Afterparty (25 page)

I push out of the water and out of his half embrace, his other arm still around Siobhan. And I shout, “Stop! I have a boyfriend.”

Siobhan says, “Sure you do.”

MIDNIGHT.

I am on the floor of my closet, doing the arithmetic of poor choices. I’m in the negative numbers column, not even counting the things that I refuse to guilt myself about but maybe I should, starting with every second I’ve spent with Dylan. Not to mention every lie I’ve told to get every one of those seconds with him.

And then there’s every second I
want
to erase.

It isn’t that hard to differentiate.

Me:
How could you blindside me like that?

Siobhan:
Give it up. He tried, you left. Big fucking deal.

Me:
You might have warned me it was him.

Siobhan:
Like u’d have come?

Me:
That’s the point!!!!! Where did you dig him up?

Siobhan:
Beach club. Thought we could get another taste.

Me:
I didn’t want another taste.

Me:
What am I supposed to say to Dylan? I so suck.

Siobhan:
Check mark for killing labradoodle. Time to bail.

Me:
I’m not bailing. I’m going to tell him. Obviously. I got in a Jacuzzi with your latest whatever and he tried to kiss me and I left. It’s not that big a deal.

Siobhan:
Obviously.

Me:
He’ll understand.

Siobhan:
Sure he will. Are u and labradoodle coming to Sunset tomorrow with me or what?

Me:
You’re delusional. You did that to mess with me. Did you think I wouldn’t notice?

Siobhan:
Nobody fucks with me grasshopper. Even u.

THE GENERAL UN-FUNNESS OF NOT
getting ready with a best friend is getting to me. Siobhan is as incommunicado as you can be when you’re in most of the same classes and capable of communicating volumes with a single scowl. Given that I want to punch her, this is not entirely a bad thing. Clearly, the combing of the hair and the shellacking of the nails, the admiration of each other’s exquisite taste in hot dresses, won’t be happening

I ask my dad if I can go down to Sunset Plaza to Blushington to get the infinitesimal, minute amount of makeup I plan to wear applied by a professional and get my hair blown out in Hollywood at Je Jeune. I’m not sure if it’s that he’s so in love with the idea of completely invisible makeup, or if he feels sorry for me, if it’s my motherless-girl-in-need-of-arcane-female-knowledge mojo, but he says yes in less than a second.

And even though, thanks to professional help, I finally
achieve something as close to gorgeousness as I will ever hover—glossy hair, perfectly made-up eyes, the to-die-for vintage scarlet dress—I keep thinking about getting ready for parties with a mother, and whether she ever contemplated dyeing
her
eyelashes.

I am tangled up in small, intimate details I will never know.

Even the compass feels sorry for me. It goes,
Buck up. For once, you’re in a dress that’s not obscene, and you’re so depressed, there’s a good chance that you’ll behave yourself out of sheer listlessness. Yay!

My dad says, “Just remember –”

“I’ll only get soft drinks directly from the bartender, and I won’t drink anything that’s left my hand, and I won’t let anyone who’s drunk anything but pop drive me, and if I see drugs or weapons or gang warfare, I’ll walk away. And there’s enough money in my handbag to fly back to Canada if California has an armed insurrection between now and two a.m.”

“This is serious, Ems.”

“Dad! I know that you’re concerned about me and I appreciate it so much and I’m so happy you’re letting me go and thank you. But seriously, I’m not going to get drunk or pregnant or kidnapped or shot. The guy’s parents are going to be there.”

My dad looks dubious. He says, “How did you get me to agree to this again?”

“Don’t I look nice and respectable? This dress comes from the nineteen-
fifties
.”

My dad says, “You look stunning. That’s what worries me.”

But he hugs me, and then he opens the front door, and I walk out in my extravagantly high-heeled red shoes as quickly
as a person in such slender heels can walk, before he changes his mind.

I just want to get to Dylan’s, and for Dylan to look up and say something like “wow,” if not the actual word “wow.” Then I want to finally meet his parents, who can admire the vintage dress as well as marveling at Dylan’s good taste in girlfriends.

