Bittersweet Sixteen

by Carrie Karasyov

  After a Sunday split between studying and worrying about Sophie and Whitney, the dread buzzer sounded: my Monday-morning alarm clock. After I hauled my carcass out of bed and onto the 5 train, I noticed I had a few minutes and enough change to splurge on a double espresso to get my brain working. I walked past Tate up to Yura Café, home of three-buck muffins and four-smack mochaccinos, where yummy mummies and their perfectly preened tots waited in a snaking line for warm pains au chocolat and freshly squeezed juices. Through the giant, recently Windexed vitrine, I was stunned to see Whitney and Sophie holding mugs and sharing a croissant. As I pulled the door open I had a wave of hurt slash fear slash anger; it was like when you’re running down the stairs and you skip a step and think you’re gonna fall splat into an X. It was a stomach-pit feeling like that.

  I entered and just stared, as if after a gazillion stalkerish voice mails they were just ghosts in front of me.

  “You guys?” I asked, clearly in wounded-deer mode.

  “Laura!” Sophie squealed, getting up to give me a hug. “How art thou?”

  “Where the hell have you guys been?” I demanded, looking mostly at Whitney.

  “I’m so sorry, Laura,” my supposed best friend replied. “I heard all your messages after we got in late last night. I didn’t want to wake your fam and you don’t have a cell, so—”

  “What?” Now the limping Bambi was gone and I was a full-on writhing lioness. “I have been beside myself freaking out! Back from where?”

  “It was totally sponty,” said Sophie. “We took Friday off to go to Holland to look at flowers for the party.”

  “You what?” I was too stunned to even blink. “You flew to Europe?”

  “Yeah,” Whitney added. “It really was spur of the moment.”

  “You could have told me. I was worried sick. Literally.”

  “Sophie’s father was shooting a film there and they had the jet, like, fueled and ready, it was so quick,” Whitney said.

  “Oh, and I suppose there was only room for two where you stayed,” I said sarcastically. But Whitney and Sophie clearly didn’t understand sarcasm.

  “Oh no, we stayed in this amazing villa,” said Whitney.

  “And we looove the hybrid Dutch tulips we found! This nice farmer dude is gonna grow them custom!”

  A feather could have knocked my ass over. Holland? For flowers? I couldn’t bring myself to exhale I was so wound up. “Leaving a two-second message would have been nice,” I said angrily.

  “Come on, don’t be mad,” Whitney said.

  “I’m sorry, Laura! We so didn’t mean to exclude you,” said Sophie, giving me a hug. I looked over her shoulder at Whitney, who was casually picking up her book bag, looking like she didn’t have a hint of real remorse.

  “Whatever, I’m over it,” I lied. I was so pissed I almost burst a blood vessel. But I didn’t want them to see me sweat. “I have to go. We’re going to be late for homeroom.”

  I walked briskly back to school, and Sophie started running to keep up with me. I could tell she felt bad.

  “Don’t be mad, Laura. We really didn’t want to offend you. It was all so last minute,” she said imploringly.

  I continued walking and wondered why it was Sophie who was making all the make-up effort and not Whitney. In fact, Whitney was taking her sweet time walking behind us and blowing on her latte so that it would cool down.

  “Oh! Laura,” Sophie said, opening up her Michael Kors satchel. “We brought you back a present.”

  “Thanks, guys. But I can’t, like, be bought off with gifts. It still was majorly uncool of you to do that to me.”

  “Come on,” said Sophie, grabbing my arm so that I would stop walking. “We so are not trying to ‘buy you off,’” she said with finger quotes. “We were at the Van Gogh Museum, and we just know you love Vinnie Van G.”

  “You’re going to love this,” said Whitney, catching up to us. “Come on, forgive me?” she asked, batting her lashes as if to say Pretty please?

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You’re right, we suck, but we still want to be your best friend,” pleaded Sophie.

  “And we love you to death. Please forgive us,” added Whitney.

  I sighed. I was really pissed off, but what could I do? I could just continue pouting, but there was really no point. With all this party stuff it was like aliens had seized Whitney’s and Sophie’s brains and allowed them to think of nothing else. They were being totally exclusive, totally inconsiderate, and totally lame, but I could only hope that when these parties were over they would return to their human selves. I promised myself to be more wary of them, to keep more of a distance, but ultimately I had to move on for now.

