There was no sign of Tyler. I kept watching the kitchen door like I could will him into appearing, but a half hour passed and nothing. The party was small, only twenty or so people, and mostly other juniors that I knew. Kristen and I stood in the narrow space between the island and the stove. I’d been drinking some pink concoction for the past hour, but I didn’t feel anything. I couldn’t even taste the liquor in it.
“And then the guy was all: what’s the secret password. He literally said that, ‘secret password‘.” Kim Kennedy leaned over the counter and tipped the fake ID back and forth in the light, showing us the hologram. She’d bought it in December, when her parents took her to New York City to see the Rockettes. “He wouldn’t let me into the back room until I told him.”
“So what was it?” a sophomore with a mushroom cut asked.
Kim paused dramatically. “New England Clam Chowder.”
“New England Clam Chowder,” Mushroom Cut repeated. “From Ace Ventura? You’re lying.”
“Why would I lie about that?” Then, before anyone could question her, Kim snatched the ID and tucked it back in her wallet. The music changed, and that cheesy Savage Garden song came on. Z100 was playing it every hour.
“Hey, I wanted to see,” a familiar voice said.
The group was suddenly quiet, and it wasn’t until I turned that I realized Patrick Kramer was standing right behind me. He was in his iconic red and black North Face fleece, his hands pushed deep into its pockets. Okay, he was good looking—like Joey Lawrence if he was taller and had darker hair. I knew why Kristen and Amber wanted me to want him, but everything about him was just so…blah.
Kim passed the ID to him and he inspected it, looking at her, then to the photo, like he was some bouncer at a club.
“Decent,” he finally said.
“I haven’t had any problems.”
Patrick smiled, but no one else said anything. He was usually trailed by at least three guys from the varsity soccer team. When they moved in a pack it was impossible to approach them, and we didn’t know what to do with him now that he was alone. He kept glancing around the room, then pressing his lips together, like he was waiting on line in a bank.
Kim said something to Kristen, and then everyone broke off into side conversations. I tried to maneuver myself closer to Kristen but she inched away, separating me and Patrick from the group.
“You don’t come out much,” he finally said.
I probably should’ve made up something that sounded mysterious or cool, but it was Patrick Kramer. It didn’t feel worth it.
“I was grounded for six months. Now it’s been downgraded to close surveillance,” I said. “After my house was broken into? You probably heard?”
“Oh, right. You’re over in the flower streets, Honeysuckle Court, Rose Lane. That’s why those Swickley Alarm cars are everywhere.”
“I don’t feel like I missed out on much. I mean, this isn’t really my scene…”
I swirled the pink concoction around my cup.
“So what is your scene?” Patrick moved closer, dipping down so we were eye level. I had a jolt of nervousness, like I was taking a test I hadn’t prepared for. Kristen was right…Patrick Kramer was flirting with me.
“I kind of like the Wolf Den, that place on Main Street where they have live music twice a week.” My voice got all weird and pitchy. “It’s sixteen and over now to get in.”
Patrick leaned against the wall and stared off, like I’d just said something incredibly profound. I was 99 percent sure he’d never been to the Wolf Den, but even if I was right, he didn’t ask about it.
“Yeah, I don’t think this is my scene either. It can be hard to relate. Everyone’s getting high, or talking about stupid meaningless stuff, like the yearbook superlatives. I feel really separate sometimes, like I’m watching a movie of it all, that it’s all happening in front of me but I’m not part of it. Especially after last year.”
He didn’t look at me as he said it, and I knew that was my cue. We were supposed to have some deep conversation about what happened that day at the Empire State Building. You’re a hero, I’d say, resting my hand on his chest. Tell me what it’s like.
“I have to uh…go to the bathroom…” I slipped past him, immediately wishing I’d found a better excuse, that I’d said anything but that. I just wanted to get rid of him, not make it seem like I had explosive diarrhea.
A few guys from the basketball team were playing quarters on the kitchen table. It was unclear where the bathroom was, so I wandered through the first floor for a minute, finally trying a door off the living room. It was locked.
“There’s another one upstairs,” Neel Nair, a hot senior from my Spanish elective, said as he passed. His breath smelled like bong smoke.
Jen Klein didn’t seem to care that her friends had started a dance party in the living room. She messed with the stereo, switching on “Baby Got Back.” It was cliché and obvious but everyone was just drunk enough to love it, doing this silly stomping dance. Chris Arnold slammed into the wall as I went up the stairs.
