The Other Fish in the Sea (52 page)

“Sometime next week. The lab will probably run your blood tonight or tomorrow morning but our office is closed for the holiday until Tuesday so you shouldn’t expect to hear anything until then at the earliest,” she answered kindly as she made a note in my file.

“Okey dokey. Thanks,” I said and made my way out to the waiting room where my aunt who’d driven me in lieu of a parent was flipping through a magazine.
 

On the way home I took a precursory look at my list of don’ts and let out a sarcastic
humph
. Essentially all nuts topped the list followed closely by shellfish, all dairy products including eggs and feathered pillows, and then cats. Seriously, how in the world do people with allergies to all this stuff live with them?
 

Oh yeah, I guess they don’t.
 

When I got to my house I discovered two things: One, and I know this is highly self-centered of me to admit is the one I’m most excited about, was that my personalized license plate that my parents had given me as an early birthday present had arrived and Tristan had put it on the car my dad had taken me to buy last week before he and my mom left. It’s a 1961 Mercury Comet in decent automotive shape but it does need some TLC on both the exterior and interior, which I plan on using some of the settlement money from the car accident to take care of. It’s such a cool car and I totally love being behind the wheel of it…not that I’ll be able to actually drive it for four days, but still…YAY me! Anyhow, the plate reads: SHRKB8. I know! Totally awesome, huh? I was uber-pleased with myself for that one and Tristan thought it was pretty clever too.
 

The second thing I found was that Jillian had taken command of my (my, our…whatever) friends, and under her direction and with the help of a decently large tent, they’d turned the backyard into a graveyard movie theater, and the garage into a haven for those of us who might prefer not hanging with the tweens from her junior high days who would be attending her party as well. The tent is the kind that people put up for outdoor wedding receptions and no, I have no clue as to where it came from. I know my dad rented the projector and movies before he and my mom left, and all she had to do was get someone to take her to pick them up, but those tents are pretty freaking expensive. So unless my dad gave her carte blanche with his credit card which is highly doubtful, Jillian has done
very
well for herself by doing other people’s homework and reports.

“Hey Jill, where’d the tent come from?” I asked her as she and I were taking care of some last minute outdoor details, like arranging balloon bouquets and getting the popcorn machine ready to start poppin’.

“A friend,” she answered simply. I’d really like to know
who,
exactly, this “friend” of hers is, you know? “Okay, well this is ready to go…I’m gonna go make sure we have enough hot chocolate and ice for the drinks.”

“Shouldn’t you be getting your costume on?” I asked logically. I mean people will start showing up in about a half-hour and you’d think she’d want ample time to get herself ready. I’m fairly certain I won’t be ready and that’ll be
with
Tristan’s help.
 

“I just have to take my hair down and run a brush through it, but otherwise, I’m dressed,” Jillian replied over her shoulder.

Huh? She looks pretty much like she always does. Scary Doc Marten boots, red tartan drainpipes, which are just red plaid, tapered pants in a stretchy denim, and a plain white, v-neck t-shirt with a killer black tailcoat that she ordered from Soho’s over it. Yeah, like her room, Jilly’s kinda gothic. Anyway, aside from the tailcoat, this is basically everyday-wear for her.

“But you look, um…
normal,
” I said in confusion and maybe a little irritation. After all, the hostess and birthday girl of honor definitely should dress up if the rest of us have to.

“I know, that’s the point. Serial killers never look like serial killers, now do they?” She asked in reply and traipsed off towards the garage.
 

No, no they don’t. Not that anyone would ever be able to look a television camera in the lens during a breaking news story about Jillian and say, “I’m just shocked, she really seemed so normal…” without breaking into uncontrollable laughter. It would probably go more like “Yeah, I’m really not surprised she used thermodynamics to blow someone up…it was bound to happen sometime. However, I
am
surprised she got caught.”

I shrugged off her idea of what a serial killer would look like, funny as it is, and went to find Tristan so he could kill me. Not literally of course, jeez. I decided to be a slain victim because really, how many Freddies, Jasons and Screams can one party handle?

Turns out, quite a few.

