Those Girls (11 page)

I
decided I was going to have a party on New Year’s Eve. I never had parties, because I had arguably the smallest house of anyone I knew, but I wanted to do it my way, with my friends, on my turf for a change. My mom was having a little dinner party, too, but said that I could have people in the basement if I wanted, as long as Josh could also invite friends. And that no one would drink and drive.

My basement wasn’t big and nice and adjacent to a pool or tennis court or helipad like Mollie’s or Veronica’s or anything. It was an actual basement-type basement. We had old TVs and furniture and mousetraps, a ratty old brown corduroy couch, and a white art deco coffee table down there. It smelled like a combination of mildew and what I imagine the eighties smelled like.

It was a rare occasion that everyone was home for New Year’s. Mollie’s family usually went to Florida and V’s family usually went somewhere posh and exotic, but this year, Mollie’s mom made her stay home and study for the SATs and the Collinses, well, they didn’t do a lot of things they used to, so we had
a stacked team. Normally, when I was the only one around, I’d end up at one of Drew’s friend’s taking bong rips and watching the ball drop. I stole some liquor from my mom’s cabinet and told everyone to bring as much alcohol as they could fit in backpacks, as they’d need to bypass my mom’s party to get down to mine.

Drew came early to help me set up. Move boxes, that sort of thing. When all that was done, we sat on the smelly gray carpet and ate pizza, figuring we should carbo-load before the drinking marathon.

“So, how are things going with you and Fernando?” he asked, stacking my discarded pepperoni on his dripping slice.

“Good, I guess,” I replied, not entirely sure how to answer. Not entirely sure if I was even playing this
make Drew jealous
game anymore or if I’d already lost.

“Are you guys, like, official?”

“We haven’t had, like, an official talk or anything.” I hadn’t hooked up with anyone else, but that didn’t mean that he hadn’t. I couldn’t help but worry that he had a whole other girlfriend at public school. Maybe multiple. That I was his post–band practice make-out, and that he maybe had a post-math-class make-out, a post-football-Sunday make-out, and maybe even a post-Friday-night-stoner-movie-with-Alex blow job. I hung out with too many boys to believe in the benefit of the doubt. And it was my fault anyway for never sacking up to ask him what our deal was. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be his girlfriend, but I was sure I wanted him to want to be my boyfriend.

“Well, is he coming tonight? Do you plan to kiss at midnight?”

“He is coming, and I guess.”

“Then he’s your boyfriend! Alex has a boyfriend. Who’d have thought we’d see the day.…” He smiled and patted my shoulder.

“What about you? Are you sick of Veronica yet? I can’t believe she came to your house for Christmas Eve. That’s so in-lawy. I’ve never been invited for Christmas.”

“You’re Jewish!”

“So! That doesn’t give me the right to celebrate the birth of Christ? One of my own?”

He laughed.

“I had no idea you felt such a kinship to our Lord and Savior. You can come next year, too. It was cute; Izzy kept asking her if she knew you.”

That hurt my heart. Thinking about Veronica being there and infiltrating that family. My family. Good girl, Izzy. At least one of the Carsons has a sense of loyalty. I chuckled a little, picturing Marcia choking on her Santa apron, aghast at whatever inappropriate low-cut getup Veronica had decided to wear. I wondered what they talked about, if Veronica put on a show and pretended to be into school or tennis or anything that made Drew’s interest in her look more complicated than that she was hot and easy. I wondered if Marcia liked her. I wondered if she wished it were me there—if afterward she said something like
She’s sweet, but she’s no Alex
. I wonder if Drew’s dad was nicer to her than he ever was to me.

“Aww,” I said, using every muscle in my throat to restrain myself from saying
Good girl, Izzy
out loud.

I took another piece of pizza, plucked off the pepperonis, and gave them to Drew. He handed me his crust.

“So,” he said, dropping his slice back in the box. I put mine down, too, and sat up straight, responding to the urgency in his gesture. “I kind of have something to tell you.”

My heart dropped, because I knew what he was going to tell me. It was bound to happen eventually. It was Veronica, for fuck’s sake. I took the fact that it took this long to mean that he was holding out, that he had grander, more romantic notions about sex than most guys and that he wanted to wait until it was special. For someone special. For me. Did this mean he’d decided that she was special? Was she?

