by Ariel Kaplan
Which was all very good—we planned it for Thursday, to take advantage of the teacher workday on Friday—right until Sophie called me that night and told me her parents were having a dinner party on Thursday and we couldn’t use her house after all.
So things were not off to a great start. After I left Dr. Pascal’s, I’d spent the afternoon calling every county-owned facility I could think of—down to the horse barn at Frying Pan Park—but they were all booked solid, and anyplace else was going to be too expensive. It was beginning to look like the party was not going to happen
* * *
—
Greg called me later that night. It was a little disconcerting, because I hadn’t realized he actually had my number.
“Hey,” I said. I was on the couch with Sebastian, who was reading my father’s dog-eared copy of Dune. I was doing a Latin translation on the coffee table next to some giant Lego structure that Kit had made that afternoon and left out for us to admire. “Hi. Greg.”
“Good news,” Greg said. “I called the community center.”
“Which one? I already called Fairfax, Oak Mill, and McLean. They’re all booked. I honestly don’t know what we’re going to do.”
“You’re right—they’re booked. But I dug a little further and found out the Oak Mill one is booked for a birthday party for a six-year-old. The atrium’s rented from five until 11:30 because that’s how they rent it out, but they’re only actually using it until seven.”
“Until seven,” I repeated. Walnut kept trying to sit on my Latin, and I scribbled out a second page of decoy homework for him to sit on, pushing him onto the fake. He gave me a grumpy look, as if only a real Ovid translation would do for being under his sanctified cat butt.
Greg said, “Right. So I talked to the mom, and she said we could have the room from seven on as long as we agree to do all the cleanup afterward, and we don’t even have to pay for it. The only downside is that we have to redecorate the room.”
“But that’ll take forever.”
“Yeah, I know, but it’s a free big room. I don’t think we’re going to do any better than that.”
I exhaled loudly, popping the head on and off one of Kit’s Lego people.
“Yesss?” Greg drawled.
“It’s just…it’s a weeknight party at the community center. It’s not exactly what I was hoping for. I really wish we could have done it at Sophie’s.”
“Yeah, I know, but it’s what we have.”
“Nobody’s going to show up.”
“The crew team’ll show up.”
“Nobody else will show up.”
“So we need a hook.”
“A hook? They’re not going to let us have alcohol, and we can’t afford a band or anything.” Walnut had abandoned the decoy homework for Ovid, and I put him down on the floor, where he batted at my ankle.
“What about a DJ?”
“That either,” I said.
“Doesn’t have to be a real one,” he said.
Walnut jumped back up on the table and knocked Kit’s Lego house—I think it was a house—onto the floor, where it smashed.
“Damn,” I said.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I said, trying to get the pieces back on the table. Sebastian, who had put his book down, picked up part of a roof and set it on top of my homework; Walnut had already batted the Lego head under the couch. “You want to get a fake DJ?”
“No, like, it can be a real person. We just have to embellish his credentials a little. You know anybody who can actually do it?”
I thought for a minute while I attempted to rebuild Kit’s house. Sebastian shook his head at my effort and took the four-by-four piece out of my hand and replaced it with a one-by-eight, which I stacked around the periphery of the base. “Celia Cardon rows JV. She’s always bragging about how she used to spin at parties when she lived in Annapolis, but I’m not sure it’s true.”
“Good enough,” he said. “Text her and see if she’ll do it.”
I did, while Sebastian worked on a dormer window.
“She’s in,” I reported back after we’d talked. “I hope she actually knows how. She’s the only senior who hasn’t moved up to varsity.”
A few minutes later, Greg texted me an e-flyer advertising the party. FEATURING DJ CELIA, it said. Winner of this year’s Montgomery Lights Mix festival!
Does that even exist? I asked.
It does not! he replied.
I had no idea you were such an accomplished liar, I said.
I’m not averse to bending the truth for the greater good, he said. There’s one problem. I just talked to the mom who was throwing the party to find out if we can re-use her decorations, right?
And?
It’s a My Little Pony party.
I smiled at my phone. That’s actually perfect.
Because nothing says DONATE TO CREW like dancing ponies?
Nope, I said. Nothing does. I tossed my phone down on the couch as Sebastian made a flourish at the Lego house.
“Well?” he asked.
It didn’t look like Kit’s house; it was actually a little better. He’d added a fence and something I think was meant to be a topiary. I set my headless minifigure in front. “There,” I said. “A Dullahan.”
He looked a little puzzled. “The headless horseman,” I explained, “was a Dullahan.”
“Ah,” he said. He pulled the head off another minifigure and set it down next to mine. “There. Now he has a friend.”
Delia walked in from the kitchen holding a glass of milk and a plate of cookies, with a towel wrapped around her hair. She looked at the two of us, a smirk spreading across her face. “Are you guys…playing Legos?”
“No!” I protested.
“Indeed not,” Sebastian said. “This is serious.” He held up another Lego person, which was all black with purple eyes. “The Dullahans are fighting off an invasion of Endermen.”
