37 Things I Love (In No Particular Order) (5 page)

There’s no one else here that I care about in the slightest. I’m just going to sit here, hold this beer, and wait for Abby. She’s made it over to Dennis. I hope she gets what she wants quickly so that we can go home.

Abby likes the parties, but really she likes the drinking. She says it makes her feel strong and alive. I’ve never asked her why she lies. When you stand at the edge, it’s obvious who’s sucking down beer for the fun and the feeling of it, who’s doing it because of peer pressure, and who’s doing it out of pain. I just don’t know what Abby has to be worried about. Everyone likes her already. I swirl the beer in my cup until a little sloshes over my hand.

Looking around, I start the game of guessing who’s having fun, who was dragged here, who felt pressured into coming because it’s the cool place to be. These are the small things I do to pass the time, but also to prove that I’m better because I know when I’m being manipulated. I could stop it anytime.

Anytime.

*   *   *

ABBY’S LAUGHTER
is impossible to miss. She has him to herself now. Dennis drinks from his cup. He nods at whatever Abby is saying, but he’s looking over her head, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think he was looking at me. But it’s dark, and the shadows are getting the best of me.

Dennis saunters toward me, Abby close on his heels. Then he’s at my side, resting his hand on the hood of the car near my hip.

“You paid your five bucks,” he says. “Are you going to waste it staring into the same beer all night?”

“Could be,” I say, tossing my head so that the breeze lifts my hair away from my face. I catch Abby’s glare out the corner of my eye, and every good thing I should do for her right now flies out the window.

Dennis taps the bottom of my cup with his fingers and lifts it toward my face. I can see his eyelashes and smell his breath.

I take two slow sips of the required beer. Dennis is close, watching. Actually he’s looking straight at my chest. I wonder if my boobs move when I swallow. I sip, then lower the beer to shield my cleavage from his gaze.

He flicks his attention to my face. The grin is taunting, telling me I am not good enough. Well, maybe I’m not. Maybe I don’t care. I stare until he starts to grow uncomfortable.

His face curls with mocking pity. “Looks like we’ve got a lightweight,” he says loudly, looking my body up and down so that nobody misses the irony. Chuckles echo from among the faceless crowd.

I just stand, looking at Dennis. I don’t really care that he’s mocking me. Maybe I should worry about it, I don’t know, but he’s an asshole, and it seems so insignificant in the face of everything else. If I just stand here, say nothing, after a while he’ll lose interest and I will win. I can win this. His cheek twitches, and I am moments, seconds from victory.

Fuck it.
I chug until I’m staring at the little plastic imprint in the bottom of the cup.
SOLO
. The jocks stomp their feet and cheer. When I stick out the cup for a refill, Dennis nods like he has been proven wrong, which he has. Someone pumps me a fresh draw from the keg and I suck it down to a rousing chorus of “Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!”
SOLO
. I lift the empty cup high in triumph. There is another cup ready for me. Dennis is close now, very close, and he pushes the new beer at me in such a way that his knuckles graze my breasts and kind of linger. I grab the cup away and step back. It’s Dennis, for God’s sake. Dennis, who I hate and Abby wants. Why does it have to be Dennis?

Abby steps around near to me, but nearer to Dennis, her body aligned with his, and I know she has not come to save me. Her eyes are alive, and the spite in them is aiming at me.

“Whoa, Ellis,” Abby says, her voice a little slurry. “Fast track to the whiny-winey-witching hour?”

Everybody laughs. My cheeks flame. That is supposed to be a private joke, and not a very funny one, at that.

Abby puts her hands up. “’Cuz y’all haven’t seen what Ellis is like after too much beer.”

If I thought I could throw a decent punch, I might slug her.

“Shut up,” I say, which I should know won’t help matters. I have crossed the line—a couple of lines now—and Abby’s staking her claim. I know better. I do. Abby wants to look good, to be seen, to have all eyes on her, and here I am letting the jocks incite me to chug. Letting Dennis look at my boobs, which are actually real. Stealing her audience, when I don’t even care. I get that. It’s my bad.

“I’m finished, Abby,” I say, holding up my hand. “Do you wanna go next?”

The pause is long enough that most everyone moves on. They start shifting and chattering in the background, a dozen conversations that have nothing to do with us.

