After Dakota Part 10

One of the wrestling team Neanderthals cuts in with, "Screw the pizza. Can we get free tokens, bro?"

"If my manager's not there."

With no more room in the truck, Cameron stands on the side and watches them toss coins while trying not to stare down at Diana's impressive cleavage. Eventually he says, "I need to go get another drink," though no one asked.

Inside, he finds a strategic vantage point against the wall at the foot of the stairs. He can see the whole living room to his left, the kitchen to his right. He bops his head to the music. To any observer, he hopefully resembles someone having a decent time at a party. Plenty of big hair and more bouncing heads.

No Rosemary.

He hasn't checked upstairs yet. Maybe there's a secret room for the cool people. Susannah Kramer sits at the foot of the staircase, drinking beer through a bendy straw; they've never been friendly so he can get past her with just a "Hey." Two doors at the end of the hall. If there is a secret cool room, it's really quiet.

He pushes open the closer door, on to darkness. A disembodied voice mumbles something.

"What?" Cameron asks the shadows.

"Close the b.l.o.o.d.y door," comes the agonized reply.

"Rosemary?" Oh no, she's in here making out with someone. Or worse. He needs to turn and leave this very second. "It's me, Cameron."

"Oh, how lovely you found me like this." Her voice clearer now. "Would you pretty please close the door?"

He does so, the music instantly becoming a distant beat. They're alone in a dark room. If he'd dared to fantasize about tonight (which he had, but only a little) he wouldn't have had the nerve to even include this scene. "Are you ok?"

"I've got a bad headache. I need to lay here and hope it doesn't turn into a migraine."

He almost says lie here but catches himself.

The faint moonlight through the blinds is enough that he can see the shape of her, a dark smear against a ghostly white bedspread. "Sorry, I'll leave you alone."

"No, stay. I feel like what's-his-name in the bell tower, lurking up here. The Phantom of the Opera."

"I think that's the Hunchback of Notre Dame," he says.

"Right. I defer to your superior knowledge of monsters."

He smiles, then shuts it off in case she can see his teeth.

"Well, that's giving me the creeps, you watching me from over there. Come sit down."

He sits on the edge of the bed; half an inch forward and he'd be on the floor. It might be better this way, he thinks, not being able to see her. He sips his Shasta, now almost flat, desperate for something smooth to say. "How often do you get headaches?"

"This is my first in a while. I'd forgotten how b.l.o.o.d.y awful they can be." He can see the pale oval of her face now. "My mum gets migraines. Sometimes has to stay in bed all day."

Cameron nods as if she can see. His knowledge of headaches is as limited as his knowledge of how to make small talk at a party maybe moreso which presents a significant challenge at this moment. "Well, you're not missing much," he says. "A lot of drunk people dancing."

"Who did you come with?" she asks.

Is she trying to find out if he brought a date? That would mean she's interested. Or maybe simply marking time until her headache is gone and she can move on to the actual entertaining people here.

"My friend Bryce."

He listens to a few verses of the song from downstairs until he wonders if she's fallen asleep on him. What a triumph that would be. He could talk about school, about his mission to get straight A's this semester so he can get accepted at a good California school. No, too risky he'll either come off as bragging or nerdy. Or worse, both.

He goes with the main thing they have in common, "So... Mrs. Gordon."

She doesn't hear or doesn't want to talk about that, because she tells him about her new baby sister and the way her mother showers the baby with attention like Rosemary isn't even there. "And Samantha had to be an accident, right? I mean, who plans to have a baby when their only other child is about to turn eighteen?"

This leads to her dad's new job here that made her leave her friends behind overseas. How he's a supporter of Maggie Thatcher and the arguments they have at supper. Cameron leans back while she speaks about all the ways the U.K. is being ruined and the race to nuclear war, and his hand touches her foot. She doesn't pull away. His enjoyment the whole time is tempered by the issue of his bulging bladder.

Never pa.s.s up an opportunity to pee. You don't know when you'll have another.

She says, "The only reason I'm taking Mrs. Gordon's cla.s.s is because my dad thinks I'm stupid. If I get an A's in an honors program I can tell him to sod off."

