Party Girl (20 page)

Chapter EIGHTEEN

“My friend Maya is having a party,” Miko offers.

I look up from the living room floor where I am reading a back issue of
US Weekly
. Miko is stretched out on the sofa, snacking on Bugles and Fruit by the Foot because, she says, as everyone knows, calories don’t count between Christmas and New Year’s. Max is wearing her usual annoyed expression, sitting in the chair in the corner while she scrolls through her phone. We’ve been absolutely worthless all afternoon, spending most of the thirtieth in workout clothes (though I’m pretty sure no one actually worked out today) and trying to figure out what to do tomorrow for New Year’s.

“She’s pretty cool, but she lives in Venice so it’s kind of a haul,” Miko continues.

My phone chirps with an e-mail, and after reading it I get to work rearranging Selah’s car service for the evening . . . Apparently, she doesn’t want to leave her place until ten. It’s the third time I’ve moved the reservation around today, and I am seriously nervous that she’ll keep bugging me all night and ruin the holiday.

“What’s she need now?” Miko asks me.

“Car service again.” I smile up at them. “Selah’s headed to some party in the hills; if you want I can see if she’ll get us in.” I’m teasing.

“I’d rather spend the night getting my yearly at the gynecologist than hang out with her on New Year’s.” Max tosses me a dirty look.

“How lovely.” I toss the look back and drop my phone on the floor next to my magazine.

“What do you guys think of the Venice party?” Miko sings out.

“I’m down for whatever.” I leave Miko and Max to figure it out and turn my attention back to the page with a picture of Bradley Cooper buying toilet paper, which proves that stars are
just like us
.

“Well I’m not down. No way am I trekking to Venice on the first New Year’s I’ve had off in the past four!” Max gripes. She untucks her feet from beneath her on the chair and starts to peel her string cheese like a banana.

“Then it’s on you, dearie, because you’ve vetoed every one of my ideas,” Miko says, sitting on the sofa arm and then falling back to lay across it lengthwise.

“And you guys are the only people I know, and my only idea was having a Sandra Bullock marathon,” I tell them.

“I would rather die first!” Max snaps.

“Dramatica!” Miko scolds in a tone that’s pretty dramatic itself.

“Fine.” I roll my eyes at Max’s theatrics. “Then, I hate to point out the obvious, but you do sort of have some pretty sensational connections for a night like tomorrow.”

Max’s scowl only deepens, so I keep going. “Or we can stay in . . .
Hope
Floats
is actually a lot better than people give it credit for, and I’ve got
Miss
Congeniality
1
and
2
on DVD.”

“What’s the second one called again?” Miko asks, because she loves to harass Max almost as much as I do.

“
Armed and Fabulous
!” I smile brightly.

Max is already off the chair to grab her phone. “You should both be embarrassed,” she calls over her shoulder.

When she comes back into the room a few minutes later she’s texting on her phone. Without looking up she steps over me lying prone on the floor and then falls onto the couch.

“OK, Brody said he can take care of us at Twenty-Five if we want to go there. He promised he wouldn’t do anything douche-y like give us bottle service.”

“What’s wrong with bottle service?” Miko whines.

“Bottle service is for tourists,” Max informs us both seriously.

I am pretending to be highly engrossed in an article on what Barbara Walters likes to keep in her purse, but I feel a little uneasy with this plan. I haven’t seen Brody since the hospital, and I’m not sure exactly how to act around him now. Surely we are more than work associates, because we’ve gone through something pretty intense together. But we definitely aren’t friends. If I think about it, I don’t actually know him that well at all.

“Does nine thirty sound OK? I need to tell him a time,” Max is asking.

“Yeah sure,” I say absentmindedly.

“I’ll be here at eight thirty for my first cocktail,” Miko says, tossing the now-empty Bugles bag on the coffee table. “Now, out of curiosity, what are you two wearing?”

I debate the topic for a while the next day, but the conclusion is foregone. I spend every day of my life in muted black, and I am going out on New Year’s Eve in all the full glamorous glory I can muster up. There will be sparkle, there will be perfect curls, and
by God
, there will be lashes . . . a whole strip
and
individuals, because this is a holiday after all. When Miko starts drumming on the door around 8:45 p.m., I’ve just finished my makeup and feel like I’ve done a pretty good job with the Brigitte Bardot thing I’d been going for. I’m only wearing my bra and my black opaque tights, so I throw on my fuzzy pink bathrobe and head to the door.

Miko is on the other side, holding a bottle of champagne and looking adorable in a sleeveless electric-blue romper. Very few people can pull off an outfit like that, but she of course looks fantastic. Her hair is perfectly disheveled, and her smoky eyes and berry-colored lip gloss look awesome. I wonder, and not for the first time, if I’ll ever be as effortlessly cool.

“I stole this from my parents at Christmas,” she says, waving the bottle at me as she walks past. “So you know it’s good!”

“How exciting!” I check out the bottle like I have a clue about champagne. “I don’t know if we have flutes, but I can find something—”

Just then Max walks into the kitchen, and we both stop dead in our tracks to stare. She’s done her hair and makeup and is rocking a bright-red lipstick that almost no one other than Gwen Stefani can get away with. Her version of the LBD has long sleeves and a short hemline and hugs her perfect body like a second skin. Even though she still has her slippers on, she looks amazing!

“Miss Jennings, as I live and breathe,” Miko coos, in a pretty terrible attempt at southern belle.

