—4—
Wesley had texted me about eight zillion times.
“Where were you yesterday?” he said at lunch. “I texted you about eight zillion times.”
I looked at him philosophically, brandishing a mozzarella stick. “Where is anyone, really? In a quantum sense, I was everywhere and nowhere.”
“Are you high?”
I smiled.
“You’re obligated to share with me, you know.”
“I’m high on life. Take all you want. It’s free.”
His eyes narrowed. “You got laid.”
I bit the tip of my cheese stick suggestively.
“Was it an old guy?”
“What is age, really?” I said, and Wesley groaned.
Before we went to our fifth period classes, I grabbed his arm.
“I want to start working seriously on our movie.”
“Okay.”
“So I’m coming to your house after school.”
“Okay.”
“So hide your socks and titty posters.”
“That’s a sexist stereotype,” he said.
I raised my eyebrows at him.
“Okay,” he sighed.
I saw Mr. Wilke completely by accident. I didn’t know he was here today—maybe they’d called him in as a sub—and I was walking between classes on the first floor when we spotted each other in the hall. We both stopped. It was as if the lights dimmed on the river of bodies streaming around us, and we were the only two people left in full color. Fiery, radiant color, singeing the screen. All noise and motion blurred away. It felt like a camera circled us, capturing this movie-perfect moment. I started forward again and so did he. We passed each other slowly. We didn’t stop or speak. But our arms brushed, and for half a second our fingers curled together, then slipped free, like a secret handshake.
#
Leaves shook out of the trees and fluttered around me in gold and green flakes of summer. I rode slowly so Wesley could keep up, pushing my bike with my feet. The soft clack of the spokes, the groggy drone of bees and locusts, the honey-thick sunlight drizzling over us—I was in love with the world today. A big dumb smile climbed onto my face every time my mind drifted. The air tasted like sherry, sweet and light, a pleasant sting on my tongue.
Wesley gave me a weird look, but didn’t deflate my good mood.
At his house, I leaned my bike in the rose bushes and leapt up the stairs to the porch. There was a snap in my limbs like the lazy twang of a guitar, like when I’m drunk. Their place was huge and all painted wood, white and tomato red, with a wraparound veranda. As soon as I stepped foot inside I could tell what kind of mom he had: the kind who gave a shit. Braided rugs on polished oak floors. Couches more comfy-looking than chic. Family photos parading across the mantel, end tables, hallway shelves. I imagined opening a closet and getting swept away in an avalanche of cheesy frames: seashells for beach pics, little baby blocks spelling out WESLEY and NATALIE.
“Who’s Natalie?” I said. Same dark, floppy hair as him, same deep-set eyes. She looked coolly knowing, sly.
“My sister. She’s in college.”
I had no idea he had a big sister.
“Stop looking at those.”
“Hold on, I’ve almost seen every year of your life.”
He dragged me into the kitchen. A pitcher of lemonade sat on the counter, sweating.
“What, no fresh-baked cookies?” I said.
A woman stood up in the garden and waved at us with a spade.
“That is not your mother,” I said.
She brushed herself off and came inside. She was crazy tall, nearly six feet, and willowy, her skin pale as bone, her eyes a startling magnetic blue in a long, handsome face. Her nose was bold and hawkish, but it fit her. She smiled at me like she knew everything about me and was proud. She was beautiful.
“You must be Maise,” she said in a low, mellifluous voice. “Thank you for not filing a restraining order against my son.”
“Mom,” Wesley said.
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Brown,” I said.
“Call me Siobhan.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Are you Irish?”
She sighed, good-natured. “Before this one’s father ruined me, I was Ms. Callahan.”
“Seriously, Mom,” Wesley said.
“My only consolation is embarrassing my children in front of their friends. That’s why the oldest went to college on the other side of the country.”
“Nat’s at UC Berkeley,” Wesley said, “learning how to make cyborgs.”
“Biotechnology,” Siobhan said.
“The Terminator,” Wesley said.
“It probably involves a certain amount of naked men,” Siobhan conceded.
I laughed, and sat at the counter, watching them, fascinated.
Wesley poured us all lemonade. “Mom, we’re gonna work on that film project.”
“What is your film about?”
“Yes,” I said. “What is our film about, Monsieur Auteur?”
Wesley raised his hands defensively. “I’ve just been shooting B-roll. We haven’t decided on a subject yet.”
Siobhan leaned against the counter beside me. She smelled like warm soil and crushed flowers. “What sort of film is it?”
It was totally weird having a parent actually interested in my schoolwork. Even someone else’s parent.
“Docufiction,” Wesley and I said together.
“It’s like cinéma vérité,” I said, “but with some narrative injected into it.”
