Afterparty(27)

The compass says, You’re kidding, right?

My dad brings me a sandwich. I thank him like crazy. I do not act like a resentful person who is grounded until snow falls on the Hollywood sign. (Hint: Snow never falls on the Hollywood sign.) Megan texts: Are you okay? The secret is secret?

Me: No lightning bolts. No toads. No boils. No killing of the firstborn child.

Megan: You’re my hero. You didn’t get drunk right?

Me: You sound like your mother

Megan: Kill me now. I wish I had a magic portal.

I am almost making it through the weekend. I think. When Dylan texts: You weren’t lying about notes with footnotes.

First text since the cafeteria.

It’s so much easier to pretend that nothing happened in writing without my voice, or face, or weird choppy breathing to give me away.

Me: You’re welcome.

Dylan: You’re thanked. OCD outline very handy. Amazed you have time for footnotes and bad parties.

Me: Don’t remind me how bad. Wait. How do you even know?

Dylan: Hard to picture you baked. Curled up with a joint outlining sidebars. Being entertained by Roy.

Me: My household is devoid of joints and entertainment.

Dylan: I cd come by with magic tricks.

And your lips.

Me: Hard to picture you pulling a bunny out of a top hat. Is that where you got this number?

Because it’s Siobhan’s prepaid, the one I’m not supposed to have, the cheap untraceable kind that normal people don’t have.

Dylan: Got it from your partner in crime.

Me: Disappointing. I was hoping for a rabbit.

Dylan: Maybe I should go for it. Beef up my resume for Georgetown.

Me: I thought you didn’t care about such things.

Dylan: Crap. Slacker image shot to hell by bunnies.

Me: You must be one genius slacker to pass. You’re never there.

Dylan: Excuse me Seed. I’m beating my bro’s GPA by .2 and he was top ten. Hell I cd be valedictorian if I’d off Arif and Mara. And maybe Lissi.

Meaning that, basically, Dylan is getting better grades with my notes than I am. And is a lot more into school than I gave him credit for.

He’s an ad for the benefits of constant cutting.

My dad would so not like this. The best grades ever, yes; the sticking his thumb in Latimer’s eye while getting the best grades ever, no.

My dad calls and I slide the phone under my pillow.

I return to the home life of Emma the Good.

I fold all my clean clothes before going to bed early. I get up in the morning. I eat a waffle. I look out at the ocean past Sunset, past Century City. As we drive down the hill, I read my notes for a French poetry quiz.

Me: Do you get the French?

Siobhan: Sorta.

Me: OK first break outside the caf.

Sib: It’s just a bunch of shit about Algeria.

Me: I might need more details.

Sib: OK but it’s stupid.

My dad says, “Are you texting Siobhan from this car? You’re supposed to be using that phone for emergencies only.”

(As of this morning, I have my actual phone back because he’s concerned that if there’s a natural disaster, I’ll need it when foraging for freeze-dried snack packs.) “It’s about French. See for yourself. Me: Do you get the French? Siobhan: Sorta. Me: OK first break outside the caf—”

“Do you think that qualifies as an emergency?” The car slams to a stop in front of Latimer in urgent punctuation.

“I thought the point was no recreational texting. This is far from recreational.”

All I can think about is how ridiculous my life is, tap-dancing around texting my friend in preparation for a quiz on a French poem about the oppression of colonial Algeria in blank verse. How the ridiculousness of my life is what’s going on in this car, not how I’m pursuing happiness under the cover of night.

Twenty-seven weeks to Afterparty.

There’s not a chance in hell I’m bailing on this pact.





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


“NO WAY,” KIMMY SAYS TO me when I’m sitting with Siobhan in the caf on Monday. “You won’t come to my parties but you go to Warner’s?”

Chelsea says, “Poor Emily. You should try to get yourself invited someplace a few steps up from Warner’s. Maybe a crack house.”

Chelsea turns on her heel before I can deliver a comeback.

Then Arif and Dylan stop at our table, presumably not to admire our so-called salads, studded with dried-out sprouts.

Arif says, “I heard you ladies had an issue with your GPS.”

“Please,” Siobhan says. “One L.A. party is as bad as the next.”

Dylan sighs. “It hurts me to argue with anyone slamming L.A., but even here, Roy stands out.”

I say, “Come on, it was bad, but it’s not like we caught leprosy. He didn’t have any problem drawing a crowd.”

“Such as you two,” Dylan says.

“Play nice,” Arif says. “And for the record, there were arrests last Christmas.”

Dylan says, “Yeah, some stoner ran over a reindeer.”

“It was a bush,” Arif says. “There were several bushes. Trimmed in the shape of reindeer. Very festive.”

“There was a car-versus-reindeer-bush collision in Roy Warner’s front yard?”