Deadgirl

would do, while Zack argued for a more varied palette. The girls and I exchanged amused looks and followed them up.

The house was nice—I’d never been there before, but it was clear evidence of an upper-middle class upbringing. The stereo, currently eclipsed by Zack and Benny’s gesticulating forms, could have been in a professional nightclub. Speakers on stands were arranged at key locations around the living room. Lamps lit the spacious house at the moment, but I spotted a number of theatrical-looking lights scattered around, none of them on. Oh. A disco ball. I laughed and pointed it out to Daphne, Wanda, and Sara, who all groaned in unison. Benny let out a short, sharp bark at our reaction but otherwise kept to his music collection.

We all made sure to locate the bathroom, the door to the backyard—which, just from our quick scan, looked like the Secret Garden of Eden—and the kitchen. When we floated into the dining room, I heard Wanda gasp.

For good reason. The entire white-tile kitchen island bristled with bottles of booze. Not an ounce of spare counter-top shown between the Jack Daniels and the Malibu and a dozen more brands just like them. A stack of red cups I could have made into a second house stood proudly on the kitchen table, next to two-liter bottles of Coke, Sprite, Dr. Pepper, and a prolific plastic serving bowl overflowing with what looked like Cool Ranch Doritos.

“Holy crap,” Sara said.

“I’m home,” Daphne said, and had a red cup filled with Captain and Coke before anyone else even left the doorway.

Wanda grabbed me by the arm and tugged me toward a corner. Sara and Daphne didn’t seem to notice, and were perusing the selection of alcohol like old pros. I’d only ever drank once, at a party last year, and I’d only ended up getting really tired and falling asleep in Morgan’s bed fully clothed. Not terribly exciting, I admit.

“That’s alcohol,” Wanda hissed.

I couldn’t help myself. The shock turned her eyes into beach balls, and her voice even trembled. I flashed her a broad sympathetic grin.

“You don’t have to drink, Wanda,” I said, and squeezed her hand. “There’s plenty of soda.”

“Won’t…won’t people be mad?”

I’d be more amused by her innocence if I hadn’t worried about the same thing just a year ago.

“No,” I said. “That only happens in after school specials, babe.”

“I don’t know,” Wanda said, and turned away from me. Her eyes scanned the bottles of liquor like they were all little individual time bombs and someone had just handed her a pair of wire cutters. I put my hand on her shoulder and nudged her.

“Just walk around with a red cup filled with soda and act drunk,” I said.

She shook her head.

“Act like you’re kind of tired but everything is funny. And occasionally just sort of stare into space,” I said. “No one will suspect.”

Wanda twisted a lock of her hair so hard it made my scalp hurt.

“Luce…”

“I won’t tell anyone,” I said, and raised two fingers. “Strike me down with great vengeance and furious anger if I’m lyin’.”

Wanda nodded, but I wasn’t convinced. Not that I had to be—as bitchy as it sounds, she really had no alternatives. Her only other option was to ask to be taken home, which she wasn’t going to do, or have her parents come pick her up. Wanda was way too loyal to subject us all to parental doom, so that was out. I felt bad for her, and I was pretty nervous myself, but it was an adapt-or-die situation now. For both of us.

“You’ll be okay,” I said. “Promise.”

She nodded again, and it looked a little more confident. That’s something I suppose.

With Daphne’s urging, and hoping it would calm my nerves, I took one of her patented Captain and Coke’s and took a sip. It tasted like CAPTAIN and Coke, and when I made a pucker-face Daphne tossed another splash of rum in there for good measure. I want to stab her in the leg sometimes, I’m gonna be honest.

I floated back to the living room and sank into the thick plush cushions of the sofa. The drink had hit me hard, and I was in no mood to watch Daphne preen or Wanda cringe. My head felt heavy, and my eyes felt bigger than normal. I let out a deep whooshing breath and let my head cant sideways on the cushion behind me.