The bathroom linked Jen’s bedroom with her older sister’s—the kind I’d only seen on 90210, where Brandon and Brenda Walsh ran into each other brushing their teeth. I closed the door behind me and locked it, enjoying the quiet comfort of being alone. I could’ve stayed in there for hours, reading the stack of YM magazines next to the sink, or just lying on the furry bathmat and listening to music. At home the bathroom felt like the only place I could relax. Maybe it was how good the acoustics were when I sang, or maybe it was that no one bothered me when I was taking a bath or drying my hair, but those private spaces always calmed me.
I smoothed on my lip gloss, careful to blend it to the corners, taking my time. I had this horrible feeling Patrick would be waiting for me right where I’d left him, and Kristen had no interest in helping me dodge the Spring Formal invite.
Then someone was at the door, two quick knocks echoing in the bathroom. At first I worried it was Patrick, so I ignored it, but then I got paranoid people were waiting outside and they’d think I was doing something weird. When I peeked out there was only one person there. He inspected the CD tower by Jen’s bed, running a hand through his mop of red hair. Tyler.
I just stood there, unable to speak.
“Jess! It’s you…”
“It’s me.”
Then he smiled that smile, and everything switched on inside me. I was suddenly hyperaware of the strip of exposed skin by my waist, where my sweater cropped up, or the spot where my hoop earring brushed against my neck. I wanted to go back into the bathroom and reapply my lip gloss and pinch color into my cheeks.
“Who knew Jen Klein was obsessed with Chumbawamba?” His finger rested on some CD spines in the middle of the stack. “I didn’t even realize they had other bad songs.”
“I actually wouldn’t mind that stupid song if it wasn’t so lazy,” I said, stepping toward him. “Have you ever listened to the lyrics? It’s the same two verses over and over again. He says the same line three dozen times.”
“But also, what is the guy in the song even doing?” Ty was still smiling as he said it. “He drinks four drinks in a row, all different. Like, I’m no bartender dude, but I’m pretty sure mixing a whiskey drink and a vodka drink and a lager drink, then chasing it down with hard cider, is not going to be good.”
Did I love him? Was it possible to love someone you’d never even kissed?
“You hiding out in there?” Ty asked, glancing over my shoulder into the bathroom. He had on this green flannel that he was obsessed with and a vintage Tears for Fears tee shirt underneath, the fabric faded from so many wears.
“Maybe. Don’t tell anyone.”
“You kept my secret about that weird cat statue.”
“The statue! I forgot about that.” I laughed.
“That’s how good you are at keeping secrets.”
When I was younger, my mom bought this abstract cat statue and displayed it on a pedestal in our den. Ty and I were rolling around inside a refrigerator box, pretending it was a carnival ride, when we slammed right into it, knocking it to the floor. I put the head back on with Crazy Glue. You could only tell it was broken if you held it an inch from your face.
“What is that?” he asked, peering at the pink stuff in my cup.
“Some weird lemonade drink. Wanna try?”
“With that rave review?”
Ty stepped closer. That one small movement sent me spinning, and even though I could still hear the music from the party, we were suddenly in another universe, one all our own. I’d spent so much time wondering what it meant that Ty always stopped by my locker on his way to gym, or that he’d volunteered to play drums for me last month in the talent show. Did he feel anything when he threw his arm over my shoulder as we walked down the hall, or was it just another version of the hundreds of other hugs he’d given me over the years? He answered me now with this smile, with the way he let the silence linger between us.
“You look…nice.”
“Nice?”
“Pretty.”
And then he shrugged this tiny, awkward shrug, like he couldn’t help himself—like he’d had to say it. I laughed, because it seemed like the only thing to do, but then he leaned in closer. His lips touched down on mine and he kissed me slowly, carefully, like he was just learning how. His hand wandered to my hair, his fingers getting tangled inside it. His breath warmed my skin. As we kissed, my hands found their way to his back, and I tried to pull him closer, but no matter how close we were, it wasn’t enough.
At some point the overhead light flicked on. Jen Klein stood in the doorway, a Zima in her hand. Her eyes were bulging out of her face—the melodramatic, drunk version of someone in shock.
“You guys aren’t supposed to be in here,” she said, stepping forward. She shooed us away like dogs. “Come on, get out of here. Get out.”
Tyler and I ducked around her, bursting into laughter as we ran down the stairs. She yelled something else that I couldn’t quite hear. His hand found mine and squeezed tight.