Like a Love Story(76)

Luckily, the tip of the bottle seems to avoid me for the first few spins. I pray I will keep being spared. I also pray that the game will end before my turn arrives, that some amazing song will get everyone back on the dance floor. But then Darryl spins, with a lot of force, and the bottle turns and turns for an eternity, and Darryl goes, “Come on, no whammies,” and then the bottle slows down and lands on . . . me.

“Judy!!!!!!!” Verena squeals.

I must grimace, because Darryl says, “Hey, I don’t have cooties.”

It’s hard not to think that when he says he doesn’t have cooties, he’s really saying he doesn’t have AIDS.

I turn to Annabel and whisper, “I don’t think I should. I mean, he’s your ex . . .”

“It’s just a game,” she says, cutting me off. “And you’d be surprised. He’s a decent kisser.”

My name is still being chanted. Reluctantly, I head to the center of the circle until I’m facing Darryl Lorde. We’re both on our knees, our faces close to each other. I can smell his breath. It smells like alcohol, Cool Ranch Doritos, and hate. Thoughts stream through my head, but one resonates more loudly than the others: that this will be my first kiss with a heterosexual guy. How absurd is that, and how awful would it be to have to always know my first kiss with a straight person was with this high school Roy Cohn?

As Darryl moves his lips close to mine, I turn away. “I’m sorry, I can’t,” I say.

“Seriously?” he says. “Do you only kiss fags?”

A few people laugh uncomfortably. I hear a few ohs, and oh, shits.

I stare Darryl straight in the eyes, like I have lasers in my pupils. “I’m just a little worried that bigotry is contagious,” I say.

What have you done, Judy? It was just a game. This is what normal kids do.

I make a beeline to the fruit punch and I scoop a huge cup for myself. I chug it. It burns the back of my throat a little bit, but I don’t care.

“Hey,” Annabel, who followed me, says. “Are you okay?”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I know that was awkward.”

“Why are you sorry? I wish I could tell him off like that. Nobody keeps him in check.”

“Thanks,” I say.

“He wasn’t as bad when we dated,” she says. “I mean, he was still kind of awful, but not like a full-blown asshole yet. He got so much worse after his parents’ divorce. Not that there’s any excuse for the shit he says and does.”

The spin the bottle game has ended, but a few people loaf on the living room rug together. Some are on the couches, making out. A few people dance. There seem to be two Annabels in front of me. “I think, um, I need to lie down,” I say.

“Come on,” she says. She grabs a huge bottle of Evian from the pantry and leads me upstairs. “I think bottled water is the stupidest thing in the world, but my mom insists on buying it by the case.”

“Uh-huh,” I say. Her words echo like we’re in a cave.

“Do you know Evian spells naive backward?” she asks. “What more evidence do you need?”

“Do you know that words that spell other words backward are called heteropalindromes?” I ask as she leads me up the stairs.

“Seriously?” she asks.

“Seriously,” I say. “I have no idea why. Like, what’s a homopalindrome, then?”

We reach her bedroom. It has huge windows with views of the Manhattan skyline. “You can lie down here,” she says.

“I told my parents I’d be home by ten,” I say.

“You still have half an hour,” she says. “Trust me, drink that whole bottle of naive water and lie down. You don’t want your parents to see you like this.”

I stare out at the skyline. “Do you think gay people are just naturally cooler than straight people?” I ask.

“What? You’re so weird,” she says.

“I’m serious,” I say. “Think about it.”

She gives me a kiss on the forehead and says, “Water. Rest. I’ll check in on you soon.”

I lie down on her bed when she leaves, with its crisp white sheets. Her room looks like a hotel room. I close my eyes. I have no idea how long I’m out for when I hear the door open and then a deep voice say, “Sorry, I was just looking for another bathroom.” I look to the side and see it’s Saadi. He’s stumbling and slurring a little bit. “I think Bobby and Rachel are hooking up in the downstairs bathroom, which is really rude to people who need to, you know, piss.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I guess.”

“My mom refuses to go to a party in an apartment with less than three bathrooms,” Saadi says.

“That’s smart,” I say. I don’t know if I mean it. I’m just making conversation. And hearing about his mom reminds me that his stepmom is Reza’s mom. Weird.

“You mind if I piss here?” he asks.

“If by here you mean in Annabel’s toilet, then sure,” I say.

He goes into her bathroom but doesn’t close the door. I can hear him pee. When he’s done, he comes back into the bedroom and sits on the edge of the bed. “Hey,” he says. “You doing okay?”

“You didn’t wash your hands,” I say.