Afterparty (30 page)

She says, “Oh fuck this,” and she runs out of the room.

I wait maybe three seconds to follow her, but I can’t find her.

• • •

Dylan says, “Drop it. She’s not your problem anymore.”

“Dylan, she’s constantly high!”

“Like you never noticed that before? Weren’t you at the same parties?”

I say, “This isn’t parties, this is school.”

He says, “You never noticed at school?”

“I didn’t notice at school because she was straight at school.”

After lunch, French tests get passed back and she’s sitting
there with a red D. Which is essentially impossible to get unless you accidentally stumbled into the room when you were trying to find Russian II.

After orchestra practice, when I meet Dylan and Arif in the caf, Arif says, “You should have seen your friend in Econ. Not a pretty sight.”

I say, “What?”

Dylan says, “Her former friend.”

“Oral reports,” Arif says. “Ordinarily she’s a big fan of the free market. Eats socialists for lunch, actually. Today—hard to tell what she was even talking about.”

I remember telling my dad how we were staying up late making suits of armor out of tinfoil for our Joan of Arc oral report, the night we went out riding Loogie and Sir Galahad. Eons ago. A few months ago.

Dylan says, “You can’t fix her. You already tried.”

I say, “Not hard enough. Look at her.”

Dylan intones, “Once again sucked into the vortex of bullshit.”

Arif says, “D.K., get off her back! You know it’s the right thing to do.”

“Do you want to get frog-marched back to Convo, where someone
wants
to hear you ranting about the right thing to do?” Dylan says.

It’s like hanging out with ten-year-olds. Really smart ones, but still.

I say, “Did anyone ever mention that you guys don’t exactly bring out each other’s mature sides?”

Arif says, “All the time.”

Dylan says, “Never.”

“Prepare to be amazed by my extraordinary maturity come September,” Arif says.

I ask, “Why?”

They both look at me. They both look slightly stricken.

Arif says, “D.K.?” Then he says, “Maybe I’ll go polish my shoes and learn Greek.” Latimer doesn’t have Greek, and he’s wearing Adidas made of shiny cloth and suede. He picks up his backpack and gives Dylan a withering look.

I say, “What?”

Dylan says, “I was going to tell you. But I wasn’t sure if it was going to be a parade or a funeral.”

At the pit of my stomach, something curdles. I put down my shake.

“What?”

“Do you want to walk?”

I have the feeling that, basically, he doesn’t want to tell me whatever this is in the caf and then be treated to me throwing food at him.

The quad is almost empty by now as we walk around its perimeter. “Just tell me.”

He says, “I got into Georgetown.”

I am just above us, in the trees, watching us. I am watching him evaporate into thin air as I reach out my arms and find them flapping in an unpopulated space.

“But you’re a junior. You can’t get into Georgetown.”

“I have enough units,” he says. “A junior from Loyola got in last year. Palmer just has to get Latimer to fork over a diploma. But they will, just to get rid of me.”

I am watching myself be a good friend and a decent person, and not having the clingfest that I feel like having.

I say, “That’s great! Congratulations.”

I am trying to be completely happy for him. Because it’s a big deal and it’s wonderful and he wants out so much—such as every few sentences, ever since I met him. I’m thinking about how the only things he’ll miss in L.A. are me and Arif and Lulu. How staying would mean one more year in a guesthouse he hates, at a school he hates, with parents who only make cameo appearances to tell him that he’s surly.

I say, “You have to go. Dylan! It’s amazing.”

He says, “You don’t look happy.”

“I didn’t realize that we had an expiration date that soon. That’s all.”

He says, “So. Here’s the thing. I don’t do sap. But where else am I going to find somebody that enthused over a half-eaten chocolate bird?”

“Excuse me?”

“We could still be together,” he says.

We are sitting on the bench on the far side of the library, my back against his chest, my head lolled back against his shoulder.

And I want to believe this, I do, but even in my smitten state, it’s not all that believable. “How would that even work?”

He says, “I can fly back all the time.”

“Don’t promise me things that you’re going to regret. Don’t. You’re not going to want to. You’ll be in
college
.”