But apparently going to a party with Dylan’s parents doesn’t mean actually going to a party with Dylan’s parents. When I drive up to his house, they’ve already left for a different party they’re going to first. Dylan is sitting outside in the dark, lit by the dim porch light, slouched on a wooden lawn chair, bare feet in Lulu’s fur.

I say, “Did something happen?”

“My family happened. My fault, of course.” He shrugs. “Aiden stormed off for parts unknown, which is, again, my fault. No one is very happy with me.”

“We should go cheer you up with some partying immediately.”

Dylan looks at me in the red dress. He does not say “wow.” “Probably you’re overdressed for Mel’s Drive-In. Which was my plan B.”

“But your Plan A is so promising. Music, champagne, over-the-topness. A live band I’ve actually heard of.”

“Probably I’m overdressed for Mel’s, too,” he says, standing up. “But I could change.”

“Don’t change. You clean up really well.”

Dylan shakes his head. “I’m so fucked up right now. You look amazing. You’ll probably run off with a guy at Mel’s.”

He kicks at one of the pseudo-rocks, cast from a glasslike substance, lined up along his driveway.

I say, “It’s just, it’s Valentine’s Day, and we’re dressed up, and it’s a party. Do you really want to spend Valentine’s Day in a diner?”

He says, “When I’m back East and this is all a bad memory from my overprivileged youth, I’m never going to another one of these crap things.”

“We don’t have to go, but I thought you were inviting me somewhere you wanted to take me. Explaining how I’m feeling.”

He sits with his feet sticking out of the driver’s side door of his car, putting on socks. “I’ve been inviting you where I want to take you. I tried to get you to do whatever it takes to get sprung by your dad so we could go hear some real music downtown. But apparently it took this glitz fest.”

I wonder how many miles over the Atlantic Aiden has to be for Dylan to stop being so irritable.

“Shoot me,” I say, fastening my seat belt, in two-can-play-at-this mode, I-might-be-your-excessively-adoring-girlfriend-but-I’m-not-your-doormat mode. “I thought a party with Hell’s Gate playing would be
fun
.”

“Hell’s Gate is putrid.”

“I thought you liked this kind of thing.”

“Why would you think I like this? I hate this kind of party. I hate this.”

He waves at his house, or maybe at all of Beverly Hills, or at all of L.A. County. Hard to tell.

“Excuse me for not figuring it out, but there are pictures of you whooping it up at glitzfests all over the Internet.”

“Maybe you confused me with my brother, hallowed be his name. Ladies’ man. Asshole. Liar. Looks a lot like me, only taller. Likes the same girls. He really likes this over-the-top shit.”

We wind up to Mulholland. Dylan accelerates into a curve, and there’s L.A., lit up below the guardrail.

He says, “Yeah, you two could hit it off.”

“Excuse me?”

By this time, we’re parked in a turnout, my hands are over my ears, and Dylan is slouched behind the wheel.

He says, “I’m sorry. My fault. No excuse.”

We aren’t actually looking at each other.

I say, “Do you suddenly hate me?”

“I opposite of hate you. I tend to kick the cat when I feel like shit.”

“I get to be the cat?”

“Sorry. Bad week.”

“I know,” I say. “Sorry I pushed this party so hard. Seriously, let’s go back to your house and admire each other’s outfits.”

Dylan turns his head farther away from me. “So I can be the sulky dud boyfriend who screws up your Valentine’s Day and Jean-Luc can be the one who sends you the camellias? No.”

“Dylan, there were
no
camellias, all right?”

“You don’t have to make things up to make me feel better. Maybe I’m not cool like that.”

“Believe me, he wasn’t all that.”

“Give it up. He was the French god of cool.”

“He wasn’t what you think. I’m trying to be honest here. We should turn around and talk.”

Because this is it, I can feel it coming, I have to do this before we’re any deeper into this.

Just not in this car on the way to this party.

Dylan says, “So. What haven’t you told me about him?”

“Maybe let’s talk after the party if you don’t want to turn back. It’s already intense.”

He says, “Answer. The question.”

And here I am with my back to the wall. All right, pressed between a car door and a bucket seat. Seat-belted in and brushed with body glitter, no doubt shedding sparkles in the very spot where I am trapped.

