The Party (11 page)

Michael was no expert when it came to dressing for a date. Part of the reason, he supposed, was he had never gone on a date before. The other problem was his lack of nice clothes. He finally settled on a pair of gray slacks and a white shirt. He figured he was playing it safe. Bubba said he looked like an altar boy.

The three of them—Michael, Bubba, and Nick—were spending the last minutes before the
Big Night
in Michael’s house. Bubba only lived around the block, and of course Nick had had to come over for the car. Michael’s mom had already left for the weekend. Her current boyfriend, Daniel Stevens, owned a condo by the beach. Michael liked the man. Mr. Stevens taught music at Irvine. He had an easygoing manner and treated his mother like gold. Michael suspected his mom liked him, too. Maybe this one would work out. She deserved someone nice.

“Did any of you go to the game last night?” Michael asked, sitting on his bed, sipping a lemonade. Nick—he couldn’t seem to relax—had glued himself to the far wall. And Bubba was at the desk in front of the mirror, trying on a bag full of garish forties ties his gangster uncle had left him in a will.

“I didn’t,” Nick said.

“We got stomped: thirty seven to fourteen,” Bubba said. “There’s a rumor circulating that Bill Skater’s quarterback days are over.”

“Did you start the rumor?” Michael asked.

“I did, but it’s gathering momentum. I’ve also started a Draft Russ Desmond campaign, whether he wants to play or not.” He turned away from the mirror. “What do you think of this one?”

Not only was it a depressing brandy red color, it had a dime size hole in the center. “It’s awful,” Michael said.

“That looks like a bullet hole,” Nick said.

Bubba nodded. “My uncle was wearing it when he got wasted.” He tightened the collar. “Clair will love it.”

“What did Clair say when you told her she had to drive?” Michael asked.

“We’ll see,” Bubba said, reaching for the phone. He dialed the number from memory. She answered on the second ring. “Clair? This is Bubba. How are you doing?… Hey, that’s great. I can hardly wait myself. But I’ve got a small problem. You know Michael Olson?… Yeah, he sure is smart. He’s going out with Jessica Hart tonight… What? No, she’s cool. Never mind what you’ve heard. Anyway, he has to borrow my car. Could you pick me up?… What a sweetheart! Let me give you my address.”

He chitchatted a minute longer before signing off. “She loves me,” he said as he put down the phone.

“Do you swear you don’t have those tickets?” Michael asked.

“U2 played their final L.A. show last night. How could I have tickets?”

“What did she say about Jessie?”

“She called her a stuck up bitch. Don’t take it personally. It’s only because Jessie’s pretty. Pretty girls always hate other pretty girls. It’s biological.”

Nick ventured away from the wall. “I better get going.” He had a long face.

“Hey, loosen up, Nick,” Bubba said. “You’re just going out with her. You don’t have to kill her afterward.”

Michael stood, setting down his lemonade. “Are you worried because she’s having you pick her up at the library?”

Nick looked at the floor. “I don’t know, when I think about it, maybe she’s ashamed of me.”

“She’s probably just worried her dad will blow your head off when he sees how dark you are,” Bubba said sympathetically.

Nick smiled faintly. “Yeah, that must be it.”

Michael escorted Nick to the front door. “I filled the car with gas this afternoon,” he said. “The air conditioner works, but the window’s usually a better bet. And forget about the radio. It only gets AM.”

“Thanks, Mike.”

“The car’s ten years old. It’s no big favor.”

Nick went to touch his shoulder, hesitated. “I mean, thanks for everything. You’re a real friend. Where I come from, you learn to appreciate your friends. Anytime you need a favor, no matter what it is, I’ll be there for you.”

Michael was touched by the sentiment. “You just have yourself a good time.”

Nick promised him he would. Michael watched him drive off, and was heading back to his room when Kats pulled up. Kats drove an old Mustang that never needed an oil change; it leaked a quart a week. “Don’t park that thing in the driveway!” Michael called.

“You let that black dude take your car?” Kats asked a minute later, after having stowed his heap out of sight around the corner. He had obviously just come from work. He needed a bath. “You must be out of your mind, Mike.”

Michael ignored the comment—people did that all the time with Kats—fetched him a glass of lemonade, and told him not to sit on anything. Bubba came out of the bedroom with a box of condoms in his hands.

“You sure you don’t want at least one of these?” he asked.

“That’s all right, you might need the whole box,” Michael said.

Bubba nodded. “I did use a whole box once. Lost three pounds that night. Gained it right back, though. It was mostly water.”

Michael groaned. “If you’re going to talk like that, we better go in the bathroom.”

“Don’t be a prude. They advertise condoms on national television. Safe sex, all that stuff.” Bubba pulled one from the box, offered it to him. “Come on, she’ll thank you for it afterward.”