When Cameron looked inside her file briefly, before his conscience made him close it her schedule card showed five honors cla.s.ses, the type of load normally only attempted by ambitious fools like himself.

"Oh, but I've been running on this whole time," she says. "Tell me something about you."

35.

Bryce makes his way five steps onto the living room dance floor when someone's elbow hits him and splashes his Coors can down the front of his shirt. His first thought is to rush to the bathroom and dab it with cold water, but acting like that had gotten him where he is in life. So he stays, "dancing" his way through the crowd (all pressed so close together that he can get away with his limited repertoire of moves). The music changes from Men At Work to Asia. Three girls jump up on the couch to dance to "Heat of the Moment." Bryce makes a mental note to never host a party at his house, though it's not like he's remotely popular enough to attract the type of people who dance on furniture.

Bryce tries making eye contact with one girl, then another, but their eyes land on him and are gone in the heat of the moment. He gets. .h.i.t again and more beer splashes onto the carpet. Yep, do not have a party at home.

He finally gives up and retreats to the periphery. Maybe this is his role, like The Watcher in Marvel Comics: observe but never interfere. No, he doesn't want to be The Watcher! The Watcher is the loser who let Liz get away at the end of summer. He wants to be Captain America, charging into action.

He stares at all those people on the couch now. Someone could fall and crack their head open. Someone could get alcohol poisoning. Death is all around.

He sees Susannah on the stairs, drifts toward her while trying not to look like he's drifting toward her. She's wearing her new jeans; she's also obviously drunk. He fake-coughs long enough to palm too many Tic-Tacs into his mouth.

"Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii, Bryce!" Make that extremely drunk. "I'm a little bit sad tonight. My goldfish died." She tells a story about winning Mr. Sparkly at the state fair, how he was the best fish of all time.

Bryce sits on the stair below her. She doesn't run away.

"Have you ever been sad?" she asks, leaning forward, her hair brushing his ear. She must've shampooed right before coming here, judging by the smell.

Later, he'll tell himself that the story of Dakota spilled out naturally in response to her question. That he wasn't using it to score points, that he never would've done that. "Now I think about dying all the time. Like, I can't stop, ever."

Susannah moves down to Bryce's step and hugs him. "I'm so sorry," she whispers. He sits for beat before commanding his arms to hug her back. He's in close physical contact with Susannah Kramer, her b.o.o.bs pressing into his shoulder, and she's not struggling to escape. Even better, she understands him. Through the looking gla.s.s.

There won't ever be a better moment than this. "Will you go out with me?" he asks.

She lifts her head, blinks at him. "Are you joking me?"

He can escape now, no damage done; simply say yes and play it off. "No, I'm not joking. I think you're super foxy and I want to go out with you."

She's out of the hug like a pilot ejecting from a fighter jet. "Was that story about your friend even true?"

"Yes! Totally true. I swear."

She laughs then. Actually laughs. Isn't she supposed to be sad? "You think I'd go out with you? I'm so sure, Bryce."

She's still laughing when she manages to stand and wobble away, leaving him alone on the staircase. He wants to leave the party then, before Susannah tells everyone and he becomes the center of attention, the freak on display at the carnival. Shrink down and disappear like Ant-Man. No, the last thing Bryce needs is a shrinking power.

Maybe Cam found his mystery girl. He won't want to be interrupted to hear Bryce's sob story. He won't want a lame friend interfering with his fun.

The cold outside keeps the backyard crowd small. A circle of patio chairs, most of them occupied by silhouettes. One person who's out here for sure, given away by the nasally whine of a voice: Daryl Jennings. Daryl's on the debate team, wears suits to school most days, and is an expert on any topic.

Sure enough, he's placed himself in the center chair. "...and when they pumped his stomach, guess what they found?" he says.

More people over on the gra.s.s. Cigarette tips float like fireflies. Someone hangs on the tire swing, creaking to and fro.

"C'mon, man, I heard this same story about Elton John," one of the silhouettes tells Daryl.

"Fine, don't believe me." Daryl takes a deep drink from a beer can. "But my cousin's friend works in the hospital where they brought Rod Stewart in. Dude's a total flamer." He punctuates this with a lengthy belch.