I didn’t want to hear him say it. So I did.

“You fucked Veronica.” I used the word
fuck
on purpose, hoping the word would cheapen it for him, too. That it would not only make it seem like less of a big deal, but actually make it less of a big deal. It sounded fake coming out of my mouth, like a joke we’d told a thousand times already.

“Did she tell you?”

Holy shit. I had been half kidding. Kidding myself, I guess. Part of me thought he’d laugh and say,
Yeah, right,
but he didn’t. He’d done it. With her. I couldn’t cry; I didn’t even know why I wanted to. I was prepared for this. I’d been preparing for this since that moment in the creepy fun-house bathroom when Veronica told me they kissed. After all, Veronica doesn’t just
kiss people. Once you’ve kissed Veronica, you may as well consider your dick sucked.

“No, she didn’t tell me.”

Which I couldn’t believe. Though I guess we didn’t talk much anymore, especially about Drew. Did she think I’d be mad or weirded out or something? Why would she all of a sudden think I’d be mad about this, but not about the fact that they’d been making out and jerking each other off in my face for the last three months?

“You could just tell? Do I look different? More like a man?”

“You’re such a homo.”

“Actually, now that I’ve had sex with a woman, I am officially not a homo. I am an actual, practicing heterosexual.”

He wasn’t funny. I wasn’t laughing.

“Yeah, you are!” I yelled. “High five!” I actually made him high-five me. I had a very sudden urge to drink heavily and punch myself in the face. “You’ve officially left me alone in the virgin club. How does it feel? How was it?”

He smiled and picked up his pizza again. “It was good,” he said. “Different than I thought, I guess.… But it’s not like I have anything to compare it to.”

My mouth was frozen in a smile, but the rest of me was slowly dying, hardening, decaying from within.

I asked if he told her it was his first time. She already knew it was, because she’d asked me if he was a virgin when they first started dating.

“I did. She was really cool about it.”

“You down here?” someone called from the top of the stairs.

It was Mollie.

Thank god.

Mollie rolled in with a backpack full of tequila and some story about her vagina being sore. Drew and I both rolled our eyes and put her to work setting up beer pong on the pool table.

I helped myself to the tequila.

By the time Veronica arrived, I was drunk.

She showed up in some sparkling, slutty, typical whorecasing and draped herself on Drew. Drew’s crew all arrived together and brought a lot of beer, as requested. Fernando came around ten: I was already half past blacked out.

“Hey, baby,” he said when he bounced down the stairs into the party, “looks like you’ve already started!”

“Haaaaaaaappy New Year!” I screamed in his ear, then looked around to make sure Drew was watching and kissed him. With tongue.

“Tequila?” he asked.

“Tequila!” I handed him the bottle, from which he took a giant swig. “No twins?”

“No twins tonight,” he said. “Just me and you.”

Sam and his friend Austin, who I’d met a million times but who never remembered me, showed up shortly thereafter. Mollie immediately started yelling at him about something, but I could no longer hear.

I played a game with myself: every time either Drew or Veronica or the combination of Drew and Veronica was in my eye line, I took a shot. I seemed to be winning. Josh loitered
around, not saying much. A few people he invited showed up, too, but I didn’t particularly care who they were or bother to introduce myself.

“ ’Sup?” Sam said to me as I stood by the overturned camp trunk that was serving as our evening’s bar, trying, unsuccessfully, to put some ice into my Solo cup.

“ ’Sup?” I replied. Curious as to why all of a sudden, after all these years, Sam deemed me worthy of speaking to directly.

“Sweet house,” he said.

“Sweet fleece,” I said back.

He chuckled and said, “So let’s spice this fucking party up, Holbrook. Let’s play some games or something.”

I was intrigued. “What do you suggest we play?”

“How about Truth or Dare?” he said.

“If you can rally the troops, I’m diggity down like Chinatown.”

“You’re fuckin’ hammered is what you are.”

“Fuck yes, I am.”

“Ya know, you were always my favorite,” he replied smugly.

The entire party formed a circle, terrified and eager for whatever exciting disaster this game would surely and always did inevitably bring.

