FOR JOE AND ELLIOT
I WASN'T INVITED, BUT I SHOWED UP TO THE PARTY ANYWAY so I could talk to Ellie Chen and find out why she dumped me two weeks ago. It was a choir party at Maria Posey's place, in celebration for killing it at the state qualifier yesterday, so I figured Ellie and her songbird friends would be there.
I didn't figure they'd be mixing it up with my new crowd from soccer and my old crowd from, well, whatever it is Ryder does these days.
I parked a few blocks away and walked up the hill, shivering. It might've been cold outside, and it might not have been. I couldn't tell anymore. Palm Valley, California, is just another place that disregards the seasons. It was January, but that didn't mean anything.
I was only cold because I remembered what it was like to be warm; the year I'd spent with Ellie was the warmest of my life.
When she moved here from New York, I could tell right away she was different. She was smart in a way that didn't make you feel stupid, and beautiful in a way that didn't make you feel ugly. It was like by having those things, and being that way, she made everyone around her believe they were more and better, too.
Now I drank to keep warm.
For Christmas, Granddad had given me his antique flask. The real present was inside, refillable every time I visited him at the hospital. He didn't need to bribe me with booze, though. I liked the old guy and I would've shown up every week no matter what. I liked his vintage magazines and I liked sitting and talking with him at Lancaster Medical while he recovered from pneumonia. Sometimes we'd just play cards and let the hours pass. Unlike my parents, he talked to me instead of over me.
The conversations I had with my parents didn't seem to require my presence.
Outside Maria Posey's million-dollar tract home on Western Avenue, I toasted Granddad and sipped my Christmas gift, wincing at the taste. The San Gabriel Mountains were oppressive dark outlines against a gray, smog-choked sky. They practically disappeared on nights like this, but I could still feel them there, separating me from Los Angeles and Pasadena and all the other places that might've been worth living in.
I'd just stumbled through Maria's doorway when my first ex, the ex before Ellie, slithered toward me out of nowhere and looped her arm around mine.
"It's been a month, Dix. You gotta let it go," Bridget said.
"Two weeks and four days," I corrected her, scanning the crowded living room for Ellie. The air was charged, and a few sets of eyes found mine and squinted in curiosity or disapproval. It was hard to tell which.
"It's not that kind of party," Bridget said, wrapping her fingers around my flask and lowering it out of sight between our bodies.
"It is for me," I said.
The hallway and kitchen were packed, too, and I considered mosh-pitting my way through, but Bridget tightened her noose of an arm around mine.
"Don't make a scene. Hang out with me instead," she said. Her large green eyes were like emerald caves, so huge a guy could stroll right into them and stay forever if he didn't mind giving up his own mind. According to Ellie, emeralds had a tranquilizing effect. Screw the Ramones-I didn't want to be sedated.
Bridget leaned against me and I glanced down to where her curves seemed to be inviting my hands on a date. I kept my expression neutral and forced my gaze back up to her lips, which were full and dark and red. Her strawberry blonde hair fell in loose curls over her shoulders, and she smelled like a dream, lush and harmless, but I knew better.
Whoever coined the phrase "girl next door," intending it to mean sweet or innocent, never met Bridget. We used to be tight, but she hadn't given me the time of day in years. Her sudden affection made me suspicious. Just like her emerald eyes, it was too good to be true. You can always spot a fake because it has no imperfections.
I shook her loose and staggered through the living room, dodging couples perched on couches or sprawled on the floor. The room swayed, like the house had become unmoored. I half expected to look out the window and discover a black ocean because we'd all been transported to Semester at Sea. But the floor moved only for me.
Everybody was talking about college admissions, scholarships, essays, and financial aid. Maybe that's why I hadn't been invited: my future was set, while theirs were still in flux.
I fought for balance and caught snippets of deadline-this and deadline-that, all while scanning, scanning, scanning for Ellie.
A couple of my soccer teammates (Patrick and Josh) gave me the nod, or maybe they were indicating heads-up, because suddenly Maria Posey, hostess and head songbird, stepped into my path and scowled.
"Why are you here, Charlie Dixon?" She threw her words like darts, apparently believing people's names could be used as insults. Or maybe just mine could.
"The beckhams are here, Ellie's here. I'm the epicenter of that Venn diagram," I slurred, and poked her on the shoulder to make my point.
She was disgusted, either by my breath or by the fact that I'd brought math to the party.
