Other kids eddied around them, eating chips and laughing, but mostly drinking. Jessie Turner and Zeke Masey stood together in a corner kissing. His hand gripped her thigh, just below the curve of her butt and both of Jessie’s arms were wrapped around his shoulders. They were into it. Nuzzling and kneading with their fingers. Even from there Emily saw the flick of their tongues. She couldn’t look away.
“They need to get a room, eh?” said a male voice.
Emily turned and found she had to tilt her head up. He stood a good four inches taller than she did, had bushy black hair, a wide, horsey jaw and eyes so sunken she couldn’t tell if they were blue, brown, or some color in between.
“Yeah,” she said. She whirled the dregs of her beer around her cup, as if she were tasting wine and holding a fragile stemmed glass.
“Talk about PDA,” he said.
“It’s a little over the top.”
He shook his head and took a long swallow of beer. “How do you know Bleak?”
“Oh, Jason? I just … he goes to my school. We were invited by one of his friends.”
“That’s okay. I’m sure most of the people here don’t even know who lives in the house. I’m Sam, by the way.”
“Emily.”
“It’s nice to talk to someone who’s not, you know, a midget.”
“Yeah,” she said.
The music thumped so loudly she could hardly hear him. She had to lean in when he spoke and his breath was warm across her ear.
“Bleak and I have known each other since we were this big.” He lowered his hand to toddler height. “Well, maybe I was up here.” He raised his palm. “My sister’s about five eleven, six foot. Same as you?”
She nodded, a little self-conscious of Sam’s and her combined stature. She imagined people looking over and thinking, Of course those two are talking. Of course. She asked, “What does she think of it?”
“Oh, she digs it! She plays basketball, volleyball, goes out for track. The whole deal. So it’s a huge advantage for her.”
“Like my sister,” she mumbled. Why didn’t she care more about sports? It would make her life so much easier if she were coordinated, fast, aggressive.
“So,” he said. “Cannon High, then. You love it?”
Emily shrugged, “It’s … just … classrooms and lockers and a bunch of kids. Some mean, some nice.”
“None in between?”
“Probably,” she said. “Me, I guess.” She looked over at Trix, hoping she was done with the blond/hazel guy. But, not only was Trix not done, she’d slipped further into the shadows and was gazing up at him adoringly, nodding at everything he said.
“That your friend?” Sam asked.
She nodded.
“Looks like she’s gonna hook up.”
Emily swallowed hard. She glimpsed Jessie and Zeke again, still groping in the corner. A thought flashed through her mind. Hadn’t Ryan McElvoy dated Jessie for a while?
The site of her with Zeke now made Emily queasy. Was this what always happened at these parties? Was the main goal to get drunk and stagger around looking for something to make out with?
She regretted agreeing to leave Trix’s house that night, regretted hopping on the 358 and taking it over to Wallingford.
She said to Sam, “I’m sorry, I’m just—”
“Hormonal?” he said and laughed, a machine gun ra-ha-ha that set Emily’s teeth on edge.
“I was going to say tired.”
“Oh, right.” He laughed again.
And a little envious and a little disappointed that you’re not someone else. And yes, tired too, she thought.
“Hey, need another beer?” he asked.
“I think I’ve had my fill.” She turned and took a step away from him. “It was nice to meet you though.”
“Wait,” he sputtered, still having to shout over the music. “Mind if I call you some time? It’s not often I meet girls I can see eye to eye with.”
She was both flattered (it wasn’t every day, or EVER, that a guy wanted her phone number) and bummed (that the guy who wanted her phone number was condescending and kind of ugly).
She considered giving him a wrong number, a trick Trix sometimes pulled. Or she could take the high road and say No thank you, or maybe lie about some imaginary boyfriend, but in the end, she didn’t know how to reject him to his face and said, “Sure, I guess.”
“Well, don’t act so excited,” he said. But he didn’t seem flustered. He whipped out his cell phone. “Okay,” he said. “What is it?”
