Chapter Eleven

Marcy shows me the video again. Two whole minutes of incriminating footage as I fool around in the pool in my panties and bra desperately seeking attention. On several occasions it sounds like I’m trying to say something, but even after the tenth viewing I still can’t make out what it is.

I’m all over the internet. Passed around facebook like a chain letter and uploaded to youtube with almost a thousand views.

“It could be worse”, Marcy says.

“How, Marcy? How exactly could this be worse?” I ask her desperately.

“The votes could be reversed. At least they like you”, she says unconvincingly.

Nine hundred and sixty one thumbs up and three hundred and fifty likes doesn’t make this any better. Most of the school have seen this, Donkey included. I might as well move away and start a new life.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, I still haven’t been able to find my notebook. It wasn’t at Alex’s, nor in Marcy’s or Donkey’s car and I definitely don’t have it here at home with me.

What with my new found fame as the drunkest girl at the party, as soon as the notebook turns up and whomever finds it realizes it belongs to the same girl, I’ll probably have the local TV channel around to interview me. As it is, I’m half expecting to see my video on one of those late night clip shows where they pull together all the weird and wonderful things on the web to embarrass the performers even further.

“What am I going to do, Marcy?” I whine.

Marcy shrugs. “There’s not a lot you can do. Move on, forget about it, get on with your new life. Soon enough people will forget about that party and concentrate on something else.”

I’m not convinced. I haven’t seen anyone since that night partly because I’ve been grounded anyway, partly because I’ve been avoiding people like the plague, but what I’ve already seen on social media makes me believe that even years down the line when I’m grown up with kids and I’ve all but forgotten about that stepladder diving board, it will still come back to haunt me.

“To be fair, you do look pretty hot. I mean, if it were me, I’d be pleased with how I look”, Marcy says.

“I look drunk, Marcy”, I point out. “You shouldn’t have let me get that way.”

Marcy holds her hands up. “You were way out of the realms of control by that second bottle of rum. I know it doesn’t look it, but what that video represents is effective damage limitation. It could have been so much worse.”

That makes me feel worse not better. “I guess”, I say. “Thank you for looking after me.”

“I’m not the ones who took you home”, Marcy says, unable to keep the smile off her face.

I shake my head, mortified that I ended up in Jack’s bed but for all of the wrong reasons.

“I’m such an idiot”, I say.

“Come on, don’t be so hard on yourself, it could have happened to anybody. The begging to be taken home by Donkey was a little embarrassing, but you were basically passed out by that point anyway, so nobody really heard you”, she says.

“I can’t believe they took me home”, I say.

“They obviously care about you or they wouldn’t have done it. They could have left you at the party. Alex wouldn’t have cared.”

“It didn’t make much difference, Mom and Dad still caught me”, I say, the memory of that moment leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

“That’s what you get for puking outside your own house”, Marcy says. “The grass still hasn’t grown back.”

“Thank God there’s not a video of that too”, I say. “That would be the last thing I’d need on top of everything else.”

“Just look on the brightside”, Marcy says, “at least everyone knows who your are now.”

The notion is cold comfort and Marcy can see it. She continues to try and convince me nonetheless.

“Seriously, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was beneficial for you in the long run, you just need to act like you don’t care. It’s not like you’re doing anything offensive in the video. Stupid yes. Drunk? Absolutely. But you definitely don’t come across as unlikeable. If anything, it’s the opposite actually.”

“I come across as likeable?” I ask, hoping for confirmation.

“You come across as fun”, she says. “How many other girls at the party stripped down and jumped into the pool from the stepladder?”

“A: No one else was as drunk, and B: No one else was as stupid”, I remind her.

“I don’t know if you remember it, but before Donkey arrived, you had more than a handful of guys around you, all of whom you could have ended up with”, Marcy says.

I shake my head. Before Donkey arrived my memory after the beer pong is somewhat patchy. Just thinking about it is hurting my head.

“How long were Donkey there before they took me home?” I ask, a little scared of the answer.

“I don’t know”, Marcy says, clearly lying. “Half an hour, an hour, tops. You sort of went downhill a little quickly.”

“I’m never drinking again, I swear.”

“You might never get the chance”, Marcy says. “Your parents almost didn’t let me in here.”

Saying my parents were upset is a little bit of an understatement. Even saying they hit the wall repeatedly at the speed of light wouldn’t really go far enough to describe it. I’ve never exactly been a model student, but I’ve never been in trouble either, and my parents, although liberal enough compared to some others are super strict when it comes to legality. They don’t drink and they didn’t expect me to either, probably not even after I hit twenty one. When they saw me puking on the grass outside the house, stinking of booze and clearly still drunk, Mom almost had a fit and Dad went into uptight panic mode.

They took away my cell, banished me to the bedroom and have barely let me out of their sight since. Now, over a week later, they’ve calmed down a little, but any reduction in my sentence I might have believed possible at the start of my conviction is definitely not going to happen. I feel like I’m being treated as though I’m half my age, but I’m not really on solid enough ground to argue it.