“Stories based on real events,” he said.
“Inspired by,” I corrected. “We’re blurring the line between fact and fiction. It’ll probably focus on the trials and tribulations of being a high school senior.”
“Or a teacher,” he said.
Not something we had talked about. I glanced at him sharply.
“I see,” Siobhan said. “But what is the story?”
“It’s a slice of life,” Wesley said.
“It’s a lot of short, interconnected stories,” I explained. “Vignettes. We’re taking a scattershot approach. There’s no grand design, just like there isn’t in real life.”
“But surely there’s a theme,” Siobhan said.
Wesley and I both opened our mouths, then looked at each other.
“Well, obviously,” he said.
“We just haven’t decided on it yet,” I added.
“Maybe it will emerge while you work,” his mom suggested.
A memory leapt to the front of my mind, unbidden. Evan and I in the motel, in each other’s arms, moving together slowly, hypnotically. Jesus. So inappropriate in this chaste family kitchen. I blushed furiously, but I said, “When you don’t force it, sometimes amazing things happen.”
Siobhan peered at me. “Wise girl.” She brushed my cheek with a cool, dry finger. “Lovely, too.”
Please adopt me, I thought.
“Mom,” Wesley said. Funny how that word was both censure and affection when he said it.
“I assume you two will be working upstairs? I’ll trust you to keep it PG-13.”
Wesley blushed. I laughed. Siobhan smiled.
“I love your mom,” I said as I followed him upstairs.
“That’s because you don’t know her yet.”
I plucked that word out of the air and clutched it to my chest. Yet.
His room was enormous, but the ceiling slanted, making him crouch half the time. Pretty much what I expected: huge TV, Xbox, movie posters. Instead of the usual boy funk there was a faint herbal scent, his cigarettes and some kind of incense, maybe patchouli. He had a custom-built computer with two monitors and studio-grade speakers. And about a dozen types of video camera, in various states of disassembly.
“Are your parents rich?” I said, drifting to the windows. “Oh my fucking god.”
“What?”
“You have a pool.”
He shrugged uncomfortably.
“Wesley. Do you hate me?”
“No?”
“Please rephrase in the form of a statement. And if you don’t hate me, why didn’t you tell me you have a pool?”
Not once did it occur to me that it was because he couldn’t handle seeing me in a bikini.
“It’s too late to use it anyway.”
“That’s defeatist talk,” I said, but I grabbed a chair and sat beside him at the PC. “Let’s see the B-roll.”
He had a metric shit ton. Half from summer: oceans of wheat rippling in the wind, trains silhouetted against bloody sunsets, even the carnival, eerily deserted in the rain. The rest was from the school year: a swarm of legs walking past, the fistfight we’d seen. And me. I was in most of those shots. Staring out windows longingly or giving him my lunatic grin. Sitting in class listening to Mr. Wilke. In every single one of them my yearning was crystal clear. It burned in me like fever, made my skin glow palely, my eyes blaze, a beautiful madness. I stared at myself, breathless. I wasn’t hiding anything. It was all there in plain sight.
“Is this how you see me?” I said, almost whispering. “As an attention whore?”
“No. No way.”
“Then why am I in all of these?”
“Because you’re the only interesting person here.”
I glanced at him. “You can’t do much with this except make a film about me.”
He eyed me sideways, too. “Is that a bad thing?”
“That’s not me. I’m not some starlet. I want to make something, Wesley. I don’t want to be objectified as some pretty face.”
My words came out harsh and sibilant, like steam. I hadn’t meant to sound so angry.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“It’s okay. That’s why we’re here. To get some perspective.”
He wouldn’t look away from his keyboard, so I flicked his ear. He gave me a dirty look.
“Clean slate,” I said. “High school in the American heartland. What darkness lurks inside this seemingly pastoral town?”
“Incest,” he said.
“Cliché,” I said. “But probably.”
We brainstormed for a while, then decided to watch some stuff for inspiration. Unsurprisingly, Wesley was a huge David Lynch fan. We watched bits of Mulholland Drive, skipping around to our favorite parts. Mine: Betty arriving in LA, full of big dreams about to be mercilessly crushed. Wesley’s: the lesbian sex scene. I laughed and asked if he needed me to leave the room for a few minutes. He threw a Blu-Ray case at me. Siobhan made baked mostaccioli, and we all ate together, showing her some of his better footage on his phone. I’d plugged mine into his computer to charge.
“Someone’s calling you,” he said when we went back upstairs.
“Who?”
“‘E.’”
I grabbed my phone. “I need to take this. Outside.”
“Who is it?”
“Hi, Dad,” I said exaggeratedly when I answered. “Just a sec.”