He says, “I’ll want to.”

We walk to the parking lot, holding hands.

He says, “So. This is going to be good, right?”

I’m pretty sure that if I got into Georgetown, I’d get home and my dad would have frosted cupcakes in the school colors, and there’d be streamers in the living room. And I realize, he is going home to that cool, completely solitary guesthouse, clean laundry and fruit left by the housekeeper—not to people jumping up and down and going, Yay! Boy genius! Hug, hug, hug.

I say, “We’re going to celebrate. This weekend. We’re going to completely whoop it up.”

He says, “You don’t look like you want to celebrate, Seed. You look miserable.”

“I’m going to miss you, what do you think? But this is
Georgetown
, it’s not like I don’t know how much you want it. You want to picnic Saturday? Or I could take you to brunch? Or I could drive you up the coast. We could play miniature golf at that dorky place in Ventura.”

“Brunch?”
He looks aghast. Then he says, “Yeah, that would be nice.”

He stands over me as I get into my car. It doesn’t hit me how much I’m shaking until he walks away.

I SPEND THE EVENING IN
avid celebration mode, as opposed to wallowing in the fact of Dylan’s somewhat imminent departure. I find the Georgetown colors (blue and gray) for purposes of cake decoration. I do not make a playlist of women wailing blues songs to accompany this activity. I order a Hoyas sweatshirt for him online. I consider putting on his white shirt that I haven’t returned yet, but don’t, due to the pathetic-ness factor. I make a congratulatory card in which a kinetic Airedale resembling Lulu tap-dances.

I don’t much feel like tap-dancing.

My dad sticks his head in and says, “Are you crying in there?”

It’s hard to deny, when there are tears dripping down your face, and you’re not dicing raw onions or watching
Bambi
.

He says, “Should I be worried?”

“Nope. It’s just stupid. I’m trying to do a ton of work instead.”

My dad says that this sounds quite mature, but walks away looking confused.

Mature or not, I am determined to jump around and say “Yay” all over Latimer in the morning, in a masterful display of my unclinginess.

But Dylan isn’t there. Not that that’s entirely unheard of, but usually he makes an appearance in homeroom, or he shows up in the music room. Or somewhere.

Me:
Where are you?

Dylan:
Taking the day off. Taking Lulu up to Tree People Park.

Dylan:
Want to come?

Me:
Some of us have to go to class from time to time.

Me:
Some of us still have to worry about our GPA.

Dylan:
And some of us don’t!

Me:
Go be smug with your dog Kahane.

And I’m fine, completely fine. I eat lunch with two ballet girls that I barely know, and they’re kind of friendly. At the end of it, Kimmy sits down, takes her burger apart, and eats the bun, tomato slices, lettuce, and patty separately, all with ketchup.

She says, “Disgusting, huh?”

I’m not sure if she means the burger or her eating habits, but I agree.

I feel like master of the universe, like a person who can actually cope, in a riding-for-a-fall kind of a way.

I don’t have a clue.

Siobhan is still walking around entirely un-made-up, entirely hostile, although somewhat cogent when called on. I’m wondering if a former best friend can ever mount some sort of intervention that the other former best friend listens to.

I head up to the rocks to find her, but nothing.

I leave for home, the back way through the hills, and there she is, sitting cross-legged on the hood of Burton’s DeLorean, with a box of Gitanes on her lap, smoking something that doesn’t look much like a Gitanes.

I roll down my window.

I say, “You want a ride?”

“Sweet,” she says, “are you
supporting
me? Because no thank you.”

“Shit, Sib, you can’t drive like that!”

“Why not? Don’t you know how officially sober I am? Nancy found my stash. Ask me about home drug testing kits. Fuck my life.”

“So Gitanes is selling undetectable weed now?”

“Nancy’s take on it is I’m too young for major pharma, so I should stick to drinking.”

She takes a long drag on the joint.

“Siobhan! We’re ten yards from school!”

“So what? If you weren’t completely obsessed going
Ooooooh, Dylan, baby, delude me some more,
you might notice that they don’t actually care.”

She crooks her finger at me. “You want to talk to me, c’mere. I have something to
shooooow
you.”