“Give it to Kats.”

Kats was excited. “How many of those have you got to wear?”

Bubba glanced at Kats’s filthy fingernails. “You? Eleven.”

Michael pointed to the orange envelope with Jessica’s address on it. “Kats, hand me that paper on the oven, would you?”

Kats picked the invitation up, stopped to read it. He was nosy on top of everything else. His grin widened. “Polly and Alice McCoy! They come into the station all the time. Always pay with a gold credit card. You know them, Mike? Are they having a party? I’d like to go to that. Wooh, that Alice sure is a tasty number.”

Michael took a step forward, snapped the invitation from Kats’s hand. “Shut up. You have to be invited. You can’t come.”

“Hey, Mike,” Bubba said. “Cool down.”

Michael realized he was overreacting. “Sorry.”

Kats stared at him a moment, his black eyes strangely flat. Then he grinned again. “I bet you were just afraid I’d break in carrying my gun, hey, Mike?”

Michael folded the invitation, put it in his back pocket, out of sight. He remembered that gun all too well. “Yeah, I guess, something like that.”

He had asked Jessica yesterday if she’d like to get a bite to eat before the movie. She had said sure. He was supposed to pick her up at six thirty. He would be early if he left now, but suddenly he wanted to get out of the house, get away from the others. He told them he had to hit the road. Bubba left with Kats in the dripping Mustang.

Michael was familiar with Jessica’s neighborhood. And although he had never been to the McCoy residence, he knew Alice lived around the block from Jessica; he had both addresses on the invitation. Cruising down the road in Bubba’s Jaguar, he decided to swing by and say hello to his favorite artist.

He had expected a huge house. He wasn’t disappointed. You could use up a lot of gas, he thought, going up a driveway like this every day; it was as long as a football field. He parked beside a silver gray Mercedes, climbed out.

An elderly lady answered the door. He assumed she was the guardian aunt Alice talked about. Her posture was terrible; in better years, she must have been half a foot taller. She was one of those old ladies it was hard to imagine had ever been young. She had a sweet smile, however, which reminded him of Alice’s. Parents and relatives always smiled when they saw him. As Bubba had observed, he had that altar boy aura.

“Is Alice here?”

“She’s around back. Are you a friend from school?”

“Yeah, I’m Michael Olson.” He offered his hand. She shook it feebly.

“Alice has told me about you. Please come in.”

They had cream colored carpet, deep and soft. The living room cathedral ceiling went way up; twin tinted skylights spread a faint rainbow of color over the elegant contemporary furniture and towering fireplace. The place was spotless.
They’d better lay down protective sheets for the party
, he thought. The aunt pointed toward a sliding glass door. “You’ll find her near the rose bushes.”

“Thank you. Is Polly here?”

“She’s at a friend’s.”

The pool was large even for a house as big as this one. It was not, however, exotically shaped, simply rectangular. Mr. or Mrs. McCoy had probably enjoyed swimming laps.

Alice had set up her easel in the corner of the yard, between the wall of the house and the beginnings of an exotic garden of flowers, bushes, and trees that stretched perhaps fifty yards to a tall adobe brick wall. The McCoy’s could do all the shouting they liked and their neighbors wouldn’t even know about it.

An overhang from the second story roof cast a shadow over her spot. She had compensated by erecting a silver dished lamp behind her right shoulder. He thought the arrangement unusual since she could have painted practically anywhere else in the yard and enjoyed direct sunlight. Perhaps the strange mixture of artificial and natural lighting was what suited her mood best. Although he could scarcely see the painting, her work in progress appeared—from the colors—to have a distinct surreal quality.

He thought how content she seemed with a brush in her left hand, a song on her lips. Maybe she was in the middle of a creative high. He decided not to interrupt her, after all. He circled around to the other side of the house and climbed back in the Jaguar. The aunt would probably wonder what had become of him.

It hit him then, hard as a rock, that he was going to pick up Jessica.
Jessie!
The nervousness came quick, but also, an exhilarating joy. This could be the start of something. She could fall in love with him. It was theoretically possible.

He drove around the block, parked in the street in front of her house. Ringing the doorbell and waiting for her to answer, he aged five years.

When the doorbell rang, Jessica was upstairs in her bedroom with Sara and Polly, trying on earrings. She sent Polly down to answer it. “If it’s Michael, tell him I’ll be down in a minute. Offer him a Coke.”

“What if it’s Russ?” Polly asked.

Jessica glanced at Sara. “Give him a beer,” she said.

When Polly had left, Sara went to the bedroom door and peeked out. “It’s Mike,” she said a moment later, disappointed.

“He’ll be here, Sara. He’s only a few minutes late.”

“Thirty two minutes is not a few.”