I could practically hear Evan’s eyebrows go up with a little comic book noise. Fwip.
I raced downstairs, flung open the patio door. The pool lights were off, the water gleaming darkly in the oozing, sauvignon twilight.
“Hi,” I said when I was alone. “Sorry about that.”
“‘Dad?’”
“Thought you’d appreciate the Freudian irony.”
He laughed softly. His voice, slightly metallic, ran down through my bones and settled warmly in my chest, like bourbon. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”
You read things in romance novels like he made me melt, knowing this is physically impossible. Girls are not pats of butter. Yet my body was doing a damned fine imitation of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Girl, dissolving against the side of the house.
“So you called to torture me?”
“I know it’s late, but I want to see you.”
My eyes widened. “Do we have time for that?”
He laughed again, a little guiltily. “I actually just want to see you. Even if it’s only for a minute.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Yes what?”
“Yes, it’s late. And yes I want to see you.”
I pictured him smiling. “Can you meet me?”
Wesley was messing around online when I went back upstairs. “I’ve got to run. Family shit.”
I had to convince him to not walk me home. I sang out a goodbye to Siobhan, and for a moment I was reluctant to leave that bright, happy house. But something even brighter was waiting for me.
#
I stopped at home to brush my teeth and change clothes, because I’m not above vanity. The lights were off, Mom’s van gone. I wished she’d never come back. That Siobhan would pull into the driveway, saying, Come with me to your new life, lovely girl.
When I biked out to the water tower he was already waiting.
I hopped off and let my bike ride on without me and ran to him. He pulled me down to the grass to a blanket he’d spread. I ended up atop him, my hair in both our faces. He held me, his arms coiling and relaxing, again and again, one hand buried in my hair at the base of my skull. Crickets made a creaking heartbeat around us. Cool aloe musk rose from the grass.
“I’ve been thinking about this all day,” he whispered.
I brushed my cheek against his. The earth sank beneath us, pressed by the weight of the whole universe above. How could it set us up like this, every planet precisely aligned, if it didn’t mean for us to collide? His heart crashed against mine, fierce and steady.
I pushed myself up on my palms. “You’ve done something to me.” My voice was quiet, too, a ribbon of breath threading into the breeze that stirred my hair. “I feel like I’m waking from a long dream, and everything is so much more beautiful than I remembered.”
His eyes were pale and bright in the starlight. The hand in my hair pulled me to him.
I kissed my teacher in the shadow of the water tower, beneath the stars.
I’ve been pretty honest so far, haven’t I? So I’ll admit: it wasn’t innocent, blind love. His age drew me to him in the first place; now it was being my teacher that gave me a wild, terrified thrill every time we touched, infusing me with adrenaline, making my skin prickle. The danger was an electrode buried in my brain, lighting up my most primal fear and pleasure circuits. There was more to it, of course. Something was unfolding in me that had never opened before. But I wasn’t kidding myself. The forbiddenness was part of it.
I rolled onto my back and stared up at the sky. We propped our knees side by side. A tiny cut of light opened in the star-freckled face of the night, a shooting star. I raised my hand and closed a fist over it. When I opened my fingers, it was gone. Part of me now. You’re a creator. Wesley had seen the person he thought I was, some obsessive, narcissistic teenager. Evan saw both who I was and who I wanted to be.
“Why did you become a teacher?” I said.
He sat up, leaning on an elbow. “There are two types of teachers. The first kind always wanted to be teachers. They train for it. They’re passionate, caring, good people.” I could hear the smile in his voice, bittersweet. “The second kind wanted to be something else, but couldn’t. Crowded field, not good enough, not driven enough. Whatever. But they have a lot of specialized knowledge, so instead of letting it rot, they become teachers.”
“Which kind are you?”
“The third kind.”
“As in Close Encounters of?”
He pinched my upper arm. “The kind who doesn’t know how he got here or where he’s going. I was on my way somewhere else, but a detour came up.”
“Where were you going originally?”
“Promise not to laugh?”
I sat up too, intrigued. “Maybe.”
“You can’t promise ‘maybe.’”
“Cross my heart, hope to die.”
“I was going to be an actor.”
My jaw dropped. I could see it. That fucking gorgeous face. The way it filled with light, looking more alive, more feeling, more human than anyone else.
“Is that pleasant surprise, or ‘don’t quit your day job?’” he said.
I turned it into a grin.
Evan laughed, eyes downcast, actually shy. Or maybe acting shy. I looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. The lips that had been sculpted so delicately they stood out more than his other features, the eyelashes like gold dandelion seeds. I pulled out my phone.
“Tell me the story,” I said.
“While you film me?”
“Can I? This can be your audition.”
