Stacey bounces over, her metallic black and gold pompoms flashing in the light. She looks pretty, stunning even, with all that bright red lipstick and thick cake of eye shadow and blush. That’s the one thing I was looking forward to the most about cheer—wearing inordinate amounts of makeup at least once a week. I’m more of an eyeliner, mascara, lip-gloss kind of a girl so I sort of need the excuse to look like a Kabuki doll when I can get it.
“You up for heading to Toby’s?” She snaps her gum so fast it sounds like machine gun fire. “The Battleships are playing.” The Battleships is our unofficial school band, four seniors and a freshman. The freshman only got in because he’s the lead singer’s kid brother. I’ve heard them practice a million times because the drummer lives down the street. They’re all San Ramos kids, but they’ve been deemed socially acceptable due to the fact their band is pretty rad.
“Yeah, sure. But I’m sort of clunky.” I hold out my crutches. “Will there be lots of stairs?”
“At Toby’s? It’s in the backyard. Come on. I’ll give you a ride.”
“Oh, actually, Joel—”
“I don’t have anyone to go with.” She leers into me as if this were somehow my fault—and I suppose it sort of is since she stuck her neck out to apologize to me.
My stomach sinks. I can’t just let her suffer. I know how shitty it feels to have your friends abandon you. “Yeah, sure. Let me just tell Joel.”
“Actually”—her features sag with pleading—“like Toby asked me to get some stuff from the store, so I kind of have to leave right now. I’m sure Joel will totally understand.”
“Oh, right.” I glance toward the boys’ gym. He’s going to be at least twenty minutes. “I’m sure he’ll figure it out. It’s fine.”
“Bitchin’!”
Stacey bops ahead while I struggle to keep up. It’s totally normal for people who haven’t been around me to assume I move just as fast as they do. Luckily, my leg hasn’t given me any trouble at all, and Mom says that soon I can have a smaller cast put on to replace this rocket ship blooming from my body. Then for sure I won’t lose Stacey in a crowd like I’m doing now.
I make it out to the student parking lot and find Stacey waiting in her Cabriolet as her acrylic nails strum impatiently against the dash. I look at the gleaming white car admiringly. For as much as I rag on them, I’ve never actually ridden in a Cabriolet. And, given the option between the Ford Escort I’ll be inheriting from my father once I go to college or a Cabriolet, I’d gladly do the bunny hop with the rest of them. The top is down on her car, and the radio is up all the way blasting “Tesla Girls.”
“I love this song!” I shout over to her as I try to work the door open.
“It sticks!” she bellows over the music, turning the dial even louder.
“So I see.” I chuck my crutches into the backseat.
“People usually just jump in!” She hitches her head as if suggesting I do just that.
She can’t be serious. Is she even aware I’m in a cast?
Amy pulls up, and Peter jumps out of the car. “You need some help?” He frowns at Stacey, but she’s pretty much oblivious, bopping her head to the music, singing along out of tune as if she were in the shower. “You sure you want to do this?” he asks as he yanks open the door for me.
“I’m sure,” I mouth as he helps me in. Peter slams the door, and Stacey takes off before I can thank him. My body shifts like a sack of potatoes while I yank and tug at the seat belt until it’s strapped securely over my body. Judging by the way Stacey is taking these turns, I might need more than just a glorified piece of nylon to keep myself alive.
After a stomach churning few miles, we end up in a seedy section of San Ramos, down where the freeway meets the docks.
Stacey pulls into a microscopic shopping center covered with graffiti and hosting the requisite derelict before killing the engine.
“You gotta fucking love Shepard’s Liquor.” She jumps out, and I do the same to the best of my abilities, and then struggle to fish my crutches from the deep end of the backseat.
“Really? Why?” Honestly, I don’t really give a shit why she loves it. I just want her to slow down enough for me to get ahold of my crutches. The last thing I want is to be left alone in this parking lot that I wouldn’t be caught dead in with two working legs, let alone one.
