We met Tess through Leah, a friend from junior high. They went to high school in the southeast part of Calgary, at a vocational school focused more on trades than grades. She brought up Tess constantly, the way someone with a crush finds any opportunity to talk about them every chance they get. The more Leah talked about Tess, the more I wanted to meet her. We finally got our chance in late fall.
I was outside in my socks at Grace’s waiting for Leah to drop off some weed for the party. When she finally appeared, she invited us to her friend Rick’s house. She told us he was throwing a party. “You guys should come. Tess will be there.”
“We have to go,” I insisted to Christina when we were back inside Grace’s. We were sitting at the long wooden table in the kitchen.
“What’s wrong with this party?”
“Nothing, but it could be fun to do something different. If it sucks, we can leave.”
“Come on, Christina. We’ll stay an hour,” Sara interjected. “Don’t be such a mom.”
“Fine,” Christina agreed. “But we have to be back for curfew.”
Around ten we all headed to Rick’s. As we walked through the front door, into the wall of bodies, my eyes were already burning. The air was thick with a mix of body odor and cigarette and pot smoke. The mashed-down green carpet was littered with beer bottles, cigarettes, and guys who looked to be in their twenties. Posters on the walls were half torn and hung at different heights. I felt out of place and really young. I was immediately too hot in my army jacket, but I didn’t take it off; this seemed like the kind of place where if you put something down, it wasn’t yours anymore. “Let’s go find Tess.”
We found her outside the bathroom at the top of the stairs, with a cigarette dangling from her lips. Her dark brown eyes were friendly, her hair was tied back in a slick ponytail. She wore a mask of dark foundation, and her eyes were rimmed in thick black eyeliner. “FUCK YEAH,” she yelled, slamming Leah into the wall in a sort of hug-like greeting as we approached.
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Tess spit toward Sara and me after Leah introduced us. “This one over here never shuts the fuck up about you two.”
“Fuck you,” Leah warned. “That’s not true.”
“What did you say?” Tess pushed Leah against the wall, and the two play-wrestled until Leah yelled for mercy. “That’s what I thought,” Tess said in a mocking growl at Leah. Sara and I shot each other nervous looks, but we both laughed as Tess started teasing someone else.
People vied for her attention as we trailed behind her, the sea of bodies parting to let us through as if we were famous, untouchable in her wake. I gulped down the devotion for Tess and my beer as we moved past. “Where the fuck are you going?” she yelled from the top of the front steps when she caught us leaving an hour later.
“We have a curfew,” I yelled.
“You better fucking come back next week!”
We did. We went the Friday after that, too. And then the one after that.
The more we went to Rick’s, the more I found myself bringing up Tess any chance I got, as Leah had before me.
“Someone has a crush,” Alex joked one night on the phone.
“No,” I said, but I did.
Looking for Tess in every corner, longing to be near her when she was far, I let her grow up around me like a weed. With one arm slung over my shoulder she would move us through the crowded house parties at Rick’s as if we were a pair. If a guy got too close to me, Tess would sense it and come barreling out of whatever corner she’d been holding court in. “Fuck off” was all she had to say, and they’d scatter like mice. Eventually our friends stopped going to Rick’s with us.
“It’s so dirty.”
“The guys are old.”
“My parents would kill me if they caught me going there.”
“I’m shocked you haven’t gotten scabies yet from those people.”
“It’s not that fun.”
So Sara and I went there alone. And Tess acted as a custodian, offering attention and protection for us both.
The night Tess turned eighteen, Sara and I needed it more than ever.
“Those bitches are always looking for trouble,” Leah warned Sara and me as a crowd of unfamiliar faces arrived just after ten. “Steer clear of them.”
Within an hour the girls had pissed off half the party. After they dumped a slick path of dish detergent on the kitchen floor to create a slip and slide of sorts, Rick had ordered Tess, the resident bouncer, to get rid of them. I’d watched her usher all three out of the kitchen, pointing them toward the front door in a firm but friendly tone. On their way out they tried to shake Sara’s hand, but she refused.