“For what?”
I couldn’t resist. “The role of my corrupt teacher. Of the third kind.”
He gave me an electric look. Even through the cheap phone camera it made my nerves tingle, lightning lacing up my arms. Our gazes met above the screen.
“I thought I already had the part.”
“Not until I get you on the casting couch.”
His eyes crinkled, his face folding into embarrassed laughter. “You’re a predator. I’m pretty sure you’re the one corrupting me.”
I sat behind my phone, relishing this. My power over him. The strange dynamic of me as the observer, him the observed.
“Why don’t you put that away?” he said.
“Why?”
“So you can corrupt me.”
I put it away.
“You owe me that story,” I said.
He tilted my face. Kissed me lightly on the mouth, then along my jaw, following it to my ear. My eyes half-shut, drifting to the carnival lights in the distance. The hot breath in my ear was unbearable, a chemical pulse straight to my spine.
Something rumbled out on the road.
We stiffened, listening. A car going past.
“Kids come out here,” I whispered, thinking of Wesley.
Evan took my hands and pulled me to my feet. Scooped up the blanket. I walked my bike toward his car on the road shoulder.
“I can’t last until Thursday,” I said. “I need to see you.”
He gave me that regretful wince, but it had become much less regretful lately, more longing.
“Rent another room,” I said. “At a different motel. I’ll pay for it.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to. This is as much mine as it is yours.”
We stared at each other over my bike. Far down the road, two red snake eyes winked in the darkness.
“Okay.” His voice was a little strange. “When should I pick you up?”
“As soon as the last bell rings.”
He reached over and lifted my face and kissed me, so intensely I let the bike fall against him. This was an old-time, black-and-white movie kiss, with the orchestra swelling in my chest, hot tungsten lamps carving out our shadows. My bones turned to air, nothing holding me up but the fierceness of my desire. God, I just wanted to get into that car with him. Forget this whole fucked-up life and disappear somewhere together. I had to push him away, fight for my breath. Too much. I gave him an agonized look. When he spoke, his voice was guttural.
“I can’t hold on to you. You’re like that shooting star. Just a trail of fire in my hands.”
And the Oscar goes to Evan Wilke, for putting the first fine, hairline crack in the ruby of my heart.
#
Before Nan died, she set aside a small nest egg for me. $6,000 sitting in a trust fund, waiting for me to turn eighteen. For your future, she said, with a guilty tone that was clearly also an apology: Sorry you were born to my daughter. I made a promise to myself that I’d use it for college.
I ditched Wesley at lunch and got an off-campus pass and biked downtown to the bank. I wasn’t going to pay the ATM fee at school, and I didn’t want anyone—especially Wesley—seeing me take out money.
Key skill while having an affair with your teacher: discretion.
The bright-eyed, bushy-tailed teller made squirrel noises at me.
“I need to make a withdrawal.”
Squeak, squeak.
I slid my bank card through the reader.
Squeak.
I pushed my ID under the window.
“Oh, you’re Maise,” the squirrel said.
“Right. Who else would I be?”
Puffy-cheeked smile. “Well, it’s a joint account.”
“With who?”
“Yvette?”
Mom.
I waited as the squirrel counted ten twenties with her twitchy little paws, then said, “Can you take Yvette off the account?”
“Unfortunately, no. It was opened for a minor. But you could start a new account.”
I had all of ten minutes to get back to school. “Maybe some other time.”
Squeak squeak.
As I walked out, tucking the wad of bills into my pocket, I suddenly felt my grandmother watching me withdraw my college money so I could shack up with my teacher. Jesus, when was the last time I’d actually felt ashamed of myself? I made two promises as I unlocked my bike.
One: I will replace this money before I go to college. Every cent.
Two: I will pay my own way with Evan, no matter what. I’m not a child. I’m an adult, in an unusual but no less adult relationship.
Key skill: denial.
#
Fast forward.
Wesley flicking my ear in the hall and tossing me an apple.
Me and Britt getting kicked out of the library for laughing too loudly at a boy giving us googly eyes.
Evan in his aviators, picking me up at the ghost town gas station.
Me in the motel office in borrowed sunglasses, renting a room.
And then just us.
Press play.
Urgency and need, my skin hot as tinfoil straight out of the oven, fingernails clawing his back. Him taking out a condom and me saying I’m on the pill and him saying, “I don’t want you to worry, ever,” and I agree because I just want to be fucked. And I am. And then I can think again, a starving girl given her first meal in weeks.
Fast forward.
Trading life stories in our underwear on a motel bed.
Burgers and fries spread across the blanket and his laptop playing 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Evan doing the ending monologue from American Beauty and making me shiver.