"Are you drunk?" she demanded. "I don't want you vomming all over my parents' carpet."
I didn't dignify that with a response. "I just want to say hi to Ellie, okay?"
With a last name like Posey, the pressure was on, but as always, Maria met the challenge. She struck a good one: hip cocked, hand out, eyebrow raised. It was quite a balancing act. I wondered if she'd practiced it in front of the mirror before guests arrived. The Velvet Rope, she could call it.
"Invite?" she demanded again.
"Must've gotten caught in my spam folder."
"Spam folders don't spontaneously generate invites. You didn't make the cut."
"Ellie's here, so I can be here," I pointed out.
"She broke up with you last year."
"Last year was a few days ago!" I took a deep breath. "Two seconds, okay? Then I'll leave."
Her eyes narrowed. "Fine. At least serve a purpose and sign my petition while you're here."
"What's it for? To ship you off to Vassar early or something?"
"It's to convince Principal Jeffries to let the girls' choir perform at graduation."
Ah, graduation: the collective obsession of my classmates-save for me, of course. When you know exactly where you're going, the future holds little charm.
Maria handed me a stack of papers, and I indicated for her to turn around so I could sign it against her back.
When that was through, I found myself alone in the kitchen, turning in a circle, debating which exit was most likely to lead me to Ellie. Should I go back and retrace my steps? Or forge ahead in a new direction?
A Hispanic girl passed through on her way to the living room, her long, dark hair almost obscuring her large, hollow eyes. She looked like a sad girl in search of a tragedy. I could steer her toward mine, but it would cost her a finder's fee.
The sad girl and I glanced at each other. I didn't recognize her and we hadn't been introduced, so I didn't say a word. Every year it gets harder and harder to tell freshmen and sophomores from upperclassmen, and it's not worth the risk engaging them to find out.
I watched her leave, then spun some more-retrace steps, or forge new path?-until someone called my name. My oldest friend, Ryder.
"Hey," he said. An unlit cigarette dangled from his mouth, and he fiddled with a box of orange Tic Tacs, rolling it up and down his knuckles like it was a coin and he was a bored magician. "Didn't expect to see you here."
He was more out of place at this party than I was, and we both knew it. "Ditto," I said.
His dark hair was just long enough to tuck behind his ears, and it stuck out a little from under the ratty, knitted black cap he always wore. His eyes were bloodshot, his nose a little red, and his T-shirt had holes in it, but he still looked like a jock-albeit a jock who'd accidentally dressed himself as a stoner.
He shrugged. "I'm a sucker for songbirds. I'm sure you can relate. Gonna win the game on Friday? Agua Dulce." He drew the "l" out like taffy.
"That's the plan."
He didn't say anything else right away; just looked at me with an expression I couldn't read, empty as an ashtray in a house of former nic addicts.
"I'm heading out, but let's grab lunch on Tuesday. Off-campus? Find me if I don't find you." Ryder walked out the front door before I could answer.
I nodded anyway, and the floor lurched sideways as I wobbled toward the balcony.
Ryder had two inches and thirty pounds on me and he could've played varsity in just about any sport, but he'd failed the drug test freshman year, and failed to care all the years after that. When I met him the summer before sixth grade, he'd been all-American wholesome in his Little League baseball uniform, a star with limitless choices, limitless directions.
As if in deference to his former capacity for greatness, the party had rearranged itself to let him pass, so the direction he'd come from was now an open path for me, too, straight out to the balcony.
I tipped my flask to lap up fresh courage, and when I lowered it, there she was, standing outside in the windy January air, her back to me, in a face-off with the moon over who was more fickle.
A guy stood next to her, leaning against the railing, speaking intimately in her ear. The balcony wrapped around the side of the house, giving them plenty of room, so why were they standing so close together, arms touching?
"Ellie," I shouted.
The guy jumped and stepped aside: Fred from English class, looking frail and pasty like a good debate team nerd should.
Ellie turned around and stared at me. I stared back, dehydrated and dizzy. Her skin was smooth and pale. It reminded me of a cup of milk slowly being poured right before someone yanks the glass away. I was so thirsty, and she was just out of reach.
Her hands were small and tense at her sides, like doves waiting to be released into the air. Her silky black hair was pulled into a loose bun, held together by a lacquered stick with gold Chinese characters painted on it. A few loose strands framed her forehead. She wore a little bit of eye makeup, just enough to prove she didn't need any. This was the "Natural Look" magazines always advise women to go for but no girl can actually pull off. Unless they're Ellie.
