by Brent, Cora
“The keg’s tapped out,” announced Bridget, one of Aimee’s roommates. She was seated at the table, mostly clothed and fully sober, while the three guys parked in the other chairs passed around a bottle and existed in various stages of undress. One of them was down to his boxers and absently scratched his crotch through the dick hole. Gross.
Aimee filled a cup with filtered water from the fridge. “Already? I didn’t even get any.”
Bridget shrugged as she shuffled cards. “Well, it’s going to spell the end of this social scene unless someone feels like going out and getting another keg.”
“I’ll go,” offered the crotch scratcher. He stood up, smacked his head on the overhead light fixture and fell back into his chair. His companions roared with laughter.
Aimee frowned. “I’m not going,” She grumbled. “At this point let’s just let the party die a natural death.”
Her mood had shifted downward in the last few minutes. I blamed Franco.
“Have you seen Thomas by any chance?” I asked Bridget, suddenly realizing he hadn’t been around in a while.
Bridget regarded me behind her oversized black framed glasses. “It’s been a little tough to even keep track of myself in this zoo.”
Aimee spoke up. “Wait, I noticed him hanging out with a girl I see at the gym all the time. I think she’s on the swim team. But that was a while ago.”
“Eh, I’m sure he’s long gone,” I said.
In fact I would have bet money on it.
The last time I’d seen my brother, he and a blonde in an orange tank top appeared to be seconds away from a public sex act. That was the thing about Thomas. He was downright saintly on most counts but the boy wasn’t shy when the opportunity arose to get his dick serviced. And he had no shortage of admirers happy to fill the role. The walls of our apartment were probably shaking like an earthquake at this very second.
The poker party offered to share their bottle but I declined. Aimee took a drink, more than she could handle, and then nearly vomited from the whiskey burn.
“Come on.” She took my hand.
“Where to now?” I was getting tired of this party, tired of bodies and sweat and the sour smell of beer and overpowering perfumes and constant selfies and crappy music.
How had it never dawned on me that they were all alike, these parties?
If you’ve been to one then you’ve been to a hundred. Only one in particular stood out in my mind and it wasn’t this one. A different party with a different girl. A girl who had electrified my pulse the instant our lips met. I must have jacked off to the memory of that night at least a hundred times. I’d rather be jacking off to it right now.
“We were right here,” Aimee said, bringing me back to the present and stopping in the exact same spot we’d occupied before taking a field trip to the kitchen.
Word had leaked that the kegs were tapped and people were beginning to drift out the door in search of better refreshments. Hell, half of these people probably hadn’t even reached the legal drinking age.
But guess who was still around?
Good old Franco was cemented exactly where we’d left him. One of his knobby hands was resting on the ass of the girl he’d paraded in here with.
Aimee’s face reddened and she reached up to pull me in for a close encounter with her whiskey-flavored breath.
“This will be so good,” she whispered in between sticking her tongue in my mouth. “This is just what I need.”
My dick wasn’t opposed to Aimee’s offer. My brain, however, decided to put up a fight. It was refusing to be liberated from the memory of Taylor Briggs.
“Let’s go to my room.” Aimee’s hand traced low, finding the thick outline against my jeans.
I wasn’t really in favor of going at it while the place was still crammed with bodies. I had standards. Besides, as the seconds passed I grew more and more sure that this would be a mistake. The hurt glances Aimee kept shooting toward her ex turned into something defiant when she looked at me. I got the message. She was getting revenge. I wouldn’t have even minded giving it to her, except my own head was full of someone else and so far I’d never figured out how to be enough of a shithead to screw one girl while thinking of another.
Franco had dropped his arm from his date and stood there glowering. He looked like a pouty little boy. I almost felt sorry for him.
“Come on, Kel,” Aimee begged. “I want to do this. So do you.”
I did.
And I didn’t.
The party continued to wind down. Someone had lowered the music to a volume that was barely audible. The crotch scratcher emerged from the kitchen totally naked, boxers bunched in his right hand as he half heartedly shielded his package. His balls were still visible.
“Where’s the fucking bathroom?” he slurred.
“Aimee?” Franco had arrived. His date had been abandoned against the wall but she was so occupied with her phone that she didn’t appear to mind. “Can we talk? Please?”
“I’m gonna piss on the fuckin’ floor,” whined Crotch.
Aimee had withdrawn her arms the instant Franco spoke. I took the opportunity to extricate myself from this weird triangle and beckoned to Crotch.
“This way,” I said and led him to the door where two girls were just exiting. An oppressive cloud of perfume drifted out but Crotch would have to suffer. I shoved him into the bathroom and closed the door when it looked like he planned to conduct his business with it open.
I leaned against the nearest wall and closed my eyes. I was reconsidering my affection for college parties. I knew I should return to the living room and make sure all was well in Aimee Loves Franco Land but I didn’t feel like it.
A deliberate tap on my shoulder caught me off guard.
I opened my eyes and was surprised to see who was standing there.
Chapter Eleven
Taylor
The couples were the ones I liked to watch more than anyone else. The families were cute too, particularly if they included little kids who ran this way and that with rebellious delight. And then there were the friend groups, full of laughter and fun.