Photos of us I take in the bathroom mirror: laughing at the camera, then his head turned to me, then mine to him.
Faster.
School days ending in motel rooms. Broken AC, humidity making the air cling like clear jelly. A thunderstorm releasing us from misery, and me running barefoot into the parking lot, screaming with crazed abandon. Evan taking my wet clothes off in the sudden chill of the room and getting into a warm shower with me. My hands unable to find purchase on his slick skin as he holds me against the wall and fucks me with his finger, the tiles printing a graph onto my back.
Wesley saying his mom invited me over to Sunday dinner, even though I know it’s him.
Siobhan hugging me before I leave, and me stopping on a dark street to cry and smell her on my shirt.
Hiyam formally inviting us to her homecoming party.
Mr. Wilke and I talking to each other in class as if we’re just teacher and student, though our jokes are a little too familiar, our glances a little too intense.
Making out with him in his dark classroom during fourth period while kids walk past the locked door.
Wesley asking why I smell like men’s cologne.
Me listening to stupid sappy love songs nonstop, getting addicted to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Wedding Song.”
Another bank withdrawal, and me and Wesley applying for jobs together online.
Mom mercifully leaving me the fuck alone.
Finally, homecoming.
#
Siobhan said we’d regret missing the dance.
“It’s just a bunch of idiots trying to conceive illegitimate children,” I said.
“We’re not missing anything,” Wesley agreed. “Blood, fire, heads exploding. We can just watch Carrie.”
Which we did.
Besides, I thought, who would we go with?
Insane fantasy of me and Evan showing up together, blowing everyone’s mind.
At nine, Siobhan drove us to Hiyam’s house. “Watch each other’s drinks,” she said. “Don’t take any mysterious pills. Call me if you need anything.” Her eyebrows rose with droll disdain. “And tell this child’s parents they’re trying too hard.”
Hiyam’s house could’ve been airlifted from Beverly Hills. There was nothing like it within a hundred miles. It sat on half a dozen acres, surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. Inside was a brochure spread of flagstone paths, landscaped shrubs, illuminated accent pools. It took fifteen seconds of walking before we even saw the house, a pile of geometric debris.
“It looks like a parallelogram fucking an isosceles triangle,” I said.
Wesley snorted.
Light bled from every window, clear chardonnay yellow. Silhouettes swam across it. The music was a murky underwater pulse that grew clearer as we approached. Kids sprawled in the garden, laughing drunkenly, lurking in shadows in various states of undress. Despite myself, I felt a flare of excitement. It seemed all two hundred-odd members of our graduating class were here tonight.
I poked Wesley in the ribs. “Have your camera ready.”
“Always do.”
We walked through open French doors into the house.
Half the kids were still in formal wear, the rest in street clothes, like us—Wesley in a graphic tee and skater cargos, me in a babydoll top and skinny jeans. The deejay had some Hot 100 shit on at skullfuck volume. I couldn’t see much through all the skin and rayon and sweat, just flashes of onyx granite and oxblood leather, a cut-crystal punch bowl, platters of canapés. Every room flowed airily into another and people followed the circuit, moving, mingling. They were all sleepy smiles, shiny eyes, duckfaced girls making out with boys who had less hair on their face than I’d shaved off my legs, everyone drunk and dumb and happy.
We hit the drink table hard. A guy had smuggled in some Grey Goose and I slipped him a twenty and Wesley and I matched each other shot for shot, one two three four until he stepped back, looking dizzy.
“Lightweight,” I laughed.
“You’re trying to take advantage of me,” he said dubiously.
The room with the soundsystem was full of blacklights. When I glanced at Wesley he grinned, showing me moon eyes and a mouth full of glowing teeth. I closed my eyes and grinned back.
“Creepy,” he yelled in my ear.
The crowd split us for a moment, skeleton kids dancing with their arms in the air. The deejay spun some lame Ke$ha, but it was infectious. I slipped into the rhythm, let my body ride the music, vodka flooding my veins with sugar and fire. Wesley tried to sneak away and I caught him.
“I can’t dance,” he said.
“Neither can they.” I took his hand. “Just let yourself go.”
He was such a giant, it was hopeless. So I stayed close to him, and he faced me, and it worked. We were in our own little zone, surrounded by perfume and alcohol breath and damp young skin. A girl blew glitter in my face and instead of slugging her, I just laughed.
“This is so weird,” Wesley said when the song faded to the next.
“I know,” I said. “I feel like an actual kid.”
I grabbed his hand again and pulled him to the next room.
Hiyam was there, surrounded by her royal court of Mean Girls. She smiled and beckoned us over. Her subjects scattered like roaches when we neared.