“Because they sell!” she screams the words out as if we were invisible. I give a quick glance around in the event there’s a cop in the vicinity. God, what if that wino is really a freaking narc? Do narcs patrol the mean streets of San Ramos, or are they strictly relegated to schools? Everyone knows that kid with a mustache in my biology class is a narc. A transfer student? With a pager? Please. He looks like he’s at least fifty. No one at school will have anything to do with him. I don’t know why the cops are wasting their time.
I amble into Shepard’s Liquor, and it becomes clear a majority of their product sales come from a beverage that I’m both legally too young to imbibe or purchase. My stomach twists into a ball of anxious knots. The last phone call my mother needs is me calling from the police station.
I hobble in deeper and watch amazed as Stacey plucks two four packs of fruity colored drinks from the refrigerated section—Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers, fuzzy navel and exotic berry.
“Great flavors,” I say stupidly. God, I’m such an idiot. I should probably just confess to being a Doritos and punch girl myself and ask the grouchy looking old man at the counter if I can borrow his phone to call my mom. I don’t even have a freaking quarter on me to use the payphone outside, not that I’d want to. I’m pretty sure I saw that homeless man taking a wiz near it on my way in.
Stacey hugs those “great flavors” as if agreeing. Not that I would know a great tasting wine cooler if it were dumped on my head. I’ve hardly tasted beer. I’m terrified my dad will find out, so I never do more than dip my tongue. Although, I totally threw caution to the wind when I tried that joint with Joel. I blame those big blue Husky eyes of his. Arctic blue, star spangled blue, first day that God said let there be light blue. Mr. Sardona frowns in my mind’s eye, and I blink him away. It’s true, though. Joel’s eyes can make me do just about anything. Jennifer comes to mind, and I’m quick to bat her away, too. I’m not letting her guilt trip me even when she’s not around. Besides, I’ve got more pressing issues to tend to, like the illegal sale of alcohol to a minor that Stacey seems convinced is about to take place.
Stacey doesn’t verbally respond to my declaration of flavor love. Instead, she socks another one between her elbow and ribcage.
“I fucking love these!” she shouts, and her inability to initiate some volume control has me alarmed on an entirely new level as I rack my brain to remember any Stacey Riley horror stories where she secretly escaped a nut farm.
“Like totally, me too.” Crap. It’s as if I’ll do anything to fit in, including lying, and it’s making me sick.
We head up to the front, and Stacey plops her booze onto the counter. The old man on the other side seems unimpressed as Stacey fumbles with her fanny pack and tosses down a twenty and a ten.
“You—you can keep the change.” Her eyes are heavy to meet with his. Stacey’s breathing becomes erratic as she bites down nervously over her lip. Gone is the boisterous, dare I say bratty entitled teen who thought she could sweep up the entire left side of the liquor section unnoticed, and in her place a shy, cowering, very much underage girl.
The unruly looking grandpa pulls the phone over and sets it between the two of them like a threat.
Something tells me things will not be going as planned.
Stacey’s eyes enlarge at the sight of the boxy black phone, and her gaze flits to the exit. I’ve never seen Stacey so flustered. She’s always so sure of herself, so carefree, and now she looks like a frightened little child about to get clobbered by the law.
“I need to see some I.D.,” he barks so loud that both Stacey and I buck in response.
“You don’t card
.” Her voice is curt, and suddenly she’s right back to her ornery little self. Although, judging by the expression on disheveled grandpa’s face, he can get ornery with the best of them. “I always buy here, and you’ve never carded me once,” she snarks. “I’m not some kid.”
“You got your driver’s license in your purse? That’s all I need, sweetheart.”
“Hell yeah, I do.” She looks to me and mouths the word run. Stacey snatches up all three boxes and dashes for the door. “Sucker!”
“Hey, you! Get back here!” The veins pop out in his forehead, and his face turns purple as a plum.
“Oh, shit.” I swing my crutches wide as I make a break for the door.