  I opened the box to find a book of paintings along with a key chain of a plastic ear. Okay, I had to grin. “They weren’t selling these severed ears at the museum, were they?”

  “No.” Whitney laughed. “That part was from the street vendor outside. How hilar?”

  “Very.” I smiled, but slightly. It was nice to bring a gift, but I wasn’t totally letting my guard down just yet.

  That night over dinner my parents saw I was being very quiet. I was having a movie montage in my head of flashes of Sophie and Whitney’s bonding—shopping at Club Monaco, getting manicures at Trevi Nails, planning the rager. I knew my third-wheel status had shifted into high gear.

  “Threesomes are very tricky,” my dad said. “Allegiances shift constantly. But trust me, it will blow over.”

  “I know I have no right to assume I could jet to Europe at the drop of a hat. I just feel…very left out. Ugh, this is so third grade of me! I am pathetic.”

  “No, you’re not!” said my mom, putting her arm around me. “This is human nature. And Dad’s right. It will all pass.”

  “Meanwhile,” said my dad, changing the subject. “Honey, tell Laura about those little disposable Polaroid cameras you found!”

  “Oh, yes! We found these wonderful little cameras for your Sweet Sixteen! They make these tiny instant pictures!”

  “Sophie and Whitney are having, like, more than two thousand of those at their party,” I said.

  “Two thousand cameras?” said my mom, incredulous. “I’d hate to organize that photo album.”

  “I’m sure they’re hiring a staff to do it for them. They’re hardly sitting there with glue sticks.” I put down my fork. “You guys, I am so sick of these parties. I don’t even want one anymore.”

  “Why wouldn’t you want a party?” my dad asked, his voice filled with concern.

  “We’ll get the table in the window. It’ll be great,” said my mom, trying to get me excited.

  “I feel like everyone’s staging these huge crazy elaborate events. What’s the point of my even having one when no one will remember it?”

  “Honey,” my dad said, leaning in. “Do you make memories for yourself or for others?”

  “Dad, I really don’t want a lecture.”

  “Extravagant scenery and luxuriance do not make for more colorful recollections,” my mom added.

  “Maybe not in your world, but in my world they do.”

  “Are we orbiting in such different worlds, Laura?” my dad asked.

  I felt the blood rising up in my veins. “All my friends get everything their hearts desire! Every shiny new watch, every beautiful dress on Madison Avenue—”

  “Your clothes are much more beautiful, honey,” my mom said.

  “You have a unique style,” my dad added.

  “I am tired of making all my own clothes.”

  “But you always look stunning!” my dad said.

  “It doesn’t matter! Listen. You knew the lion’s den you were sending me into when you enrolled me at Tate. You had to know that keeping up with the Joneses would be impossible. And guess what? It is!” I felt tears burning their way to my retinas as I retreated to my room. I hated being an ingrate and making my parents feel bad, but I also hated being some pitiful scholarship case the gym teacher b
onds with over being poor. A little while later I heard the phone ring. “Oh, yes, one moment, she’s just in her room.”

  My dad popped his head in the door.

  “Laura—”

  “Is it Whitney? Tell her I’m busy.”

  “No, sweetheart, it’s Jake.”

  His name was a sudden balm on my emotionally weary bones. “Okay, thanks, Dad.”

  I picked up and weirdly got nervy. “Jake?”

  “Hey, Finnegan.” Geez, his voice was hot.

  “How are you?”

  “Oh, just okay. Crazy day at school, blah blah blah.” Why could he make even the most mundane blabber sound sexy? “So, Finnegan”—why was I oddly obsessed with the way he said my last name? I mean, so asexual and stuff, but hot nevertheless—“why was the whole Bowlmor shindig called off? I got the message from Whitney and Sophie like an hour before.”

  What? They called Jake from Holland to neg and still didn’t even call me? I felt all the color drain from my face. I couldn’t believe it. They made it sound like it was impossible to get to a long-distance phone line and yet they had easily found one to get to their object of affection. I gulped and put on a fake chipper voice. “Well, you’re lucky you got any heads-up! I was kicking it solo with all these pins falling around my loner ass.”