“Having fun?” she said to me.
“I don’t know. Are we having fun, Wesley?”
Wesley stared at something across the room.
Hiyam’s feline eyes flicked to him, then to our clasped hands. I let go of him, suddenly self-conscious.
“Oh,” Hiyam said.
Jesus, awkward.
“I’ll catch you later,” Wesley muttered, slinking away.
I stood there feeling like an idiot. There’s nothing between us, I imagined saying. He’s kind of got this big sister crush on me and I’m kind of sleeping with our teacher. Also, I’m kind of drunk.
Hiyam was seventeen but looked mid-twenties: lipstick, heels, cream-colored cocktail dress. She had a sphinx’s face, stony and enigmatic. Her skin was amazing. Burnished bronze. I wasn’t sure of her ethnicity—Turkish? Persian?—but I felt utterly childish in her presence.
“I wanted to talk to you anyway,” she said. “Let’s walk.”
We drifted through the party, stopping occasionally for someone to talk to Hiyam. She listened with a half-smile, her eyes half-lidded. Regal boredom. No one seemed to realize it but me.
“Ever feel like you don’t belong with these people?” Hiyam said.
“Every day of my life.”
She smiled knowingly.
We ended up outside, on a terrace overlooking a pool. This pool was usable, not decorative, and a guy and girl were currently using it to make out madly in the shallows. The house pumped music into the night.
Hiyam produced a pack of cigarettes from somewhere mysterious and offered me one. I shook my head. She leaned on the granite railing.
“Mr. Wilke,” she said, exhaling a serpentine coil of smoke.
Alarm bells. I leaned on the railing too, so I could devote less of my brain to keeping my balance.
Hiyam glanced at me coyly. “You have a crush on him.”
“So do you.”
“He’s super hot.”
I had no idea how I was supposed to react. Should I agree? Was it suspicious if I didn’t? “Yeah, he is.”
“I’d fuck the shit out of him.”
Oh my god. How do I get out of here? “Not interested,” I said. “I’ve got a boyfriend.”
Hiyam’s eyebrows rose. Then she smiled. “In college?”
“Older.”
Her intrigue became genuine appreciation.
“What did you want to talk about?” I said.
She rolled her wrist, scrawling a spiral of smoke in the air. “I heard you can hook people up.”
I was too drunk and unsettled to realize what she meant.
“I’m looking for some coke,” she said bluntly.
Oh.
I opened my mouth, and then it hit me. The reason Hiyam invited us—me—to this stupid party. Because of my druggie mother. Because I could be a supplier. Not because we had one fucking iota in common, not even how we felt about our hot teacher.
My fingernails scraped against granite.
“I don’t deal,” I said.
Hiyam was accustomed to a certain degree of obedience. She didn’t wheedle me. She looked at me icily, took a drag, and said, “Let me know if you change your mind. I can connect you with a lot of interested parties.”
She walked away, trailing smoke.
My nails perched on the stone like bird claws. I thought I’d been reinventing myself, choosing who I wanted to be, but I was so naive. I’d always be my mother’s daughter.
I went back in, looking for Wesley. The dancing crowd no longer seemed charming. They were just a bunch of stupid drunk kids who didn’t know shit about the real world. Who wanted to buy coke with their rich parents’ money while my mom gave blowjobs in her van to supplement our income.
I finally found Wesley outside, smoking one of his clove cigarettes on a bench beside a pool. A bare bulb shivered beneath the water, marbling his face with cyan light.
“These people suck,” I said.
He glanced at me, then off into the shadows. I sat.
“What’s your problem?”
“What’s yours?”
“Hiyam thinks I’m a drug dealer. That’s the only reason she invited us.”
He turned halfway back to me. “Seriously? What a bitch.”
“I don’t know what I expected. We don’t fit in with anyone, anyway.”
I leaned back on my palms, looking at the Milky Way spilling in modest grandeur across the sky. A fountain of stars frothing over, surrounded by a mist of stardust. It looked like raw magic, like the glimmer I’d spy in a shadowy corner where the sun skimmed off invisible particles, reminding me there was a whole hidden world tucked inside this ordinary one. And it was up there every night, offering its mute beauty while we sat here with our heads down, tragically terrestrial. Not until I’d met Evan had I begun to open my eyes and really see this universe I was part of.
“You ever think the reason we’re into filmmaking is because we’re scared to be in front of the camera?” I said.
“No shit, Captain Obvious.”
I smiled. The notes of an acoustic guitar floated into the night, the beginning of “Wake Me Up When September Ends.” We both laughed.
“How wonderfully cliché,” I said.
“And the camera flies in for their close-up,” he said.