Plenty of single people walked through the park as well. Some were on an exercise mission. Some were just cutting through on their way somewhere. Some were roaming around in search of someone to interact with.
And at least one was sitting on a bench in the park with nowhere else to be and waiting for the moon to rise just a little higher before searching for a place to spend the night.
Twice I was approached by men who tried to strike up a conversation. When I didn’t respond they moved on. Each time I was glad to return to my people watching solitude, always searching for the pairs, the couples.
They held hands or kissed or just strolled close together, enjoying the scenery and each other. I liked to take a guess if their romance was brand new or if they’d been together for a long time. Sometimes it was tough to tell the difference. My parents had been romantic with each other right up until my mother’s sudden death. They’d married when they were both in their early thirties, quickly produced a perfect son, along with a bad tempered daughter five years later. They thought they were done. Until I unexpectedly showed up.
“I thought you were menopause,” my mother had laughed more than once.
“Surprise of my life,” my father had added, beaming at us both.
He’d never recovered from her death. He wouldn’t even try to date. He worked constantly and increased his determination to grant his children every material possession on earth. Everything would have been different if my mother had lived. He wouldn’t have done what he did.
The girl’s voice made me jump. “Hi. Can I sit here?”
“Sure,” I said, because I didn’t own the park and because she was the most pleasant person I’d encountered so far today. I scooted over to make room.
“I’m Haley,” she said.
“Taylor.”
Haley propped her left foot across her knee and
removed her shoe, which was cracked right through the middle. I didn’t know how the hell she walked on it.
“I’ve seen you,” she said, throwing me a sideways glance.
“Oh yeah, where?”
She shrugged. “Around.”
She didn’t look familiar to me at all. I doubted she was a student at ASU. Her hair was lost somewhere in the colorless valley between brown and blonde. Greasy strands escaped from the loose bun atop her head. Her small face was acne-pitted and pinched. She wore a grimy pink t-shirt with a hole in the left sleeve and shorts crookedly cut from a pair of khaki pants.
And, not to be crude, but she smelled. She smelled like an onion that had been sliced in half and left in the hot sun for three days.
“It’s nice that the heat is letting up a little,” I said, making every effort to sound warm and agreeable. I didn’t have a history of being friendly. In my high school yearbook I was elected ‘Biggest Attitude’. The original caption was ‘Biggest Bitch’ but the administration made the yearbook staff change it. And I’d been proud, like being known as a supreme jerk was some kind of spectacular achievement. I wasn’t so proud now.
Haley’s foot was still propped up on her knee. Her legs were unshaven and peppered with insect bites, which she absently scratched. “It still feels pretty goddamn hot out here in the daytime.”
I was about ninety-nine percent sure she was homeless. It was impossible to guess her age. Her face was red and weather beaten but she might have been younger than I was.
“What happened to your shoe?” I asked her, mostly because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Haley glanced down. “What, this? It was broken when I fished it out of the dumpster. I had better ones before.”
“Before what?”
“Just before. What time is it?”
I checked my phone. “A quarter to eleven.”
“There’s a cop who comes around about this time and hassles anyone he thinks doesn’t belong here.” She tried to shove her shoe back on her foot and then changed her mind, choosing to hold it instead. “We should take a walk. Nobody will give you any shit. You’re too pretty.”
“Um, thanks.” I stood up and fell into step beside her. It wasn’t like I had anything better to do. Aside from hygiene issues that she probably couldn’t help, Haley didn’t seem half bad. I didn’t personally know anyone else who was in this position. I wanted to ask her things. Like, how long have you been out here? What were things like for you before? Was there an informal club of homeless people somewhere close by?
“Where exactly are we going?” I asked.
“Just over here.” She limped because she was only wearing one shoe. The other was cradled in the crook of her arm.
Haley finally stopped beside a large concrete structure. There were steps that led to the top for a view of the entire park and the lake but she was content to merely lean against the shadowy side. I could see my car from here. Fifteen feet away a young couple embraced in the shadows. They looked so sweet, so in love. Maybe they were. Maybe that’s why she was risking arrest by giving him a hand job in a public park.
“I should be going,” I said, removing my keys. “It was nice meeting you though, Haley. I hope we can hang out again sometime.”
She thought that was funny. “Yeah, sure. Let’s, like, totally hang out again.”
“Right.” I felt like I’d missed a joke somewhere. She kept laughing like a hyena. I began to rethink our prospective friendship.
“Hey, you got anything to eat?” she asked.
I dug around in my purse. “I think I have a few sticks of gum left.”
“Cool. Give me the fucking bag.”
“What?”
“Your bag, bitch! And the phone.”
Well, this had taken a new direction in a hurry.
“Uh, no. Not happening.”
Haley stepped right up. The top of her head wouldn’t even reach my chin. She probably weighed ninety pounds.
“I swear I will beat the shit out of you!”
“With what? Your broken flip flop?”
I’d never been in a physical fight before, not even with Sierra. So I’d never learned not to underestimate the little guy. Or girl.
She punched me. Constellations exploded. My nose felt fat and strange. Hot tears of pain stung my eyes.