I wanted to cup her face in my hands and give her a kiss hello. Her lips were wonderfully soft looking; they never left a mark on my face, almost as if she'd never been there at all, and now I realized I wished she had. Worn lipstick. Left behind some evidence that she and I had really happened.
"What are you doing here, Charlie?" Her voice was soft and low and disappointed, so soft I had to lean in to hear.
"Your brother told me where I could find you."
A smile tugged at one corner of her lips. "He always liked you."
"Funny thing," I said. "You used to like me, too."
"I still do," she said, sounding hurt.
"Can I talk to you for a second?"
"About what?" She backed up and knocked into the railing. I covered the distance between us, but not too close, never too close.
I'd waited a year to ask her out, and on our first date I knew she was too good for me, but I pretended I didn't know, and I spent the next eight months waiting for her to come around to it, too.
Two weeks and four days ago I had agreed to meet her at Café Kismet for a cup of coffee. I came with a basket of pomegranates, her favorite, picked fresh from the tree in Granddad's backyard.
She showed up with a tired, regretful expression and broke it to me gently. But she never told me why.
I sat there long after she left, till closing time, unable to move. There were plastic Christmas lights hanging all over Rancho Vista Boulevard, mocking me with their cheer while my coffee turned cold, then bitter. When I got kicked out of the café, I walked around for hours without going anywhere, just so I wouldn't have to go home. I walked until the lights spun and blurred and flickered in my wet gaze like real candles. I walked until every single one gave up and blinked off, gone as if the desert wind had blown them out.
I could think of a million reasons for her to ditch me, but I didn't know her reason.
"You said hi. Now you need to leave," said Maria, tugging on my arm. She'd been head songbird since sophomore year, no small feat, and she ruled the other girls with an iron fist. Most of the time. Rumor had it there'd been a power play at the state qualifier in Pomona yesterday, but between whom I didn't know.
"I'm talking to Ellie," I snapped. "I don't need to do anything."
We'd drawn a crowd; I could sense a group forming a half circle behind me, but I didn't care. I wasn't leaving till I got a straight answer, nontourage be damned.
"Not here, not like this," said Ellie. "We'll talk later, okay?"
Between her and Ryder, people were lining up to talk to me later. Trouble was, I wanted answers tonight. "Just tell me why it's over," I begged.
She glanced at our audience, uncomfortable. "You changed," she said.
"How did I change?" I said, daring to inch closer.
"Well," she said, "for one thing, you started drinking."
The flask was not helping matters; it weighed heavy in my hand even though it was nearly empty.
"I only started drinking because you left me. That's not the reason." I moved closer, contemptuously. "Is it because of him? Are you with Fred now?" Maria was right; names could be used as insults, so long as they had the right target.
I gave Fred a quick push against the railing.
"Charlie, stop," Ellie cried, and I backed off, hands up and open, my flask gripped loosely by my thumb and forefinger.
I redirected my attention to her. "A lincoln-douglas? Really? After me?"
It was a lame-ass move, and I knew it. Even in my booze-addled state I knew it. Our school traffics in labels, but that was never Ellie's currency.
She was looking over my shoulder; she was already done. "Bridget, would you take him home? He's not safe to drive."
Unbeknownst to me, Bridget had followed me to the balcony, and she happily accepted the task. "Told you not to make a scene," she purred in my ear. "Keys?"
"You're not driving me anywhere," I spat.
"Charlie," said Ellie, stepping toward me and holding out her perfect palm.
I handed them over, and she walked past me, past the rubber-neckers, and into the kitchen to place my keys in a dish.
In the passenger seat of Bridget's Chevy convertible, I dialed Ellie's cell and poured my heart out until her voice mail cut me off. I redialed, and it said her mailbox was full. I chucked my cell onto the backseat and banged my fist on the dashboard and generally had a little fit.
When I was done, Bridget was staring at me with her big cave eyes.
"That was the craziest voice mail I ever heard."
"Be glad it wasn't meant for you, then," I snapped.
"I'm jealous, actually."
"Then you match the light," I slurred, pointing ahead.
"What?"
"Green means go. And I'm the drunk one?"
Wind shook the car, making Bridget clutch the wheel and struggle to stay in the right lane.