I was still smiling at him, but his had fallen. I was so fucking naive. “Close-up for what?”
Wesley kissed me.
Your body sometimes automatically reacts to things, especially when that thing has been building up for a long time, especially when you’re drunk and feeling like the only person who understands you at that moment is the person who was right beside you the whole time. So I kissed him back. I was stunned, and responding on reflex, and very, very slightly curious. Our kiss was gentle, sweet, almost pure. A boy and a girl kissing. I tasted bitter smoke on his lips and the clean metallic vodka we’d drunk.
Then my eyes opened, and reality came rushing back. I pushed him away.
Girl: shocked, bewildered. Boy: hopeful, anxious.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“I’m sorry,” he said, breathing fast. “I’ve wanted—I thought—”
Neither of us were really looking at each other.
“Oh, god. Wesley—I’m with someone.”
“Who? That guy you’re sneaking around with?”
Now our eyes met.
“You wouldn’t understand,” I said.
He laughed, not nicely. “I wouldn’t, huh? You act like you’re so mature, but you’re doing something you have to hide from everyone. Maybe I’m not as mature as you, but I know that’s fucked up.”
I felt cold inside. “Don’t judge me. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I stood and took a few aimless steps away, needing space. He followed.
“You know I’m your friend, right? Why don’t you trust me?”
I whirled around. “Because of this. Because I had no fucking idea you were going to kiss me.”
“You kissed me back.”
“Oh my god. This is way too high school for me.”
“God, you’re stuck up.”
“Fuck you,” I said.
“No, fuck you, Maise. Why are you hiding all this shit from me and then acting like you’re my friend?”
“I am your friend, you idiot.”
At some point we’d progressed to yelling. My voice rang across the night. Shadows stirred, faces turning.
Wesley was close, looming over me. He lowered his voice. “Then who the hell is he?”
I shook my head.
“Why are you so ashamed of him? Who is he?”
“None of your fucking business,” I spat.
Wesley laughed again. “You know, I should’ve listened the first time we met. You really meant it. You don’t want friends.”
He stalked off into the dark.
#
There’s only one thing to do when your sole friend abandons you at a party full of people you hate.
Get shitfaced.
I found the Grey Goose guy and gave him another twenty for the rest of a bottle, grabbed a cup of punch for a chaser, sat in the manicured grass beside a pool, and started drinking with steely determination.
Fucking Wesley. Ruining a good thing.
Idiot boys, never content with friendship.
Fucking cokehead Hiyam.
It occurred to me after five or seven shots that I no longer had a ride home. I couldn’t call Siobhan, even though she’d probably sympathize. I took out my phone and instead of calling a cab, I looked at photos. Evan had taken one of me running into the rain. Dark doorframe, bright silver rectangle of water coming down like tinsel, a girl I barely recognized throwing her arms wide to the sky.
He answered on the second ring. “Hi,” I said.
“Hi.”
I lay back in the grass, my limbs all loose string. “I’m really drunk. I’m sorry for calling.”
“Don’t be sorry. Where are you?”
“Beverly Hills.”
I pictured him frowning. “What?”
“My ride left. I’m stranded in paradise.” I was very drunk. I knew this in a detached, clinical way, as if observing my body from behind glass. “Everyone hates me, Evan. Hiyam just wants drugs, Wesley wants to fuck me. My mom wants—she wants me to not exist. I can’t give them anything they want.”
His voice came through the phone like a warm breath on the side of my face. “Listen to me. It’s okay. I’ll come get you. Tell me where you are.”
By the time he got there I’d had three more shots and was temporarily happy again. I stood up and then immediately sat down, not prepared for gravity.
“When did everything get so heavy?” I said, but with fewer consonants than it needed to be intelligible.
Evan looked at the empty bottle with alarm. “Did you drink all of that yourself?”
“No. I think.”
He started to lift me beneath the arms and a shadow wandered toward us from the bright blur of the house.
“Is she okay?” a small voice said.
It was Britt, from my history class. I hadn’t even talked to her the whole night. I really was a stuck-up bitch.
“I think so,” Evan said. “I’ll take her home.”
Once I was standing, I felt a million times worse. I leaned into him, arms around his waist for balance. The ground kept wanting to flip up and tumble me into the sky.
“Mr. Wilke,” Britt said.
She handed him my phone.
He thanked her and said good night.
“Shit,” I said as he walked me toward the gate. “She knows. They’re all gonna know.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay. They’ll take your job, they’ll take my—” I couldn’t think of what they’d take from me. Unknown privileges, vanishing in an instant.
“It’s okay, Maise. If they know, they know. We’ll deal with it. I’m going to make sure you get home safe.”
