yolo (2 page)

“Will your feet survive if you wear those?” Emily asked.

In reply, Ana kicked one leg up by her ear and held it there, balancing like a showgirl on the Vegas strip. “
Ay, mamacita
. My feet will be fine. The question is, will anyone else survive if I wear these?”

Emily smiled. Her friend had a point. These were shoes that might kill a man at twenty paces.

Ana laughed and clicked her red heels together like Dorothy. “There's no place like home.”

“Let's go!” Emily grabbed the bag of shoes and zipped it up. “If I don't get you into the car, we'll never make it to Oz.”

After one trip back in to get Ana's purse and another to fetch her sunglasses, Emily was certain that they could finally leave, when Ana suddenly bolted from the car one last time. She returned moments later with a brown paper grocery bag that she tossed into Emily's back seat with a clank.

“What was that?” Emily asked.

“Canned goods.”

“Canned goods?”

“You know, for the food pantry,” Ana said, buckling her seat belt.

Emily shook her head. “Your mom left you with a bag of canned goods for the Steins' ‘church'?”

Ana shrugged and grinned. “You only live once.”

Emily held her breath and kept her eyes on the road as she made a right turn a few blocks before the freeway on-ramp. Ana was making a playlist on her phone while doing her patented brand of seat dancing, and talking through the pros and cons of a bikini versus a one-piece swimsuit for later tonight in the Steins' hot tub.

Maybe she won't notice,
Emily thought.

Naturally, at that exact moment Ana stopped midsentence. “Hey . . .” Her voice trailed off. “Where are you going?”

Emily braced her hands against the leather of the steering wheel, and in her brightest you're-going-to-
love
-this voice said, “One last stop!” From the corner of her eye, she saw a shadow cross Ana's face as she peered at the houses on this residential street, then whirled back toward Emily.

“Oh,
hell no
.”

“What?” Emily started to panic, but this was the moment of truth.

“Don't you play stupid with me. You are a double-crossing
gringa
and you know it.” Ana started pulling her bags out of the back seat. “You need to stop this car and let me out right here.”

Emily sped up slightly. She could see Brandon's house. Third down on the left. She knew Ana hadn't spoken to Brandon since they'd broken up at the beginning of school last fall. It had been awkward for everyone for the past nine months, and Emily had to admit that this was the shadiest part of her plan for the perfect weekend. She was taking a calculated risk.

Emily had known Brandon since they were six years old, when he moved in next door to her. She'd known the feisty Latina girl in the passenger seat would be their third musketeer the moment Ana pirouetted into Brandon with a full tray of spaghetti on the first day of seventh grade. She'd also known it would be an unmitigated disaster when Ana and Brandon announced they were going out at the beginning of sophomore year.

Emily had begged and pleaded. She'd actually prayed. On her knees. To the capital
G
God her grandmother believed in. All of this was to no avail. Emily knew the googly eyes of August would turn into stress over commitment when it was time to pick out Christmas presents. She knew that Ana would drive Brandon one kind of crazy in the backseat of his car, and a different kind of crazy in the front seat. This was oil and water, and there was no way the two of them would mix, but that wasn't the chemistry about which Ana and Brandon were concerned. They had kissed under the Labor Day fireworks in the park at the beginning of sophomore year, but by the time Valentine's Day rolled around, the explosive on-again/off-again nature of things was taking its toll.

By the time Ana and Brandon had broken up over July Fourth weekend last summer, Emily had learned to hang out with them separately. She was Switzerland, the neutral party, the no-man's-land, the friend happily yodeling with her fingers in her ears while she waited for them to finally make up.

Until today.

Today Emily couldn't take it any longer. She wanted both Ana and Brandon at this party. After a school year of stress at being pulled back and forth between them, and homework, and Kyle, and her dad's midlife crisis, she was done playing it safe.

She knew both of them wanted to be at this party.

She knew both of them loved her.

She knew that if she could make it to Brandon's driveway, and he was waiting on the steps as she'd asked him to do, that Ana would be too mortified to get out of the car.

