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“H-hello?” Alecia asked when she picked up, not recognizing Liz’s number.
“It’s me,” Liz said. “I’m here at the party. Where are you?”
“Oh,” Alecia said, sounding grateful but still in tears. “Thank you. Thank you so much for driving over to get me!”
“No problem,” Liz said. She didn’t think it would be particularly useful at this point to mention that she hadn’t exactly driven over. “Are you inside?”
“Yes. ” Alecia’s voice sounded tiny and hurt. “I’m in the bathroom on the first floor. ”
“The bathroom?” Liz echoed.
“Yes,” Alecia said again, in the same bruised voice. “And could you hurry, Liz? I think the people in line to use the toilet are getting kind of … angry at me. But I can’t help it. I just can’t come out alone. Not if he’s around. ”
“I’ll be right there,” Liz said, and hung up, hurrying toward the house. As she went by the hot tub, she caught a glimpse of a number of naked chests. One of them belonged to Spank Waller.
Another, she saw, with a feeling that was akin to being run over—or how she supposed it must feel to be run over—belonged to her ex, Evan Connor.
Well, and why not? Why wouldn’t Evan come back to town for the biggest party of the year? He was still one of Venice High’s most popular graduates of all time, a golden boy who could do no wrong in most people’s eyes. If a cache of stolen plaster geese were found in his parents’ barn, everyone in town would just laugh it off. Liz looked away, swallowing down a little bit of Troy Bolton icing–flavored vomit before she opened the back door and stepped into the house.
Inside, the music was pulsing even more loudly, and the house was so full of cupholding, grinding bodies that Liz could hardly see where she was going. She managed to catch a glimpse of a line, however, and figured she’d find a door there leading to a bathroom. After what seemed like half an hour of elbowing people aside, she found the door, outside of which some extremely angry-looking girls, who obviously had to pee very badly, were yelling, “Open up! We gotta go!”
Liz went up to the bathroom door and tried the knob—it was locked, of course.
“Alecia?” Liz called, hoping Alecia would be able to hear her over the loud music and desperately shouting girls. “It’s me, Liz. ”
Immediately the door opened a tiny crack. Liz saw Alecia, her eyes red behind her glasses, peering out at her.
“Hi,” Alecia said, sniffling.
Several of the girls in line behind Liz, alert to the slightest motion of the door, pushed, trying to get inside to use the toilet.
But Liz pushed back, then snaked her way into the bathroom, and slammed the door, locking it.
When she turned to face Alecia, she saw that she’d sunk down onto the edge of the bathtub, and had her head in her hands.
Alecia, Liz saw with some relief, looked all right. All of her clothing was still on, and in no disrepair. Nothing was ripped or dirty or bloodstained.
True, her long hair was no longer brushed to a sheen. It was really messy, in fact. And her Mariah Carey T-shirt, of which Alecia was quite proud because she thought it was very stylish, was untucked, which wasn’t really like Alecia.
But other than that, she looked perfectly presentable.
“Alecia,” Liz said. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“I can’t tell you,” Alecia said, her long brown hair hiding her face. “It’s too shameful! Oh, I’ve done the most terrible thing, Liz! You’ll hate me!”
Liz knelt down on the bath mat beside her friend’s feet.
“Alecia,” she said, “you have to tell me. I went to a lot of trouble to get here tonight. You wouldn’t even believe how much trouble if I told you. So you had better explain to me exactly what happened. I promise I won’t hate you. ”
Alecia lifted her face from her hands and looked at Liz. Her tears had fogged the lenses of her glasses.
“It’s just,” Alecia said, her voice catching. “You know Douglas, right?”
Liz frowned. It took her a second to remember who Alecia was talking about.
“You mean Spank?”