“She’s got a thing about shaking hands.” I raced over to explain when things started to get heated. “I’m her sister. We’re twins.” I motioned to her face and back to mine. “See? So here.” I extended my hand. “Shake with me instead.”
The tallest of the three looked between Sara and me and seemed okay with the deal I was brokering. She took my hand. “Alright.”
I went back to my card game and didn’t see the glass bottle hurtling toward me in time to move. When it hit the back of my head with a thud, I flew forward off my seat onto the filthy carpet. Half the party was already on the front lawn by the time someone had helped pull me up off the floor.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said, dizzy and dazed, already halfway out the front door to find Sara. On the lawn Tess was slamming punches into one of the girls, who was lying flat on her back in front of her. I searched the dozen or so people scattered in the front yard, looking frantically for Sara. She and Leah were sandwiched between a few of Rick’s friends next to where Tess was hitting the girl.
“What’s going on?”
“She’s the one that threw the bottle at you,” Leah answered. “Are you okay?”
“I think she thought you were me,” Sara said, wobbly from alcohol. “Boy, did she pick the wrong person to pick a fight with at this party.”
Tess dragged the girl to her feet and shoved her toward her friends. Someone had called a cab for them, and as they staggered away Tess grabbed me by my shoulders and forced me back inside Rick’s.
“Are you okay?”
“I think so.” I was shaking.
“Fucking bitches,” Tess said, but she looked excited, not angry.
“TESS!” Leah’s guttural cry ripped through the screen door. Tess dropped her hands and pitched herself through the open door and down the steps. This time I was on her heels.
Everyone still outside was crowded near the cab stopped at the curb. As I got close, I saw all its doors were open; the driver, half in and half out, was yelling incoherently. The three girls Tess had just ejected from the party had Sara pinned facedown on the back seat with their knees. They were punching her back and screaming for the cab driver to “Go!” Tess was next to an open door and had hold of one of the girl’s legs, which were kicking wildly. Next to her, Leah was trying to untangle Sara from the bodies on top of her. I could see Sara’s cast from her broken arm dangling, unmoving, off the edge of the seat.
“Help her!” I screamed.
“Get out of the way!” Tess yelled. Leah stepped back, and Tess leaned in the car, grabbed the girl on top and dragged her out, tossing her into the snowdrift behind her like a doll. Then she hauled out the other two. Leah and I grabbed Sara’s legs and helped her out of the cab; the driver took off. As we helped Sara across the lawn, I saw Tess swinging brutally at the girls she’d dragged from the car. They were crumpled on the ground, not even bothering to fight back. I felt sick.
“ENOUGH!” Rick yelled from the top of the front steps. “Tess, get the fuck inside before the police show up. All of you get inside. NOW.”
“Are you hurt?” I asked Sara when we were back inside.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Is your arm okay? Why were you in the cab?”
“Leah and I were helping them to the cab when they pushed me in and started hitting me. It happened so fast.”
Someone offered Sara a fresh beer and asked what happened. She jumped up and took the drink and started retelling the story. I felt guilty watching her. I knew I should insist we leave, make her walk with me to Grace’s where we belonged, with our other friends, out of harm’s way. But I didn’t think Tess would be okay with us leaving, and part of me didn’t want to. Even after everything that had happened.
“Tess wants you,” Leah said, interrupting my thoughts. “She’s upstairs in the bathroom. She said to bring her some ice.”
Tess was next to the grimy tub, a giant bottle of beer between her legs when I came in. I knelt and dumped the ice into the water, gasping when I saw her knuckles, which were already bruised and swollen. “Fuck,” I said. She didn’t react. I sat against the bathroom door and watched Tess slide her right hand into the tub. Outside the door, I could hear Leah and Sara telling the story to anyone who would listen. “You’re a hero.”
“Yeah, a real hero,” Tess scoffed. After a beat, she looked over at me and gave me a crooked snarl of a smile. I was terrified of her, but there was nowhere and no one else I wanted to be with more in that moment.