My heart is beating too fast, and I’m so clammy that I’m sticking to the leather seat. We’re driving along Mulholland now, at the part where it gets curvy and narrow—we’re whipping around and it doesn’t feel as if there’s any choice.

If I don’t tell him, he’ll be with someone who isn’t actually me—someone he thinks is me, and looks, and sounds, and smells like me, but isn’t.

If I don’t tell him, I’ll hate myself with really good reason.

Even the most morally challenged person could tell what has to happen.

I say, “There is no Jean-Luc.”

“Don’t play with me, Emma.”

“No, literally. There’s no Jean-Luc.”

DYLAN SEEMS TO BE SWERVING
off the road, but, in fact, we are turning into the circular driveway of a serious palace. We are on the threshold of what has to be the splashiest Valentine’s Day party in the history of the world, in a black suit and a perfect scarlet dress, yet I have just dragged us into the eye of another shitstorm.

Hell’s Gate must be taking a break, because the speakers are blaring a hideous reggae version of “I Only Have Eyes for You.”

Dylan stands there glaring at me, after which he stomps off and we end up on the side of the house, which is terraced, strung with paper lanterns, and studded with astonishingly well-dressed people of the I-have-a-bazillion-dollars-and-this-dress-is-made-of-spun-gold-thread variety.

Dylan says, “I don’t. Fucking. Believe you.”

“I’m sorry! I tried to tell you last week, but you were in such a bad mood.”

“
Last week!
That’s how long it took you to figure out you should stop making a fool of me?”

“I tried to tell you at the Griddle. I really did.”

Dylan says, “You should. Have. Tried. Harder.”

“Dylan—I know.”

“Did you have
fun
when I was fucking jealous of him?”

“Please let me explain.”

Dylan leans back against one of the many random Greek pillars dotting the landscape all over the place, festooned with red ribbon and hearts that look a lot like little pincushions. He says, “Great. Explain. This should be interesting.”

He looks as if he wants to string me up. And in the absence of a workable lie, I blunder into the unfamiliar truth.

“Okay, this is it. I thought that maybe you’d prefer to be with a girl who wasn’t, all right, lying about basically everything. Because you would, right? But when it started to seem as if you might possibly like me, I was just afraid you
wouldn’t
like me if you knew. Obviously, I blew it.”

I just want to rewind. I want to be back at Strick’s party and for Siobhan to say,
Yo, Chelsea, Em has a boyfriend
, and for me to seize possession of my right mind and go,
Good one, Sib
—as opposed to finding Jean-Luc an apartment in Paris with a view of the Eiffel Tower and making him a Facebook page.

Dylan says, “Why?”

There’s no way to say it without drowning in humiliation, no way to paddle in the general direction of decent human being without saying it. So I just say it. “At the time, International Girl
of Intrigue with the romantic French boyfriend seemed like a better plan than Virgin Geek Girl from the Frozen Tundra.”

Dylan whistles. “You think I’m a jerkoff who’d like you better if you’re cheating on some guy from Montreal with me?”

“He was from Paris. And I broke up with him before I touched you.”

“Great. Paris. That changes everything.”

Then we look at each other and I hear the ridiculousness of what I just said and he just shakes his head. “Jesus, Emma.”

He sounds so bitter. And angry. And justified. And I have no idea what I can say or do to make this better.

He says, “Every time I talked about him, you stood there and
let
me? Were you laughing at me behind my back?”

“I would never! I just didn’t think you’d exactly
admire
me if you knew I was . . .” (This is the place where I don’t want to say “lying” again, or “a liar,” or “pathologically dishonest,” and I just stand there silently until I come up with something slightly less awful yet true.) “. . . making him up.”

“You’re right. I wouldn’t.”

I try to touch his arm, but he tenses as if he’s repulsed by my fingertips.

I say, “Don’t do that. If you’re breaking up with me, just break up with me.”

“This isn’t us breaking up,” he shouts. “This is us having a big-ass fight.”

We would appear to be heading toward the far reaches of a
patio where we can fight in private when Dylan stops dead and takes out his vibrating phone.

He says, “Not tonight. Aiden. He will not quit.”