“No, I think you should keep going,” Abby says quietly, draping herself over Dennis’s arm. The Jell-O boobs have his attention now. “Keep going, so they can all see what a baby you really are.”

I sip the fresh beer in my hand. The only other thing to do is cry, and that would only make Abby’s words true.

“We’re just having a little fun here,” Dennis says awkwardly.

“You’re soooo right,” Abby says. She comes up on her tiptoes and says close to his ear, “I’m having such a great time. Can I get another beer?”

“Sure, yeah. Good idea.” Dennis’s hormones have kicked back in. He hurries to the keg and pumps two full cups.

Abby stands staring at me, waiting for him to return to her, which of course he will, and that’s all she wants. Loyalty is second to the limelight in her eyes. But I don’t want to be center stage. She can have it. It’s okay with me. It’s really okay.

“Bitch,” I mouth at her before I turn and walk away into the dark.

9

The Swings

Sometimes it’s the simple things.

I AM SORELY TEMPTED
to leave Abby there. Just take the Purse and go. It’s within my power to do that, and it would serve her right. She chose Dennis over me and probably won’t look back, so I don’t owe her anything. Not tonight.

The problem is, where would I go? It’s a twenty-minute walk to Abby’s house, but if I’m ditching her, I don’t want to be in her bedroom when she falls in the window later, drunk as a proverbial skunk. We will fight, and her parents’ll hear us and then we’ll both be in a world of trouble. But my house is another twenty minutes beyond Abby’s, and do I really want to go all the way back there, when I’ll have to explain to my mother in the morning how I ended up in my own bed? On top of which, I’ve had better than two beers, one right after the other, and don’t really feel much like walking anywhere.

I promptly sit down, somewhere in the middle of the Field, hoping I’m far enough away from the others that they can’t even see my shape poking out of the grass. The last cup of beer is still in my hand. I set it aside, half empty.
SOLO
. I lie back on the ground, which is just a touch cooler than the air and feels refreshing on my skin. Solo.

I’m not drunk, but I feel something kind of like drunkenness coursing through me. It’s still good and soft, though, which is how I know I’m not drunk. I got drunk once, guzzling stolen wine coolers with Colin and Abby. I will never repeat it, never, ever in my life. Just to think of how it felt makes me shiver in place—a miserable, unsteady feeling, like suddenly it seemed possible to fall off the earth. I spent sixty-two minutes screaming and crying and clutching the grass before finally passing out. Colin calls it my whiny-winey-witching hour, but when he says it, it’s not unkind, just something we all know and share. When he says it, it’s never cruel and in public.

I hear footsteps slushing along the field. My heart flutters with the stupid, stupid hope that Abby has come to find me, bearing apologies.

“Ellis?” I know the voice, but it’s not Abby’s.

“Cara?”

“It’s me. Hi.”

“What are you doing here?”

Silence. A large silence, which my rudeness swells to fill.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply”—
that you aren’t popular enough to be invited—
“I mean, I shouldn’t have— You can be anywhere you want, of course.”

“I wasn’t offended.” She sighs as she settles into the grass beside me. We stare at the sky, the faint dots of stars that are visible through wisps of clouds and above the ambient glow of all the distant streetlights.

“Why do you tolerate her?” Cara says to the sky.

“She’s my best friend.”

“Is she?”

“I just said she was.” I’m irritated by her skeptical tone.

“Okay, sorry.”

The air is peppered with lightning bugs. My gaze flits from one little burst to the next. I try to predict where they will appear.

“What are you really doing here?” I ask. “This doesn’t seem like your idea of fun.”

Cara sighs. “It’s complicated.”

“What isn’t?” I mutter. My slight buzz is fading, and I’m glad to see it go.

“Sometimes I go to the swings,” Cara suggests. “To get away from everyone.”

“No, I like it here,” I say. It is on the tip of my tongue to ask why you would come to a hangout place if you wanted to get away from everyone, but then again, who am I to judge?

“That’s cool,” she says. “I don’t know why, anyway. I guess the swings make me feel like a kid or something. Like nothing matters.”

I would speak, tell her that I’m touched by what she’s said, but I can’t. A memory of Dad rises out of nowhere. The strange, uncomfortable quiet between Cara and me carries me back, far back, until I’m held in his arms.

