Charm and Consequence (6 page)

Besides, I’m pretty sure Jeremy Wrentham will be there. I wouldn’t mind seeing him again. He always makes me laugh, even in school, so I imagine he'll be even more fun at a party. And fun sounds really good right now.

We start planning our outfits. I can’t believe Mom is not out in the hallway, watching in rapture, as we come closer to enacting bonds of sisterliness than we ever have. It’s like a scene out of
Little Women
in here. Cassie makes the genius suggestion that I wear a low cut V-neck sweater with nothing under it, preferably a size too small.

“I’ll lend you one of mine,” she says, languidly reclining on my bed like Cleopatra on her barge. “At least I don’t have to worry about
you
stretching out the chest.”

Leigh scowls but says nothing. She has her white dress already picked out for the Purity Ball and it probably comes with a burka.

“I really like that sheer paisley shirt over a camisole,” Tori suggests as she checks her email one more time for a message from Trey.

“Okay,” I say readily. “It’s just a party. It’s not a big deal like Leigh’s thing tonight.”

“Ah, but Jeremy might be there,” Cassie crows and I practically snap my neck in turning to her so quickly.

“What do you know about Jeremy?” I demand.

“Everyone knows about your big dance with Jeremy at the Harvest thing,” Cassie says with patient assurance. “It’s
well known
.”

I look at Tori and she looks sheepish for a second. Leigh just shrugs. She must think this party we’re planning to attend is like a trip into the ninth ring of hell or something.

And she could be right. But I have to admit that the prospect of seeing Jeremy again outside of school makes my heart thump a little harder.

Monkey Wrenching Around

And he is the first person I see at the party. Jeremy’s presiding over the bar, and a golden wing of hair caresses his eyes every time he bends down to pick up a cup. I enjoy watching this for a moment until he looks up, sees me, smiles, and beckons Tori and me over.

“It’s called a monkey wrench,” he says with a wink as he hands us each a red plastic cup. “I just invented it.”

“What’s in it?” Tori asks as she sniffs hers. I do, too. Whatever unholy concoction Jeremy’s devised, it smells like paint thinner and grape Kool Aid.

Jeremy shakes his head and pats his chest where his breast pocket would be if he had one. “That is a trade secret,” he says.

He’s looking at me expectantly, so I sip mine. It doesn’t taste as bad as it smells. Still, Jeremy made it, for me, and he seems boyishly pleased with it, so I take an actual swallow and give him the thumbs up.

Tori, on the other hand, is choking on hers, her eyes watering as she waves one hand as if to fend off the force of the drink.

“It’s
strong,
George,” she whispers and Jeremy laughs.

“I can tone down the next round, if you want,” he offers.

“I’ll just have a diet Coke,” Tori sputters and Jeremy’s grin lights up the dark paneled basement rec room. He hands me Tori’s cup and I swallow some of it. His grin broadens and brightens by several lumens while I will my stomach not to protest as I force some more noxious liquid into it. I don’t do parties very well–I never know what to say to people. But I am pretty sure that if I can force down enough of this liquid that problem will be solved. Instant charm, now in a plastic cup! Just add alcohol!

Tori sighs and stands on tiptoes to see over the crowd, then tugs on my sleeve and says, “I’m going over there to talk to Darien for a minute, okay?”

I nod happily and survey the crowd as she gets swallowed in it. It’s hard to distinguish individual bodies among those packed into Jason Antin’s basement, but I recognize some people from my Spanish and bio classes. Airborne Toxic Event is playing loudly over the speakers mounted in the corners and there’s the persistent thump thump thump of a different bass line playing upstairs. I can hear the feet of people on the floor above and wonder for a second if they will crash through and what it would be like if they all landed on my head. I don’t find the possibility at all alarming. The monkey wrench packs quite a kick.

Jeremy leans across the bar and pulls my hands into his. His eyes are so bright blue now and the room suddenly feels so hot and it’s getting hard to breathe.

“Ready for another?” he asks.

“Ready.”

He releases my hands to begin mixing more of his potion and I catch the twitter of two girls at the end of the bar. I’m trying to concentrate on what they are saying when another voice cuts through.

“Hey, Georgia.”

I turn to see Michael, and since I’m feeling all warm and tingly I call out as if he were across the room, “Hey, Michael. Have a monkey wrench!”

