Those Girls (12 page)

At about twelve, Mollie broke from the lip-lock.

“Okay, enough!” she said.

A chorus of “awwwws” echoed in a wave around the circle.

“Sam,” said Marc Seidman, “you’re the fucking man.”

And they fist-bumped each other.

“My turn,” Mollie said, her eyes darting around the circle.

“Alex,” she said. She blurred in and out of focus. “Truth or mothafuckin’ dare, bitch?”

She was practically foaming at the mouth. Mollie knew way too many of my embarrassing truths, so I went with dare.

“I dare you to kiss Drew. With tongue. For ten seconds.”

The words pierced my gut, letting out everything that was holding me up. I felt hollow, deflated, and shaky, at risk of being pushed or dropped and shattering. What did she think she was doing?

“You’re not fucking serious!” I said.

“Oh, I am. Do it.” She smiled and nodded, her wise eyes pleading with me to trust her, promising me she was doing this for my own good, that she had a plan.

The crowd chanted again: “Do it! Do it! Do it!”

I looked at Drew. He smiled, bowed his head toward his lap, and shook it. He looked up, still with a big smile, which I hoped meant that he wasn’t completely disgusted by the suggestion.

“I don’t know if I like this!” Veronica squealed, putting her shirt back on.

“You just kissed me topless!” Mollie screamed at her. “You don’t get a veto. Drew. Alex.
Kiss! Now!
”

I looked at Fernando, who looked extremely uncomfortable.

“I’m so sorry!” I said. “I don’t have to do this.”

Fernando ran his fingers over his dark hair.

“It’s a game. Whatever.”

I looked back at Drew, who stood on his knees, grinning goofily, with his arms open.

“Come on,” he said. “It won’t be that bad. Just pretend I’m Fernando.”

I hid my face in my hands, then crawled to him.

“On three,” said Mollie. “One. Two. Three!”

And he went in. Kissing him was exactly like I thought it would be. Sweet. Safe. Warm. Almost like it was something I’d done a million times before. He tasted like he smelled, felt like he sounded. I tried to become undrunk, to enjoy it, savor it, make it count for the millions of times I’d wanted to kiss him before and would want to in the future, but wouldn’t be able to. He put one hand on my cheek, one hand on my waist, and pulled me in closer before breaking.

M
y cold, black heart almost broke when Alex and Drew kissed. I wondered if she was aware of what a favor I’d done for her, if she’d thank me later, or if she’d be pissed.

Veronica stared at Alex, whose facial redness was probably a combined result of the liter of tequila she’d guzzled and the general flustered, weak-in-the-knees, singing-birds type sensations she’d likely experienced from having finally kissed the guy she’d been secretly in love with for the better part of a decade. God, I remember when kissing Sam felt like that.…

I saw Alex mouth
I’m sorry
to Veronica, but V just shrugged. Muahaha. Stupid slut. Now she knew how it felt.

Alex crawled back over to Fernando and kissed him. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she sat back down next to him, and he put his arm around her, all happy and snuggly-like. Poor guy. He had no idea what he’d gotten himself tangled up in.

“Anyone else?” Sam asked around the circle. The meek, terrified sophomores just stared into their shaking laps. They seemed to have figured out that this game wasn’t really a game
and they weren’t really playing. “Alex, it’s your turn again,” he said.

“I already went. Give someone else a turn,” she replied, her dark, drunk, tangled head buried in Fernando’s neck.

“Fine,” he said. “Carson, you go.”

Drew rubbed his eyes and took a big chug of beer. “I dunno, man. I can’t think of anything. I’m done.”

“Fuck that.” Sam looked around the circle. “Seidkick, you go.”

Marc Seidman: Drew’s second-in-command in the stoner troupe, thirty pounds overweight, fancied himself a wiseass, and was always saying grotesque and hilarious things. Not my least favorite to have around. I wished Sam had friends like that. Fat, funny ones. I always enjoyed that type. Jocks were good-looking and all, but not so much in the wit department.

“Okay, fine then. Carson,” said Marc, scratching his stubbly chin, “truth or dare?”

“Let’s mix it up a little. Truth,” Drew said.

Marc leaned his chubby forearms over his soft lap and said, “Why are you fucking Veronica Collins when you’re obsessed with Alex Holbrook?”

The room went silent, with the exception of a few snickers and suffocated giggles. I gasped and threw my hand over my mouth to keep from bursting out laughing. Slow clap for Marc Seidman.

“Fuck you, dude,” Drew said.

“Right?” he asked, addressing the whole circle. “It was the obvious question!”

“You’re an asshole.”

I looked at Alex, who just sat there, hiding her drunk smile behind her long fingers. Marc Seidman and the rest of Drew’s posse keeled over in laughter, heaving and pointing and smacking their legs. Veronica rolled her eyes and looked around lost, per usual.

“This is a joke, right?” she asked.

“Yes, he’s kidding,” Drew said to her, rubbing her bare, bony back. “Seidman, you wanna ask another question or is this dumbass game over?”