“What the fuck?” I sputtered, staggering away. “You didn’t have to do that.”
Haley disagreed. While I was busy trying to blink the stars out of my vision she kicked me in the back of my right knee, which was surprisingly effective. Now I understood that it was literally possible to go down like a ton of bricks.
“Give it up,” she whined, yanking on my handbag. I held on for dear life but dear life wasn’t enough.
“Wait!” I yelled, still on the ground, tasting the blood that had trickled out of my nose, while Haley sprinted into the darkness at surprising speed considering she’d left her flip flop behind.
“Oh yeah, baby. Fuck, squeeze the tip. Squeeze it!”
Incredibly, the hand job couple was still going strong a few yards away.
“Thanks for nothing,” I muttered, bracing my scraped palms on the ground and struggling to rise.
“That’s it, honey,” the girl crooned. “Come all over me.”
Unreal. People were so self absorbed it was disgusting.
“Hope you enjoyed your sex in the park,” I grumbled as I hobbled past them.
“Who is that?” the girl demanded. “You know her, don’t you? Oh my god, did you tell her to meet you here too?”
“What? Ashington, where the hell are you going? ASHINGTON!”
Miraculously, my keys were still in my hand. I’d lost my phone, my wallet, my identification and the last of my pitiful cash. But at least I still had my car. I consoled myself with this small fact while Ashington’s lover bounded into the darkness after her.
A moment later I closed myself into the sanctuary of my car and groaned. My face hurt more by second. My nose was probably broken. The knee that had been kicked now ached like a motherfucker. There was probably enough blood on my face to cast me in a horror movie.
And.
And!
AND!!!
Because this day hadn’t been quite perfect enough…
My car wouldn’t start.
I coaxed it.
I pleaded with it.
I promised it ice cream.
But every time I turned the ignition nothing happened except for a dead end click.
I was now exploring a new fresh hell. I had no money. Nothing. Maybe if I was lucky I’d be able to scavenge fifteen cents scattered somewhere in the floor mats. I had no phone, no license. I’d been beaten up by some five foot two street chick. And now my car was dead.
I smacked the steering wheel with my skinned palm. It hurt, but then again so did everything else.
“Why do you hate me?” I cried. Maybe I was talking to my lifeless car or maybe I was talking to God. Neither one answered.
There was half a bottle of water in the cup holder. I took a sip, then used the rest to soak a tank top so I could wash the blood away off my face.
The parking lot was nearly empty by now. This wasn’t a place you could park overnight without getting towed. It certainly wasn’t a place you would be allowed to sleep.
A tear rolled down my cheek. I thought of the pink and white bedroom of my childhood with its French provincial furniture and endless throw pillows that were carefully accessorized on the four poster bed. Enormous pink roses had been hand painted on the ceiling. What I wouldn’t give to be in that room now, to fall asleep in a house where my parents were only steps away and where I’d taken for granted the simple and irreplaceable security of being protected.
How had I gotten from there to here?
From having everything to having nothing?
The answer was complicated. And simple. There were probably a hundred variations on the streets of this town tonight. Mine was not
hing special.
My most immediate problem was finding a place to spend the night. Despite my various aches and pains thanks to Haley’s fight club moves, I didn’t feel as if I needed to go to the hospital. Nor was I eager to risk the attention of the police if I slept right here where the car was parked. Leaving the car sitting around was also a risk but I didn’t exactly have a long list of choices right now.
I walked around to the trunk and searched through the mess of clothes and toiletries and sentimental keepsakes until I found my backpack. The trendy name brand bag I’d bought freshman year had been sold a while back and replaced with this sensible army green specimen from Goodwill. Someone named Jason Greaves had crookedly scrawled his name across the front in black magic marker. I stuffed it full of clothes and as many personal items as I could fit. I started to check the time but I couldn’t because my phone had been taken and I didn’t own a watch. It was late. I knew that. And I had to figure out where to go. My first thought was Cynda. But Cynda wasn’t in town. Cynda couldn’t even be reached.
One other person came to mind.
Kellan’s apartment was only about two miles from here. He might not celebrate seeing me at his door with a busted nose and a backpack but I knew he wouldn’t turn me away either. No, he wouldn’t do that. Kellan would care. Kellan would be a friend. And right now I wasn’t too proud to let him.
My knee throbbed with every step. As I dragged along like some tragic college girl Quasimodo, I really and truly felt homeless for the first time. The feeling was not good. And two miles is a very long way to walk indeed when you’re in pain and struggling not to cry too hard.
Beside the main entrance to The Palms was a large sign in tacky pastel colors. When I finally reached it after what seemed like an endless pilgrimage but was probably only half an hour, I nearly wept with relief.
The apartment complex was a vast honeycomb of two story buildings and I needed a moment to orient myself as to the direction of Kellan’s apartment. The rhythmic thud of a bass and an occasional ‘woohoo!’ signaled a nearby party. Of course there was a party. It was Friday night and probably ninety percent of the residents were college students. I used to party at The Palms all the time since it was walking distance from Castle Court. The night I’d met Kellan was at a party here.
