Chapter #23One Party, Two Girls, Some Assembly by: Seuzz   For only a moment are you tempted to retreat. Then shame and anger overwhelm you. You didn't come out here, prepared to face off against Stephanie Wyatt, only to scurry away with tail between your legs at the sight of some jocks. You circle the block once and manage to parallel park in a spot only two houses down from Catherine's.
You're relieved to see you read the porch scene wrong. Only three of the guys are wearing letterman jackets, and they're the wrong colors anyway—the green and purple of Eastman High rather than the crimson and gold of Westside. Their loud, deep voices carry all the way to the end of the walkway, but they're talking calmly and mostly without obscenities about a teacher and her killer tests.
Just inside the front door is an entryway with a large living room on one side, and a smaller living room on the other. Stairs go up to the second floor, and from an arched doorway just beyond these you glimpse the end of a table laden with snacks and drinks. The beat of dance music bounces off the soles of your feet.
A quick glance into the living room shows a dozen people standing or leaning against furniture with drinks in their hands—plastic cups or soda bottles. Most of these faces are familiar. Again, most of them are sports players, but you also spot a couple of people you associate with nothing more dangerous than the marching band: Daniel Luhan, Aaron Flood, Randy Hodges. Someone brushes past you—a girl whose crown barely reaches the top of your shoulder. You can't place a name to her, not even after she briefly looks back to flash you a quick smile, but you figure that if she feels safe here, you should too.
And that thought makes you realize just how much of a shell you've created around yourself. Why?
You get the answer when you look into the other living room. The Molester is sitting on the arm of the sofa, scratching under his pits and casting a pig-like scowl at a lithe Hispanic kid who's talking a mile minute at him while slicing the air with his slim hands. You quickly retreat toward the dining room.
Jocks. Bullies. Fuckheads. All your life at school you've been surrounded by them. You've heard they're not so bad at Eastman, and you've heard that once they weren't so bad at Westside, either. But for whatever reason, your class and the classes immediately around you have always been thick with them. And to keep from running into them you've constructed a smaller and smaller circle around yourself, until now you can't even go to a party without shitting yourself.
You brush down your tie and stifle a quick tremble. This is someone's house, God damn it!, not the school. There are rules here, and Catherine won't stand for any shit if the Molester starts any.
So you reason to yourself, but your sphincter isn't in much of a mood to be reasoned with, and you keep walking until you're in the dining room.
You can't help flinching. It's much more crowded in here. A line of kids snakes around a giant table, but clustered at the far end are a bunch burly, barrel-chested guys in t-shirts and jackets. It's the wrestling squad. Laurent Delacroix with a grin is threatening Austin Mull with a giant spoonful of potato salad. Alec Brown is piling some pink goop onto a paper plate even as he ogles it skeptically. Devin Haney and Eli Anders are jabbering at Sean Mitchell, who is trying to jabber back. A couple of girls are squeezed in between the guys, and Haney breaks off long enough to pull one of them close to kiss her.
You quickly look away, as you don't much want to stare at such a public display and you certainly don't want to be caught staring at it. You edge through another doorway into a large kitchen. This is where the drinks are, and where most of the girls seem to collecting.
Stephanie is one of them. In fact, she's the first one you almost bump in to.
She's filling a clear plastic tumbler from two bottles, and if you had your wits you might be able to tell more than that one of them is 7-Up (unless it's Sprite) and that the other one is red. Stephanie does a double-take at you. "Hey, Will," she says as she turns back to her work. "You made it."
"Oh. Yeah. Thanks for telling me about it."
She doesn't reply, but finishes her mixology and screws the caps back on. You look around the rest of the kitchen.
Girls from the track team, girls from the swim team, girls from the soccer team. Tall and lean, most of them with long, straight hair and fresh complexions. Eyes pop and sparkle excitedly, and cries of "Oh my God!" and "Don't I know!" and "Get serious!" bubble and tumble over each other. Hands are raised and fingers twist, and Jamie Bornholm leans in to laugh loudly in Christine Coolidge's face. In something like a sympathetic reaction, you step back.
That bumps you into Stephanie again. You apologize. She looks at you, and through you, then goes back to staring into the dining room. She takes a long sip from her tumbler.
"What's that?" you ask, and ask her again when you can't even hear your own voice over the giggling girls. Stephanie alone seems uninterested in the gaggle of overlapping crosstalk.
"This?" She points to the tumbler. "Cranberry juice and club soda." She turns back to the dining room. "And a secret ingredient no one needs to know about."
"Oh really." Too late, you realize you're smirking at the implication of alcohol.
That draws from her a full-on stare: cold and blank, encompassing the infinite distance. In her eyes you can almost see the reflection of her thoughts. She's pulling you apart like a string of wet, limp pasta, and finding you just as bland and dull.
But then her eyes harden and her brows work. Before you can gasp, she has snatched the cap off your head and stepped back to look you up and down. You're too shocked to redden as her lip curls slightly at your tie.
Not that she's dressed up. She's in her usual ensemble of jeans and t-shirt, but she's covered it with a cheap lavender windbreaker. And—is it possible? does she wear it often but you've never noticed?—a thin silver necklace about her throat.
You jump again as she slaps the cap back on your head, and settles it by tapping the brim. She smiles faintly. "Come with me," she says, and pulls you close to say it again in your ear. "Come with me."
"Yeah, sure." You're too conscious of the goose bumps rising on your skin under her palm as she pulls you through the girl cluster with a clipped, "Coming through." You flash Olivia Byrne a fast, apologetic smile as she jumps out of your way.
Then you're being dragged down a short dark hall into the big living room. The music is louder here, and Stephanie doesn't bother to talk. Instead, she spins you about and pushes you onto a large sofa. You barely miss sitting on the girl huddled at one end.
It's the same girl as brushed past you earlier. She has mousy brown hair that falls straight to her elbows, and large brown eyes that stare with a mousy intensity at you from a pale, freckled face. Yes, "mousy" is a good word all around. She is small like a mouse, and cute like a mouse, and in the glint of her eyes you catch a quivering curiosity like you've seen in the eyes of tame mice.
Stephanie leans between the two of you. "Will, this is Bailey Keane!" she shouts over the music. "You know her? Bailey, this is Will Prescott!"
You look at Bailey and she looks at you. The fear in her eyes probably matches that in yours. "If you two don't already know each other," Stephanie is saying, "you should make a start!" Then she vanishes back into the kitchen.
You turn back to your erstwhile couch-mate. "Er, hi!" You rub your hand on your knee and put it out. "I'm Will!"
Her mouth is hanging open, but there's a kind of incredulous smile on it too. "I heard!" She takes your hand. "I'm Bailey!" You shake her hand once, and are pleased that her suppressed laughter matches your own.
"So, um, I'm sorry if I don't know you, but I don't actually remember you from any of my classes!"
"Me neither! God, that's a relief, isn't it? I mean—!" She titters. "That we're in the same boat, you know?"
"Definitely!" You put your hand out again. "So, I'm Will Prescott, and I have Ms. Gladstone for fourth-period English!"
"Bailey Keane, and I have Mr. Hagerman for second-period English!"
That confuses you, until you get it sorted out that you're a senior but she's a junior. "I know Stephanie through her brother, Craig!" she explains. "He's around here someplace!"
You didn't know Stephanie had a brother. More to the point, you don't know what to make of the fact that she is apparently trying to set you up with a junior who looks like she could still be a freshman. Is this her judgment about your maturity? Or is she genuinely trying to do something nice for you?  | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
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