Sam and I elbowed each other, but touché Marc Seidman. The ultimate silent predator and clear victor of this retarded game. I had a sick desire to take him aside and join forces. Unite our camps in the name of perpetuating good (i.e., getting Alex and Drew together) and fighting evil (i.e., Veronica).

“Okay,” interjected Alex, “this game is over. It’s almost midnight.”

We all got up and refilled our drinks, as the game brought on an unwelcome gust of sobriety. We turned on the TV to watch the countdown.

“Babe,” I said, falling into Sam’s arms. “Happy New Year! I’m so happy to be starting another year with you.”

“Me too, babe.” And we kissed. God, I’d kill myself if I didn’t have a boyfriend on New Year’s. What do those girls do? Sloppily make out with Marc Seidman–types, I guess, as it looked like some of Josh’s sophomore friends were gearing up to do.

“Okay, everyone!” screamed Alex. “Get the confetti!”

Then it was five… four… three… two… one! Happy New Year!

Sam and I made out for a while, which was weird, because we never made out anymore. We kissed all the time, but lip-to-lip smacks. Kisses were an obligatory preamble to sex, unconscious extensions of hi and bye or occasionally a public declaration of our relationship when I felt we were in a situation in which our relationship needed to be declared. The making out—like full-on, tongues, hands, face touching, body groping hours of kissing—stopped months ago. Maybe even years. It used to be hard for us to even talk, because I couldn’t look at his face without kissing it. Nowadays, it was harder for me to look at his face without punching it than it was to not kiss it. I wasn’t sure if that was normal.

I looked around: Drew and Veronica were passionately groping each other and sucking face on the brown corduroy couch. Alex and Fernando were kissing, too, hugging, smiling, looking sloppy and drunk. The other boys were making out with the sophomore girls who Josh had invited. Though I hadn’t seen Josh all night. Thank god, taking my shirt off and making out with Veronica in front of Alex’s little brother really would have been an unnecessary addition to my shame list for the year. Christ, and thank god it was New Year’s, and I got to start a fresh one.

AFTER MIDNIGHT, TIME SEEMED
to move really fast. I played some beer pong, took some shots, and for once didn’t feel like the drunkest person in the room. Alex had disappeared.
Were she and Fernando sleeping together? There was no way that could be true and she wouldn’t have told me.… I know she’s all into not telling me things anymore, but there is no way she wouldn’t have told me that. We planned the logistics of my virginity loss for weeks. How could she not have told me that she was at least thinking about it? She probably went upstairs to check on her mom’s party or something. There was no way she’d have sex and I’d hear about it later. Had she even given Fernando a blow job? Had she given anyone one?

Veronica flitted around the stoners and Sam and Austin, and when they all went into the back room to smoke a joint, I had to pass, because weed makes me paranoid. As if I weren’t already paranoid. But then I was left, sitting alone, on that crusty corduroy couch, hungry, wondering what kind of delicious food the Holbrooks were hiding upstairs, willing myself, begging myself, not to break the seal and eat something, because I was drunk enough that once I started, I knew I wouldn’t stop.

But then Josh came over and sat with me. I hadn’t really seen or talked to him since the incident at Veronica’s party in September. God, had I really not been inside Alex’s house since September?

“Hey there,” he said with his goofy smile that looked like Alex’s dad’s. “Having fun?”

“Always,” I said with a sarcastic smile. “Josh, I…”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, shaking his head and patting my back. “Seriously, you’re like my sister. I got your back.”

I smiled and let my shoulders relax for the first time all night. I gave him a hug.

“Well, I’m not your sister, and you didn’t have to do what you did that night, which I guess now is like embarrassingly long ago. You could have minded your own business, or left me on the lawn. You saved the day, so just shut up and let me say thank you.”

He smiled, leaned back, and switched his baseball hat from backward to forward. “You’re welcome.”

“Any cute sophomore girls you have your eye on?” I could always feel it on my skin when I tried to be sweet. I saw myself from the outside, saw how stupid I looked and could hear my inner bitch laughing and rolling her eyes. Many people out there only saw this person, and probably believed she was real. My teachers, parents, older girls at school. I truly wondered if anyone was actually sweet. Who truly cared about whom Josh Holbrook had his eye on or recycling or that someone gets well soon or has a safe trip. Did everyone fake that, or was it just me?

“Nah,” he said, giggling, “my eye’s not on any of them.”

“None of these girls are good enough for you anyway,” I said.

“So, Sam is good enough for you?”

I giggled uncomfortably, staying actively in Sweet Mollie mode. “Sam is the hottest guy in school! He’s out of my league.… And that’s what you deserve, too, Josh, a girl who’s out of your league—date up, that’s my advice.”

Josh shook his head. “Mollie, that doesn’t even make any
sense. Anyone who treats you the way Sam does is fucking bush-league.”

“That’s adorable, but that’s just not how life works.”

“That is actually exactly how life works. And despite what it looks like, I know your life’s not working.”

I knew it was wrong that what I got out of that sentence was that
it looks like
my life is working, and that the words washed over me like a compliment and a wave of relief.