I pull up in a no-parking zone and climb onto the hood of the car. Siobhan takes out her phone, and I’m seriously waiting for this to be a horrible picture of me doing something embarrassing. But it’s not. It’s William and a beautiful, emaciated girl walking along the street in Milan. Shot after shot after shot.

“Her name is Elisabetta,” Siobhan says. “And he claims that she’s his other half. Does that bitch look like half of him?”

They do look remarkably similar to one another, rich and emaciated and half asleep.

“He can’t just walk away from me and take up with a piece of Eurotrash!” she yells. “We have a
pact
! He can’t just walk away!”

But there he is, walking away down the Via Montenapoleone, carrying Elisabetta’s shopping bags.

“Sucks. I’m sorry.”

Siobhan stares at the photo. “Doesn’t she look trashy to you?”

“Totally.”

“Elisabetta von Koppenfels,” she says. “Sounds like some famous Nazi’s girlfriend.”

“She could actually
be
some famous Nazi’s grandchild,” I say. “Look at her.”

“This makes me feel so much better. You think he can be happy with a blatant Nazi but not with me.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“You think I’m not good enough for your widdle boy toy and I’m not good enough for William.” She is drumming on the hood of the car. “You think Dylan broke up with
me
.”

Which I do, obviously, because he did.

She grabs my arm. “Admit that’s what you think.”

I yank my arm away from her and end up jabbing her with my elbow. She steadies herself against the windshield so as not to fall off the car.

“You pushed me!” she shouts.

“It was an accident. Be rational!”

“I’m irrational and you are such a damn rocket scientist! Stop feeling sorry for me!” She is glaring at me with a level of rage not commonly seen on the faces of even former best friends. Not that I’ve had that many of them. “You’ve never been my real friend!” she yells.

Before she can come at me again, I’m off the car and standing in the street.

“What do you think is going to happen when your boy toy
leaves
?” she asks.

“You knew about that?”

“Duh. Why don’t you ask him who he was doing when he was pissed at you?” she hisses. “You are
so stupid 
!”

I get into my car, and I turn the key, and I just sit there for a minute watching her kick Burton’s car before I head down the street.

I CALL MY DAD AT
Albert Whitbread. I say, “I can’t come home now.”

He says, “Why not?”

“This is the complete truth. I’m alone. I’m really upset. And I just want to drive around for a while.”

“Ems, I don’t want you driving around upset. What if I don’t come home until you phone me, and you have the house all to yourself?”

I say, “Wow. That’s so nice. But I just want to sit in my car.”

He says, “I don’t suppose you want to talk about it?”

“No! I mean, no thank you. But no.”

My dad sighs, “All right. But Ems, ten o’clock, or I’m tracing you with LoJack.”

“Or the GPS chip you had implanted in my scalp when I was sleeping.”

He laughs. “That’s not the worst idea.”

I drive up to a turnout on Mulholland. I watch the sun set, pink and orange, and then I watch the city lights go on, and the clouds fade into the blackening sky. I stare up at that black sky, and at the airplanes trailing through it. Whenever I think a single thought beyond L.A. turning to night, I just go, Stop It.

Then I drive home over Laurel Canyon.

My dad is waiting. Of course he is, with raisin bread and tea.

He says, “If there were some way I could keep you insulated from all this high school angst, believe me—”

“I know.”

I am deep in postponing-the-inevitable territory, hacking through the underbrush of nighttime conversation, not hacking all that quickly because I’m not all that sure I want to know what I’m about to find out.

I say, “I have to call someone.”

“It’s so late, Ems.” (It’s 10:05.)

I say, “I’m in high school. No one sleeps.”

I close my door and I crank up Beethoven’s Ninth. Loud. Eardrum-shredding, fingernails-in-palms-of-hands loud.

I say to Dylan, “If this is nothing, I apologize in advance, but I was just talking with Siobhan.”

Very carefully, he says, “And?”

“And when did you hear from Georgetown?”

Even more carefully and evenly, he says, “Just before I told you.”

“When?”

“I was deferred, then I got off the list.” He pauses. “Why is this important?”