We have serious gusts of wind year-round. It's the distinguishing characteristic of Palm Valley, the daily traffic warning on the electronic billboards that light up the 14 Freeway. It'd be nice to see "Coyote Attack" or "Child Abduction" messages every once in a while instead, just to mix things up.
"High Winds Ahead" loses its luster once you realize the wind's never going to be high enough to carry you away and drop you someplace else, like on the other side of the San Gabriel Mountains.
"You better not vom in my car," said Bridget direly. "Especially not over Ellie Chen."
"Can I vom over your driving?"
"Smart move, by the way, giving Ellie your keys so you'd have an excuse to talk to her tomorrow at school."
"She already told me she'd talk to me."
Bridget gave me a look like, You naive little boy. "Suuuure."
We drove in merciful silence through downtown, past the civic center. The windows of all the buildings were dark, like eyes shut against the world. Maybe they were pretending they were somewhere else-different buildings in different towns, where perhaps the sun didn't shine as much, but when it did, it meant it in a way it never seemed to mean it here.
Bridget felt the need to reminisce about our past. "Ellie never thanked me, you know. Not even once."
"For what?"
"Teaching you how to use your tongue sophomore year."
"Maybe you taught me too well."
"What do you mean?"
"That's the only thing she ever wanted to do."
"You dated a year and you didn't have sex?" Bridget said.
"Eight months." I frowned. "You seem to know a lot about our relationship."
"I keep tabs on my exes."
"How? Alphabetically? Or is it like counting sheep?"
"You're funny when you're drunk," she remarked. "Funny and bitter. I keep tabs on the ones that matter."
"Aw," I said sarcastically.
Bridget was still running around the nostalgia track. "Charlie Dixon, soccer hottie. Why did we break up again?"
"You dumped me because I wouldn't put out," I reminded her.
"That's right. You weren't fast enough," Bridget said, and chuckled. "Hey, I just thought of something. If you and Ellie didn't do it, that means you're still a virgin." She reached over and ruffled my hair. I gripped her wrist and returned it to her lap.
"So?" I said. "She is, too."
Bridget smiled, slowly and deliberately. "You sure about that?"
"Knock it off."
"I hear Fred's a skilled orator…"
"You heard wrong."
But I wasn't so sure.
We reached the street between our two driveways. My heart was a lead ball, rolling downhill. I felt sick. What if Ellie had moved on? (Worse, what if she'd moved on before she dumped me?) I couldn't move. I was back in Café Kismet, paralyzed.
Bridget leaned over, all the way over, to undo my seat belt, and this somehow involved her breasts brushing against my chest. Her lips hovered above mine. They were dark red, luscious, and wet. Unlike Ellie's, they would definitely leave a lipstick mark.
"Come inside? For old times' sake?" she said.
"Why so chummy tonight?" I wondered.
She was straddling me now and I placed my hands on her hips to keep her at bay. I honestly couldn't figure out how we'd gotten into this position.
"I waited a long time for you guys to break up," she said.
It was flattering to think she regretted losing me, but she was being awfully friendly for someone who hadn't bothered to wave back when I saw her outside her house last month. Something wasn't right.
"Well, this is my stop." I gripped her arms and tried to dislodge her without hurting her. "Can you, um, move?"
"Sure." She smiled devilishly and started a slow grind with her hips. "How's that?"
"Come on, Bridge, get off my lap."
"So I'm Bridge again, huh?" The swiveling continued.
"I mean it."
"Or what?" she asked.
If I couldn't have Ellie, I didn't want anyone.
"Bridge, Bridge, Bridge," I said, tapping her nose with each name, "I needed to learn with you so I could impress her. You were nothing to me but a bridge to Ellie." It was a dirty rotten lie, but it got the desired effect: she slapped me so hard my face burned. It felt like the perfect coda to a horrible evening.
"What do you think she's learning from Fred right now?" Bridget whispered nastily. "Make no mistake, Dix, it was you and me in the beginning and it'll be you and me at the end," she added, before slipping out the driver's side and slamming the door. She pulled her jacket up around her neck like a cape against the wind.
It was still early, only nine. I walked next door to my house. The den light was on. My parents were watching Flip That House. I pushed the door open so they could see me nod goodnight.
"We didn't hear the garage," Dad said, pausing the TV. "Where's the car?"