“Monkey wrench?” he repeats, then glowers when Jeremy pops up from behind the bar, proffering drinks. “Oh.”

“Endicott.”

“Wrentham.”

Jeremy comes around to my side of the bar and leans in to me slightly to say, “You want to go somewhere and talk?” I can feel his breath tickle the back of my neck and I shiver happily.

“Sure!” I giggle and stumble a bit as I hop off the stool I had just landed on. Michael extends a hand to steady me but I shake it off. “I’ll see you later,” I promise him. “Tori’s here, over with Darien.”

Jeremy takes my arm and we twist through the crowd and go upstairs. We end up in the living room, which is less packed than the basement now. One couple is so entangled on the striped couch across from the one we sit on that I can’t tell who they are and my stomach drops in woozy anticipation of a similar melding with Jeremy. I vaguely hope that Tori is having fun downstairs and doesn’t come up soon and then Jeremy’s lips are on my neck and I don’t think about anything at all for once. Not even looking like Leigh did after an evening on our couch with Alistair the Sea Lamprey.

“I’m glad you came tonight,” he is whispering into my throat and I try to hold back a gasp of pleasure. Soon I am no longer aware of anything but feeling dizzy and breathless and good. His hands are in my hair and they are warm and strong and his kisses make me feel strong somehow, too, invincible. Because kissing feels really good. Kissing Jeremy feels really good. It’s effortless, unlike everything else in my life right now. But I am still aware enough—however dimly—that things are moving pretty fast here and I have barely spoken more than a few sentences to Jeremy, ever, and don’t really know him at all. I pull away to catch my breath and adjust my shirt.

“I see why you call them monkey wrenches,” I say. “I feel like I’ve been hit by one.”

“You’re sure that’s from the drink?” He leans back and his eyes are dusky now, hooded, and his voice is a bit raspy. He pulls me against him and I can feel his low laugh rumbling against my own chest. And then we’re kissing again, for a few more minutes, or hours … I lose track.

I am incapable of thinking.

Jeremy’s tongue traces a curlicue path inside my ear. He pulls back gently and I gaze at him, bleary-eyed and quite possibly panting.

“I’ll be right back,” he promises, kisses me again, and then he is gone.

When I sit up, I feel like a sock riding in a tumble dryer, and I know two things for certain:

(1) I am going to be very sick very soon, and

(2) this will completely repulse Jeremy

I stumble blindly to the hallway where people are lined up outside a white door to what I hope is the bathroom. A girl from last year’s Spanish class takes one look at me and instructs everyone to let me go in next. There’s a little grumbling, but soon they part and I burst into the bathroom and practically fall over the toilet that is mercifully waiting for me to deposit my liquid stupidity, which I do as quietly and delicately as possible. Then I make myself stand up and go to the sink and wipe my face with a damp towel without looking at my reflection. I don’t want to be confronted with what I’ve done to myself.

“Another poisoning by Jeremy,” someone laughs as I emerge and slink back to the living room.

I sit back on the couch and the room is at least spinning less violently now. If I squint, in fact, I can make it almost stop spinning. Someone has put on the Black Keys and I can feel every bass line lurch in my stomach. A couple of kids are doing the Bump or some other hip-knocking vaguely 70s-ish dance. They keep spilling their beer and laughing.

Suddenly there is another red cup in my face and Jeremy is smiling down at me.

“Oh, no,” I say, waving the cup away as I taste the last drink in my throat again. He sits next to me and pulls some hair off my neck, holds it for a moment, then lets it slide across the palm of his hand. I think that it is a beautiful hand and marvel at how good my hair looks in it.

“Let’s go back to my house,” he says. “Nobody’s home. We can bring in the new year together.”

I
really
want to go with Jeremy, but I am just sober enough to know that it is not the best plan to go off with a guy I barely know who has plied me with noxious liquids, no matter how beautiful he is. And mostly I just want to stop feeling like a tiny little boat tossed at sea.

“I don’t know...”

“Come on, Duchess,” he purrs and I feel his heated hand sliding down my neck and I drop my head back into the pillows of the couch and he drops on top of me.

And there is that voice again. Like the voice of God. An angry, Old Testament, I’m-about-to-smite-you God.