As Emily rattled off the numbers, he punched them in.
She said, “Well, I think I’ll head out. Past my bedtime.” She turned to Trix and hissed into her ear, “I’m ready whenever you are.”
Trix poked her in the ribs and said, “Silly girl.”
“Seriously,” Emily said. “This isn’t really my scene.”
Trix looked at her then, “Your scene? What are you? From the ‘70s?”
“I just want to go, okay?”
Scowling, Trix said, “Well, you might want to go, but I don’t.” She wanted Ryan to see her with this guy and think, Who’s Trix Jones talking to? Maybe it should be me.
“Okay, I’ll get back myself.” Emily spun and tried to push her way toward the door. Wherever the door was.
She’d made it through two rooms when she stopped in a promising-looking hallway. Dead in front of Ryan.
He had no beer. Both hands, in fact, were buried in his pockets. “Hey, Lean Bean,” he said, a small smile playing on his lips. “You made it.”
The party was still rollicking around her. She knew that, but the noise and laughter faded away, like school-play scenery that had been pushed off stage to make room for the next act. The act in which Emily realized she liked Ryan McElvoy. A lot.
“Yeah,” she said. “But we’re … Trix is … I’m on my way out.”
“No fun to be had here?” he said.
Against her will, she felt herself smile. “I’ve had my fun. And now I’m finished.”
His eyes were incredibly blue. She thought of the book they’d read in English last year, The Bluest Eye. The Bluest Eyes.
“How are you getting home?” he asked.
“Bus.”
“Alone?”
“That’s the plan.”
He said, “I’ll walk with you to the stop.”
“You don’t have to. Really … I mean, who’s going to mess with me?”
He laughed and jerked his head toward the door. “You might be surprised. Let’s go.”
Fog had descended, casting Wallingford in a gray shroud, streaked by the glow of yellow streetlights.
The footfalls of Emily’s All Stars and of his leather shoes echoed as they walked.
He said, “You don’t strike me as a partier.”
“I don’t?” She didn’t know if she should feel offended or complimented. But just the fact that he’d formed an opinion about her partying likelihood sent a chill up her spine.
He shook his head. “You don’t seem like you need to drink to … have a good time … or to be, you know, cool with yourself.”
It was Emily’s turn to say, “You might be surprised.” Being okay with herself was something that seemed entirely out of reach right then.
The bus stop was three blocks away and they went most of the distance talking about stupid stuff: classes and homework and the drunken idiots back at the party.
Just as they came to the covered bench, which had been tagged in red spray paint, she asked, “What about you? Are you the type to get smashed often?” She honestly didn’t know. He didn’t seem to have a reputation either way.
He shrugged. “Have I ever? Yes. Do I make a habit of it? No.”
Moving closer to the yellow sign marked 358, he said, “Thanks for not being stupid.”
“What do you mean?”
“Thanks for letting me walk you. Bad things can happen to girls by themselves at night.”
Emily laughed. Yo
u’re not stupid might’ve passed as flattery in third grade, but now it was kind of lame. Still, Ryan was cute and it had been nice of him to watch out for her. “I guess.”
“Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” He did this thing where he stuck out his jaw and rubbed his stubbly chin.
It occurred to her that he had to shave. Guys her age fell into two camps: those who shaved and those few stragglers who didn’t need to yet. That he fell into the first group thrilled Emily.
He stopped on the curb, underneath the bus sign.
“You don’t have to wait,” she said.
He looked at her then and their eyes locked. Her browns and his gleaming blues. “Now why would I walk you all the way here and not wait with you?”
“I don’t know, I just thought—”
“Well stop thinking,” he said. He took a step closer. She could smell his breath, some miasma of mint and boy.
She swallowed hard.
Just then the bus’s brakes let loose with a hydraulic squeal.
Damn.
She glanced at the driver, an androgynous character in the standard issue navy uniform, then back at Ryan. “Well … thanks,” she said.
Quietly (regretfully?) he lowered his lids and said, “No worries.”
