Jayla’s best friends, Emily and Sheree, are hanging out near the dance floor, but Jayla is nowhere to be found.
“Spencer!” yells Emily.
She and Sheree take turns hugging me around the neck.
“Nice costumes,” I tell them.
“I don’t know,” Sheree says, tugging at her jacket zipper. “I feel like people are looking at me.”
“A common side effect of painting your hair white and wearing skin-tight pleather,” says Emily.
“Your Storm costume is freaking awesome,” I tell Sheree. “Have y’all seen my girlfriend?”
“Nope,” says Emily. “Have you seen mine?”
“Negative.”
Emily rolls her eyes. “The hazards of dating leading ladies. Well, at least we know yours is at the party, because we came with her. Mine was ‘almost done with her hair’ half an hour ago.”
“I’m sure she’ll be here soon,” says Sheree.
“Well, FYI, I’m not telling any of you what my costume is until she shows up.”
Sheree and I exchange confused glances.
“Um, you’re a fifties girl?” says Sheree.
I nod. “Your yellow skirt is kind of a dead giveaway.”
Emily shrugs mysteriously. “Just wait till Caroline gets here.” I assess her costume one more time: yellow skirt, white tennis shoes with white folded-down socks, white shirt, yellow sweater. Her hair is in tiny braids, but instead of her usual long ones, these stop at her shoulders and curl upward in a preppy kind of way.
“I got nothing,” I say.
This guy Ty, from wrestling, walks by dressed as a zombie, and Sheree’s eyes follow him like she’s going to say something. Instead, she sighs.
“You’re never going to get together if you can’t even talk to him,” says Emily.
“Who, Ty?” I ask.
Sheree shakes her head fast, like: Shut up, shut up.
“Hey, Ty!” I call. He comes over, and we do a handshake/hug/back-slap maneuver. “What’s up?”
“Nothing, I was about to go dance.” He jerks a thumb toward the dance floor.
“Oh, yeah? Sheree was about to go dance, too.”
“Yeah?” He takes in her knee-high boots and tight, tight pants. “Hey . . . Hey, you wanna go dance?”
Sheree seems to have forgotten how to speak, but Emily pushes her forward and that seems like enough. She walks off to the dance floor at Ty’s side, turning around to mouth “OH MY GOSH” at us as she goes.
I’m about to brag to Emily about my cupid skills, when I realize that Caroline has finally made her dramatic entrance. Emily can’t stop staring, along with pretty much every guy at the party. Caroline has on black leather pants and red high heels and a very small black shirt that shows off her stomach and shoulders. Her reddish-blonde hair is big-curly-sexy, and she looks . . . different. Hot different. She puts an arm around Emily. “Did you figure out what we are yet? She told me she wouldn’t tell anyone till I got here.”
“Holy crap, you’re Sandy before and after.”
Caroline flicks pretend ash off her unlit cigarette. “Tell me about it, stud.”
She turns to Emily. “Are you so, so mad at me for taking forever?”
Emily is still staring at Caroline’s outfit with her mouth half open. “Nope.”
Just then, Jayla grabs me by the shirtsleeve of my Ash costume.
“There you are!” I say.
“Spencer, I need your help. That toxic wildebeest Bella Fontaine has been talking crap about Emily again, and she and all her basic friends are over there eating cake right now, so we’re going to go eat cake right now, and I’m going to be all, ‘Hi, Bella.’ But in a way that lets her know I know exactly what she said. I can’t wait to see her go all crazy-eyes.”
“Um.” That’s about as far as I get.
I let myself be pulled closer and closer to the three girls, all of whom are dressed in what appears to be Saran Wrap. And I know it’s not going to make a difference, but I pause before we reach them. “Are you sure you want to get into it with her? It’s kind of like having a target on your back.”
She laughs and waves my words away. “You see a target, I see a spotlight.”
Jayla grabs a slice of cake for each of us, which involves her squeezing uncomfortably close to Bella. “Oh, hi, Bella. What are you guys supposed to be?”
Bella points to the sign taped to her body that reads, We go bad October 31.
“We’re leftovers,” she says, like: Obviously. Like: How could you not get this. “And you guys are those Pokémon people?” She pronounces it wrong.