“Yes, it is. I’m as happy as I’ve ever been.” I swallowed hard, and my spine twitched as I said it. “I have everything a girl could want.”

Josh smacked his palm to his forehead and spun toward me. He put his hands on my shoulders, grabbed them hard, and shook me, quite aggressively, making it seem like his melodramatic actions were an act of playfulness, but I knew that despite the sass in our tones we were having an actual serious conversation.

He spoke loudly and enunciated every syllable: “GIRLS SHOULD WANT DIFFERENT THINGS, MOLLIE.”

Sam, V, and Austin all came out of the smoking room, reeking. They’d decided in there that they wanted to head over to the ’Zu after-hours party, and though I would have loved to have gone home, hooked up with Sam, and gone to bed, I didn’t put up a fight. It was New Year’s, fuck it. Party on. Drew had to be home in an hour, so he couldn’t go. I looked for Alex to say good-bye, but she was nowhere to be found. I figured she was either puking or hooking up, and she wouldn’t want me to interrupt either.

Sam claimed he was fine to drive, so Drew went home and Veronica came with us, which I couldn’t believe. Drew was her boyfriend! It was New Year’s! I knew that no one cared when she got home, but how could she ditch Drew? Maybe she was mad at him about the Alex thing. I’d never seen Veronica actually express anger or displeasure before. Or maybe she was still just a pathetic social climber at heart and secretly missed flirting with jocks at the ’Zu parties and was tired of lying around and watching movies she didn’t understand, pretending she was in love. Still, who leaves their boyfriend on New Year’s? Stupid sluts, that’s who.

We got to the ’Zu and it was a typical scene. Dingy white walls, crunchy gray carpet, haggard old faces. It was about five hundred degrees and smelled like old beer, old vomit, and old money.

It was after two when we got there, so I ripped some shots because I needed to loosen up a little more to have the same conversations with the same blond-haired, blue-eyed half-wits that I did every weekend. It was kind of nice to have Veronica there with me again—like the old days, when we were
the hot freshmen
and all of this was still exciting, glamorous, and fun.

She handed me a bottle of Malibu and said, “Bottoms up!”

Sam motioned for me to come over to him, so I squirmed through the sweaty people across the basement to where he stood by the stairs. I clasped the Malibu for dear life.

“I can’t stop thinking about you making out with Veronica,” he said. “It was so hot.”

“You’re such a perv!” I flirtatiously grabbed his waist, cut and hard underneath his shirt.

“Seriously,” he said. He ran his hand through my hair the way he used to, then kissed my neck and my ear. “It was, like, the ultimate fantasy. I can’t believe you did that.” His fingers rested in the top of my pants, and the rum buzzed through me. It had been so long since I’d felt so wanted by Sam. I wondered if I should make out with girls more often.

It used to be like this all the time. We used to flirt and play and have all sorts of raunchy fun. We’d leave these parties and go have sex in his car, or in an empty bedroom. We hadn’t had sex in relative public in ages. I wondered if we were about to go do that. I hoped we were about to go do that.

“I can make a lot of your fantasies come true,” I cooed in his ear. “Let’s go fuck in one of the bedrooms upstairs.”

“I have a better idea,” he said with a devil in his eye.

“Oh, where should we go? It’s too cold outside.…”

“Let’s see if Veronica will come with us.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on! You guys already kissed. It’s, like, you’re just letting me play, too, this time,” he said with a smile and a pinch of my ass. I was drunk. I wasn’t even sure I understood what he was asking.

“So you want us to hook up in front of you? Or, like, both of us, with you? At the same time?”

I couldn’t figure out fast enough how bad this was, if this was bad, or what it meant in regard to how he felt about me or what he ultimately wanted from me. Maybe this wasn’t that big
of a deal. Was I supposed to say yes or no? What was the good girlfriend thing to do? Would he lose respect for me if I said yes, or would he think I was boring and a prude if I said no?

“Whatever, babe! Let’s just see what happens once we get up there! Go with it. Thinking about you, like that, so hot. You’d be, like, my own personal porn star.”

My heart raced. Maybe this was what Sam and I needed. Maybe this would make him see me as hot and wild and fun again, not just his jealous girlfriend who wasn’t as cute as she used to be.

“Do you promise that this isn’t just an excuse to hook up with Veronica without cheating?”

“Babe, I swear. Let’s just ask her. I bet she’ll do it.”

I motioned to Veronica to come over, and the three of us went upstairs. I finished the bottle of Malibu on the way. We made our way to Lindsay’s room, which I told myself had seen way kinkier and more disgusting things than what it was about to witness. I sat on the mint-green-and-eyelet-covered bed and bit my nails. Sam sat next to me.

“Do you guys have coke?” V’s eyes lit up.

Sam laughed. “I wish. Mollie and I have a proposition for you.”

She stood by the door, biting her lip and twirling her fingers. Sam walked over to her and stood proudly, there next to her, with his arm around her, and looked at me. “We were talking, and we would like to invite you to join us.”