“I’m calling the cops! I’ve got surveillance cameras, you know!”
“Shit, shit, shit!” I get outside, and Stacey is already backing up the car. My heart stops as I race into the parking lot. “Wait!” I scream so loud my throat burns.
Stacey backs up so fast the car fishtails. “Jump in!”
Without putting too much thought into it, I dive into the backseat, crutches and all. My face jams against the metal edge of the seat belt as Stacey careens the hell out of the parking lot. My cast is sticking straight up in the air, and I laugh my ass off at what an idiot I must look like.
Stacey turns up the radio full blast as the Tom Tom Club belts out “Genius of Love.”
Why, I don’t know what I’m going to do when I get out of jail, Tom Tom—funny you should ask.
* * *
Stacey drives like Speed Racer all the way to Toby’s as if the feds were after us in one of the biggest narcotic takedowns in U.S. history. Once she finally kills the engine, I twist around and tug and pull my skirt so that my underwear no longer shows off a viewing option to any lingering eyes that might stray this way.
A laugh gurgles from me. “You are insane!” And a little stupid because she totally could have pulled over ten times between there and here to help me out. But on the flipside, I guess I’ll have something to tell my grandchildren.
“Come on, chickie.” She plucks me out with a quick jerk of her arm, and I’m right back to liking her. If Stacey was a real asshole, she would have left me there to rot with my face still kissing the stale fries floating around on her carpet. Should she need to, she can survive for weeks off all those Mickey D discards.
I glance up and take a look at my new surroundings. Toby’s house is enormous. For a second, I hear the hallelujah choir, and the clouds part as a heavenly beam of light pours down over this gargantuan dwelling that I find it impossible to believe that just one family lives in.
“Wow,” I muse. “This is like totally freaking awesome.”
“Wait ’till you see the inside. It’s like four stories. It’s totally bitchin’.”
Four stories? Crap. I hobble after her. I know for a fact I won’t be seeing the inside. Mercifully, Stacey was right, and the backyard is relatively easy to navigate. Although not stair-free, these are tiny steps that turn out to be a snap for me.
Adam Ant’s “Goody Two Shoes” blares over the speakers as we enter the smoky vicinity. It’s wall-to-wall bodies. It looks as if the whole school showed up for this one. There’s an entire sea of girls jumping up and down toward the center of the yard, and it feels good to be here—like I’m finally a part of this, whatever this may be.
Right off the bat, I spot Joel in a circle of people. He’s wearing his gray practice jersey and Levi’s with his day-glow white Nikes, and it makes me love him that much more. I suck in a sharp breath at the thought. I don’t love, love him. I blink the idea away. I just sort of love him like a buddy—one who tastes exceptionally delicious, and makes my mouth water on cue when thinking about him.
I start to head over and notice a familiar blonde with heavily crimped hair, a heavy layer of perfect lip-gloss, and skintight Calvin Klein jeans with purple striped leg warmers standing right next to him—Kelly.
“Crap,” I whisper, turning around, and quickly regretting my choice to come here. What was I thinking? Did I honestly believe I belonged here? That I belong with Joel? He’s probably so pissed that I ditched him, he’ll never speak to me again. And look, he already has Kelly right back at his side. Nobody in their right mind ditches Joel Effing Miller—especially not so they can knock over a liquor store. I’m a dolt just like my backpack suggests. I’m a bigger dolt than I even realize because not only did I lose whatever it is I had with Joel but also the entire freaking police department will probably be waiting for me when I get home. Tears beg to come to the pity party, and I blink them away.
“There you are.” Stacey comes at me like a missile. She follows my gaze and quickly turns me around so that we’re headed in the opposite direction. “Who cares about Kelly? She’s an airhead. Don’t like even think of her. And I love that we’re totally best friends now.” She cracks open a wine cooler, fuzzy navel, and hands it to me before plucking one out for herself. “Michelle said she had a cow that we’re like hanging out together.” She burps a laugh right into her drink as she says it.
