I was happy because all my best friends were with me for the New Year’s Eve holiday. Brent and Andre, along with my girlfriend Inez, had arrived at my parents’ cabin in the mountains on the thirtieth of December. We were all excited. The four of us hadn’t been together since August, when we all had left for our first year of college. After my parents went to bed, we stayed up telling stories from high school. Andre eventually fell asleep on the couch. Brent and I continued talking, with Inez listening on the couch beside me.
Eventually her body’s presence next to mine became too much, and we went upstairs to bed. She was supposed to sleep in her own room, but with my parents already asleep, they would never know if I just . . . visited. We brushed our teeth, and she crawled into bed, sliding across the sheets to me. I liked the feel of her thighs around mine. We kissed. Her mouth was cool and tasted like peppermint toothpaste. I took off her pajama top, but not her bottom. She was from a good Catholic family and still didn’t feel right about that. It was okay. I loved her, and it didn’t matter. I rubbed her breasts, and we came from grinding on each other through our clothes.
Brent and Andre made fun of me, because Inez and I had been together for two years, and we still had not had sex. I told them it didn’t matter. I knew we would be married someday.
It didn’t matter.
The next evening was New Year’s Eve. My parents were taking part in a Progressive Dinner: each course was served at a different cabin. We would be serving dessert and toasting to the New Year at my parents’ place. Brent, Andre, Inez, and I stayed at our place setting up decorations, dessert trays, and champagne glasses. At seven-thirty we went down the mountain to meet the roving party, which was at the Connors’ cabin for the main course.
All the grownups were there and excited to see young people. I introduced Brent, Andre, and Inez. Everyone was excited to hear about how we liked college. People wanted to quiz Andre about what it was like to play soccer at a Division One school. Brent entertained folks with some magic tricks, while my parents looked on with approval.
But Inez was the star. She was all charm and eloquence. It didn’t hurt that she looked amazing. When Mr. Conner sat down at the piano, she knew all the old songs he played then sang a few Bolivian Christmas songs in Spanish and even a few in Quechua, which impressed everyone. Everything was great. The grownups liked us. My friends were having fun. It was a successful New Year’s, as far as I was concerned.
I was in line for the buffet when my mother came up to me.
“Danny, I need a favor.”
“What’s up?”
“There’s a boy here; he’s the Hachettes’ son, and he doesn’t know anyone, and there’s no one here his age.”
“How old is he?”
“Fourteen. He’s handicapped and a bit . . . awkward. Can you guys let him hang out with you?”
“Sure thing.”
“He really likes UVA. I think he’d like to go there. Maybe Inez could talk to him about it.”
“Yeah, I’ll get her.”
Sure enough, Mr. and Mrs. Connor were chatting Inez up about Bolivian culture when I sidled up to them. It took a moment, but I was able to peel Inez away. She filled a Styrofoam plate with food, and we followed my mother downstairs.
The lower level opened out onto a deck where the furniture was covered in tarps for the winter. A TV was playing next to the fireplace. But otherwise the floor was quiet; everyone else was upstairs. The kid, Michael, was sitting on a footrest near the TV. He was a little fat and had bushy black hair. One of his wrists was bent downwards, and when he turned to us he had to use his feet to twist his torso around. They were motions he seemed to be used to. He spoke with a bit of a stutter, but I think that was because he was nervous about talking to college kids.
“Dan, Inez, this is Michael,” my mother said.
I shook his hand. It was fleshy, and he had a weak grip. “My mom tells me you like UVA.”
“Yes,” he said, after a few attempts to get the word out. We were patient while he made the effort.
“I go there,” Inez said.
Michael had a lot of questions to ask. Inez’s answers were a bit vague. I had the sense she wanted to go back upstairs where she was the center of attention for a bigger, more sophisticated audience. She could be that way sometimes. The conversation stopped, and she looked at me.
“What kind of music do you like, Michael?”
I could tell by the angle of Inez’s head that she was growing irritated with me. She just wanted to go. I tried to pretend as if I didn’t notice. But I did.
“Temptations. Four Tops. I listen to the Oldies but Goodies station,” Michael said.
I asked about movies next, and TV. He had not seen anything new or anything rated above PG. Inez was sitting next to me, her arms crossed and her foot bouncing. We had finished the food on our plates, but I kept talking to Michael. Inez was poking holes in her plate with her fork.
“I’m going to see what Brent and Andre are doing,” she finally said, in the most chipper tone she could.
“Sure, okay,” I said. Michael and I kept talking. Apparently he spent a lot of time on his computer. I wasn’t familiar with any of the games he mentioned.
