Those Girls

by Lauren Saft

  “Just that you looked good when he saw you at tennis the other day. No pressure, just something to think about.” She poured us two more shots. “I think you guys could be fun together.”

  Fun together. So Drew probably just wanted to get laid. But he didn’t seem like the type to just want to get laid. Had he ever even gotten laid? He’d known me for years; if he’d wanted to hook up with me, he’d have hooked up with me already, right? He was the kind of guy who likes girls for being funny and interesting. But he was also a guy, can never forget that fact when thinking about guys. No matter how many sappy movies they watch or long books they read, they are all, in fact, still guys. And guys like tits and blow jobs more than they like funny and interesting, which I’m not when you compare me to girls like Alex, so I had to rely on the boobs and BJs thing. And, thank god, I seemed to have been able to make a name for myself in both departments.

  “Consider me thinking about it,” I said, and we clinked our shot glasses. She took a swig out of the bottle after she threw back the shot. Alex drank like a rock star, yet always seemed to be the most sober of all of us at the end of the night. I swear, I’ve gone shot for shot with her, yet at the end of the night, she’s smoking weed and making up songs on the piano, and I’m barfing in a bush wearing one shoe and no bra. She ran her fingers through her long hair, from root to tip, and blew smoke rings to the sky, which was starting to turn an electric shade of pink. Almost party time.

  Drew showed up first with his stoner friends, then the seniors, then the soccer guys. I played my usual hostess game, made the rounds, greeted everyone, thanked them for coming, and pointed them toward the booze and the bathroom. I chatted, flirted, and kept an eye out for Austin, who’d promised he’d try to stop by.

  “You throw the best parties,” Drew said as he plopped down by me on one of the pool chairs.

  “We all have our skills.” I crossed and uncrossed my legs and dished out a smile.

  “Why don’t we hang out more?” he asked.

  It occurred to me that he and Alex might be up to something, but I figured I’d just sip my Solo cup of vodka and smile along until I figured it out. What could she be up to? It’s not like she was Mollie or something.

  “Keg is here, bitches!” someone screamed from somewhere by the patio.

  Mollie, Sam, and a few of his cronies rolled out of the bushes like a chain gang: Sam carrying the keg over his head like Conan the Barbarian, Austin nowhere in sight. I excused myself from Drew and skipped across the lawn and over to Sam to direct him to the trash can that I’d already filled with a garbage bag and ice.

  “Happy now, whore?” Mollie scowled, playing with her phone as usual. “You have no fucking idea what I went through to get this.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Collins,” Sam said, patting my bare back with his wet hand.

  “I’ll give you cash,” I said.

  He looked me up and down and replied, “I’d prefer a beej.”

  Mollie rolled her eyes. I giggled and called him disgusting or something like that. It was unfortunate that Sam was so fiercely good-looking. Like, actually handsome, chiseled in a way that boys were just not these days. He looked like a young Robert Redford, if Robert Redford had had a gym membership and drank protein shakes in the seventies. He was always in some form of Crawford Athletics gear, as if the fact that his neck was the same size as his waist wasn’t a clear enough indicator that he was a jock. It was a shame he was such a creep, and it was an even bigger shame that that only made him hotter.

  In middle school, we all used to watch him make out with Stephanie Black and her blond ponytail at dances, and dare one another to cut in. We were obsessed. I even cut his picture out of the Crawford yearbook and put it on my wall. Like he was Leonardo DiCaprio or something—god, I was such a loser. I wondered if Mollie remembered that and had told Sam; that would be embarrassing. It’s not like she didn’t used to call him and hang up or pretend she was a telemarketer just like the rest of us.

  The night charged on, bodies filled the pool, and Solo cups and beer cans littered my freshly manicured lawn. Boys did cannonballs, and I laughed and clapped and pretended it didn’t pain me to see Petunia, my blow-up pool dragon, defiled like that.

  After a few hours and a few more cups of vodka and shots of tequila than I could count, I started to feel a little spinny. I asked Drew, who had been following me around all night, to hold down the fort while I stole a minute upstairs.

  “You want company?” he asked.