Max’s eyes narrow at her, and she opens her mouth to retaliate, but I cut her off. “Miko was just about to open this very expensive bottle of champagne for us. Do you want some?” I ask sweetly, already pulling glasses from the cupboard.

Max considers it for a moment and apparently comes to the conclusion that good champagne is worth more than chewing out our guest, because she hops up on the counter and reaches for the bottle.

“Give it to me,” she demands. “You’ll blind yourself with that thing.”

Miko hands over the champagne bottle, which is covered with pretty white flowers, and Max proceeds to remove the wire cage and pop the cork like she’d majored in it at school. Once our mismatched glasses are filled we hold them aloft, grinning at one another.

“What should we toast to?” Miko asks.

“To friends?” I volunteer.

“God, Landon.” Max sighs. “This isn’t a cheesy rom-com.”

“To cheesy rom-coms?” Miko tries and succeeds in getting an aggravated look from my roommate.

“Ooh, ooh, I know!” I laugh. “To Sandra Bullock!”

“To Sandy B!” Miko is laughing now too.

And because we are both holding our drinks up towards her, and because it’s two against one, and because she has to find us at least a little entertaining since she keeps hanging out with us, Max rolls her eyes and clinks her glass with ours.

“OK.” I swallow a sip. “I need to scoot a boot.” Miko is already blaring Tegan and Sara from her iPhone because, she says,
someone
needs to DJ, and she just waves me off while she dances around the kitchen with her juice glass of champagne. I head towards my room to get dressed, and Max dogs me down the hallway to her own room. Just before I turn into my doorway, I stop and grab her wrist lightly.

“I know this will annoy you, but I’m going to say it anyway,” I say. “You look really pretty.”

It takes her a second to respond, and I can see her fighting her natural instinct to say something rude, because I’ve made her uncomfortable. I’m sure it was only years of Vivian’s training that makes her utter a quick thanks and hurry into her room before I do something crazy like try and hug her.

When I come out of my room twenty minutes later Miko and Max are in the dregs of the champagne and laughing about some video they are watching together on YouTube. When they look up I do a full 360 turn for them. My dress is a showstopper, and it deserves proper presentation. I want their opinions, though, in case the showstopping is more of a record scratch than the sort of silent moment of awe I’m going for. I am actually wearing a similar style to Max’s dress, short and tight with long sleeves, only mine is gold sequins from head to toe. Back home twenty-three is practically an old maid, and most girls I know are already married so I’d worn this dress to three separate bachelorette parties. Even still I look at them for confirmation . . . hot or not?

“If you weren’t my friend, I’d totally hate you. No one should look that good in sequins.” Miko smiles.

“I accept that backwards compliment,” I say, and walk over to grab my phone from the countertop.

“We tried to call a cab,” Miko says sheepishly. “But they said it would be two hours, so we, um . . .” She looks at Max.

“So we both drank the rest of the champagne as fast as we could so you’d be forced to drive us,” Max says with a little smirk. “But she and I will split a cab on the way home so we can all drink.”

I consider the two Judases on our sofa and roll my eyes.

“You two are rude, and if I wasn’t in such a happy mood because of how good these pumps make my legs look, I’d fire you both.” I grab my keys. “Now let’s get outta here before my hair falls.”

Our happy mood carries us all the way to the club, which is good because Sunset Boulevard on New Year’s Eve is the traffic equivalent of the seventh circle of hell. It takes us over an hour to get there, so by the time we shimmy up to the door with the small XXV sign next to it, it’s almost ten thirty. The doorman had apparently been on the lookout for Max: as soon as we get within spitting distance he is on his walkie, and we are promptly ushered into VIP by the general manager, Marco.

We have a small lounge area in VIP, and apparently no one got the memo about bottle service because it is already waiting for us when we arrive. Max throws it a look of disgust and heads off towards the bar without a backwards glance. Miko has no such prejudice about free booze, and she happily starts to make herself some combination of vodka and juice.

A DJ is spinning old-school hip-hop that vibrates off the walls and makes it impossible not to sing along with the chorus. The entire space is packed with the energy of beautiful people yelling conversations over the bass line, and I can see at least four major celebrities in close vicinity. I wonder what it must be costing the bar in revenue to give up one of their premiere tables for us on a night like this.

Max comes snaking through the crowd with three clear shots and hands one to each of us. I take a sniff. Tequila.

This is usually the point in my night where I know: things are going to be really good or very bad. Being handed a shot of tequila, even if it’s top shelf, always means you have a big decision to make. Are you gonna have
that
kind of night . . . the kind of night when alcohol isn’t just something in the background but an active member of the party. And, just to be clear, in this mythical alcohol party, tequila is your older cousin Crystal whose bras are always a primary color and who is forever talking you into sneaking out to go to high school field parties. In other words, tequila is a bad influence.

“Ugh, I hate tequila!” Miko calls over the music.

Max is staring us both down, not unlike my older cousin Crystal actually. “Tequila is a natural upper, and it’s only one tiny shot so stop being a baby.”

The two of them go back and forth about the size of the shot and how Miko has an intense tequila gag reflex and is taking no responsibility for what might happen, and somewhere in there I start to laugh. I am with two girls who are quickly becoming the best friends I’ve ever had, in one of the hottest clubs, in one of the coolest cities in the world, sitting at a lounge next to Rihanna, and I am dressed head to toe in sparkly gold, and my hair and makeup are
working it
tonight. There are a lot of hard decisions to make in life, but what kind of night this would be isn’t one of them. I hold up my shot glass, lime wedge at the ready.