“Douglas,” Alecia said. She’d always refused to call Douglas by his nickname, the origins of which were murky. “Well, when I got here, he acted really excited to see me. He said he wanted to dance. So we were dancing. Slow dancing! It was like a dream come true. I couldn’t believe it. Douglas Waller had asked me to dance! I’m not anyone. ”
“That’s not true,” Liz said. She couldn’t help remembering feeling similarly honored the first time Evan had singled her out … not at a dance but in their chemistry class, as his partner. It was only later that Liz realized this was because she was a chem whiz and he was anything but. “You are someone. But go on. ”
“It is true,” Alecia said emphatically. “You’re just saying that because you’re my friend. But anyway, while we were dancing, Douglas whispered in my ear, ‘Do you want to go somewhere to be alone?’ I don’t know what I was thinking, but … I figured it was because he wanted to kiss me. And even though I knew it was wrong, because he hasn’t met my parents and we aren’t engaged or anything—” Liz fought an impulse to roll her eyes. “I said … Oh, Liz, I said yes! And the next thing I knew, Douglas was taking me into a bedroom. I think it was Kate’s. It had all these teddy bears everywhere—and we were kissing, and, oh, Liz, he started taking my shirt off! And I let him! I know it was wrong, but I did, it just felt so good. ”
Now Liz knew why Alecia’s T-shirt was untucked. Feeling a little sick to her stomach and not wanting to hear any more—but knowing she had to—Liz said, “Go on, Alecia. ”
“This is where the shameful part comes in,” Alecia said tearfully. “Although the whole thing is shameful, really. ” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Once Douglas got my shirt off all the way, and I was standing there in my … my bra, he … he …”
“He what, Alecia?” Liz asked, prepared for the worst.
“He snapped a photo with his cell phone. ” Alecia buried her face back into her hands, sobbing. “Then he ran out, laughing!”
Liz knelt there on the bath mat, staring at her friend, perplexed.
“Wait,” she said. “That’s all he did? Kissed you and took a photo of you in your bra?”
“What do you mean, that’s all?” Alecia lifted her face, looking furious. Two bright spots of red stood out on her cheeks, and her eyes, behind the lenses of her glasses, blazed. “He’s going to send that photo to everyone! I’ll be humiliated in front of the entire student population of Venice High! And what about my parents?
When they find out—and they will—they’ll yank me out and start homeschooling me again! I’m ruined! Don’t you understand? Spank Waller has ruined me! And it’s all my own fault for ever being stupid enough to think a guy like him could like a girl like me. ”
Alecia started to sob again … deep, heartrending sobs that Liz felt all the way to her core, like the bass of the music that was thumping outside the bathroom door.
Liz was relieved Alecia hadn’t been physically hurt.
But remembering Spank’s note from that morning—and what had happened in Edmondson 212A—she knew that that kind of hurt could be just as painful, in its own way.
She had to do something. What, she had no idea. But something.
Because, despite what Alecia thought, none of this was her own fault. If anything, everything that had happened to Alecia had been Liz’s own doing. Jeremy’s words still haunted her—Believe me, no good will come of encouraging her crush on him.
A sort of red haze descended over Liz’s vision.
She put a hand on her friend’s back.
“It’s going to be all right, Alecia,” she said.
“How?” Alecia moaned into her hands. “How? I can’t go back to homeschooling, Liz. I love Venice High. I love it. The pep rallies. Even Mrs. Rice. A
ll of it. But how is any of this going to be okay?”
Liz had no idea.
“I’m going to take care of it,” she said, as if she did know what she was doing.
Maybe some part of her did—some part that had been frozen, petrified in a bog since that day she’d walked into Edmondson 212A, a part that was finally waking up at the sight of Evan cavorting half naked in that hot tub like nothing had happened between them. “Come with me. ”
Liz got up and went to the bathroom door. She unlocked it, and a horde of girls dying to use the toilet came spilling in. Alecia, startled, had no choice but to get up and hurry out after her.
“Liz?” Alecia asked. “Where …where are we going?”
“You’ll see,” Liz said in a less calm voice as she made her way across what had once been Mr. and Mrs. Higgins’s media room—which had now been torn apart and puked on by frenzied partygoers. “We’re just going to have a little talk with Spank. ”
“Oh, no,” Alecia said, her eyes widening. “I really don’t think that’s the best idea…. ”
But Liz was already smashing open the screen door to the backyard with her fist.
