Positively Beautiful (13 page)

She doesn't answer. I jiggle the handle. “Mom?”

“Erin, I need to be alone for a little bit,” she says, and groans softly.

I stand outside the door for a while longer listening to her retch.

“I'm going out, okay?” I call. “I'll be back later.”

She heaves, and I imagine her hanging her head over the toilet, maybe laying her face on the cold rim.

“Okay … that's fine.” No
Where are you going? When do you expect to be back?

I go to my room and look in my closet. The white lacy dress, the one with the heart on it and the Cyndi Lauper–retro feel, is unlike anything in my wardrobe. I throw it on and go.

It should take twenty minutes to get to the John B. Gordon School. It takes me thirty because I get lost, but I finally find Metropolitan Avenue and the church across the street from the school. A bunch of cars huddle together in the church parking lot, and I can smell smoke, though the school looks dark and deserted.

I pick my way around to the door, clutching my flashlight. I want to sneak in and find Trina or Michael without anyone else noticing me. No need to make a big entrance.

“Look, it's Va-jay-jay Girl!” someone shouts as I come into the big auditorium. The end open to the sky is eerily lit with candles.

Right off I see I'm overdressed. I'm wearing too many clothes, anyway. These girls are sleek and tanned in tiny miniskirts and halter tops that bare their stomachs and backs even though it's not that warm. I want to turn around and leave, but it's too late.

I smile, like it's the funniest thing in the world to be known as Vagina Girl, and walk into the crowd. After a minute, they seem to forget about me, as football captain Sean Mitchell shows up by the fire barrel with a beer bong. I pretend to be super-interested as a girl gets down on her knees and puts the long tube in her mouth while Sean stands over her pouring beer into the funnel.

Classy.

I see Trina with her back to me. She looks almost … normal. Her dress is blue and tight and shimmery, with a long fringe swinging around her knees. A flapper. That's what she was going for. I could totally see Daisy Buchanan wearing it. Trina doesn't quite look like the other girls (since when did she
want
to?), but at least she's in the ballpark. I look like Dorothy in Oz next to her and I wish I could clickety-click my ratty sneakers and
be home
but it's too late.

“Errriiinnn.” Trina's mom believes in serving wine to kids at dinner to stave off incipient alcoholism (
and how's that
working out for you, huh, Ms. Howard?
) so I've seen Trina buzzed after a glass of wine, but she is officially
trashed
tonight.

“She's got balls, I'll give her that,” Chaz murmurs as I approach, snapping his fingers in agitation.

“Errrin,” Trina says again and gets weepy. She throws her arms around me and we both stumble and almost fall. “I'm so sorry about your mom. I think about her
all
the time, and you too. I know we haven't been hanging out a lot lately, but I want you to know I really miss you.”

“Me too.” I gently push her away. She's swaying like the ground is rocking beneath her.

“How's she DOING?” she says in a drunk's idea of a whisper, which is more like a breathy shout.

“Let's not talk about it now, okay?” I say. “I really don't want to talk about it.”

She nods owlishly. “I understand. You don't want anyone to know. My lips are
sealed.
” She zips up her mouth and throws away the key. “Faith really did an amazing job, didn't she?” She pats the red-velvet throw that has transformed a camp chair into steampunk and cool.

“I'm surprised she's not worried about getting busted. That'll throw a wrench in her Stanford dream, wouldn't it?”

“Chaz says she does crazy stuff all the time, like she's daring something bad to happen, but it never does,” Trina says, and her tone is actually admiring.

“Good for her,” I say, and don't mean it. Cool, beautiful, and fearless too? I want to smack Faith. Trina too, really. What in the heck is wrong with her? When did she become Faith's biggest fan?

“You want a beer? Michael brought a ton,” Trina asks.

I hesitate, then nod. “Why not?”

Two beers later I'm feeling warm and buzzed. Chaz and Trina have gone to collect beer cans people keep throwing on the ground but I have a feeling they might be looking for a dark corner somewhere to continue their make-out session. Their groping had gotten semipornographic. I am happy for Trina. Happyhappy
happy
.

I talk a little bit with Carrie Smith, who's one of those popular girls who are truly nice, but she moves off after a while and I find a seat on a bench near the fire barrel, close to some people so it doesn't look like I'm by myself.

“Hey.” Michael sits down next to me. I scooch over and he scooches right along with me. He's drunk, but he's wearing it better than Trina.

“Didn't expect to see you here,” he says, and I'm very aware of his thigh touching mine.

“Me either.” And because I'm feeling loose and clever, I say, “But I am!”

His leg feels warm and solid next to mine. Behind me I hear Faith saying, “Seriously? What is
she
doing here?”

“Michael said she's cool,” someone says. “Chill out.”

I feel Faith's gaze on the back of my head as I sit with Michael. “Chaz is really freaking out about people leaving trash everywhere,” he says.

