Falling into Place(4)

The microwavе beеped, and Liz fetched the Pizzarito and flipped through channеls until the borеdom became intolerable.

Thеn, with the silencе still pounding inside and outside of her, Liz went to thе bathroom, slid her fingers down hеr throat, and carеfully transferred thе mеlting pot of flavor from her stomach to the toilеt.

In her lifе, Liz had flirtеd with a numbеr of dangеrous things—drugs, bulimia, the pеrvеrt stonеr who worked at RadioShack. Bulimia was the only onе that stuck. She had broken thе habit for a whilе—she’d startеd puking blood for a bit, which frightеnеd her, bеcausе shе hadn’t wanted to die. Not then. But she was going to be grinding in a swimsuit tonight, and shе wanted to bе happy. She wanted to be bright and laughing and thin.

She flushed thе Pizzarito and brushed her teeth, but the taste was still there, so she went down to the basement and dug through her mother’s enormous wine cabinet and swiped a skinny bottle of—actually, she wasn’t really sure what it was, because the words weren’t in English, but it was alcoholic and smelled like berries, and the label was pretty—and uncorked it on her way back upstairs. She drank it in bursts, quick head-thrown-back shots, as she went to her room and opened her closet to consider her collection of swimsuits.

The yellow, frilly bikini made her look like a daffodil in the worst way, the red one was a bit too slutty even for her, and the white bottoms had faded and stretched so much that they now vaguely resembled granny panties. Liz finally settled on the striped maroonish one she’d found on sale at Victoria’s Secret a few months before, and she was scrutinizing her hips in the mirror when she caught sight of her fat, bald, hairy, leery, generally pedophilic neighbor standing on his lawn in his bathrobe, squinting at her window.

Liz flipped him off and went back down the hall.

Sometimes, she thought, this house really is depressing. But tonight was not going to be one of those nights. It might have started out as one, but the—wine? She thought it was some sort of wine—was taking care of that nicely.

She went back to the living room and turned all of the couch cushions over before she flopped down. The wine sloshed and spilled, and new lavender stains splattered across the older splotches. Once upon a time, she had worried that her mother would discover the mess. She knew better now. Monica was not the type to relax on her overpriced couch. Liz wished she were—she wished that her mother would dig for the remote just once and find the bottoms of the cushions splotched with alcohol, because Liz didn’t know how she would react. If she would be angry, if she would finally install a lock on the wine cabinet. If she would care.

Doesn’t matter, she thought as she tilted the bottle sharply. Doesn’t matter.

The liquid spilled over her chin and down her neck and shoulders, and she thought suddenly of the first party she ever went to, the summer before freshman year, and all that had changed since then. She’d had her first beer that night, and her second, her third. She had gotten drunk for the first time, so there wasn’t much that she still remembered, not much that she wanted to remember.

She thought of the lights, the bodies, the heavy and shattering music. The air, hot with sweat, humid with guilt.

Doesn’t matter.

By eight, half the wine was gone. She could feel the alcohol in her blood, making the world oddly delicate, as though everything had turned brittle and was on the verge of falling apart, and Liz Emerson was the only substantial thing on the planet.

And it was nice, being invincible.


“My god,” Julia said as she slid into the passenger seat. “Are you drunk already?”

“Of course,” Liz said. She caught a corner of the mailbox as she backed wildly out of Julia’s driveway. Later she would find the scratch on the Mercedes, but she didn’t care right now. There was something romantic about the idea of being young and tipsy and having somewhere to go on a Friday night.

She handed the berry alcohol stuff to Julia. Julia unstopped the bottle and tilted it back, and though Liz knew that Julia kept her lips tightly closed, she said nothing. It was easier to ignore it. Liz had her occasional trips to the bathroom after dinner, Julia had ziplock bags of illegal substances hidden around her room, and they had an unspoken contract to act as though their own secrets were still, in fact, secret.

“Kennie’s riding with Kyle, so you don’t need to pick her up,” said Julia, handing the bottle back.

Liz snorted. The car swerved as she took a swig, and she laughed as Julia yelped. “She’s riding on Kyle, you mean.”