Bring: Beer

When I got back to my room, I shoved the flyer in Cammie’s face.

“Let’s go to this.”

She was leaning over a poster board using liquid eyeliner to stencil in the words “Business Plan” across the top. She glanced at the flyer for the briefest of seconds and started blowing on her letters.

“Are you having some kind of midlife crisis?”

“I’m only twenty, brat; you have to be in the middle of your life to have a midlife crisis. Why aren’t you using a marker?”

“I don’t have one and I’m in no mood for jokes. This project is due tomorrow and the only thing I know about business is how to spell it.”

“Well, you don’t even know that much because you’re missing an s.”

Cammie frowned at her poster and went to work on the last s.

“I need you to come with me...”

I walked to my drawer and retrieved a box of markers.

“What are you going do at a party?”

I quelled the urge to smack her and tried to sound pleasant.

“I don’t know. Normal things that people do at parties…like…hang out.”

“You don’t drink, dance, or smoke. Sorry Olivia, nobody’s going to want to talk about politics with you, unless you’re going to a keg party at Beta Nu, and that would be so, so lame.”

“I can dance,” I said defensively, “and anyone can drink—there’s no special talent needed there.”

“Yes, but a special talent is needed for not acting like a fool when you are drinking.” She was drawing hearts on the corners of the board and making little smiling faces in the center of each one.

She was such a waste of good air.

I sighed dramatically.

“I will do your project for you—if you come with me.”

Cammie rolled over onto her back and waved her arms in the air like she was swimming the br**ststroke.

“Glory hallelujah! You’ve said the magic words.”

I grunted. I would have done it for her anyway. I’d be damned it I let my roommate turn in a business plan that looked like a Valentine’s Day card.

On Saturday I got ready with the precision of a spinal surgeon. Everything had to be just right. I was going to win this battle—be it with Mad Merlot lipstick and Sexy by Victoria Secret. At ten o’clock Cammie and I were floating up the stairs of the Zax house surrounded by clouds of exhaled nicotine. My head was spinning and my dress, which was a size too small, was hugging my chest like a boa constrictor.

“It’s a good thing you look like a normal girl,” Cammie said, smiling at me in approval.

“Normal—as opposed to what?”

I was tugging at my dress trying to cover the exposed swell of my br**sts, which were rising like two plump muffins, out of Cammie’s push up bra.

She smirked at me and tugged the dress back down again.

“Well, you have those for one thing,” she poked me in the chest. “You’ve been hiding them in those ugly, outdated shirts you wear. And makeup makes you look sexy—exotic even. You clean up nicely my friend.”

I hoped so.

"Are you ready O?" Cammie asked squeezing my arm. I felt a little sick actually but I took a deep breath and nodded.

"Good, because this is going to be the most interesting night of your life.”

The door opened and we stepped into a room so thick with bodies and the stench of beer, my first instinct was to step back. Cammie shoved me through the doorway and toward a table corrupted with bottles.

“A drink first,” she said handing me a red plastic cup, “then, you do what you came to do.”

Cammie splashed vodka into my cup and added a stingy dash of cranberry. I was so nervous. I took a sip too large for my mouth and spilled the concoction down the front of my dress.

“Careful, Julia Roberts. The plan is to be smooth.” Cammie eyeballed me disapprovingly and I took another sip, carefully this time. It was worse than I thought. People were sweating and touching everything, breathing their alcohol breath into each other’s faces…germs! Horniness! They were acting like animals. I suddenly felt a rush of panic. This was too hard—being someone else. There had to be another way to do it.

"I don't think that I can—” I said turning around. The door was ten steps away. All I would have to do was dodge a couple of bodies and I could slip into the cool night air before I had the chance to humiliate myself.

Cammie grabbed my arm.

“There he is," she hissed into my ear. I turned. He was in a room to our left, playing pool. Raucous laughter drifted over to where we were standing and I caught the words “vibrator and locksmith.”

“Well, maybe we can stay for a bit,” I said weakly. Caleb was taking his turn. He bent over the table with hard concentration and knocked two balls into their pockets.

“What do I do now?”

“You have to get his attention without getting his attention.”

“I don’t speak girl games.”

Cammie waved to someone across the room.

“Look, just don’t be obvious,” she said. “There’s nothing more unattractive then a girl who throws herself at a guy.” This was coming from the same Cammie that rubbed baby oil on her cle**age every morning to draw attention to her “better parts” as she advertised them.

“How the hell do I do that?”

“You were the one who wanted to come. You figure it out.” And with that, she left me. Freshman scum. I hovered at the drink table for a few minutes then realized that I must look like a loser and wandered away. Okay, I had to do something to get his attention, to let him know that I was here.

I spotted the DJ’s booth and an idea wiggled its way into my brain. Dancing! My secret weapon!

A guy wearing a “Korn” t-shirt was typing something into a laptop behind the table. He nodded at me when I approached and his eyes immediately found my cle**age.

“Can I request a song?” I shouted above the music. He nodded at my girls and pressed a piece of paper and a pencil into my hand. I quickly scribbled the name of a song and the artist onto the paper and handed it back to him.

“My face is here,” I said reaching out and lifting his chin until he was looking me in the eye. He smiled and winked at me.

Degenerate. I kind of liked him.