At 7:57 a.m. on Wednesday morning, I cross paths with Kit just as we make our way into school. She smiles at me and makes the take off your headphones motion, which I do. If I leave my music on and we talk while walking, I’m pretty sure I can still round the corner to a track change.
“Your face looks better,” she says, wincing. “Does it hurt?”
“Not too bad.” My right eye is ringed in blue and my lips are swollen, but my nose has returned to roughly normal dimensions. In the shower I noticed seven small bruises along my torso, and I’m pretty sure I’ll lose my left thumbnail. Meat Boy apparently has two casts. He will have to sit out the rest of the football season. I’m not complaining. I have not received a single threatening text since yesterday. For the time being, my peers are okay with me continuing to live.
“So there’s this party on Friday night,” Kit says.
“There are probably lots of parties on Friday night,” I say, a line which sounded much smoother in my head than out loud.
“Well, this particular one is a Mapleview high school party at Dylan’s.”
“Boy Dylan or Girl Dylan?”
Kit smiles to herself, though I have no idea why she’d find that amusing. “Girl Dylan.”
“Right.” I believe Girl Dylan has red hair that starts out small and fans out across her back. It’s spectacularly geometric. “The one with the orange triangular head?”
“I guess?” Kit asks. “So I’m wondering, do you want to go?”
“With you? To a Mapleview high school party?”
“Yes. With me. To the party. Though now I’m starting to regret asking, because you’re making this so much harder and more awkward than I thought it would be.”
“I’d love to go to Girl Dylan’s party with you,” I say, quickly accepting before Kit can rescind her invitation. If I didn’t know it was inappropriate, I’d do a little dance right here. I suddenly understand the appropriate usage of Miney’s Can I get a woot woot? because I want two of them—a woot and then another woot—whatever they may be. I’d maybe even add in some lasso arms.
“Okay,” Kit says.
“Okay,” I say, and try but fail to keep my face neutral. Nope, I smile so big it hurts my lips. I slip my headphones back on, round the corner at track change number three. A good start to the day.
I’m at the mall again, shopping for Friday night. Miney has declared this journey a necessity, though I don’t understand why I can’t just wear one of the outfits we bought last week. I’ve been rotating my new clothes on a mutually agreed-upon schedule with my mother that allows maximum repeatability by me but also makes time for biweekly washing. The thought of adjusting to more new clothes makes my body itch.
“Will it be noisy at the party?” I ask Miney, since she’s a serious partygoer and is therefore an expert. I say this loudly, because it happens to be noisy here too, as we pass the food court, my least favorite part of the mall experience. Too many mixed culinary smells and crying children and people pushing past while carrying an unwieldy number of shopping bags.
“Yup.”
“Distractingly so?” I ask.
“For you, yeah, probably. But you definitely can’t bring your headphones.”
“Will it be smelly? Will there be lots of people throwing up?” In almost every teen movie party scene, the heroine drinks too much and vomits on her potential love interest’s lap. I like Kit a lot, but maybe not that much.
“Nah. I mean, it happens sometimes, usually later in the night, but you’ll be fine.”
“So put a number on it. What do you think is the likelihood of someone vomiting on or near me at Friday night’s party?” I ask as we move into the atrium part of the mall, which has a high glass-domed ceiling and a grand piano. It’s the opposite of the food court—empty and open and the only part of this whole place that I don’t hate. The music isn’t half bad—I mean, there’s a reason the pianist is playing in front of Nordstrom and not at Carnegie Hall—but it’s a tolerable sound track.
“Two point four percent,” Miney answers with uncharacteristic precision. I do not ask her how she arrived at that number, but estimating that she’s been to at least one party a weekend for half a decade, this means she’s been proximate to throw-up about six times.
“Those are reasonable odds.”
“Little D, you’ll be fine.”
“What if the football team is there?”
“They will likely hide from you, since you are, like, the Ultimate Fighting Champion now.”
“In UFC they don’t abide by rules. I abide by rules. I fight with honor.”
“Right.”
“Can you please also give me instructions for dancing?”
“Excuse me?”
“I need instructions for dancing. Like how do I move my body to music in front of other people? Break it down. Step by step.”
“Seriously? Dancing isn’t one of those things that come with instructions. It’s not like putting together Ikea furniture.”
“Please help me.”
“Well, first of all, this is not the sort of music that will be playing.” She motions to the pianist, who is bald and bearded, which I’ve always found to be a bizarre combination. You would think you would want cranial and mandibular hair consistency.
“No Ravel’s Bolero. Got it.”
“No classical music, period. They’ll probably just play all the crap that’s on the radio.”
“I amend my original request. I need instructions for dancing to noise.”
“You just move your body to the beat. Feel the music.” Miney puts her arms up and sways to sounds I do not hear. She closes her eyes, leans on the tips of her toes, and jumps. After approximately ninety seconds, she stops and looks at me. “Your turn.”
“I don’t think so.” Miney doesn’t respond. She just waits.
“Fine.” I copy her, jump up and down, though I don’t actually jump down, which is a misnomer. I let gravity do its job. My sneakers make discordant squeaks along the marble floor.
“No. Stop. You look like you’re having a seizure. Think of dancing like having a conversation but with the music instead of with another person. It’s all intuition and instinct.”
“Right. Because I’m good at all three of those things. Intuition, instinct, and having conversations with other people.”
“Little D, sarcasm becomes you. Seriously, though, you got this. Just like when you’re talking to Kit, follow her lead. Look for the cues. If the song is fast, you move faster. If it’s slow, move slower, more intimately. Maybe for you it won’t be about instinct.”
“Then what will it be about?” I ask.
“Well, you’re good at details, right? Noticing the small things? And you know how to listen. Like really listen in a way no one else can. So maybe use those skills? Do it your way.”
“You’re not making sense. Dance my way? I don’t have a way.”
“You do. Everyone does.” We have reached the center of the atrium, and the sun is glaring down. It’s too hot in here. Ravel suddenly seems like an aggressive choice for the mall. I think through the numbers, applying values to a cost-benefit analysis of the chances of my humiliating myself if I decide to dance at the party. The math feels uncomfortably random, like I’ve assigned numbers just to make myself feel better. “And this could be your chance. Say you’re dancing with Kit, maybe you lean in a little and bam, you guys kiss.”
“Do you think this is my once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to kiss Kit Lowell? And if so, what do you think are my chances in that regard?” I ask.
“Yes, and I think your odds are about two point four percent.”
“So you’re saying that on Friday night I have an equal chance of getting vomited on as I do of getting kissed?”
“Welcome to high school,” Miney says.