“I grew up with an 8-bit Nintendo. We were all excited when they upgraded to 16 bits.”
Michael laughed, a little too loud. “Those graphics were Stone Aged.”
“Yeah, well, it was better than playing Pong on an Atari.”
My mom came down and told us that the party was moving to the next cabin. Did I want to take Michael back to our place with us?
I said sure; it would have been mean to leave him now. I invited him, and he got excited, sort of giggling like a little kid. I helped him with his jacket. Brent, Andre, and Inez were waiting for us on the front porch, their breath curling about their heads in the cold air. Brent and Inez started for the car. Michael grabbed my arm while he negotiated the steps. It was just like my grandmother used to. Andre drove us back to the cabin. Michael sat in the front. I was in back with Brent and Inez.
When we got to the house, the dog jumped on Michael and he squealed. Andre sat down and started flipping through a case of old CDs. He asked Michael what kind of music he liked and read some of the bands we had brought up for the trip. Michael didn’t know any of them.
“I listen to the Oldies but Goodies station. It’s what my parents like,” Michael said.
“Well, it’s time we diversified your interests,” Andre said, and slid an Outkast album into the stereo.
Michael eyes got big. He looked scared at first, but it didn’t take long for him to start bobbing his head.
“I like this!”
Inez was sitting by the fireplace, warming her back. I was on the coffee table, facing her. Michael and Andre were on the floor in between while Brent practiced a few more card tricks before the rest of the partygoers arrived.
“So, what do you guys do at college?” Michael asked.
“Stress,” Inez said.
“How about you, Andre?”
“Well, a lot of my time is taken up with soccer practice.”
Michael got a bit quiet, as if he didn’t know what to ask next, like he had hit the bottom of his list of questions. Then I realized, he had probably never been able to play sports. I cleared my throat and looked over to Brent.
“Brent, what do you do at college?” I knew I could count on Brent for a laugh.
“Eat, drink, and be merry!” Brent bellowed, and fell into his Monty Python and the Holy Grail imitation. Michael laughed, although he hadn’t seen the movie or heard of Monty Python. Brent was funny anyway. He was always funny, and having an audience who had never heard any of his jokes before offered him new possibilities. He sort of took over from there, and we just listened and laughed.
Andre got up and went to the kitchen where he mixed a drink, occasionally responding when one was called for. He came out and sat with us. He had two mugs and handed one to Brent.
“What’s that?” Michael asked.
“Baileys and cream,” Brent said.
“Baileys . . . is that alcohol?” Michael asked. I saw Inez touch her forehead and look down at her knees.
“Ah, yes. Yes, it is, actually,” Andre said, looking at me. I could read his expression. He was afraid he had made a mistake, that Michael would rat us out to our parents for taking some alcohol.
It didn’t help when Michael asked, “Are you all twenty-one?”
Andre, Brent, and Inez just laughed. Inez got up to make her own drink.
“Do you want a drink, Mike?” Inez asked. I wasn’t sure why she did that. It made Michael uncomfortable. He sort of curled into himself, his bent wrist pressing against his belly.
“No,” he said. He shifted on his seat, his eyes moving towards the door. He probably wished he hadn’t come.
“It’s all right, Mike. I don’t drink. We’ll keep these guys in line,” I said.
Brent was rapping along with Outkast. Brent is white as white can get, so Andre found this funny and started rolling on the floor with laughter.
“You know this song?” I asked Michael.
“Nope.”
“Put on the next track,” Inez said, sitting down with her own mug. “I’m sure he has heard it.” I got up and got some water for me and Michael. When I came back, I hit “skip” to move to the next song.
“Why didn’t you bring me something, honey?” Brent said, holding out his empty hands.
“Because you are a lazy fucker.”
Michael thought this was really funny. I realized we all were showing off a little for him. The next song came on, and Inez got up and started to dance, holding her arms up over her head and moving her hips in a slow orbit. Her breasts pressed against her shirt, and her mouth opened just a little before she bit her lip and looked at me.
I saw Michael’s eyes look at her, move down to Inez’s breasts and her thighs too. He wasn’t discreet about it. He probably didn’t know better. I got up and danced with Inez; she pressed her body against mine. I felt a little crazy for her just then. She had that effect on me and enjoyed it. When the song was over, we sat back down.
Michael’s eyes were really big. He didn’t seem too shy any longer and straight out asked, “Have any of you actually done the deed? You know, had sex?”
Inez’s sat up, then took a long sip of her drink.
“Well, it depends on what you mean by ‘sex,’” Brent said.