Best friends? On second thought, I might need this drink after all. My fingers close over the icy glass bottle in my hand, and I stare down at the open mouth of the wine cooler and take a sniff.
“Um—rad.” This drinks smells like nail polish remover. It is most definitely not rad. I glance to Kelly and openly glare at her for being pissed at poor Stacey for having the backbone to apologize to me. Kelly just can’t stand that one of her friends—that her actual boyfriend might like me. “She’s lame. Don’t sweat it. Besides, I like hanging out with you. That was totally wild what happened back there at the liquor store.” Read stupid.
She flicks her wrist while downing half the bottle in her hand. “Happens all the time.”
“I thought you said they sold to you?” My heart thumps, because if she knew we’d have to run, I would much rather have stayed in the car. I’m not exactly ambulatory these days in the event she hadn’t noticed, and something tells me she didn’t.
She wags her finger between sips. “Only Mark. That dweeb-o-rama back there is the ass-fuck that owns the place. Normally, I would have just left, but I sort of wanted to piss him off tonight.”
“Cool.” It comes out more of a question. I’m pretty sure Jennifer would never have put me in that position. Scratch that, I’m positive.
“Drink up. That shit isn’t going to down itself. You’re so lucky to have a fucking broken leg.” She unscrews the lid on another one and hands it to me, even though I haven’t touched my first. “You never have to drive. Do you just like sit around and get wasted every day?” She knocks back the rest of her drink and chucks the bottle into the bushes.
I glance over my shoulder at Joel, the only person I’ve ever technically gotten wasted with—not that I was anything close that night. He’s still in that same circle of people. Kelly still looks insanely beautiful standing by his side, so I indulge in a few quick sips—fuzzy navel goes first since it’s waited so patiently for me. I wet my tongue just enough to evaluate it. Tastes like a mix of hairspray and Hi-C fruit punch. I take a more aggressive swig. Not so bad after all.
A hard moan comes from me. “Are you sure this has alcohol in it?” I glance at the label, but it’s too dim to read it. “It tastes like soda.” Only a partial lie. But since Stacey went through all that trouble to illegally procure it, I’m going to focus on the positive side of things.
“Soda!” She squawks like a duck. “It’s cool. You’ve never had it before. It’s totally like soda. Besides, it takes like ten of these for me to catch a buzz.”
“Sweet.” Because for one, I have no desire to “catch a buzz,” and two, after that liquor store heist, I’ve worked up quite a thirst. I guzzle more than half of the bottle in an effort to keep up, and lamely I admit, that I sort of want to impress Stacey. I can’t stand that everyone around here thinks I’m so darn innocent. Maybe that’s been my problem all along. I’ve been walking around like some freaking Pollyanna,
like my shit doesn’t stink, which I totally don’t think it does compared to the damage my brother can do to the bathroom, but that’s another story. I take a few more heroic gulps of my fuzzy navel as if on a dare. “This is really good!” I shout a little too loud as I sway over my crutches. I down the rest of it without a problem and pitch the bottle into the bushes per Stacey’s example.
The next one runs down much smoother, and before I know it, Stacey is plying me with a third.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to get me drunk.” I laugh so hard I almost piss myself.
Peter comes up looking like he’s ready to kick some ass.
“Having a good time?” He gives a never-ending nod while examining me up and down. That black and white signature fedora of his nearly slips right off his head.
Stacey plucks a bottle from her stash and lunges it toward him. “You want a BJ?” She squawks again, only this time it sounds more like a goose. My father is a hunter, and I know my duck from my goose calls so well that I can actually do them myself.
I let a goose honk fly, and Stacey loses her shit over it.
Peter helps steady me. “Let me take you home, Melissa.”
“Let go.” I push him off. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Stacey yanks me to her so hard my crutches go flying, and one lands in the pool. We laugh so hard only air comes out for a solid minute.
It’s all so freaking funny, and now I have to go to the bathroom so bad the idea of pissing myself actually sounds like a good one.