I have to hand it to my circle of friends though… Jeff and Kate were Micky and Mallory Knox from
Natural Born Killers
, Pete went with Jack the Ripper—knee-length overcoat, top hat, monocle, cane and all and I gotta say, he looked pretty hot in late nineteenth century gentlemen’s attire. Brandon was Leatherface from
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
—his costume was complete with a real freaking chainsaw—and I couldn’t even recognize Melissa as Pennywise from
It
. Derek dressed as the fisherman murderer-guy from
I know What You Did Last Summer
, MaryAnn was the Prom Queen victim from the same movie and even Dylan pulled out a classic killer as Norman Bates from
Psycho
. Oh yeah, Mike made an appearance as Pinhead from
Hellraiser
and Kristen was dripping in latex blood for her costume as
Carrie
. And Tristan? Yeah, the guy who doesn’t dress up and didn’t really for this either? Well, he came as the blood spatter analyst/serial killer,
Dexter
from the television series on Showtime with the same name, and all he was really wearing to indicate who he was supposed to be was a t-shirt that had a bit of “blood spatter” on it and it read: Miami Metro Police.

Anyhow, we were sitting in the open garage talking, or rather, listening to Tristan rant, when all the notorious and bloody began arriving and like I thought, there were many sightings of Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers and Ghostface, but what we were unprepared for was when Derek, MaryAnn and Dylan arrived.
 

“Romeo and Juliet killing themselves was ultimately an accident due to a miscommunication, but this fuckin’ guy…guy, vampire...whatever, actually has a contingency plan! He’s gonna outlive her anyway, so why bother? I mean if living without her is such a big deal, then he should just change her and be done with it. No offense, Baby, but if I were a vampire and didn’t wanna un-live without you, you’d be fuckin’ dead, end of story. There’d be none of this whining about your soul and shit…I’d just sink my fangs in ya and you’d just be dead. Quick, easy, done. And
what
the hell is with Bella? What kind of chick would get pissed at her boyfriend for getting her a present on her birthday?! Seriously, she’s an idiot,” Tristan said, ranting his dislikes about the beginning of
New Moon
, causing all the girls aside from Jillian to giggle and the guys and me to nod in agreement on his viewpoint of Bella being an idiot.

“Agreed. I cannot
fathom
what kind of girl wouldn’t want a present from her boyfriend…what about you, birthday girl? Wouldn’t
you
want a present from your boyfriend on your birthday?” Pete asked while regarding my sister with curiosity through his eyepiece and taking a nice long pull off his beer.
 

Yeah, there’s beer. There isn’t supposed to be, but my friends don’t really play by the rules very often. It is BYOB though and they’re all planning on staying the night I think, so I’m not really worried about it.

Jillian considered his question for a dignified, haughty moment and then said, “Hypothetically speaking, yes, of course I would…
but
, if for some
unfathomable
reason, like say he’s already given me
more
than enough and I asked my boyfriend to
not
buy me something and he did so anyway? Well, in that case I would be fairly annoyed and really, why would I want to be with a boy who annoys me?”
 

“Because you enjoy making his life a living hell?” Jeff said in answer to Jill’s rhetorical question with a chuckle.

 
“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and assume you’re talking about Jillian,” the walking corpse, AKA: Jeremy The Uninvited, said, walking up the driveway and into the garage behind Derek and MaryAnn, both of whom had somewhat guilty looks on their faces.

He was a step or two in front of Dylan and two girls, one of which I’m pretty sure was Dylan’s girlfriend because she’s really familiar and I think I met her at that infamous eighth grade graduation party of his last year. Speaking of that, I wonder if Dylan’s corrected the error of his unreciprocated ways yet. I’m not gonna but I really wanna ask, you know? Anyhow, judging from the way she kept looking back and forth between Jillian and Jeremy, I’m guessing the other girl is Uninvited Jeremy’s uninvited date. I used my sneeze to hide my laugh when Jillian looked at him like she was working a combustible physics equation in her head.

“Like I said…dumb yet brave,” Jeff said under his breath, having caught the intent look of calculation on Jillian’s face.

Just then, Jillian, or rather Jeremy was rescued by the also unexpected appearance of Mike and Kristen.
 

“Happy birthday, O Fearsome One,” Mike said to my sister, sounding somewhat indulgent. “You get the tent up okay?”
 

