“Hold up. That time you had an eating disorder?” Suki says.
Donnie and I stare at each other with wide-open eyes. Oh, when Suki goes after Cate, it’s bad. We jump up and down, raising our hands in the air.
“It’s onnnnnn!”
But Suki is not having this. “Calm down, people. It is not on.” She pleads with me, then grits her teeth. She turns to Cate. Those two are tight. Like Donnie and I are tight. You don’t go over that line about eating disorders; you keep that shit silent, buried deep—but Suki did. “Cate, you know it is not on.”
Donnie makes fun of Suki, drawing out her words, teasing her. “There is nothing ON about this.”
“It is so clearly off. It’s like, ‘lights out, bitch,’” I say.
Cate’s eyes get big and teary. She lights a cigarette. Deep inhale. Cate with her big burly stance, her gold hoop earrings with her name blazing through them—CATE—it’s all a show. She’s the easiest to tease.
“I’m not laughing,” Cate says. Even though she’s smiling. She knows if she doesn’t laugh, the teasing will never end. Laugh it off, Cate. Just laugh it off.
“Grow up, Heather. Bulimia is so ’87,” I say, and give her the end it signal—one quick hand swipe in front of my neck.
Cate flicks her ashes hard at me and Donnie, which we probably deserve. I twist my head away from the flying embers, and that’s when I see Sean leading Ali into another room.
ALI
“Heyyyyy, Greenleaf,” Sean Nessel says, with a drawl. He might be drunk. “I want to show you something.” He leads me into the kitchen. His hand is softer than I had imagined and moist.
“So what kind of last name is Greenleaf?”
I tell Sean Nessel the whole story about my grandfather coming over from Germany to Ellis Island and how the immigration officer couldn’t pronounce Grunblatt—he had trouble with the “u” inflection. “Greenleaf” is the English translation for Grunblatt. My grandfather really didn’t want to be called Greenleaf because that didn’t seem like a real American last name, but that’s where he ended up.
I completely overtalk it. I can’t shut up. Shut up, Ali. Shut up.
Sean Nessel just stares at me like I’m insane.
“I used to get teased as a kid about my last name too. You know, Nessel. People called me Nestle chocolate. Hershey’s kisses. Nestle chocolate face.”
“Wait, you got teased?”
“Yeah. Doesn’t everyone get teased about something?”
“I can’t see you getting teased about anything,” I say. My heart eyes are about to explode, and I realize I’m not wearing a T-shirt bra, as in the padded kind. My headlights are about to blind Sean Nessel. I cross my arms over my breasts.
He arranges a row of three small vodka bottles on the counter, the kind you get on an airplane. I really don’t need to drink. I finished a beer and am already feeling silly and surly. But he opens the first one, takes a sip, and hands it to me.
“So cute,” I say. “Little bottles. Just tiny things.”
“Drink it.”
“You’re like the Mad Hatter,” I tease. “‘Drink it. This one will make you big.’”
“Isn’t that what you want? To be big?”
“I want to get buzzed.”
STOP.
Did I just say that? I’m being too forward. Too cocky. Anyway, I’m already buzzed. What am I doing?
“Well, I don’t mean buzzed,” I say. But these are never the kinds of declarations you can take back.
“Nah, it’s okay,” he says, laughing. “You’re funny.” But I don’t feel funny. I feel too grown up. My hair is down and long. It’s wild from the fall winds. I shake it around, getting it to hang over one eye. And then I do what any sensible person would do in the presence of a god like Sean Nessel. I take a hearty sip.
My mouth is on fire. I choke in a coughing fit.
“Take another sip. It’ll take the edge off the first one,” he says.
“It burns.”
“It’s supposed to.”
I sip again, and the vodka gushes into my mouth. I glimpse Sammi and Raj still comfy with their beers sitting with some other friends. Finally, my dream is here, but I feel out of control, too hurried, like one of those weird car commercials where the lights are streaking through a dark desert road.
He hands me a hard seltzer and tells me to drink it as a chaser. One at a time. Small and easy, he says. So I listen because I am drinking vodka with Sean Nessel. If nothing else happens to me this year, this moment sipping vodka from small airplane bottles will be enough.
His hand is at the back of my head now, and he rustles my hair. “What a cute girl you are, Ali,” he says. “I like the way you look at me in the hall. You have cute hair. I’m so glad you came here tonight. That’s why I’m here, you know?”
My eyes widen and I smile. My hands shake. I’m breathless. My mouth is numb when he slips his tongue inside it. I want to kiss him back, but my head is hot and his tongue is so big in my mouth, all I can do is move my neck. It doesn’t take long for my mouth to feel raw from kissing and for my face to get sweaty. I’m fuzzy, probably need to sit down, but when Sean Nessel asks me to go upstairs, I say yes.
I know what upstairs means. Upstairs means clothes off.
BLYTHE
Cherie is sitting on the couch ledge right behind me. She doesn’t notice me until I poke her.
“Oh, Blythe. Heyyy,” she says.
Cherie used to be one of the most popular girls in school until she became a raging feminist when she was a senior. Just dumped all her friends. Wouldn’t talk to anyone except two girls from the drama club who are here at this party.
“Your girl has disappeared into the smoky den of iniquity,” I say. I’m so happy to torment Cherie.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she says. “What girl?”
“Ali Greenleaf,” I say. “She’s your girl, isn’t she?”
“More like my sister’s girl.”
I shrug. I’m now drinking Jack and Coke, courtesy of Donnie. It burns as it goes down. Donnie locks her arm in mine.
“These boys take what they want, you know that,” Donnie says to Cherie.
Cherie looks away, her face in a worried pinch.
* * *
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