Vanishing Girls(14)

“Too strong?” Dara asks, faking innocence. Her phone starts going again. She quickly silences it.

“No, it’s great,” Ariana says sarcastically. But she takes another sip. “I was looking for an excuse to burn away my tonsils. Who needs ’em?”

“You’re welcome,” Dara says, reaching for the cup. She takes a big swig and passes it to me.

“No, thanks,” I say. “I’ll keep my tonsils.”

“Come on.” Dara hooks an arm around my shoulder. In her heels, she’s even taller than my five-seven. “It’s Founders’ Day.”

Ariana stands up to take the cup back. She has to pick her way across a bathroom floor littered with bras and underwear, dresses and tank tops—all discarded outfit selections. “Founders’ Day,” she repeats, in her best impression of our principal’s voice. Mr. O’Henry not only chaperones the dance, which takes place every year in the gym, he participates in the lame historical reenactment of the Battle of Monument Hill, after which the original British settlers determined all the area west of the Saskawatchee a part of the British Empire. I think it’s a little politically insensitive to basically mime the massacre of a bunch of Cherokee Indians every year, but whatever. “The most important day of the year, and a seminal moment in our proud history,” Ariana finishes, hefting her cup in the air.

“Hear, hear,” Dara says, and mimes drinking from a glass, keeping her pinkie high.

“They really should have called it Royal Fuck-Up Day,” Ari says in her normal voice.

“Doesn’t have the same ring to it,” I say, and Dara giggles.

Three hundred years ago, colonial explorers looking for the Hudson River believed they’d found it and settled instead on the banks of the Saskawatchee, chartering the town for England and inadvertently forming what would later become Somerville, about five hundred miles southwest of their initial destination. At some point, they must have realized their mistake, but I guess by then they were too settled to do anything about it.

There’s a metaphor in that somewhere—like all of life is about ending up somewhere you didn’t expect, and learning to just be happy with it.

“Aaron’s going to freak when he sees you,” Dara says. She has the uncanny ability to do that: to pluck a thought out of my head and finish it, like she’s unspooling some tangled invisible sweater. “One look, and he’s going to forget all about the promise club.”

Ariana snorts.

“For the last time,” I say, “Aaron’s not in the promise club.” Ever since Aaron was cast as Jesus in our Christmas pageant—in first grade—Dara has been convinced that he’s a religious freak and a sworn virgin until marriage, an idea confirmed, in her mind, by the fact that we’ve been together for two months and haven’t gotten much past second base.

I guess it hasn’t occurred to her that the problem might be with me.

Thinking of him now—his long dark hair, the way he always smells, mysteriously, a bit like toasted almonds, even after his basketball games—makes something squeeze up in my stomach, half pleasure, half pain. I love Aaron. I do.

I just don’t love him enough.

Dara’s phone starts vibrating again. This time she snatches it up, sighs, and drops it into a small sequined bag, patterned all over with tiny skulls.

“Is that the guy who—?” Ariana starts to ask, and Dara shushes her quickly.

“What?” I turn to Dara, suddenly suspicious. “What’s the big secret?”

“Nothing,” she says, giving Ariana a stern look, as if daring her to argue. Then she turns back to me, all smiles, so beautiful, the kind of girl you want to believe, the kind of girl you want to follow. The kind of girl you want to fall in love with. “Come on,” she says, taking my hand and squeezing it so hard my fingers ache. “Parker’s waiting.”

Downstairs, Dara bullies me into finishing the last few sips of Ariana’s lukewarm drink, which is full of pulp, but at least it lights up my chest, helps me get into the mood.

Then Dara pops open a metal pill case and fishes out something small and round and white. Instantly my good feeling fades.

“Want?” she says, turning to me.

“What is that?” I say, even as Ariana holds out a palm for one.

Dara rolls her eyes. “Breath mint, dummy,” she says, and sticks her tongue out at me, showing off the mint, slowly dissolving. “And trust me, you need one.”

“Yeah, right,” I say, but hold out my hand, the good feeling returning. Dara, Parker, and I have always gone to Founders’ Day together, even in middle school, when instead of a dance the school puts on a weird variety show, and for the past few years Ariana has been tagging along. So what if Parker and Dara are something now? So what if I won’t get shotgun? So what if I haven’t talked to Parker, really talked, since he and Dara started hooking up? So what if my best friend seems to have completely and totally forgotten that I exist?

Details.

We have to take the long way, because neither Ariana nor Dara can make it through the woods in their heels and Ariana wants to smoke a cigarette anyway. It’s freakishly warm, and all the ice is running off the trees into the gutters, soft snow whoomphing down from roofs, the air layered with that rich smell, the pulpy promise of spring, even though it’s a false promise: we’re supposed to get more snow next week. But for now, I’m wearing only a light jacket, and Dara’s walking beside me, mostly sober, laughing, and we’re heading to Parker’s house: just like old times.