He’s
“the friend?!” No way is Mike the guy she keeps referring to as “a friend.” I mean, I didn’t think they even
knew
each other.
And
he’s a senior!
With
a girlfriend! No…it just can’t be. Can it?
 

“Why don’t we go on back and you can see for yourself,” Jill replied, warmly cordial, and then she escorted both Mike and Kristen to the backyard, leaving The Uninvited Dumb Yet Brave, his uninvited and somewhat trashy looking date, along with our cousins and their dates in her roiling wake.

Then I sneezed again.
 

“Baby, are you getting sick?” Tristan asked with concern.

“No. I just still feel kinda lousy from being bled practically dry this afternoon and my hay fever is acting up. I’m gonna go take some Benedryl though, so hopefully the itchy, sneezy crap will stop.”

“Lousy as in how? You’re not having a problem breathing, are you?” He leaned over to whisper while surreptitiously checking my pulse at my wrist. Aw, he’s so sweet.
 

You see, one of the precursor signs of anaphylaxis is feeling like crap and because my hay fever allergies are acting up at the same time, he’s making sure the two aren’t related, which I really doubt is the case. However, if that
was
the case, he and Jilly as well as the majority of my friends know where the EpiPens are. So yeah, while it would suck, I’m not terribly concerned about needing to use one tonight.

“No, nothing like that…I’m just sorta drained,” I said and chuckled at my unintended pun. “Literally.”
 

From my point of view, which I’ll admit was rather limited because my allergy testing and Benedryl taking induced an early bedtime for me, Jilly’s thirteenth birthday party came off without a hitch. It didn’t even sprinkle so the tent was ultimately not needed, but it made the movie watching a lot of fun. People would wait until those perfect suspenseful moments and then they’d pop a balloon or jump around a corner of the tent and grab someone, making everyone who was paying attention to the movie and not expecting it to scream just that much more. And just because it’s a totally Jillian thing to do, I’m sure she got some really great video and photos so I can’t wait to see what I missed.

28.

And I’ll Do Anything For My Sweet Sixteen

I woke up around nine-thirty Saturday morning; a mere twenty-four hours shy of being sixteen.
 

Teehee!

Knowing what my day would entail, that being all the clean-up from Jilly’s party and all the set-up for mine, I was secretly happy that I’d gone to bed so early. I went downstairs to find that Pete and Brandon were already on trash detail, and under Jillian’s supervision, Tristan and Jeff were working on taking the tent down while like me, Kate and Melissa were just waking up.
 

“Okay, so decorating…we have to hang the disco ball, all these music and movie posters, put up the streamers and pick up the balloons, right?” Melissa asked while the three of us were finishing up breakfast and going over my party preparation to-do list.

“Yeah, Jill is gonna set up all the downstairs TVs with DVD players so there’ll be iconic movies playing in the background of all the rooms…” She’s even putting one in the kitchen and a travel TV/DVD combo in the downstairs bathroom. It’s gonna be
so
cool. “Tristan and I have the music part covered…” All the good stuff like OMD, Spandau Ballet, INXS, The Smiths, and Echo and the Bunnymen, just to name a few. “And I guess if Jeff, Pete and Brandon want something to do, they can put all the tapes and old toys I’ve been collecting out around the house,” I answered, reading the list upside down.

“Well, why don’t you have them hang stuff and then we can do the toy decorating? I’ve got this cool idea for a cassette tape centerpiece that I think you’ll love, and I’m pretty sure the guys will be more inclined to hanging stuff than playing with monchichis, even if they are so soft and cuddly.” If that little tagline is unfamiliar to you, Kate just quoted part of the thumb-sucking stuffed animal’s jingle. It was pretty awesome and giggle worthy…

“Oh! I almost forgot to tell you, Brandon made a portable break-dance floor out of some linoleum and he also cut up some cardboard, so hopefully we can get a competition going…I’m prepared to die laughing tonight, just FYI,” Melissa informed us with a firm nod and then a giggle. Brandon’s totally into this theme thing by the way. He loved dressing up for last night’s party and for tonight, he’s planning on dressing like someone from a hair band. I think he’s even gonna be carting an electric guitar around with him all night.