Mollie sat next to Sam, her face white as a polar bear’s ass. Fernando sat next to me, his hand on my leg, which was a bold but welcome gesture. I wondered what his agenda was, what he wanted from me, why he came without Ned and Pete, and what he thought was going to happen. Did he think I’d put out tonight? That had to be the reason he was so all over me, he
figured it was New Year’s and I was drunk and this was his shot to get laid. Fuck it, maybe I would put out. Maybe I wanted to. Would having sex with him be the end of our fun make-outs, though? There was some sort of electric charge in the room. In myself. I felt capable of damage.

Josh took me aside. “I’m going upstairs to check on Mom’s party so she won’t come down.”

“You wuss, she’s probably hammered. Play the game,” I said.

“I really don’t think I want to see this. I’ve played this game before, and you’re my sister. Shit’s about to get weird.”

I snorted and laughed a little.

“Pussy. But good call.” And he bounced up the stairs with one of his little friends. Fine, good. I didn’t want to see him make out with Mollie anyway. “Who’s gonna start?” I asked.

“Why don’t you start?” said Sam. “It’s your party after all.”

“Fine!” I screamed back at him, having lost the ability to control the volume of my voice.

I scanned the circle. Mollie bit her thumbnail and looked too scared to mess with. I couldn’t deal with Drew or Veronica yet, and clearly, I wasn’t going to subject Fernando to the first one.…

“Sam, you want to play so bad. It’s your turn. Truth or dare, motherfucker?” I said, or more likely screamed.

“Dare.” He smiled at me, his blue eyes glowing with mischief.

“Show us your cock.”

“Hey!” screamed Mollie. “What the fuck? No!”

“Babe,” he said. “It’s a game. This is how the game is played. Truth or Dare is a get-out-of-relationship-free-card game.”

“Wait, wait,” I said. “I don’t really want to see your dick. I was just kidding. Molls, I’ll do something else.”

She looked at me and looked at him. Then looked at me and looked at him again, and said, “No, fuck it. Do it. Show them. I don’t fucking care. Show everyone your big fucking dick. You want a get-out-of-relationship-free-card game? Fine by me!”

So he stood up, undid his pants, and showed everyone his penis. Mollie always talked about how big his dick was: it didn’t look that big to me. But then again, what did I know?

“Happy now?” he said.

“Okay, babe. Your turn.” He looked over at Mollie and smiled.

“What?” she said.

“Truth or dare, woman?”

“Dare.”

He looked around the circle, at me, Drew, the paralyzed and panicked sophomores, then over to Austin, who per usual had yet to speak to me or thank me for inviting him into my home and providing him with free alcohol and all this grade-A entertainment.

“I dare you to make out with Veronica for thirty seconds.”

“No fucking way! Ew!” she said.

“Wait, I’m not done… and for bonus points, I dare you to do it with your shirts off. You can leave your bras on.”

“Fuck you!” she screamed. “You can’t do that because it involves Veronica and it’s not her turn!”

“Collins,” Sam said, “will you participate?”

She looked at Drew and then at me and then at everyone, confused, but clearly excited, as Veronica lived to be the object of perverse gawking. Drew gave her a shoulder shrug and said, “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

She looked at Mollie, who gritted her teeth and exposed the whites of her eyeballs, like she was about to bark or pounce.

“I’ll do it if Mollie will.”

“Babe,” Sam taunted. “Come oooooon… it’s just a game. You told me you’d make out with Angelina Jolie. Veronica is totally just as hot as Angelina Jolie. It’ll be so hot, please?”

The boys started chanting: “Do it! Do it! Do it!”

And Sam said, “Please, babe? For me? It’ll be so hot.…”

“Fine!” she said. “You fucking perverts.”

They both got on their knees and crawled to the center of the circle.

“Shirts off!” Sam screamed.

“Thank god, I wore my fancy New Year’s bra today!” Veronica said to the crowd behind her as she ripped her shirt over her head in one graceful movement. Mollie took her time and used both hands to unbutton her pink top.

“I hope you all enjoy this,” she said. “V, I hope you brushed.”

And they leaned in and went for it as Sam and all the other boys counted to thirty. I couldn’t watch. It was like watching your parents make out or something. Except it was two girls, little lips, little tongues, both of them just standing on their knees, skinny arms straight at their sides, both of them clearly
trying not to make any more contact with the other than necessary. I was oddly repulsed and jealous simultaneously.