“Actually,” I said, “a Dullahan and an Enderman would probably get along. Since an Enderman can’t stand to be looked at—”
“And a Dullahan has no face,” Sebastian said. “Good point.” He handed one of the minifigures to Delia. “Here. You can be Wilbur.”
* * *
—
Thursday afternoon, Greg and I hit the Costco and bought half a dozen appetizer platters and way too many two-liter bottles of soda, along with a purple inflatable baby pool that we planned to fill with ice and use to serve the drinks. I just hoped people actually showed up; we’d put stuff up on Twitter and Instagram, but the notice was kind of short. On the other hand, it was five bucks to see an (allegedly) award-winning DJ. You could hardly beat the price.
“So,” Greg said as we drove back from Costco. “You know Bethany pretty well, right?”
“Sure. We go way back.”
“Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, you know I kind of overheard you guys playing Zombie Air in Bethany’s basement that time.”
“Is she still mad because I let the zombies get her?”
“No. No, it’s not that. It’s…she talks to you.”
I stared at him. “Of course she talks to me.”
His eyes cut sideways toward the sunset. “She doesn’t talk to me.”
“What do you mean she doesn’t talk to you?”
“I mean, in person, she just…she just doesn’t talk. She barely says more than three words in a row.”
“But you guys have been out like six times. What do you do if you’re not…talking…”
Greg blushed and looked away.
I winced. “Never mind. Look, Bethany’s kind of shy until she gets used to you. It’s temporary.”
“I feel like when we’re not talking in person, when we’re texting or whatever, it’s like she knows me better than anyone. And then
we get together, and I try talking to her about the same things, and she…shuts down. I don’t get it. Am I scary?”
“No,” I said. “You’re not scary at all.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s just how she is,” I said. “Give her a little time. Bethany’s…she’s worth it.”
The light caught his eyes. “She’s lucky to have you, you know.”
I unfolded my legs; I’d been sitting on my foot and it was asleep. “It’s really the other way around, trust me.” I looked out the window. “She has the best heart of anyone I know.”
“I know,” he said. “It’s like, I know there’s this bold, brave, amazing person in her. I see it sometimes, and I wish she’d let that out. That’s the girl I want to hang out with. She changed my life.”
I felt my throat constrict. I said, “Oh.”
“Everyone thinks she’s just this pretty face, and she’s not! She’s…she’s so funny. And she’s…she sees things down to the essentials. It’s like, when we start talking there’s, like, a purity to it, I don’t know.”
“Nothing but thoughts,” I said.
He glanced over at me. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” I said, wondering if some part of me had said that on purpose. Damn id acting up again. I did my best to tamp it back down. “Nothing, I mean, I understand. That’s all true, about Bethany. She gets people.”
“So just be patient, huh?”
“Right. Just be patient.”
He dropped me off at my house. “See you tonight,” he said. “You think she’ll like it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “She totally will.”
* * *
—
Bethany still had my red dress, and I stood in front of my closet in my underwear trying to figure out what to wear. Not that it mattered, especially, because this was Bethany’s not-birthday, not mine, and no one was going to be looking at me, but the truth is I hate looking schlubby. Someone like Bethany can get away with going out in public looking like she just woke up. I can’t. I pulled out a white dress with blue polka dots before deciding that I’m too old for polka dots and putting it back.
I settled on a different route. I pulled out a pair of skinny black pants, a button-down shirt, and a gray vest. Then I grabbed a tie from my father’s closet.
I went down to the basement, where Delia was reading some science article on her laptop and Sebastian was sprawled on her bed watching videos on his phone.
“Hey,” I said to Delia. “Can you tie this?”
“Is this like a costume thing? You should ditch the shirt and just wear the vest, if you’re going for edge.”
“Really?” I looked in the mirror. It did look a little costumey, so I went out in the hall and took the shirt off, then put the vest back on over my bra. “Better?” I asked.
“Much,” Delia said.
“Okay. Can you do the tie?”
“No,” she said. “Sorry, that’s above my pay grade.”
“Damn it,” I said. “There’s probably something online that shows you. Can you look it up?”
“I can tie a tie,” Sebastian said, putting the phone down and sitting up.
“No,” I said, “that’s okay.”
“You want a four-in-hand or a Windsor?” he said, getting up and taking one end of the tie in each hand. “Or maybe a Trinity? That’ll be sick.”
When I stared at him, he said, “I didn’t spend four years at Andover for nothing.”
“You went to Andover?”
“Yep,” he said, fumbling with my tie. “Apparently they even let in vacuous douchenozzles every now and then.” From her desk, Delia smothered a laugh into her fist.
I felt myself go very hot. “Uh,” I said.
“You have a voice that carries.”
“Yeah, I seem to be afflicted with that.”
He straightened the tie and spun me toward the mirror on the back of Delia’s closet. “There,” he said. “Very Marlene Dietrich. Pre-Code Hollywood.”