“I know,” I say. “He's really big on the ‘
Don't leave anything but footprints
' thing.”

“It's all going to fall down anyway; I don't see how it matters. But, hey, if it matters to him, I guess it matters.”

I giggle, and immediately regret it. “I've been wondering … why do you like these old buildings? I just don't get it.”

He's quiet. Then, “I guess because I'm interested in designing buildings, I want to see how they die.”

“I—”

“Hey, Michael,” Faith says, coming up behind us. “Can I talk to you a minute?” Michael looks at me, but gets up. Faith puts her hand on Michael's arm and draws him toward a group of her friends.

Michael doesn't even look back at me. But Faith does.

And I shiver.

I get another beer out of the cooler and watch Michael lean against the wall unsmiling as Faith leans close to him. Her expression is serious, his is unreadable. The beer is kicking in and someone even asks me if I want to do a beer bong.

For some reason I do.

Evidently, I am pretty good at it, because I remember doing the third one with a bunch of people standing around chanting, “Go, Va-jay-jay Girl, go!”

Afterward, I pick my way down a dark hallway, clutching my flashlight. Everything is fuzzy and tilted. I want to find Trina, I
need
to find Trina.

Light spills from a doorway, and I head there. It's a bathroom, and someone has put the big teddy bear on one of the toilets. The bear looks forlorn and awkward, its black eyes staring at the floor.

“Erin!” Chaz says, playing his flashlight over the bear. “Why? Why would they do this?” He looks ready to cry.

“It's okay, we'll just put him back where he was.” My words feel swirly and distant.

“But it's not the same, don't you see? He's been in that classroom for, like,
years
. You can put him back, but it won't be the same.”

I'm feeling dizzy. I go closer to the teddy bear and trip and Chaz puts out his arms.

“Whoa, watch it,” he says. He's holding me up, and I look up at him, and his face is so kind, and no one loves me, and everything is bad, and I reach up and bring his face down to mine with two hands and kiss him.

He stiffens, but he doesn't pull away. I throw my arms around his neck and kiss him harder, pressing myself against him.

A light flashes and I turn, my eyes startled with splashed light. Chaz says, “Oh crap,” under his breath and shines the flashlight on Faith, who is standing at the door, grinning broadly.

She holds her phone, and while Chaz and I gape at her, she snaps another picture.

“What a cute couple you make!” she says, and disappears before we can say anything.

“Erin … ,” Chaz says, and his voice is full of accusation.

“Oh God.” I feel like I need to throw up. “
Trina …
”

Just then we hear running feet and shouts of “Cops! Come on, get out of here, it's the police!”

I wake up feeling like crap. I'm in my own bed, but I don't know how I got there. I don't remember coming home. Did I
drive
?

I stumble to the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror. I'm still wearing the same dress from last night, but orange vomit stains dribble down the front of it. My hair is bird's-nest tangled and my eyes look hollow and dead. I pull off the dress and throw it on the floor. After a moment, I pick it up and throw it in the trash.

I don't remember
anything.
Then I do, a little. Flashes. Doing a beer bong. Talking to … oh no, no,
kissing
Chaz. What did I do?

I start crying, big heaving sobs, because now it's all coming back to me and I'm such a loser.
LoserloserloserLOSER.

Once the police showed up, we scattered for our cars like fleeing cockroaches. Chaz took me home, because I was too
messed up to drive. He barely said a word the whole ride home. Trina, all unknowing what a terrible friend I am, chattered on about the excitement. She seemed bubbly, happy. What kind of person am I?

Chaz had to pull over so I could throw up on the side of the road. Then at home, stumbling in, trying to be quiet. Mom was retching and she didn't hear me, and we were puking in chorus. Like mother, like daughter. Like mother, like daughter, in everything.

I want to curl up and die.

I lie back down on my bed and go to sleep instead.

I sleep most of the way through Sunday. Sunday night I call Lynn Mitchell, a friend from the yogurt shop I've known since elementary school, and ask her to give me a ride to my car. She's happy to do it and grills me the entire way about the party, envious that I was there and she wasn't.

If you only knew.

Monday morning, I don't want to go to school. I haven't heard from Trina, so I don't know if Faith did anything with the picture. Has Chaz told her I kissed him? I don't know if
I'm
going to tell her. I know I should, but it's so much easier not to.

I don't want to go to school. I really, really don't want to go to school.

I check on Mom, and she's sleeping. That's what she's been doing most of the time, anyway. That and throwing up. I fill up her glass of water and leave some cantaloupe beside her
bed. That's all she seems able to keep down. She looks so white and still that I panic and lean down close to her mouth so I can feel the faint brush of her breath on my cheek. She's alive. I kiss her cheek and go downstairs and call the school to tell them I will be absent today. Because they think I'm my mom, they say that's A-OK.