“Ash, yeah.” I’m dressed just like the Pokémon trainer, and Jayla is dressed as the sexiest possible version of his adorable, lightning-bolt-shooting little friend. I’ll be sorting out my unnatural feelings for Pikachu all night.
Jayla looks like she’s gearing up to give the leftovers a piece of her mind, so I jump in real quick. “Hey, sweetie, how about I get us some punch?”
“Thanks, baby, I’d love some.” She smiles, and I kiss her on the cheek and whisper, “Go easy,” and she smiles some more.
I wait in line for punch, and Hudson and Jace get in line behind me. I tic-shrug while I’m standing there, really big exaggerated ones that make people look.
Jace whispers to Hudson, “You think he does that while they’re geting it on?”
They snicker, and Hudson whispers something back, but I can’t hear it. I’m doing a pretty good job ignoring them, until I hear Hudson mutter something about “liking the dark meat.”
I turn around and stare at them. And stare. It’s not so easy when someone’s looking you right in the face, is it? But then it’s my turn for punch, so I just say, “Not cool.” And walk off with a glass of something pink and sparkling that I hope Jayla will like.
I try to shake it off. I’ll be fine. I have an awesome girlfriend, and if I made A Taxonomy of Everyone at This Party, I would totally be in the branch for people that fit in. I just need to find Jayla, and she’ll make me feel normal again. Plus, our costume is like 80 percent funnier when I pop her onto my shoulder. But by the time I get back to the leftovers, she’s gone.
I find her on the dance floor with Justin. The lights shine down on them like beacons. He’s spinning her and flipping her, and they look like the perfect couple from one of those musicals Hope is always watching. And then it’s like I’ve called her into being by thinking about her because Hope appears next to me, dressed as a pretty badass zebra.
“Hey, are you okay?” she asks.
I shrug. “Nothing punch and cake can’t fix. Except, since it’s wrestling season, could you eat the punch and cake and then tell me in excruciating detail how awesome it is?”
Hope picks up a cake plate and wrinkles her nose. “You do realize this is super creepy, right?”
“Oh, totally.”
“Well, as long as we’ve got that established.” She takes a bite of cake, and we both laugh.
“Spencer? Are you over here?”
Jayla’s voice announces her arrival before we see her. Or before she finds us. That’s what it feels like. Because as soon as she spots Hope and me side by side at the cake table, her laughter dies in the back of her throat, and she says, “Oh.”
And it is definitely the bad kind of “Oh.”
Hope brushes nonexistent dirt off her black-and-white leggings. “Well, I better get back to the party. See you guys.”
I will not be escaping so easily.
“I was looking for you,” says Jayla. “It’s a party. And there’s dancing. I shouldn’t be dancing by myself when I have a boyfriend.” She shoots an irritated glance in Hope’s direction.
“I wouldn’t have even been talking to her if you weren’t dancing with Justin.”
She throws her hands in the air. “We were performing a dance from a musical.”
“Yeah, with your arms all wrapped around each other like you’re in love with him. Why do you always have to do stuff like that?”
“Because you won’t do it with me, and I don’t want to not dance.” Her voice goes soft. “What I was saying before, about targets and seeing things differently? I was kidding around, but it’s more than that. I feel like I don’t get to shine as brightly when I’m with you.”
And I go from angry to feeling like shit in 0.2 seconds. “I’m so sorry. I mean, that’s not okay. At all.”
“No, it’s not.” She wraps her arms around herself like she’s cold, even though Ashley’s dad packed the tent with portable heaters. “I’ve got everything against me in this world, and I’ve got so many dreams. I can’t have anything else holding me down.” She’s blinking her eyes so fast, and it makes me realize I don’t think I’ve ever seen her cry. “I love you, Spencer.” She doesn’t say “but,” but I can hear it all the same.
“I love you, too.”
“And I’m spending next weekend with you, not Justin.” She wraps her arms around me and squeezes me tight. “Dance with me.”
Next weekend. Everything that just happened seems stupid compared to that. I do really hate dancing, though. I love watching her dance. In the latest school musical or at a party or around her bedroom. She always has this light-up-the-whole-room smile on her face.
“What if I just hang out while you dance?” I ask hopefully.
“Yeah . . . nice try.”
She grabs me by the hand and drags me onto the dance floor.