Friend Request(20)
I got ready for the party at Sophie’s, Blind Date blaring from the telly in her room (Mum never lets me watch it at home) while she crimped my hair. I took practically my entire wardrobe over to hers and tried everything on in front of the full-length mirror in Sophie’s walk-in wardrobe. Sophie was rifling through the rack, handing me things to try on.
‘What about this?’ she said, thrusting a black, fitted, velvet mini-dress at me.
‘I’ll never get into that,’ I protested.
‘Yes, of course you will,’ she said, holding it out for me to step into and pulling it up over my hips. She took me by the shoulders and turned me round.
‘Ah. I don’t think it’s going to do up,’ she said. ‘I’d try, but I don’t want to rip it…’
I struggled out of the dress, my face hot.
‘Ooh, this maybe?’ she suggested, holding a red tube skirt. ‘It’s nice and stretchy. Maybe with that long navy T-shirt, although that might be a bit tight as well.’
‘Don’t worry, I’d rather wear something of mine.’
‘Awww, really? OK.’ She slithered into the tube skirt, smoothing it over her hips, turning sideways to look critically at her perfectly flat stomach in the mirror.
‘What do you think? Bit tight?’
I ended up going with all black because it’s meant to make you look thinner, and also I didn’t want to stand out too much or get it wrong. Sophie had a bottle hidden in the wardrobe that we swigged from as we got ready. It consisted of a variety of different drinks all mixed together that she had nicked from her mum’s drinks cabinet – gin, rum, vodka, some weird yellow stuff her mum got on holiday plus some coke to make it taste better.
Matt’s house was on that estate where all the hulking great brand-new detached houses had been made to look like oversized cottages from a bygone age. As we got closer we could hear the thudding bass of the music, and there were loads of other people obviously going there too. Lights were blazing from all the front windows as we walked down the path. Groups of boys and girls spilled out of the house into the front garden, which was already filled with cigarette ends and empty glasses and bottles. The front door was ajar and we slipped through into a large hallway with a black-and-white tiled floor. A wide staircase led upstairs to our right, and to the left of it was a corridor that obviously led to the kitchen. Boys I’d never seen before greeted Sophie as we made our way through the throng into the kitchen, which was large and very hot. Matt was sitting at the huge oak table rolling a joint, with Sam to his right.
‘Soph!’ called Matt. ‘You made it!’
‘Of course,’ she said, leaning down to hug them both. ‘Hello boys.’
I don’t know if it was my imagination but I’m sure her hand lingered longer on Sam’s shoulder than it did on Matt’s.
Matt peered uncertainly at me. ‘All right? Good to see you, um…’
‘Hi,’ I muttered, flushing. He didn’t even know my name, but it didn’t matter, I knew I was protected by Sophie, a shining titanium wall made entirely of popularity and beauty.
‘Have a drink,’ said Matt, waving towards the marble worktop, which was sticky with spilled drinks, littered with cigarette butts and covered in half-empty bottles of spirits, huge bottles of cider, lipstick-stained plastic cups and several bottles of something very bright blue. I’d never been to a party like this before and I veered between wild excitement at simply being there and the acceptance that this implied, and a nagging fear that I would somehow say the wrong thing or make a mistake and that everyone would see me for what I was.
‘Ooh, great,’ said Sophie, pulling me over to see. ‘Where did you get all this?’
‘People brought stuff, and my brother got a load of it for me,’ said Matt. ‘Have whatever you like, Soph. And —’ he gestured in my direction ‘— you too.’
‘It’s Louise, you idiot.’ Sophie laughed. ‘God, Lou, he doesn’t even know your name! Honestly, you see her every day at school!’
‘Sorry,’ muttered Matt to me.
‘Oh, it’s fine,’ Sophie said, smiling. ‘What shall we have, Louise, vodka and coke?’
My head was already swimming from the effects of the drinks-cabinet concoction, but Sophie slugged vodka into two plastic glasses and topped them up with coke.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and see who else is here.’
We left Matt in the kitchen staring longingly after Sophie, and made our way back through the hallway and turned right into the living room. This was the source of the music – someone had set up decks and a boy from school was DJing. There were a few girls I recognised dancing in the centre of the room, bodies moving effortlessly to the beat, completely absorbed in the rhythm, which thrummed like a heartbeat, insistent and demanding. I watched in fascination as Claire Barnes and a boy from the year above kissed on an armchair in the corner. Claire was sitting astride him and he had one hand on her bum and one caressing her breast through her top. They seemed totally in a world of their own, but I could see a couple of boys watching intently from the sofa on the other side of the room as Claire writhed and the movement of the boy’s hands grew ever more urgent.
‘We’ll leave her to it, shall we?’ shouted Sophie, but as she turned to leave the room, Matt came sidling up to us. The volume dropped temporarily.