At last, something more unpleasant than regular Daryl: drunk Daryl. Bryce weighs going back and facing Susannah, or staying out here and listening to this. Like choosing between syphilis and gonorrhea.

Daryl's on the topic of catching herpes from a toilet seat when someone inside shouts, "Cops!" A siren chirps out front. Red and blue lights on the tree branches. Chaos in the house. Everyone on the patio jumps up, runs across the yard to the side gate. Bryce follows the frightened stampede.

"My parents will totally murder me."

"Throw it over the fence."

"I'm, like, over the limit for sure."

In front of the house, a police car blocks the driveway. Another pulls up onto the gra.s.s. More partygoers pour out the front door. Flashlight beams sweep across faces. A female officer yells something.

Bryce runs down the sidewalk without stopping to think that he hasn't done anything illegal (unless they've started arresting people for spectacular failures with girls). Faces fly by. Tires peal out. No Cam. He could check for the car, but it's in the opposite direction.

"Bryce!" Trevor Sargent waves from the driver's seat of a white Volvo across the street. "C'mon, dude!" Bryce jumps in the back, Trevor executes a U-turn that takes them up onto the sidewalk, and they're gone.

"Holy s.h.i.t, that was crazy!" Trevor says. He keeps checking the rearview mirror, banging the wheel, laughing.

Way too many people in this car. Bryce is squished against the door by Vadim (who everyone jokes is a Russian spy). Two blond heads in the front seat, next to Trevor; four more legs on the other side of Vadim. Bryce doesn't even glance sideways, in case one of them is Susannah.

Trevor swerves to the opposite side of the street, corrects himself just in time to jet past a stop sign without slowing.

Headlights come fast from the right.

"Trevor, look out!" Bryce closes his eyes, ready for impact. Paralyzed or disfigured. This time is really it.

A horn beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeps from what sounds like two inches outside the window. Bryce can feel the headlights on his skin. No collision, the sound fading behind them. Their car bounces across a dip in the street. Everyone laughing. Except Bryce.

"Anyone know another party?" one of the blond heads asks at the next intersection.

"Let's go egg someone's house," a voice next to Vadim says.

Trevor bangs his fist on the horn over and over. "Yes! Right now!" During the debate on which victim, Bryce pinpoints the voices of Max Avery and Tess Banks.

Max says, "Let's get Bryce Rollins." Two others agree.

"You guys, he's right there," Trevor says. The blond heads turn around: Tess and Jody Carbonel. The two on the other side of Vadim lean forward: Max, Megan-something.

Sorry, We didn't see you, Just kidding. When Trevor pulls up to Safeway to buy eggs, his car straddling two s.p.a.ces, everyone topples out like a Volkswagen full of clowns at the circus.

The clowns go inside the store; Bryce stays behind. He could follow along and then what? They didn't know he was there, will they know if he's gone? Besides Trevor, he doesn't much like any of these people.

And where the h.e.l.l is Cam?

Why had they thought this night would possibly be fun?

36.

Cameron is in the middle of his story about getting locked out of his hotel room on the eighth grade trip to San Francisco when someone out in the hall yells, "Cops!" He jumps up, unsure of what to do. He and Rosemary go downstairs, where most of the partiers have vanished, leaving a village of beer cans to mark their pa.s.sing. Blue and red lights strobe in through the front window.

Asia sings to an empty room.

Here in the light, it's like he's seeing her for the first time, losing his mind all over again.

Plump Andrea Samson runs up to them, carrying her sandals in her hand. "Rosie, are you ok? We haveta go, like, now." She pulls Rosemary toward the back door. Cameron follows them outside.

Stern voices keep repeating, "Party's over. Time to go home." Two police cars out front. Cameron watches the officers herd people out of the house but doesn't see Bryce. Andrea and Rosemary get into a waiting green car up the block from Katrina's house. As they pull away, Rosemary waves to Cameron through the window. She looks so cute right then he wants to run after the car and pull her out, not take the chance that he might never see her again or that this is all some gag the universe is playing on him.

Her face stays imprinted behind his eyes long after the green car is gone.

He waits at the corner for Bryce, then in his car with the heater running, then finally gives up and drives home.

He definitely likes Rosemary.

37.