  “No one called you to say it was canceled?” He sounded surprised. “Lame. I called Max and Bobby, but I figured you of all people already knew. What was their reason, anyway? They said they were out of town.”

  “Yeah. Just ever so slightly ‘out of town.’ Try over the border, across the ocean.”

  “What?”

  “Yup. Holland. Europe. The continent.”

  “No.”

  “They didn’t tell me; they just disappeared, milk carton style.” Just thinking about it made my blood boil.

  “Dude, that sucks. And of course you were probably stressing that they went AWOL.”

  “Coronary. I thought they were fully incarcerated post–San Gennaro and were doing time for sneaking out. Little did I know they were selecting custom hybrids for their Sweet Sixteen centerpieces.”

  “Listen, I know you guys get all jazzed up about this birthday crap, but who cares?”

  “I don’t know, it’s just, like…the thing people are obsessed with this year. Mine’s totally going to be lame, but whatevs.”

  “Don’t sweat it, Finnegan. I’m sure it’ll be a blast.”

  “We shall see.”

  “Speaking of which, are you going to Lilly McCracken’s party on Friday?” he asked.

  “Yes, I’ll be there. I heard she’s having giant chili peppers on stilts and fire-eaters.”

  “Well, she is the hot sauce heiress,” he said, laughing.

  “Isn’t it so funny they make gazillions off one product that makes people’s tongues burn off?”

  “Absolutely. It’s all crazy. You are one of the few sane ones.”

  The pigeon was in my tummy again. What did he mean by that? “Well, I’ll see you at the hot sauce rager then.”

  “Sleep tight, Finnegan.”

  Ah, there it was again—my last name sounded so…sexy coming out of his mouth. But I couldn’t let myself be lulled into Jake fantasies. I had a mission. I picked up the phone and called Whitney and totally launched into her when she answered.

  “I can’t believe you called Jake from Holland and didn’t call me. Really, Whitney, besides the fact that you totally hurt my feelings, you also lied to me, excluded me, ditched me, and were completely lame. I am really disgusted by your behavior,” I said, pausing for a second to get my breath.

  I could tell I had caught Whitney off guard and she had no idea what to say. “It’s not like that, Laura…,” she began defensively. Lovely, I couldn’t wait to hear this. But suddenly she switched gears. “You’re right. It was so lame of me, and Sophie, but more lame of me because I am your best friend. I really have no excuse.”

  I wasn’t expecting that, but I didn’t want to let her off the hook. “So, what, I, like, don’t even merit a phone call in your eyes?” I asked angrily.

  “You do, you totally do,” she said quietly. “I don’t know, Laura, I guess I just got really swept up in this whole offer of Sophie’s to go to Europe, and I’ve been totally obsessing about my party and I guess I’ve gotten a little competitive with her. I didn’t want her to go to Holland without me, and I knew we had to decide quickly, and then I didn’t want to blow it with Jake so that she could snake in there, because let’s face it, she’s going to go after him. And I know I could have e-mailed or called you, but it just got so busy so fast, and I’m sorry.”

  I paused. I knew Whitney was being sincere, but I couldn’t help but think that the abyss between us was widening a little. Pre-Sophie, Whitney would never have done this. And even though she admitted to being “swept up” in everything, if she was aware of that, why didn’t she try to avoid doing it?

  “Okay, whatever, I’m tired and we’ll talk tomorrow,” I said, suddenly exhausted and unable to think about this anymore.

  “Okay, see you tomorrow,” she said.

  When we hung up I sat on the edge of my bed stroking Buster’s tummy. What we had done right now was merely put a Band-Aid on our friendship, just a temporary patch that would not help the wound to heal. In fact, our relationship was starting to cry out for surgery.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I had residual hurt feelings about my whole Laura-in-the-dust paranoia, but I decided to shove my anger under the antique oriental, pretend all was peachy, and try to have a good time. I arrived at Whitney’s house, where Sophie, Ava, Kaitlin, and I had all arranged to get ready for Lilly’s shindig. Second only to Piper Sorenson’s Dead Presidents bash that summer in the U.S. Mint building (her great-great-great-grandfather invented the way money is printed as we know it) and Electra Firestein’s Denim ’n’ Diamonds party (her family controlled the biggest blue jeans production factory in the world, which sold their fabric to, like, every designer in the Barneys jeans bar), Lilly’s party was poised to be the blowout of the year. So far, at least. A limo was waiting outside, and Sophie’s mom’s soap-star friend’s makeup artist was over to do our faces. I actually opted out—I always felt too self-conscious and drag queen–ish when I wore makeup. I went au naturel except for a little self-applied smoky gray eye shadow and sheer lip gloss.