“They were talking about summer camps”, I say, without any hint of irony. “Backpacking through the woods, singing around the campfire, that kind of thing.”

Marcy pulls a face like she’s chewing a wasp.

“I know”, I say. “That was right at the heart of it last week, they’ve calmed down a bit since then.”

“What will I do if you go away over the summer?” she says. “I’m already going to miss you when college starts in the fall.”

“I’m not going away”, I say. “This is going to be the last chance I get to see Donkey for a full year, maybe even longer.”

Marcy’s reaction doesn’t inspire confidence. She’s got the I know something you don’t know but I’m not sure exactly how to tell you look plastered across her face.

“Marcy?” I ask, worried I’m not going to like what I’m going to have to squeeze out of her.

“They want them earlier, that’s what people are saying”, she says.

“That’s what who are saying and who wants them earlier?” I ask.

“No, nothing, it doesn’t matter”, Marcy says, retracting it. “It’s just something I’ve heard.”

I goad her again. “Marcy?”

“Donkey, they might be leaving before the fall.”

“School doesn’t start until the fall”, I say. “Why would they be leaving before then?”

“I don’t know”, Marcy says, her hands up. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Maybe I got it wrong, it’s just what I heard. You know, pre-college practise or whatever, I don’t know. Maybe it’s to adjust to the change in advance.”

“Adjust to the change in advance?” I repeat back to her.

“It’s what I heard”, Marcy says. “Anyway, I’m sure it’s all bullshit.”

I let this sink in for a while. It’s not like I know anything about this process, but as much as I understand it, nobody starts school in advance, especially not before the first year. Donkey may be some of the most promising athletes in the state, if not the states as a whole, but even so it would be a little unorthodox.

Whether it’s true or not, I really don’t want to think about it. It doesn’t help my current predicament and it certainly won’t help my broken heart if on the day I achieve my liberation, I find Donkey have already upped and moved without even saying goodbye.

Marcy suddenly looks like she wants to change the subject and for whatever reason, it makes me think of my notebook again. We’ve already been over this once, but I know it can’t have just disappeared into thin air, and if I don’t find it first, someone else will. If they do, being trapped in here permanently might not seem like such a bad option after all.

“Do you remember if I had my notebook in the party?” I ask her.

Marcy winces. “I know you put it in your bag in the car”, she says. “After that, I have no idea. It could be anywhere between the hill, Alex’s house and here, and believe me, I’ve looked in all of those places more than once for you. As far as I can tell, it’s disappeared completely.”

“Missing presumed dead”, I say, solemnly, hoping to hide my anguish.

“At least no one’s mentioned it yet”, Marcy says, “that’s got to be a good sign, right?”

“I can’t believe I was stupid enough to take it out.”

All I wanted to do was read Marcy that stupid sex scene I wrote, the last thing I expected was to lose it. A sex scene that couldn’t have been any more obvious as to who it was about. I mean, I could have used code names to hide my fantasy, but no, in order to make it as real as possible, I had to use real names, real places and real feelings, at least from my own perspective.

“So, when are they going to let you out?” Marcy asks, changing the subject again.

She doesn’t need to tell me she’s already thinking about leaving, and I don’t need to ask her to know it’s not because she doesn’t want to stay. I can read Marcy like a book, and when she’s got a man on the go, she can’t do anything to hide it.

“At the end of the week”, I say. “Although I’m not sure I’m ready to face people yet anyway.”

“Who do you need to face?” Marcy asks, “School’s over, you’re a college virgin now.”

“Don’t remind me”, I say, the word virgin cutting agonizingly through my belly. “And I’ve got the summer to get through first, which means trying to find a job without going insane.”

“Call me when you get your cell back”, Marcy says, “We’ll take some little bottles of rum up to Monument Hill again.”

“Yeah, right”, I say. “I’ll only do that if you can promise me Donkey will carry me back down again, take me to their bedroom and do what we should have done last week.”

“You shouldn’t have drunk so much”, Marcy says, and then with a knowing smile. “I was absolutely fine.”

I shake my head. “I don’t want to know what you got up to”, I say. “Whatever it is, I hope there isn’t a video circulating round the internet.”

“Hey”, Marcy says. “I’m not the one with the dirty mind around here.”

“No, just the dirty body”, I joke.

Marcy’s at the door. “Seriously”, she says. “It isn’t as bad as you think. The video, the party, Donkey. You’ll see before too long that it doesn’t really matter.”

But it does matter, I want to say. It matters more than anything else in the world. It may seem like a silly little crush or even an infatuation, but it isn’t, it’s more serious than that, a thousand times purer and more important.

“Just don’t forget about yourself in all of this”, she adds. “The last thing you want to do is chase something you’ll never get your hands on and miss a whole world of other opportunities.”

“The party?” I ask.

“A handful, Jenny.”, Marcy says wistfully. “Not twins, but definitely not Kevin Peabody either. You missed out.”

I look at her apologetically. Not for me, but for the fact I might have disappointed my best friend without even realizing it.

“Call me when they break your chains”, she says, and then she’s out of the door quickly before I have a chance to respond to her.