A Midsummer's Nightmare(31)

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I wasn’t told not to. So…”

“Fabulous. I’ll be at your place in twenty.”





14


Sometime between Wesley’s party and the Father’s Day cookout Sylvia planned, Harrison Carlyle and I became friends. At least, that’s what he claimed we were. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

Don’t get me wrong. Harrison was fun to be around. He’d come over almost every day during the week I was grounded (just as I’d predicted, Dad hadn’t altered Sylvia’s punishment). We watched movies and swam and talked about college plans. I had to give him credit; he kept me entertained, and Sylvia never said a word about me having guests over. If it weren’t for Harrison, I might have gone crazy.

Still, once my sentence was over and Harrison and I began venturing out of the house, I wasn’t totally comfortable with the way he introduced me as “My friend Whitley” or the way he’d laugh when we were talking and say things like, “I’ve never had a friend quite like you.” I wasn’t really sure how to contradict him, though, since I did like having him around—which is more than I can say about most people.

We spent time together almost every day, and when I told him about Sylvia’s big cookout plans, he offered to crash the party to keep me from stabbing myself in the eye with a shish kebab rod. A party devoted to celebrating a father I’d barely spoken to in weeks, thrown by the people who’d taken him away? Since getting hammered wasn’t an option, I knew I’d need Harrison’s support.

We sat at the dining room table playing Crazy Eights—possibly the lamest card game in the world—while everyone else milled around the backyard with their hot dogs and red cups full of lemonade. Sylvia had invited all of her coworkers and their families, plus the other anchors from Channel 34. The turnout was pretty decent, I guess, but I couldn’t help thinking that I should be spending Father’s Day with my father, not with everyone he and his fiancée knew, and not with Harrison.

“You guys should come outside,” Sylvia said, poking her head into the dining room. “It’s a beautiful day, and everyone would love to meet you.”

“We’re fine,” I said, slapping the eight of spades down on the pile and watching Harrison groan. “It’s too hot out there, anyway.”

“All right.” She sighed. “But I hope you change your mind.”

A minute later I heard her slip through the screen door in the kitchen, back to where her guests waited.

“I don’t know why she won’t leave me alone,” I mumbled. “She’s always breathing down my neck. Checking on me, asking if I need anything, wanting to know if I’m okay. I feel like I barely get a second to breathe.”

“She’s being nice.” Harrison laughed, drawing from the deck of cards. “It’s cute.”

“It’s annoying.”

“At least she cares.”

I remembered what Sylvia had said to Sherri at the bridal shop about being a better stepmom than the one she’d had growing up. “Yeah,” I said. “I guess.”

“Oh, you know what I just thought of?” he said. “You should stay over at my house soon. We could totally have a slumber party.”

“Don’t you think your mother would have a problem with a girl spending the night?” I asked.

“My mom knows I’m gay,” he said. “She’s fine with girls. Especially when I make new friends. She tries to fit in and be cool. It’s kind of sad. So, will you stay over? We could watch movies and talk about boys and do all that fun stuff.”

Was that stuff still fun? I didn’t remember. I hadn’t been to a slumber party since seventh grade.

“I don’t know, Harrison.”

“Please.”

I frowned and tossed an ace of diamonds onto the pile. “Fine,” I said. “Let’s make a deal: You throw a party, let me get wasted, and I’ll stay at your house that night.”

“God, Whitley. You’re practically auditioning for a starring role on Intervention.”

“What?” I grinned at him. “I’m more fun when I’m drunk, anyway. Give me enough to drink, and I might even let you give me a makeover.”

He laughed. “Okay. It’s a deal,” he said. “I’ll just have to trick my mother into leaving the house for the night.”

“Will she freak about the party?”

“Hell no.” He snorted. “She’ll want to hang out with us. And I wouldn’t be able to survive that kind of social humiliation.”

So it was settled. Harrison decided he would hold the party/sleepover on the Fourth of July, just over two weeks away. He could get his older sister to buy the alcohol, and his mother would be on a holiday retreat with some girlfriends. Perfect.

We’d finished our game of Crazy Eights and had moved on to Go Fish when Bailey walked into the dining room.

“Hey, Whitley,” she said, hanging in the archway that connected the dining room to the kitchen. “Mom wants to know if you and Harrison want cheeseburgers. Greg is firing up the grill again.”

“No thanks,” I said.

“I’ll take one.” Harrison smiled at her. “You ungrounded yet, sweetie?”