  “No, no, you stay,” I said. I needed, like, ten minutes to fix my makeup and maybe puke. “I need to pee,” I told him.

  I turned to go inside, and Drew took my hand—I wasn’t sure a boy had ever held my hand before (not since nursery school anyway)—and pulled me in toward him. His hands were soft, almost like a girl’s. He didn’t tug or grab or pull me too hard or anything, just looked straight into my foggy eyes. I found myself uncomfortable, nervous, twitchy. I knew what to do with my breasts when they were stared at, but my face was an entirely different story. I knew I was sweaty and that my breath probably smelled like booze and cigarettes. Then, just as I was about to burst or possibly throw up on him, he kissed me. Not with tongue or force, just a soft peck on my lips, seemingly for no reason.

  “See you in a minute,” he said after that.

  I got sidetracked on my way upstairs, something with the lacrosse guys and Mollie being drunk and freaking out. I saw Alex and told her about the Drew kiss. She seemed excited about it, but honestly, this was around the point in the night where things got hazy.

  MOLLIE FINN

  Veronica’s party was already crawling with the usual cast of heathens and barnyard animals when we got there. Alex was holding court with the stoners on the patio, per usual. Veronica was flitting around in the most aggressively hookertastic neon yellow dress I’d ever seen, batting her tits and eyelashes at anyone who’d listen. Drunk kids sat on marble countertops and played quarters on glass coffee tables. If it were my house, I’d have been having chest palpitations, but Veronica didn’t seem to care—about anything, ever. She was having the best time of anyone, as always.

  I left Sam with his posse to get myself a drink and play nice with the senior girls who I knew hated me but kissed my ass because I was dating Sam. I knew I’d get drunk quickly, because I hadn’t eaten dinner. I never ate dinner on Fridays—Sam always got pizza with the team, so I told my parents I was eating with Sam and took the opportunity to skip a meal.

  I sat outside with Alex and the ganja mafia for a while and pretended to know about the songs and movies they were talking about. After an hour went by without a peep from Sam (which was always a matter of concern), I got up to find him.

  And lo and behold, where do I find him? In the foyer, at the center of a fiery mob flocking Veronica.

  “I swear they’re real!” she screamed, drunkenly fondling herself. She squeezed her overflowing tits together and then up toward her chin, then together, then up again. She raised one in her hand, then the other—like some sort of retarded titty line dance.

  “Dude,” said some nameless, pockmarked sophomore who I recognized from Sam’s team photos, “real ones don’t stay up like that. Just admit it!”

  Veronica took the kid’s hammy paw and placed it on her left breast. “Feel it!” she slurred. “Why would I lie?”

  The guys all chuckled and snorted, pawing and prodding, taking turns groping her and snapping iPhone pictures. She squealed like a pig in pretend protest. Next thing I knew, Sam’s hand shot out of the semicircle and grabbed a boob.

  “Not bad, Collins,” he said.

  From three feet away, I flung myself like a rabid squirrel into the feeding frenzy. Veronica just stood there, pigeon-toed and tongue out like a brain-dead basset hound, Sam squeezing her boob like a rubber fucking ducky.

  “What the hell?” I pushed Sam out of the herd. I yanked his arm away and pounded his biceps with my meager fist. “Get your fucking hands off my friend�
�s boobs!”

  “We’re just kidding around, babe. Chill.”

  “Yeah, chillllll out,” V said through a string of drool, rolling on her heels, clasping my arm for balance. Her yellow loincloth had begun to droop and was stained with beer and excess self-tanner. “We’re juss joking. Y’anna feel ’em, too? This guy said he’nt b’lieve me they were real. Tell ’em, Mollie, tell ’em. You’d know if I was lying.”

  And then I think I called her something to the effect of cum-guzzling crack whore, and there was a chorus of oooooohs from the lacrosse team, but I didn’t give a shit anymore. I ripped her off me and ran out the door.

  “Babe!” Sam screamed, and followed me outside, as I’d hoped he’d do. “We’re just fucking around.”

  Tears—drunk beer-flavored tears—started to fall. I knew I was being ridiculous, but I didn’t care, I couldn’t control it, and all I wanted was for Sam to feel bad that I felt bad and try to make me feel better.