Outside, the moon was still high, and the stars still glinted coldly down from the dark sky.
But the air in downtown Venice didn’t smell of cut grass or wood smoke the way it did on Liz’s parents’ farm. Instead it smelled of spilled beer from the keg in Kate Higgins’s backyard and of chlorine from the hot tub toward which Liz was striding.
“Liz,” Alecia said nervously. “Seriously. What are you doing?”
“It’s okay,” Liz said over her shoulder. “I’m fine. ”
“I don’t think you’re fine,” Alecia said. “I just want to go home… . ”
“Spank Waller,” Liz said when she got to the side of the hot tub. Spank was crowded into it with five girls and six other guys, including Evan. The hot tub was made to fit only eight, so they were squeezed in there nice and snug. One of the girls, wearing a bright blue bikini and holding a cup of beer, was Kate Higgins.
“Oh, hey, Liz,” Kate called cheerfully, giving her a wave. “I’m so glad you could make it!”
Liz ignored her. Why was Kate acting like she was glad Liz had come, when she hadn’t even invited her? Kate was so fake. Liz would deal with her some other day.
She’d deal with Evan—who nearly choked on his beer and said, “L-Liz?” when he noticed her—later too.
“Spank Waller,” she said instead. “You took an inappropriate intimate photo a little while ago of my friend Alecia without her permission. So I want you to hand over your cell phone. Now. ”
Spank, holding his cup of beer high in order to avoid it filling with foam from the jets, just laughed.
“No freaking way, Freelander,” he said. “Nice nips, by the way. ”
Liz didn’t have to turn around to see why all the people in the hot tub, including her ex, had suddenly started screaming and scrambling for cover. She knew without looking.
It was because a giant milk white unicorn had reared up behind her, angrily pawing at the air with its forelegs. Princess Prettypants had let out a neigh … … only, this time, that neigh hadn’t come out sounding like churchbells or a children’s choir.
It had come out sounding like all the demons from hell, screaming in pain at the same time because someone had stoked the coals burning beneath their squirming pustular bodies.
Liz was pretty sure this was because someone had said something to really piss off Princess Prettypants’s mistress.
“Yeah,” Liz said, feeling her hair flutter as one of those colossal silver hooves brushed just inches past her ear. “You might want to rethink your decision not to hand over your cell phone to me, Spank. Or my unicorn is going to smash in your face. ”
Spank sat frozen in the hot tub, the only person remaining in it. Everyone else had bailed, running for the shelter of the house or ducking behind nearby shrubbery. Evan was crouched next to the keg, gibbering like a monkey, his bare feet in two inches of muddy beer ooze.
Only Alecia had stayed where she was. Alecia’s gaze was fixed not on the unicorn but on Spank.
“Not so high and mighty now, are you, Spank?” Alecia demanded, in a voice that was a little too high-pitched. “You said you were keeping that picture of me for your collection and that I’d better not step out of line, or everyone in school was going to get a peek!”
Spank said nothing. He was still staring up at the unicorn. Instead of the smell of night-blooming jasmine coming from her soft blue muzzle, the odor had turned to sulfur. And Princess Prettypants’s lavender eyes had turned to stop sign red.
Liz just shook her head. This was all so sad and unnecessary.
Liz said, “Alecia. Go find whatever Spank was wearing when you two were dancing, and look in his pants pocket. The phone will be there. ”
Alecia pointed nervously at the unicorn, who was snorting and pawing at the ground, making a huge hole in the Higginses’ lawn. The hole looked not unlike a grave.
“It’s okay,” Liz assured her. “That’s not for you. ”
Alecia nodded and went to pick her way through the mud to the side of the hot tub. It took only a second or two for her to find what she was looking for. While she was gone, Liz found herself enveloped in another sulfur-scented cloud. She didn’t take her gaze off Spank, who continued to stare at her in terror. She couldn’t help feeling irritated. Clearly unicorns were not supposed to consume ordinary horse feed. She’d need to get in touch with her aunt Jody about Princess Prettypants’s obviously unique dietary requirements.