We play on the swingset at Grover’s. He pushes me, but I’ve learned to pump my legs, and so I want to do it myself. Swing, back. Swing, back. “Too high, Ellis. Too high!” His voice floats, but I am flying, laughing, so when I crash into the gravel, I am shocked. I cry. My knee is scraped open, and the palms of my hands sting.

Dad scoops me into his lap, kisses the back of my hands. I bounce in his arms as he runs to the car. He sets me down and fumbles for the first aid kit. He pours alcohol over my knee because he doesn’t know about peroxide and that it hurts less but still kills germs. I scream. The Band-Aid is tight and sticky, then he hugs me, and I know there will be a chocolate milk shake coming.

I remember.

The tears run out of my eyes into the grass. It aches and it aches, but I remember. For the first time in a long time, I remember. Thank God that it’s dark so Cara can’t see, for the second time today, what a freak I am. The stars blur, and I’m just grateful not to be alone.

“I changed my mind.” I sit up, feeling dizzy and waiting for it to pass. “Let’s go to the swings.”

*   *   *

MY FEET DRAG
in the gravel. A reassuring sound.

Cara, on her own swing, leans back, straightening her arms, relying on the plastic-coated chains to keep her hanging in midair. She points her toes.

I watch her, loving that she doesn’t seem to care that I’m watching. Her black hair streams away from her face. There is just a hint of a breeze.

“I’m not going to finish this beer,” I say. “If you want it.” The cup is perched on the ground near the swingset pole.

“No, thanks. I’m going to be driving.”

“Oh. You have your license?”

“It’s complicated.” Her body is an almost perfect plank, feet higher than her head. She’s trusting the swing, the air, the earth not to hurt her.

I bury my toes among the tiny stones. “But you know how to drive already?”

“Yeah, well, Evan taught me.”

I nod. I guess these are the advantages to having an older brother. “He’s a senior now, right?”

“Yeah. Mr. Big Stuff.”

“That must be nice.” I can’t imagine how it would feel to have someone else my age around the house. Would we sneak into each other’s rooms to talk late at night? Would we go together to visit Dad? Would he side with Mom and want to…? No. He would always have my back.

Cara snorts, coming upright. “Nice? Not really.”

“Oh.”

“It used to be cool, I guess,” she says. Maybe she senses my disappointment. “But right now, he’s just mean.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, like, he makes me come here even though I feel like a total loser around these people. No offense.”

“Oh, please. I feel like a loser here, too,” I admit.

Cara laughs. “Hmm. But it’s not the same. You’re popular.”

I tilt my head. “No…” Being friends with certain people hasn’t made me popular, not really.

“Yes, you are, Ellis,” she says. “Hello, Dennis North was hitting on you a little while ago.” She nods toward the group. “
They
don’t think you’re a loser.”

I shake my hair over my face, wanting to change the subject. “So why do you come, then? Evan can’t really make you, can he?”

Cara sighs. “Sort of. It’s a quid pro quo thing.”

I feel it’s my duty to repeat the phrase in the proper Hannibal Lecter whine. “Quid pro quo, Cara?”

She grins. “Yeah. My parents worry because they think I don’t have any friends. I don’t get out enough, etc. You wouldn’t believe some of the things they’ve tried to get me socialized.” She rolls her eyes.

“So Evan, brilliant deductive mind that he has, figures out a way that we can pull one over on them. Now, when he goes out, I go out. He and his friends get bulldozed, and then I drive them all home.”

“But you don’t have your license?”

“Just my learner’s. That’s why it’s a secret.”

“Why would you do that?”

“He gives me money for art supplies.”

“Ah.”

She shrugs. “I get paid to suffer public humiliation; he doesn’t die or go to jail. QPQ.”

“And, so you’re, like, cool by extension?”

Cara laughs. “Not hardly.”

*   *   *

THE DANCE MUSIC
is pumping. They’ve turned on more headlights. The deep gray air has turned murky. We are better than shadows now, silhouettes. A lone figure weaves her way across the grass toward us.

Cara says something under her breath. I would ask her to repeat it, but we are no longer alone.

“There you are!” Abby throws herself into my lap. The swing rocks as I fight for balance. “Where have you been?”

She kisses the side of my hair. I can almost hear her buzzing.