Emily popped into Brandon's driveway a little too hot and screeched to a stop. He was waiting for them on the porch, according to plan, waving like a little kid at a parade. “Don't be mad!” she said to Ana. It came out as more of a command than a plea.

Ana snorted. “Mad? Oh please. Mad does not begin to express the rage that I feel at this moment.”

Brandon loped down the stairs, his backpack slung over his shoulder. He swept his shaggy brown bangs out of his eyes, and told Emily to pop the trunk.

He tossed in his backpack, closed the trunk, then slid his lanky frame into the backseat, and reached over to close
the door. Ana had sunk so far down in her seat she was at eye level with the glove compartment. She was muttering words in Spanish that Emily was not familiar with, but they sounded scary.

Emily didn't wait for Brandon to close the door. She backed out of the driveway and sped toward the freeway. She knew, or maybe just hoped, that Ana would hesitate to kill her if the car was in motion.

“Whoa! Head's up, speed demon,” Brandon said as he buckled his seat belt. “We in a hurry?”

Emily glanced at the clock. 11:55. “Nope!” she said. “We're right on schedule.”

“Are you trying to tell me that I am going to be trapped in a car for the next four-and-a-half hours with this
pendejo
?” Ana was spitting her words like a machine gun.

“It might be closer to six hours, depending on how long we stop for lunch,” Emily said sheepishly.

The sound Ana made in response was not pleasant, but she didn't throw herself from the moving car, so Emily decided to call it a win.

“Lunch sounds good,” Brandon piped up from the backseat. “I could use a couple burgers.”

“You could use a good kick in the nuts,” Ana muttered.

Something snapped inside of Emily, and she pulled over to the curb and slammed on the breaks. Their seat belts almost cut them in half.

“ENOUGH.” Emily's voice was like a foghorn. Ana's eyes
went wide, but her mouth stayed closed. Emily put the car in park and turned in her seat. “I can't handle it anymore. I was the one who said this would be a disaster from the beginning, but no one would listen to me. And I was right.”

Ana flipped her hair over her shoulder. “But—”

“But nothing!” Emily grabbed Ana's knee and squeezed. “Did
you
listen to me when I said ‘Don't start dating Brandon because it will ruin everything'?”

Ana shook her head. Emily turned to Brandon in the backseat.

“And you! Did
you
listen to me when I said, ‘Don't start dating Ana because it will ruin everything'?”

Brandon held up both hands in surrender. “She beguiled me with her feminine charms. Evil woman witchcraft.”

“Aaaaargh!” Ana clenched her fists and shook them in the air. “Em, why are you
doing this to me
?”

“This isn't something I'm doing to you, it's something you're doing to me,” Emily said. “I've had to put up with both of you this whole year since you broke up. Besides being a huge pain in my ass emotionally, it has been a scheduling
nightmare
. I'm done. I've had it. I want both of you at this party. I want both of you to ride up with me. After what I've dealt with for the past nine months, the two of you can deal with it for the next six hours.”

Suddenly, unexpectedly, there were tears in Emily's eyes, and she whirled back to face the windshield. But it was too late. Ana caught a glimpse and reached out to put a hand on her arm.

“I just want my friends back,” Emily said, brushing her tears away before they could make her mascara run. “Is that too much to ask?”

Ana glanced into the backseat at Brandon, who shot her the mischievous grin that had won her over in an instant, then tormented her for a year. She sighed and turned back to Emily. “I'll do my best, but only because I love you and you're my best friend. Just as long as he leaves me alone.”

Emily adjusted the rearview mirror so she could see Brandon. “Brandon? Can you handle that?”

Brandon smirked at her in the mirror. “Yeah, sure. I can handle that.”

Ana turned up the music. Emily put the car in drive, merged into traffic, then made a quick right turn. As she pulled up the on-ramp onto the highway, the clock on the dash flipped from 11:59 to 12:00, and she smiled. Finally, they were on the right track. Ana must have felt it too, because she began dancing right there in the front seat, and then Brandon was singing at the top of his lungs, and as Emily merged into traffic she couldn't help singing along. The tension of the past few minutes, and the past few months, started to melt away from her neck and shoulders. The worst was over, and Emily knew it'd be nothing but a good time for the rest of the weekend.

