waist or her hip when she leaned forward to grab a card from the coffee table.  He knew this had not gone unnoticed by the others in the room, but he found it difficult to care.  He had a nice buzz going, and he was finally touching Cadie.  And he found it unlikely that anyone at this party would report back to Felicia.

As Amanda got settled on the sofa, Meredith drew a card.  She flipped it over on the coffee table and Shane saw it was an eight.  Meredith rubbed her hands together.  “Never Have I Ever,” she said.

“We have to do a Never Have I Ever, anyway?” Cadie said to Shane in an undertone.

“There are only four eights,” replied Shane.  “It’s better than a whole game of it.”

Meredith sat up straighter and cleared her throat.  “Never have I ever had sex,” she announced.

“Damn it, stop throwing your virginity in everyone’s face!” Erica cried.

Shane drank, along with almost everyone else in the circle—including Cadie.  She did it slyly, turning her face away and taking a miniscule sip from her cup, but she had taken a drink anyway.  Shane stared at her.  She caught his eye when she turned back around and a flush came over her neck and cheeks.  She shrugged one shoulder meekly.

So.  That was unexpected.  It had never occurred to him that Cadie might have had sex before.  He had always just assumed that she was a virgin.  Thinking back, he remembered that she had dated Tom Geist for awhile last year, and he realized it was stupid of him to assume she had never had sex.

Either no one else had noticed her drink on that one, or he was the only one who had found it bizarre.  The game continued without comment on it.