Pushing Perfect(21)

“Where did you move from? Your accent sounds British.”

“Got it in one,” he said, as we crossed back through the foyer. I finally figured out the Pan statue—the half man, half beast linked the animal sculptures in front with the statues of gods and goddesses in the back. “I grew up in England, though my parents assure me I was born in India. We moved well before I was old enough to remember it.”

“How do you like it here?” I wished I could come up with more interesting things to ask him. But it turned out not to matter, because once Raj led me around the enormous staircase and opened the door hidden behind it, I heard music so loud we’d have had to scream at each other to continue our conversation.

The music got louder and louder as we walked down the stairs, bass thumping so hard that I could almost feel my heartbeat aligning with it. When we reached the bottom, I saw that the house’s lower level had been converted into a club. There was a long bar, complete with a bartender and a backlit wall of clear and colorful bottles of liquor; there was a booth for a DJ, where a girl with multicolored dreadlocks and a full-arm sleeve of tattoos was presiding over a computer and a bunch of electronic equipment I didn’t recognize; there were strobe lights and smoke piping out of machines in the corners of the room; and of course, there was a dance floor. Packed.

“This is really someone’s house?” I asked Raj, though I knew the answer.

“What?” he yelled.

“Forget it!” I yelled back, at three times the volume. “This is crazy!”

“It’s fantastic! Let’s dance.”

I shook my head. I didn’t even dance alone, in front of the mirror. “You go ahead.”

“Just for one song,” he said. “No one’s paying attention, I swear. They’re all out of their tree.”

I looked at the dance floor, at the throng of improbably elegantly dressed teenagers throwing themselves around as if they really were at a club. Total abandon. I definitely wasn’t the only one at this party who was on something.

“Come on, one song. Then we can chat.” He looked at me with this little smile, like I was the only person in the crowded room. Maybe he was just a flirt, but he was really good at it.

One song wouldn’t kill me.

Raj led me out onto the dance floor. Something about the touch of his hand made me feel secure, protected, and I liked it. The music throbbed as we started to dance. Raj really knew how to move, unlike most of the other people on the dance floor, myself included. His limbs seemed almost elastic; I wondered if he was high too, even though Alex had said he didn’t drink. Just because he didn’t drink didn’t mean he wouldn’t do other things. He was such an amazing dancer that I was okay with my own stuttering moves. He was right that no one was paying attention to me, but not for the reasons he’d said. It was almost like everyone else stopped to watch him, though they made halfhearted attempts to move back and forth as if to keep him from noticing.

One song melded into another, and then another, but that was okay; I was happy just to watch Raj in his element. His eyes were closed half the time, but he was always completely in sync with the music, as if he didn’t have to think about it, he was so totally in charge of his own body. I had the vaguest memory of feeling like that, when I was in the water, but the closest I could come now was on the treadmill, when I could forget that my body was moving and hurting and I lost myself in the music, safe in the knowledge that I was in my own house and no one could see me. For a few miles I’d be free, like Raj was now.

As I danced, I closed my eyes and tried to get somewhere close to where he was, but I couldn’t do it. It was almost like the Novalert kept me from daydreaming, kept me focused on what I was doing, even if I didn’t necessarily want to be. That boded well for the SATs, but despite the respite it gave me from my anxiety, it wasn’t helping me with the dancing at all.

Finally, Raj snapped out of his trance. “That was probably more than one song,” he yelled. “Shall we go somewhere else?”

I wasn’t sure if this was just more of his flirting, but it was entertaining. I’d be able to put him off if he tried something. Assuming I wanted to. He placed his hand on the small of my back to lead me off the dance floor, into a corner of the room that was far enough away to be just a little quieter, behind one of the smoke machines. I realized my heart was still pounding along with the music.

“This should do it,” he said.

I wasn’t sure how private it was, but at least there was smoke to shield us from view, broken up only occasionally by a strobe light, which flashed and broke the smoke into bits of sparkling dust that I could almost reach out and touch.

“So . . . ,” Raj said, and leaned in toward me.

I wasn’t sure what to do. Did I really want this? It was one thing to try to get into the social scene; it was another to make out with the first guy who was nice to me.

He leaned in a little closer. “So . . .”

I waited. If I didn’t do anything, he could make the decision for both of us.

And then he said it.

“Did you bring the money?”





9.


How could I be so stupid? Of course that’s what this was about. Just because Raj was a big flirt didn’t mean he wanted to have some random makeout session at a party. Thank god for the Novalert, which was keeping my humiliation in check. That, and the relative dark.