“This is how it ends,” I said mournfully. “I blew it. I’m a fucking idiot.”
“You’re not a fucking idiot,” he said, squeezing my shoulders. “But you should probably stop talking about it.”
I made it to his car in a sort of dream sequence, moments not fully connected to each other. Images jumbled in a flotsam in my head: my fevered forehead on the blessedly cool window; trying to tell him my address unsuccessfully until he found it in my phone. That detached part of me watched with loathing. Child, it said. If you were trying to prove how unready you are for this, congrats. You nailed it.
Somehow I communicated the existence of the spare key taped beneath the mailbox. Then I was on my couch in a living room that smelled like cigarettes and unsavory men. The hallway light slanted across Evan’s face, an amber stripe showing stubble and soft lips. He smoothed my hair.
“You are really drunk,” he said, almost wonderingly.
“Wesley kissed me.”
His hand slowed. “Seriously?”
“He’s in love with me. I didn’t know. It’s horrible.”
Evan smiled. “I can see why.”
I had enough wits to know he was making fun. “You—” I cut off, sitting up. A comet that had been accelerating inside my belly decided it was ready to crash into Earth. I clapped a hand to my mouth.
We made it to the bathroom just in time for the show.
Things I never expected to do my senior year: kiss my best friend, fuck my teacher, let said teacher hold my hair while I puked my guts out.
Thankfully, I was so drunk by then I barely knew what was happening. Cold linoleum, colder ceramic. Mouthwash, swirl and spit. Evan made me sip water that I promptly threw back up and he made me keep sipping until it stayed down. I felt a thousand years old, a set of bones wired together with rags and ancient sinew. He carried me back to the couch.
“Where’s your mom?”
“Who fucking cares.”
“I don’t want to freak her out.”
My eyes kept trying to drift shut. He was a fuzzy shadow against the warm hall light. “Are you staying?”
“Until I’m sure you don’t have alcohol poisoning.”
My eyes closed. “This isn’t how…” I trailed off.
He stroked my hair again. “Sleep.”
For a while, I did. Woke with my chest burning, the house dark. Evan sat on the end of the couch with my legs in his lap. I thought he was asleep but when I shifted, he looked at me. I was still pretty drunk.
“I kissed Wesley back,” I whispered. “I don’t know why. I’m sorry.”
I caught the edge of a smile in the dark. “It’s okay.”
“It felt wrong. I’m not in love with him.”
I couldn’t make out Evan’s face, but I heard his breath. His hand curled around mine, lifted it, brought it to his mouth.
“I’m—”
“Shhh,” he said. “You’re drunk.”
“Not that drunk,” I said, but my eyes had already closed, my brain slowly erasing itself into unconsciousness.
Later that night I woke again, and the hallway light was back on. A shadow stood in it.
“Who are you?” it said in my mother’s voice.
“I’m her friend. My name is Evan.”
“She okay?”
“Yeah. She is.”
The shadow watched us for a moment longer. Then the light turned out.
#
I woke alone on the couch under a slab of late September sun. My head was a fireball, my body mummified. It took a while before I could think about anything except how much I wanted to die.
Then: panic.
What the hell had I said last night? I knew what I’d been trying to say while Evan hovered over me like a guardian angel, but had I actually said it?
I sat up, and the world took a good five seconds to recalibrate to our new viewing angle. I groaned.
On the coffee table before me, a folded piece of paper with my name on it. Inside, his handwriting, flowing and elegant, the letters not quite closed.
I haven’t been fair to you, and I didn’t realize how much stress I’ve been putting you under. Maybe I didn’t want to realize it. You deserve better than this. You deserve better than being Harriet the fucking Spy. Sorry if this sounds dramatic—this isn’t a breakup letter.
Jesus, I thought, my heart pounding, maybe you should’ve started with that.
This is me saying I’m going to do better. I want you to be happy, Maise. You mean more to me than you know. Seeing you miserable and drunk breaks my heart. I want to make you as happy as you were that first night when we got off that crazy death ride together. I want you to be that free again.
The paper trembled in my hands.
I have an old friend who owns some property in St. Louis. He might be willing to sublet us a loft for the weekends. If you’re feeling better Sunday, I’d love to take you to the city.
My heart was going like mad again, but this time with joy.
You’ve done something to me, too. I can’t get enough of you. You’re in my blood like holy wine. And before you think that’s cheesy, that’s Joni Mitchell. Google her, young Padawan.
I laughed and cringed at the same time.
Okay, I should probably go. I don’t want to stop, though. I can’t stop with you. Come with me to St. Louis. Let’s find happiness.
I read it three times before I folded it up and stuck it in my bra. Not quite inside my heart, but that was okay. The words were already engraved there.