I did not actually know who that was, but I said, “Thanks.”
“Sebastian wanted to go to film school,” Delia said.
“Don’t tell her that,” he groaned, flopping back onto the bed.
“Why?” I asked. “Why not?”
“Because it’s not happening.”
“How come?”
“Didn’t get in.”
“Oh,” I said. “Sorry. Couldn’t you apply again? Or apply somewhere else?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know. It’s such a pipe dream, you know?”
“No more than making bank from a YouTube channel.”
“Yeah, but that’s different. If I fail nobody cares.” He picked his phone back up and unpaused the video he’d been watching.
“What shoes are you wearing?” asked Delia.
“Not sure,” I said, watching Sebastian fake-laugh at whatever he was watching. “Uh. Chucks?”
“If you’re going Marlene Dietrich, you need heels,” she said, sending me back upstairs with a gentle push. “And a bold lip.”
On my dresser, where I keep the few pieces of makeup I own, was a tube of scarlet lipstick I bought at the MAC counter with Bethany last year when we decided to get free makeovers before homecoming. I’d had no date because no one had asked me, Bethany’d had no date because she’d said no to everyone who’d asked her, and we’d decided to go together, along with a group of girls from crew who were similarly dateless. The truth is, it’s more fun to go to these things with a group anyway. Nobody’s nervous. Everyone has fun. We sleep over at someone’s house afterward, eat waffles, and don’t have anybody to cut out of pictures after the inevitable breakup.
I hardly ever wear the lipstick—it always ends up all over my teeth, my water bottle, and the back of my right hand—but I keep it anyway, because of what happened the day I bought it.
At the store, there was a middle-aged woman with tarantula eyes who gave me a significant glance and then muttered to her friend, “You can’t turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse.”
Bethany had wanted to leave the store then and there, but I’d turned to that woman and said “Ma’am, you can buy a silk purse for a dollar on eBay. And I’d rather be a pig’s ear than a horse’s ass.”
I’d turned to the makeup-counter girl and bought the lipstick, along with some amazing concealer I use all the time.
To this day, I will never understand what would make a grown woman compare a teenage girl to a pig’s ear, but it doesn’t matter. I showed her that day. The universe could play whack-a-mole with me all it wanted, but I wasn’t going to stay down. I was fabulous. I was amazing. I owned the reddest lipstick on earth.
That was the lipstick I wore.
The parking lot at the community center was packed.
I’d volunteered to drive Bethany over. Greg was already there with most of the guys from crew, and I’d gotten a text from Claire about fifteen minutes earlier telling me we were in trouble because we hadn’t bought enough soda.
Greg and I had figured we might get both crew teams plus about two dozen other people, if we were really lucky. I’d texted back, How many are there?
She said, Almost 100 so far.
I’d stared at my phone. How is that possible? We don’t even have booze.
I think Greg told the swim team, since we have most of them, and then they brought friends, too, and Celia told all the seniors to come. I just sent Jenna out for more drinks.
Also, she added, I think someone brought booze.
Well, at least the fund-raiser part was going to be successful. We hadn’t had to pay for the room, so besides the drinks and the snacks, everything we made was profit. Bethany, who had been reading my texts over my shoulder, looked a little nervous.
“T
hat’s a lot of people,” she said.
“It’s fine,” I said. “It’s smaller than prom.”
She was wearing, finally, my red dress, looking like I only wish I looked in it. Everything about her was effortlessly perfect, like she never even had to try. I could try from now until the end of the world and I’d never look a tenth as good. I fiddled with my tie.
“You look amazing,” she said.
“Nah,” I said.
“I wish I could pull that off.”
“Please. Are you ready?”
She checked her makeup one last time in the visor mirror. I’d done her eyes for her, with my favorite bronze liner. Mine were done in black, which Delia said I needed to go with the outfit and the red lip. “Okay,” she said. “It’s just a fund-raiser, right?”
“Yeah, of course. With dancing and stuff.”
“Dancing?”
I got out of the car and Bethany followed me. “There will always be dancing, B.”
I wasn’t sure how My Little Pony would play with people our age, but with the room so full, the decorations were actually pretty inconspicuous. Claire and Sophie, who were collecting five-dollar bills at a table by the door, jumped up when they saw us. Bethany went to get her five dollars out, but Claire said, “You don’t have to pay! It’s your—” and then Sophie dug her fingernails into her elbow. “I don’t have change,” Claire amended. “Just pay me later.”
“I have a five,” Bethany said, handing over her money.
I handed mine over, too, and then we went inside, where DJ JV Celia was spinning with one arm in the air, and everybody—everybody—was dancing.
Maybe it was because there was almost no place to sit, or because it was nine o’clock on a Thursday before a three-day weekend, or because someone had snuck in some alcohol, but it was wild. John O’Malley was dancing on a table with a Pinkie Pie–shaped balloon while a handful of people took pictures that would probably haunt him for life.