  “It’s fucking embarrassing, Sam!” I sobbed. “Why do you always need to do shit like this? Why do you have to ruin everything?”

  I saw his eyes drift over my right shoulder.

  “Can I fucking help you?” he said.

  I turned around. Josh Holbrook stood behind me looking all pale and concerned, and Alex-like.

  “Mollie, are you okay?” He reached out for me tentatively, but I smacked his hand away, not wanting to provoke Sam.

  “I’m fine.” Sam’s attention was wavering—I needed to make a power move. “Can you take me home?” I pleaded with Sam, falling into Josh.

  I started to get woozy, see three of him, three of Sam, three of every car in the driveway, every bush on the lawn. I needed to get out of there. I was losing it, and I wanted Sam to notice. And care.

  “Are you serious?” Sam asked.

  “I’m really drunk.” I steadied myself and looked him dead in the eye.

  “Hell no, we’re not going home yet. It’s early.”

  My shoulders collapsed, and I started to sob again.

  “It’s okay,” Josh said. “I’ll take you.”

  Sam made a mock jerk-off splooge gesture and turned back inside.

  “Are you sure you’re okay? I don’t know why you let him treat you like that,” Josh said as we headed to his car.

  “I really don’t want to fucking hear about it,” I said. I didn’t. Because I knew.

  ALEXANDRA HOLBROOK

  It was a typical Veronica party scene, and I was having as good a time as I typically did. Ish. People came and went, swarmed and diffused around the pool and patio table, flowed in and out of the sliding glass doors, laughing and leaning ever so slightly more with each entry and exit. New kids, old kids, young kids, cackling, snorting, having the same conversations they had last week with the same people in new T-shirts. The beat was broken by an occasional splash or squeal; nervous girls and loud boys ebbed and flowed with every thump of the bass.

  I kept talking, kept drinking, and kept an eye on Drew and Veronica, who kept crawling in and out of my line of sight. He was wearing my favorite T-shirt, the blue Bucks County YMCA one, the blueberry-cream one that turns his eyes the color of an indoor swimming pool, the one he’d worn the night I fell off my bike at the shore and sprained my ankle, and he carried me piggyback the whole mile home—it smelled soft, like suntan lotion and Downy fabric softener.

  I kept my usual post on the patio for most of the night while Drew’s friends all talked at me about music, but it’s amazing how possible it is to appear fully engaged in a conversation while entirely absorbing every nauseatingly vapid remark from another one four feet away.

  Oh, Drew, who makes your shirt? I love it.…

  You throw the best parties, Veronica.…

  Fucking club me in the face with a rusty crowbar—it was like she learned how to flirt from eighties porn.

  I checked my phone to see if the boys from the band were coming. I wanted them to come as much as I didn’t. My intention in joining this band was to make a new world for myself, separate from the fascist regime of the threesome. On the one hand, maybe having those boys at this party would defeat the entire purpose of the venture, but on the other hand, I kind of wanted everyone to wonder who my new, cool, interesting friends were.

  I went inside to pee, only to be immediately poached by a half-keeled-over, half-dead-eyed Veronica. She yanked me into the black granite powder room with too many mirrors and a weird echo.

  “Drew and I made out!” she said.

  A faint, fading nooooooo… resounded from somewhere in the distant mine shafts of my mind. How had I let this happen? I feigned a smile as the blood drained from my face.

  “That’s awesome!” I said.

  Like a fist in my throat, choking me from the inside.

  Her usually wide sea-foam eyes were wet and pink. Her usually slick dark hair, fuzzy and tangled.

  She hugged me, her body coated in a moist film. “I don’t know what you said, but he’s, like, so adorbs. I love you!”

  And she stumbled out of the bathroom and was absorbed back into the party.

  I stood by the patio door just breathing for a minute, processing what I’d heard, wishing I could unhear it, wondering if I could pretend that I hadn’t. I stood for a moment while the party buzzed around me. Maybe two. Veronica was hammered—she’d probably mouth-raped Drew in a corner somewhere, and they’d both be embarrassed and awkward about it tomorrow. Maybe they’d gotten it out of their systems; maybe she’d have fucked a lacrosse player by the end of the night; it’d be fine. I kept breathing.