“Georgia, are you all right?”

Jeremy lifts himself off me enough to reveal Michael standing there and says, “She’s fine.”

“That’s not how it looks to me,” Michael snaps. “Are you okay, Georgia?”

I nod dizzily, then shake my head, and both make me feel like my stomach is going to decide that I have put too many dangerous things into it and it wants to escape. Through my mouth.

“I think I need to lie down...” I admit.

“Sure!” Jeremy enthuses. Michael pushes Jeremy’s arm off my shoulder and takes my hand, pulling me up to solid ground. I am dimly aware that people are watching now but that information dissipates in my brain as soon as it gets there.

“I’ll take you home,” he says quietly.

“Endicott, you don’t have to play rescue hero here. Georgiana’s a big girl.”

“Georgiana’s a
drunk
girl,” Michael corrects as he helps me get fully to my feet.

Jeremy rolls his eyes and picks up the drink I had refused. “Whatever,” he says as he watches the drink slosh around in the cup he keeps tilting left and right.

“What about Tori?” I ask Michael as he guides me through the maze of partiers.

“Trey will take her home.”

“Trey’s here? Yea!” I point to the fifth coat that Michael has pulled out of the pile on a ladder back chair by the front door and he hands it to me. But I have a hard time figuring out where the sleeves are. “How did he know she was here?”

Michael helps me wrestle into my sleeves and says, “I saw him in town. He lost his phone while he was away, and he just got back today.”

We walk out into the cold and down the steps and the sidewalk to Michael’s car. He gets in after me and pushes a button and soon my butt is no longer feeling like it’s sitting on an iceberg and I smile at this luxury technology. He pulls out his phone, texts somebody, and snaps off the radio when a blast of Bob Marley hits my ears.

“I
like
reggae!” I protest.

“Yeah?” he asks as we inch out onto the icy street. “You okay?”

“I’m fine. I mean, I feel stupid, but I’m fine...”

“Well. Accepting a drink from Jeremy Wrentham
is
kind of stupid, but you couldn’t know that, I guess. It’s not like somebody warned you.” He looks over at me for a long moment as we pull up in front of my neighbor’s house to sit with the motor running so I can sober up without freezing to death. I look around at the interior of the car, with its light tan leather seats, and note that there is not a speck of dust or a crumpled up chip bag or a stray drink cup anywhere. It is pathologically clean.

“You could perform surgery in here,” I remark, and Michael looks at me funny, then turns his head away but not before I can see him smirking with amusement.

A light snow is falling in big fake looking flakes like the ones in cheap movies and the soap operas my mom used to watch. The lights of the streetlamp and our porch cast shadowy gold halos.

“It’s pretty,” I say without thinking. “I hate the cold, but snow is really pretty when it first falls.”

He doesn’t say anything for awhile but it doesn’t feel that awkward. We just watch the snowfall and listen to the end of “Could You Be Loved” on the radio real low.

“Thanks for letting Trey know where Tori would be,” I say finally. “She was worried when he didn’t IM or call or anything all vacation long.”

“He was pretty frantic, not talking to her that long.”

“I knew he was still devoted,” I say. “Must be nice, having someone dev
ot
ed to you...”

“No. No way, Georgia. You are not going to become a morose, weepy drunk on me. It was actually better when you thought you were funny.”

“Other people think I’m funny.”

“And so do I. Just not right now.”

We’re quiet then as I digest this and the song switches on the radio. I contemplate Michael’s finding me funny sometimes and having his car radio tuned to the Hartford reggae station. Both are surprises.

“Do you think you can go in your house now without embarrassing yourself in front of your parents?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He opens his door. “I’ll walk you.”

We trudge through the snowy sidewalks to our porch and when I see our footsteps behind us, I stumble a little against his arm and cry, “Oh! We’ve ruined the perfect snow!”

“Can’t be helped,” he assures me and guides me up the stairs. He opens the door for me and Mom appears in the entryway, wiping her hands on a towel.

“Georgia? You’re back?”

“Yeah, Mom, Michael brought me home. Tori decided to stay because Trey’s there.”

“Oh good!” she says but she is looking at Michael uncertainly.

“Thank you for the ride,” I say to him.

“Happy New Year, Georgia,” he says with his bemused smirk.