“Oh my God. Why are you doing that to us?”

“What?” Emily turned down the volume just a little.

“Singing Pink like Julie Andrews.”

Brandon snort-laughed in the backseat.

“Shut up!” Emily slapped at Ana's leg, but she couldn't help giggling. They'd been on the road for an hour now. The suburbs had gradually receded into the distance, and now they just had open road ahead of them. With the release of all the tension from before, things had been nothing but great, and now it seemed Brandon and Ana were even starting to get along, if Brandon's continued laughter was any indication. “You two are supposed to hate each other,” Emily said, “not gang up and hate on me.”

“Pobrecita.”
Ana rubbed the tip of her thumb and forefinger together. “This is the world's smallest violin playing ‘Cry Me a River.' ”

Brandon's head popped between the front seats. “Hey, speaking of violins, remember that chick from NYU who came to the Steins' Labor Day party and got so wasted she took her violin into the hot tub and played ‘Flight of the Bumblebee'?”

“She was a train wreck,” Ana said.

“True,” said Emily, “but she had surprisingly good technique.”

“Hope she's back again this time.” Brandon sighed. “I could use a little technique myself.”

Emily groaned while Ana spun in her seat. “That! That right there.”

“What?” Brandon sounded surprised, but Emily could hear the smirk in his voice. He loved egging Ana on.

“You are such a pig,” Ana huffed.

“Wait, what? How am I a pig because I want to make out with a hot girl?”

“I'm right HERE.” Ana shook her head.

“And I'd make out with you if you still wanted to,” said Brandon. “You're the one who broke up with me, remember?”

“Because of crap like
that
,” Ana said. “We were still together at that Labor Day party, and your tongue was hanging so far out of your mouth, it's a wonder you didn't trip on it and break your neck.”

“So what?” Brandon said. “We were
dating
, not
dead
. So I wasn't supposed to notice when there are other hot girls around just because I was going out with you?”

Emily sighed. “Guys. You're doing it again.” Brandon and Ana both started talking at the same time, and Emily decided to use her considerable vocal power to put her proverbial foot down. She switched off the radio and shouted, “GUYS!”

Ana and Brandon flopped back against their respective seats.

“Thank you,” Emily said. “Look, Brandon, I think what Ana means is that
of course
you're going to notice other girls, but that she wants to be the one you notice the most. It's one thing to see other hot girls. It's another thing to pay so much attention to them that your girlfriend feels ignored.”

“
Exactly
what I was trying to say,” Ana chimed in.

Emily held up her hand to silence her friend. “And, Ana, what
Brandon
is saying, is that he was there at the party with
you
, and that he wanted you to trust him and feel secure enough in your relationship that you didn't care if he noticed some other hot girl, because you know you're hot just the way you are. Insecurity is never sexy.”

“Totally,”
Brandon said from the backseat. “How did you do that?”

“Do what?” Emily glanced at Brandon in the rearview mirror.

“Sum up what both of us were saying like you're some sort of freakin' psychologist?”

Emily smiled. “I just pay attention to both of you. I love you guys. You're my friends. It's the reason I didn't think you would ever work as a couple: You would both be so worried about losing the other one that you'd never actually do the simple things you're supposed to do to make sure that doesn't happen. Like listen to each other.”

They drove in silence for a little while. Emily knew she'd probably hit a nerve with both of her friends, since she'd never explicitly stated why she thought they shouldn't date.
But now it was out there, and they could think about that for a while. She didn't mind the silence. She'd liked the easy-going attitude they'd had just a few minutes before, but the silence was more welcome than the incessant arguing that was bound to happen otherwise. And out here on the highway, there was only the rumbling monotone of car tires speeding down the pavement road. The forest around them was just starting to transform into open farmland, and the sun was shining, and they were making great time. If this was going to be the trip, Emily had little to complain about.