"I had too much to drink. Bridget dropped me off," I said in a rare moment of stark honesty. I'd recently-as in two seconds ago-settled on a new diplomatic policy with my parents. It meant not only would I rip off the Band-Aid, I'd set it on fire and throw it at them.
"Maybe we shouldn't have let him have all that wine at Christmas," Mom wondered. "Maybe he developed a taste for it."
"I don't think the kids at the party were drinking wine," Dad replied.
Okay, yeah, in desperation, I'd tried to appreciate wine over Christmas break. It flowed easily at holiday parties, and my parents thought it was better to treat alcohol casually, let me have a glass here and there "in moderation," rather than act like it was forbidden and drive me into its arms.
I never gave them any trouble, so I think they felt it was a reward.
When I'd brushed my teeth on Christmas Eve after two glasses of Cabernet, I'd expected to spit out a mouthful of red, but the residue was black, like I'd been chewing black licorice all night, or like tar was building up in me, like the problem wasn't liquor at all, but something inside me that turned everything black.
These were not the kinds of things I could talk to my parents about.
"Who throws a party on a Sunday night, anyway?" Mom asked.
"Maybe Sunday is the new Saturday," Dad teased.
Their diplomatic policy toward me, it seemed, hadn't changed; which is to say it was conducted over and around me, like the first stage of a science project: hypothesis and counterhypothesis, for each other's ears alone. My life was an amusing petri dish they liked to observe, and occasionally poke a stick into. What will he do in Scenario A? What if the conditions are changed? Will he go nuts?
"Do I need to be here for this, or can I go?" I asked, pointing to the hallway with my thumb.
"I'm proud of you for getting a ride," said Dad, refocusing on me. "And you know you can always call us if there aren't any designated drivers. No questions asked."
The idea of Bridget being my designated driver was minorly hilarious.
Flip That House was frozen on screen, impatient. Without my parents' attention, the house remained unflipped. The show didn't exist without them watching it, just like I didn't exist without Ellie as my girlfriend. Unbeknownst to her, Bridget had spent the last few minutes trying to make out with antimatter.
I felt nauseous and dizzy as I crawled into bed. In lieu of brushing my teeth, I swallowed more of my Christmas present from Granddad and swished it around in my mouth. Alcohol kills germs better than toothpaste anyway, right?
All warmth had left me, and I was back to hating the way liquor tasted. Mom's theory was wrong: I hadn't developed a taste for anything. That's why I usually covered it up with coffee, juice, or soda. The sharp acid burn of whiskey dirties up everything it comes into contact with, and there's something satisfying about that. I mean, here's a substance that can never be fully absorbed; it will ruin everything you add it to, and it's never the opposite: the thing you add it to, however vast, cannot make it right. One part per million, and it's the one part that has all the power.
It made sense, though. I mean, I wasn't drinking to enjoy myself; I was doing it to get through the day.
I wished it had been Ellie who'd slapped me. At least that would mean she still had feelings for me. She always wore those chunky rings she designed herself in jewelry class. They made her fingers look even more delicate, and they would've destroyed my cheek.
Everyone at Maria Posey's party probably thought I was a lush, but there was nothing sloshed or lush or liquid about me.
I lived in the Mojave Desert. I was dehydrated. I was drying out more and more each day, and quenching my thirst with salt water.
At six a.m. on Monday, two deputies from the Palm Valley sheriff's department came to our house and said a girl named Maria Salvador had been dropped off at the Palm Valley ER a few hours ago.
She was alive but in critical condition, hallucinating out of her mind and speaking gibberish. She'd overdosed on LSD and entered a dissociative fugue state. They suspected she'd been given five times the normal dose.
Not surprisingly, her parents wanted answers. According to them, she never would have taken acid, or any other drug, voluntarily. Someone had drugged her. The best and only suspect so far was the dude who'd dropped her off.
Dad was confused, and asked the deputies how we could help. What he meant was, "Why are you here?"
The answer to his unspoken question quickly became known.
My car had been caught on hospital security cameras, dumping the girl and peeling away from the curb. It was then discovered in a ditch by the 14 Freeway. The license plate led the sheriff's department right to my door.
It was a frame job, clean and clear.
In my hungover sleep deprivation, I could only manage a few thoughts:
1. Who was Maria Salvador?
2. Would she be okay?
3. Why hadn't anyone tried to frame me for something sooner?