I sat on the couch alone for a time, with Wanda and Daph and Sara for a while, then with Benny as the guests filtered in. Benny and Zack had been worried at first—but the party-goers came in at a trickle, then a rush, and finally a biblical flood.

The living room, kitchen, and backyard swelled with kids. They seemed to breathe as one, causing the house to expand and creak at the joints. The music, a medley of ’90s songs, ’80s punk songs and top forty spoke to Zack’s influence on the soundtrack. I didn’t know why, but the thought of Zack winning the pointless soundtrack argument made me smile.

I stuck to my lone drink at first, nursing it for the better part of an hour, hoping no one would notice. The drink left me fuzzy but not much else—either I didn’t possess the gumption to throw myself completely over the deep end or some background track of my brain still kept a judo-grip on an endless strung-together litany of parental warnings and cautionary tales. Actually, the more I thought about it, the more I was sure it was the latter.

Sara disappeared completely—it didn’t surprise me. She wasn’t a huge fan of drinking but she’d smoke if there were smokers, and there were. I’d seen them gathered in a circle in the muggy darkness of Benny’s parent’s garden, barely illuminated by a single porch bulb burning behind thick amber glass. Daphne never stopped circling —she’d orbit a group of talkers, shoot in a few choice interjections, and move on. When she floated past me and I called her on her nomadic tendencies, she rebuffed me handily with a strangely appealing explanation.

“Luce,” Daphne said, and kissed me on the cheek. “I’m a shark. If I stop swimming, I die.”

Wanda mingled—much to my surprise, she wasn’t nearly the social caterpillar I had been expecting. She rotated through groups at a respectable pace, and I even saw her laughing a few times. Granted, her whole body threw off the no sudden movements vibe, and she looked ready to bolt most of the time, but she still hung in there. I had to give her credit.

I did okay—I talked to almost everyone, but I couldn’t repeat half of their names or three-quarters of their stories without a gun pressed firmly to my temple. Or my stomach. Ha, ha. Even my metaphors were Freudian.

Mostly I watched. I enjoy people-watching—I always have. But part of me was clenched, ready, waiting for the hammer to fall. I couldn’t explain the sensation—a kind of loose worry of an unnamed thing. Maybe it was the booze. Maybe it was the party. Maybe it was the fact that after an hour and a half, Zack hadn’t come looking for me once. Hadn’t even waved or checked up on me or—

I swallowed and shook my head.

I tried to pull myself into the now, a task not even remotely helped along by having to return to an agonizing conversation with a senior about his burnt orange 1965 Mustang Convertible. And the worst part? He wasn’t even hitting on me. It might have been an ego upswing if he was. Instead his eyes strayed not a centimeter from the eyes and overly exposed chest of one Emelia Beryl. A junior, cute, wearing too much eye make-up and not enough shirt. She didn’t fit the hot girl stereotype, and in fact looked a little too Goth-punk for my tastes, but this guy would not let up. I sighed and tried to find my place in the conversation.

I’d only even been involved in the conversation because I happened to be leaning against the same wall as Emelia, and I think Mustang guy was just trying to hit up as many targets as possible. Still, Emelia seemed to be the primary, and so after a few pleasant smiles and nods I managed to fade away.

Without even trying, and angry at myself for succeeding, I spotted Zack. Standing next to Benny, both of them gesturing in unison and telling a loud story. I couldn’t tell if they had practiced it or just told it too many times. Three girls hung off their words like the last helicopter out of Fallujah. Groan.

I was torn—break into the group and force my awesomeness on him, or bail and leave him high and dry. My phone buzzed in my purse instead. It was the first herald of a terrible night, and I wish I’d been lucky enough to suspect it. Instead, I flipped my phone and saw a name I didn’t expect—Morgan.

“Morgan?”

“What’s up?” she asked.

I frowned. Hadn’t she called me?

“Just…just the party.”