“Guys have a different sense of time than girls.”

“Are you absolutely positively sure it was his idea to go out?”

“Yes.”

“You’re lying. You talked him into it.”

“He likes you. He told me so.”

“Did he say that? What were his exact words?”

“He said you were an all right girl.” She decided against any earrings at all. They were just going out for fun, after all. She turned to Sara. “Look, why don’t you call him? He may have gotten lost.”

“Right, it’ll be a snap reaching him on his car phone.”

“You’ve got a point there. Maybe you could talk to his mom. I’m sure their number is listed. She could tell you when he left.”

Sara folded her arms across her chest. She’d broken from tradition and put on a beautiful white dress. “I’m not talking to his mom.”

Jessica squeezed Sara’s arm. “Be patient. He’ll be here. Now, I’ve got to go. Wish me a good time.”

“Have a good time,” Sara grumbled.

“Don’t you want to come down and say hi to Michael?”

Sara plopped on the bed. “No. I hate men. All of them.”

Michael was sitting on the couch with Polly when Jessica entered the living room. He stood up quickly when he saw her and smiled. His gray slacks and white shirt looked a bit plain next to her bright yellow pants and silky green blouse, but who gave a damn? The degree of her pleasure at seeing him again surprised her. He had such lovely black eyes.

“You look nice,” he said casually, stepping toward her. On impulse, she gave him a quick hug.

“Thanks, so do you.” His arms felt strong beneath his shirt. She took a step back. “Did you have any trouble finding the place?”

“No.”

“Where are my manners? Have you met Polly?”

“I met Mike last year,” Polly said. “He’s a good friend of Alice’s.”

Jessica stopped, frowned. “You are? Alice didn’t tell me that.”

Michael was watching her. “She’s a nice girl.”

“Alice? She’s a doll.” Jessica picked her purse off the TV. “I’d introduce you to my parents, but they went out for dinner. Which reminds me, where do you want to eat? Remember, I’m paying.”

He mentioned a local restaurant—one of her favorites—but insisted it would be his treat. She told him they could argue about it when the bill came.

As she was leaving, she remembered that Maria would be coming over later to spend the night. All this last week, since Maria had helped her on the quiz, they had begun to talk more, outside of class as well as during chemistry lab. Maria was a different sort of friend for Jessica. She was serious, someone who weighed every word before speaking it. She appeared totally uninterested in local gossip, and yet she was fun to be around. She had a quiet dignity that Jessica found inspiring.

On Thursday Maria had admitted she had a problem. Nick Grutler, the tall black guy, had asked her out. She wanted to go; she had, in fact, told him she would. But her parents would kill her if they found out. They weren’t prejudiced, she said, just
extremely
conservative. She had told Nick to pick her up at the library, but she knew that when he dropped her off at home, her parents would be awake and waiting. She didn’t know what to do.

To Jessica, the solution was obvious. Spend the night at her house. The offer had delighted Maria. To further insure that Maria’s parents did not learn of the date, Jessica had called Friday afternoon after the cross country race and had casually spoken to Mrs. Gonzales about Maria’s coming over. The lady had sounded pleased her daughter had made such an up standing friend. You just had to know how to handle parents.

“Are you going to hang around for a while?” she asked Polly. “I forgot to tell my mom and dad about Maria spending the night.”

“I might stay for a while.”

“Until Russ shows up, right?” Polly started to get mad. “Don’t say it. If you do leave before they get back, could you leave them a note for me?”

“Sure, Jessie. I hope you two have fun.”

Michael probably was going to think she was a jerk. The second they left the house, she asked if they could stop at the nearest gas station. “I have to make a call,” she explained.

“Your house phones aren’t working?”

“Yeah.”

They stopped at an Exxon not far away. Excusing herself, she shut herself in the booth and rang information. There were three Desmond’s. The first one didn’t have a Russ. The second—it sounded like his dad—said he’d go get him. Russ didn’t seem all that wide awake when he came on the line.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Russ, this is Jessica Hart. Remember me?”

“Yeah.”

Jessica gestured to Michael that she would be off in a moment. “Russ, where are you? Don’t you remember you were supposed to go out with Sara tonight?”

He yawned. “It was tonight?”

Jessica wondered if she should stop where she was. Chances were, Sara would eventually kill a guy like this. “Yeah, how could you forget?”

“I don’t know. Can I come tomorrow? I’m watching
Star Trek
.”

“No, you can’t come tomorrow. Sara’s waiting for you at my house this minute. She’s all dressed up. You get over there right away.”

“Right now? I’m hungry.”

“You made a date, Russ. You should keep it. Do you still have that map I drew you?”

“I think so.”

“Good. Now whatever you do, don’t tell her I called. All right?”

“All right.”