She fished her metro pass from her bag and got on. As she moved down the aisle, the bus jerking forward, she saw Ryan turn and walk back toward Jason Bleak’s house, hands still in his pockets and head down.
Had he been about to kiss her? Had she been about to kiss him? She hoped beyond hope they’d find their way to a moment like that again. Because she wanted to see it through.
9. Tryst
TRIX WAS ON her fourth beer and Devlin was being so nice. He fetched her a new drink whenever she wanted one, talked to only her in their little corner, and rubbed her back with his knuckles. She felt taken care of. Warm. Wanted.
The rest of the party was a blur around them. All color and noise, nothing that mattered except that its existence allowed this pocket in which Trix and Devlin could chat and steal the occasional kiss.
“You want to go somewhere quieter, so we can talk better?” he asked.
Trix loved that idea. Her voice was hoarse from shouting over the music and she was tired of getting body slammed by drunken kids. “Let’s go,” she yelled.
Devlin took her hand and they weaved through the crowd to a small, dark room with a washer and dryer, ironing board, and furnace. Well, she thought, it’s not the most comfy place in the house, but at least it’s private.
He led her to a pile of blankets and spread them out into a little nest. Then he wrapped his arm around her and they listened to the muffled music. She thought she could stay there forever, his hand draped over her shoulder, the side of her body smashed up along the side of his, both with fresh beers.
“I really like you,” he said.
“So I gathered,” Trix quipped. Wait. No. She was going to drop the sarcastic shtick and try to really talk to this guy. “I mean, thanks,” she said. She couldn’t bring herself to say, I really like you, too, but she did run her hand along his thigh. These moments with other guys helped her forget about everything else. And Ryan? He was a distant speck right then.
Devlin leaned forward and kissed her. A real kiss.
When he pulled back, he said, “I have something to ask you.”
“Yeah? What?” Trix just wanted to keep kissing him.
“Will you be my girlfriend?” He gazed at her, his head cocked.
And it was that, the tilt of his head, just a degree or two too far, that caused something in Trix’s brain to flicker: he’s full of it. He just wants to get in my pants.
But she was enjoying the closeness and the making out and the clean smell of detergent. “Are you serious?” she asked.
“Of course. Dead serious.”
“We just met.”
“I know, but we have a connection. We’re, like, completely hooking up on this whole other level.” He used his hands to demonstrate a higher plane. “I mean, most kids our age are way down here, but we’re linking way up here.”
Despite her doubts, she wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe him more than she’d ever wanted anything.
He continued, “I mean, I want your body. But I love what’s up here, too.” He began massaging her temples. And Trix’s brain melted until she was nothing but a shell descending on Devlin, pulling his mouth toward hers.
A few voices still whispered and cackled. A cold draft swept across the laundry room floor and wreathed Trix’s body.
Devlin snored on the pile of blankets.
She sat next to him, naked and hugging her knees. She wondered if she should sneak out and let him sleep. But, no. She wanted Devlin to acknowledge what had happened. Leaving would make it too easy for him.
She nudged his ribs.
Mid-snore, he jerked upright. “Man,” he said. He stretched. He scratched his scalp. “What time is it?”
Checking her crappy cell phone, Trix said, “Two-oh-seven.”
“Wow, I gotta go.”
That wasn’t the response she’d been hoping for. She wanted more kissing, more hugging, more of, “I want your body. But I love what’s up here, too”.
She’d known, though, that after the fact, she wouldn’t get those words. She’d seen the pickup line as if it had been a prompt he read off a cue card, and she’d wanted him anyway.
He stood and held out a hand to help Trix up. This cheered her briefly. Until, still holding her hand, he began to shake it as if they’d just concluded a business meeting. “Hey, thanks,” he said.
She bit her lip and looked toward the dryer with its gaping circular mouth. “Yeah, sure.”
“It was fun. I mean it. Serious fun.”
Nothing about being his girlfriend. Of course.
