Afterparty(30)

“So, where is he?” Chelsea holds her hand at a right angle to her forehead and pretends to search the crowd, her lower lip protruding in a big fake frown.

“He’s in Paris,” Siobhan says.

“For the weekend? Just so he could miss Strick’s party. I’m sure.”

I blurt, “He lives in Paris.”

There, now I’m lying to pretty much everyone I know.

“And no one’s ever heard of him.” Chelsea rolls her eyes. “That’s rich.”

“Possibly because her father wants to cut his balls off,” Siobhan says.

“A French lowlife,” Chelsea says. “How nice for you.”

I can’t even believe this is happening, and I just helped it happen. I break away from Siobhan and stumble through hordes of happy people toward the far end of the pool, where it’s darker and quieter than everyplace else.

I stretch out on a pool chair and look toward the city lights. The view from behind my house is a tree-shrouded slice; this is the panorama.

Kimmy walks by with Max Lauder, kicking his legs. He doesn’t seem to mind. She is soaking wet, wearing a sports bra and a thong, a wet braid down her back.

She says, “Emma! You came to the party! Awesome!” She is not being sarcastic. “You should go in the water. It’s ninety degrees.”

I pull Nancy’s dress over my head and fold it over the back of the chair.

One hundred and eighty-two days to Afterparty and already I’m removing significant pieces of clothing in public; there’s a check mark for sure. I’m wearing a bra and panties and the dangly earrings. Kimmy swims by, giggling. I float on my back in the warm water. I stare up at the half-moon and the stars.

Here I am, half naked, buzzed on microbrew, and wondering if my mom first saw smack in a bathroom at a party. If she liked cocaine. If I would like cocaine. How much I would like it, and if I started to like it, could I stop?

Kimmy taps on my arm. I’m so startled that I almost gulp pool water. She says, “Come on. They’re making us get out.”

There’s a security guy standing by the edge, gesturing with his thumb. I swim slowly to the side of the pool where my dress is and start to boost myself up over the edge. Only the dress isn’t there. Perfect.

It feels like I’m climbing into a bad teen movie, although it’s hard to see even Chelsea tiptoeing away with Nancy’s dress. I wonder what I’m going to do, because walking around in my soaked bra, panties, and earrings is a nonstarter. I’d sooner hide behind the pool cabana for as long as it takes to weave an outfit out of fern fronds, like Insane Challenge Day on Project Runway.

Sam is almost passed out on a lounge chair, next to a six-pack.

I call, “Sam! Hey!”

He lurches up and bends over the side of the pool.

I say, “Give me your hoodie. Please.”

His hoodie is cozy and falls to mid-thigh. I thank him forty or fifty times as I wring out my hair. He laughs at me, but the embarrassment of walking around in an extra-large Latimer hoodie that smells like Budweiser is nothing compared to the potential embarrassment of walking around in my underwear or in a jumper made of woven plant life.

Siobhan says, “Shit, can’t take you anywhere.”

We look for Nancy’s dress, but it’s nowhere.

Siobhan walks up to Strick, who is standing on the lawn smoking weed, and says, “Hey, my friend lost her dress. It’s pink. Go make your security guys find it.”

Ten minutes later, we’re standing in Strick’s kitchen with him and his two stoned friends and Nancy’s dress, which is soaking and no doubt shrinking to the size of an oven mitt before our very eyes.

Siobhan, who didn’t bother to introduce herself back when she was ordering Strick around, says, “Sib,” and sticks out her hand.

“Strick,” he says. He looks very pleased to meet her. She’s about to phone Marisol, but he makes a security guy give us a lift to her house. Where I discover that not only was I standing around dripping wet in Sam’s hoodie and Nancy’s Jimmy Choos, but the pink streaks ran (which shouldn’t be a big surprise, they were supposed to wash out, that was the point of them) and my head is covered with leopard-print-looking pink spots. I have to wash my hair twice, the second time with laundry detergent, to get most of the pink evidence out.





CHAPTER NINETEEN


SUNDAY MORNING, I WILL MYSELF not to look guilty. I will myself to breathe. I will myself not to say one word about the slightly pink hair until my dad notices the slightly pink hair.

The moral compass says, Aha! Pink hair! You wanted to get caught. Maybe there’s an infinitesimally tiny ray of hope for you.

Me: Did not.

My dad is looking at me strangely. “Is there something you need to tell me?”

Yes, there is, only I can’t.

Because I thought about her all day yesterday.

Because I wondered what color nail polish she’d like.

Because when I saw some guy snorting cocaine off a soap dish, I couldn’t stop crying.

Because I took off most of my clothes without regard to modesty, good choices, or what anyone would think of me. I swam around the shallow end of a pool until a security guard made me get out, and oh yeah, I semi-inadvertently entered into a pact to lose my virginity. And it would be nice if I had an actual parent to talk to about this whose heart wouldn’t get destroyed by knowing who I actually am.