  As Whitney was lying back getting her face dabbed with a powder puff in her mom’s room, the rest of us were zipping up our gowns and angling for viewage in the three-way mirror.

  “I am clinically obese,” moaned a stick-thin Kaitlin. “Max is going to FedEx my ass to Jenny Craig.”

  “I am a full-on heifer,” bitched Ava. “Somebody please brand and filet my ass and send me to Lobel’s Butcher Shop. I am enormissima!”

  “Oh no, here it goes, the nightly cellulite squeeze. You guys, please can it! You are stunning!” I protested.

  “Come on, Laura, we can’t all be naturally as svelte and fashion savvy and chic sans makeup as you are,” said Kaitlin, putting on even more mascara. “You’re like so easy low maintenance. Some of us have to work at it, yo.”

  “Oh, please.”

  “You look sooo great, Laura,” said Sophie, glancing at me.

  “Thanks, Sophie. I love your dress.”

  “Listen,” she said, her voice lowering so Ava and Kaitlin couldn’t hear. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

  “Sure.” I followed her into Whitney’s dressing room.

  “Laura, I want you to know I am just eaten up about the whole Amsterdam field trip. I feel terrible.”

  I tensed now that the subject had been brought up, but then exhaled; I was glad she was feeling remorse.

  Sophie looked to the doorway and continued in a whisper. “I feel awful because I knew we should have phoned you. I asked Whitney if we could call and invite you to come with us and she said not to.”

  “What?” I felt a crossbow hit my gut.

  “She said you’re not int
o glitzy stuff like that and that it should just be the two of us. I feel heinous and evil, and I just want you to know I would never come in the middle of you guys. You were so invited and always will be. It’ll never happen again.”

  I looked into Sophie’s blue eyes and knew she was telling the upsetting truth. Somewhere deep down in my marrow I knew Whitney had been distancing herself from my un-glam self. Clearly my lack of a private jet and famous friends and fancy parents was not as alluring as the company she’d been keeping with the Mitchums. And it broke my heart.

  “It’s okay, Sophie,” I said, my voice almost cracking. I was touched by her honesty. I gave her a hug and we went back in the bedroom, but I was nervous to see Whitney now that I knew she’d tried to keep me out of their new dynamic duo.

  Whitney soon made her grand entrance—she had maneuvered it to get her makeup done last so it was the freshest—and she did look beautiful. But I felt ill watching her preen so cockily.

  “I think tonight’s the night, girls,” she pronounced, flipping her hair in front of a Venetian mirror.

  “For what?” Sophie asked.

  “I think I’ll finally lock lips with Jake,” Whitney said mischievously, purposefully not looking at Sophie.

  The second punch in the stomach of the evening. My heart started racing. Although I knew, of course, this moment was bound to happen, I suddenly couldn’t bear the thought of Whitney and Jake together.

  “I am so kind of scoping out Bobby,” said Ava. “Is he too male slut, though?”

  “Hellooo,” said Kaitlin. “Ava, he’s laid more pipe than Con Edison. Total player.”

  Funny, Kaitlin was always the one to call out other people’s sexual activity, even though she was more active than the rest of us.

  “We should go, you guys,” I said. “It’s, like, past fashionably late.” At this point, after finding out about the betrayal of my best friend and that she was moments from macking with Jake, I just wanted to get the whole eve over with.

  As the limo pulled up to the Intrepid, we saw fireworks exploding overhead on the water. The Hudson River rippled with the cold wind, and the lights from a half-mill display of fireworks lit up the night sky and water below. On board, the name LILLY was spelled out in lightbulbs that flashed in concert with the DJ’s music on a turntable sound system that rivaled any major club’s. Waiters on Razor scooters came by with mini-hot-sauce-infused pizzas while jugglers, fire-eaters, dancers, performance artists, and caricaturists lined the decks.