She was never convinced that guys who made promises about future relationships meant them, but she liked to think, at least for a couple hours, that she was lovable.
Big deal, she told herself. It was just sex. Just body parts. Apparently this was how the world worked, and she might as well get used to it.
Devlin gave her a last wave and left her there, surrounded by bottles of Tide and boxes of Bounce. Scorned by the snug accouterments of a functioning family home.
She’d wait a few minutes before she followed him out.
As she stood there in the dark, her brain reeled. Devlin had been her seventh guy. Or was he her eighth? God. And Emily was still a virgin. How had her best friend managed that?
And how did Trix and Emily happen to be best friends? It seemed that they were diverging down different paths—Trix careening into adulthood and Emily on this lateral, moving sidewalk. But then, Trix really shouldn’t criticize Emily’s failure to evolve. Ryan McElvoy was paying more attention to Emily than to her, wasn’t he?
The ants came back, scampering all over her inner thighs and down her calves. Trix thought she might go insane trying to scratch them off.
10. Hostility
THE NEXT MORNING Emily’s dad woke her by rapping her doorframe and belting, “Up!” He did not believe in lazy mornings.
She stood and pulled a sweatshirt over the Top Pot Doughnut t-shirt she slept in. She couldn’t wait until she was in college and could sleep as late as she wanted on weekends.
As she was brushing her teeth in the bathroom that connected her room and Kristen’s, her cell phone buzzed.
A text from Trix.
WHR DID U GO LST NGHT?
Emily typed in: HOME! Duh.
She washed her face and went downstairs. She was the only one in the house who drank caffeinated coffee, so she made herself a cup with the French press.
“Want some steel cut oatmeal?” Melissa asked from where she stood at the stove. “I put flax seeds in. Add a little kefir and mmm.”
“Is that supposed to tempt me?” Emily sat at the table with her creamy coffee. “How about some Bisquick waffles? A few slices of bacon?”
&nbs
p; “Oh, Emily,” Melissa said. “That stuff’s horrible for you. A growing girl needs her steel cut and her kefir.”
“I don’t want to grow anymore, thanks anyway.”
“Right.” Melissa caught her lip between her front teeth. She used a wooden spoon to scrape the sides of a pot.
From outside came the lawn mower’s drone. Emily peeked out the window and saw her dad pushing it angrily back and forth across their wide yard.
Part of what made Emily’s extreme height seem so unfair was that no one else in her family was especially tall. Her dad had stopped just short of five nine. And Kristen was average. So Emily had to skulk around being a cypress tree, all alone. The closest any other girl in school came was Jessie Turner, who was somewhere around five ten, with milky blond hair and amazing bone structure. And an apparent ability to draw guys like flies to honey.
Emily’s mom lingered in the kitchen like an apparition. Emily would’ve liked a mom to talk to, one who would wake her up sweetly in the morning with a gentle brushing aside of her curtains, and who would understand the challenges that came from being a tall girl.
The story of how her mother had left was family lore now, The Unraveling of Marilyn Wozniak Lucas. She took money from the bank account, painted stars all over the station wagon, and stocked up on this Guatemalan tea sold at her favorite food co-op. (They were able to figure out this part of the puzzle because another mom had seen her that morning.) Still, Bob Lucas didn’t catch on.
On a misty Monday morning, she drove away while Emily’s dad was at work and Emily and Kristen, four and five, were with a babysitter.
Emily could remember only dark snippets of what happened next. Her father arriving home in the middle of the afternoon and making lots of phone calls. A police officer showing up, looking so big and official standing in their doorway, scribbling in his notepad. Kristen holding her hand tightly as they sat on the swings in the backyard, waiting to find out what had happened to their mom.
The answer they needed never came. Confusing days passed during which Emily and Kristen were shuffled to different neighbors. Casseroles and quiches filled the refrigerator. Kristen’s first grade teacher even took them both out for ice cream.
Spectacle (A Young Adult Novel) Page 4