  When I got back outside, Fernando and the Farber twins were standing by my spot on the patio, each holding a thirty rack of Natty Light. To my surprise, I was relieved to see them.

  “This house is ridiculous!” said Ned, dropping the case on the terrace. Pete echoed the sentiment. I was starting to see how this Farber twin dynamic worked.

  “We need to hang out with private school chicks more often,” Fernando said.

  He was wearing a white linen shirt and ripped jeans, lighter wash than a Crawford boy’s, whose look was more khakis or corduroys, boat shoes, and belts with whales on them. He wasn’t wearing his beanie, and I hadn’t realized how long his hair was. His dark curls fell around his face—Mollie and Veronica would definitely think he was cute. I wondered if maybe I shouldn’t have brought them here, if Veronica was going to ruin this for me, too.

  I sat with them for the rest of the night. Smoked, drank, talked about music, the band, about how flattered I was that they let me in. I tried not to think about Drew’s tongue down Veronica’s throat or god knows what else down god knows where else. It was nice talking to the guys. It had been a long time since I’d met anyone new, had an opportunity to be seen as anything but what I, over the course of my sixteen years in Greencliff, had accidentally given people the impression that I was—to not be the chill one, the least cute one who smokes weed and talks music and holds her liquor. It was nice to just be me, alone, whoever that was, not within the context of the other two. I introduced them to Marc Seidman and the rest of Drew’s crew—naturally, the shared interest in pot and music united them instantly.

  Fernando poked my side. “We’re just psyched to have a hot, talented chick in the band, Alex.”

  I liked the way he inflected the exxxxx in my name. No one had ever called me hot before, at least not to my face, but I assumed not behind my back, either. Drew was nowhere in sight; I’d hoped maybe he’d heard it.

  “Totally,” said Ned, leaning over his furry forearms. “Just gotta get you to agree to sing at the show.”

  Pete nodded, puffed away at a blunt, and stared at the stars.

  “I told you, I don’t sing in public,” I said. “It was a big step for me to even do it in practice!”

  Eventually, Drew emerged from behind the glass doors looking lost. He walked out and stood over us.

  “Where have you been all night?” I asked. I smiled and tossed my hair, acting drunker and
dumber than I actually felt.

  “Inside,” he said.

  “Drew, this is Ned, Pete, and Fernando. The guys from my new band. What are we called again? Adios Pantalones?”

  “No!” Fernando said. “No, that was our old name. We’re a new band now that you’re here. Now we’re the Cunning Runts, remember?” We all broke down in hysterics.

  “We’re between names at the moment,” I said with a hint of a giggle—hoping Drew would see that he wasn’t the only boy who’d ever made me laugh.

  He shook their hands in that sincere way that guys do, still hovering over us, uncomfortably realizing he had nowhere to sit.

  “The Cunning Runts,” he said. “Clever.”

  I tried to gauge his reaction. Was he jealous? Happy for me? Was he looking for Veronica? And where was Veronica if not with him? I hadn’t seen her in hours.

  Drew put his hand on my shoulder, sending a chill up my arm.

  “It’s almost eleven thirty.”

  “Fuck,” I said, looking at my watch. “Why am I the only person who still has a curfew?”

  “Do you need a ride home? I can drive you,” Fernando offered.

  “It’s cool. I’m going her way anyway,” Drew said without pause. “Was great to meet you guys. I can’t wait to hear you play.”

  I stood up and looked at Fernando, then over to the twins, then back to Fernando, who sat back with his wide grin and wily brown eyes. I couldn’t tell if the grin was directed at me or if it was just a general oblivious, drunken grin.

  “Definitely, dude,” Fernando said to Drew. “Your girl’s gonna make us rock stars.”

  “I bet,” he replied.

  We said our good-byes, and I thanked the boys for coming. Told them I’d see them the next day at practice.

  We drove along Blackrock Road in silence, the dark tree-lined streets and curves of the road swaying me into a half-drunk half sleep. The glowing green car clock read 11:48.

  “Fuck, I’m totally going to be late,” I moaned.

  “Chill out. You’ll be home in ten minutes.”