Afterparty(80)

“Or the GPS chip you had implanted in my scalp when I was sleeping.”

He laughs. “That’s not the worst idea.”

I drive up to a turnout on Mulholland. I watch the sun set, pink and orange, and then I watch the city lights go on, and the clouds fade into the blackening sky. I stare up at that black sky, and at the airplanes trailing through it. Whenever I think a single thought beyond L.A. turning to night, I just go, Stop It.

Then I drive home over Laurel Canyon.

My dad is waiting. Of course he is, with raisin bread and tea.

He says, “If there were some way I could keep you insulated from all this high school angst, believe me—”

“I know.”

I am deep in postponing-the-inevitable territory, hacking through the underbrush of nighttime conversation, not hacking all that quickly because I’m not all that sure I want to know what I’m about to find out.

I say, “I have to call someone.”

“It’s so late, Ems.” (It’s 10:05.)

I say, “I’m in high school. No one sleeps.”

I close my door and I crank up Beethoven’s Ninth. Loud. Eardrum-shredding, fingernails-in-palms-of-hands loud.

I say to Dylan, “If this is nothing, I apologize in advance, but I was just talking with Siobhan.”

Very carefully, he says, “And?”

“And when did you hear from Georgetown?”

Even more carefully and evenly, he says, “Just before I told you.”

“When?”

“I was deferred, then I got off the list.” He pauses. “Why is this important?”

“My God. You’re messing with me so you won’t have to flat-out lie to me!”

Dylan says, “You should know.”

“What?”

“Not what I meant to say.”

I say, “Was it before or after we made up? And here’s a hint, the right answer is after.”

Long pause.

He says, “It wasn’t after.”

I wish I had the kind of old-fashioned landline where you can slam the earpiece into the receiver.

“So Siobhan knew before I knew? Were you with her?”

He shouts, “Jesus Christ! I cannot believe she told you about that! The second installment of the Siobhan Lynch setup and she tells you?”

Not what I was expecting. Not what I want to know about, hear about, process, or deal with.

He says, “We were broken up. It was bad. I was shitfaced. It was once. She’s evil.”

I say, “I’ve gotta go.”

My dad pops his head in. He says, “Ems, do you want to talk about it now?”

I do, but obviously, I can’t.

I can’t talk to anyone about anything.





CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX


NOT THAT DYLAN DOESN’T TRY. He phones, But I don’t pick up. Then he texts.

Dylan: The texting isn’t meant to be ironic. But I’m sorry.

Me: No irony taken.

Dylan: And?

Me: And I just wish you’d have told me. But we were broken up. It’s not like we were married so technically you weren’t coloring outside the lines.

Dylan: It wasn’t OK. I get it.

Dylan: Emma?

Me: I know I don’t get to play the you-shoulda-told-me-card with you. But you were back with Siobhan.

Me: And you didn’t once think to say you applied to college?

Dylan: Maybe I’m hardwired to treat women like shit

Me: You didn’t treat me like shit. This all just kind of sucks.

Dylan: Could we cut to the chase and skip forward to being OK?

Me: I don’t want to be mean to you. I just want this conversation to be over.

Dylan: Could I get you pancakes?

Me: Maybe we need a break from pancakes.

Cutting to the chase, my life as Emma the Scourge of God has not left me in the world’s best emotional state. I don’t have a boyfriend, a best friend, or very good judgment. I seem to be going for an F in navigating moral complexity, not unlike everybody else I know, except for Megan, and she feels guilty about bagging groceries at a food bank with Joe, so that doesn’t really count.

I am in my closet, making lists of applicable clichés, in order of relevance. “Chalk it up to experience,” “Don’t count your chickens (or, for that matter, Candy Land happy endings) before they hatch,” and “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones” being the top contenders.

On the other hand, I have completed every last damned item on my Afterparty prep list.

Every. Single. One.

(Minus Siobhan’s BS about carrying on in a glass elevator, etc.)

The year was not a total waste.

All right, I was completely in love with the idea of me being a good person in a heart-stopping relationship with another good person, and with a wild but good best friend.

Now, I’m not sure any of us qualifies.

I’m back to flying around solo, a flockless bird, and who even knows if I’ll know when to go south for the winter, or even where the south is located.

But I do know how to get to Afterparty.

? ? ?

My dad says, “Have you seen this letter from Miss Palmer about the dangerous party?”

About how going to Afterparty in a limo so you can cut out in style when the police shut down the party doesn’t make you safe. How many kids leave in ambulances due to their ingestion of large numbers of shots mixed with their friends’ prescription Xanax. And how its reputation as the best party ever held anywhere, ever, gives it an unhealthy allure that parents should counter with vigilant catastrophizing.