Michael didn’t know what to do with this information.
“I’m waiting for marriage,” Andre said.
“You fucking liar. We all know you are a total dog,” Inez laughed with mock indignation. “Should I start listing them all?”
She didn’t wait for him to answer, instead she followed with a litany of girls from high school onward. Andre interrupted her after she had begun to enumerate his partners on her second hand.
“Wait, we never had sex; it was only making out, you know, ‘outercourse.’”
Michael seized on this. “What is that?”
Andre started to explain, but I stopped him, scenarios of being yelled at by my parents for “corrupting” poor Michael already running through my head. “Andre and Inez are just joking, Michael. Right guys?”
But I was too late. “So Andre has had sex?” Michael looked back and forth between us.
Everyone was giggling now. I realized I was just making things worse. I sighed, “Yeah, Andre has. But a lot of people wait, Michael, and that’s okay.” I was proud that I had the opportunity to say this in front of Inez, to let her know that I was all right with this.
Michael turned to Andre. “What does sex feel like?”
Andre sipped his drink. I thought he would do a spit-take, but he was real composed and looked at the floor before turning back to Michael. He had that look a father might have before giving the talk.
“You really want to know?”
“Yeah,” Michael said, as if it could be explained, sort of like you could explain getting a vaccination or a root canal.
Inez blurted out laughing so loudly and uncontrollably that she snorted. Then she ran into the kitchen with Brent. It pissed me off.
The grownups started to arrive. Michael’s parents were some of the first. His mom was pretty, and his dad was stocky and had bushy hair like his son. They sat down on the sofa flanking Michael. They looked worried. He talked to them for a half hour while the rest of the guests came in with champagne and cakes in their hands. I didn’t know what Michael was saying and I was nervous.
I was setting out more desserts on the kitchen table, along with red and green napkins left over from Christmas, when Michael’s dad came up and grabbed my shoulder.
“Michael said he really had a good time with you guys. Thanks for being so nice to him.”
“Not a problem.”
“He says he’s a fan of some band named ‘Out There’ or something.”
“That would be Outkast.”
“Guess I’ll have to look them up.”
“Yeah, that’s Outkast with a K.”
“You mean instead of a C?”
“Yeah, it’s sort of their . . . thing.”
“All right, well, I’ll remember that. Outkast with a K.” He clapped me on the shoulder and smiled. “Thanks again. You all are good kids.”
“Sure, anytime.”
He grabbed a brownie and went and talked to my mother about her dessert dishes.
Once the house was flooded with older people, Brent, Andre, and Inez went upstairs to the loft. Michael was listening to Mr. Connor’s hunting stories, which would keep him busy a while. When I came up to the loft, Brent asked me,
“Dan, what does sex feel like?”
Inez leaned on my shoulder and said, “Dan, have you done the deed?”
They both broke down in giggles. I was glad that Andre spoke up. “Come on guys, weren’t you curious at that age?”
“No,” Inez said.
Of course, she wasn’t.
At midnight, we all danced and sang Auld Lang Syne. All the men lined up to give Inez kisses on both cheeks, like they all had suddenly become Latin. I hugged Brent and Andre.
“Happy New Year, lazy fucker.”
“Happy holidays, you big douche.”
When I saw Michael and his parents leaving, I went to the door and slipped Michael the Outkast CD and winked at him. He stuffed it in his pocket and smiled. I helped him out to the car. He was asking me about Outkast the whole time. He wanted to know where he could find their CDs in the stores, how many albums they had, and so on. He used me to steady himself again as we walked across the ice and snow. Andre and Inez ran by us; they had been throwing snowballs at Brent, who was now retaliating.
“Excuse us, Michael. Excuse us, Dan,” Inez said, dodging Brent’s attack. The three of them ran behind the house and disappeared. We could still hear them yelling. Michael was upset he wouldn’t have a chance to say good-bye to them. I was pissed they hadn’t said good-bye to him too. I told him I would tell them for him.
His dad came up to me again once Michael was in the car and said, “Thanks again for being so nice to him. He doesn’t really have a lot of friends.”
I felt a little bad just then, not just for Michael, but for his dad, who felt like he had to keep apologizing for his son. “Don’t mention it. Bring him by the next time you’re up here.”
Inside, Inez came up to me. There were snowflakes in her hair. I watched them turn to water droplets as she leaned into me. She kissed my mouth. She tasted like Baileys and was a little tipsy.
“Did you tell him what sex feels like?” she laughed.
I pulled back a little bit. I wanted to say something, but then thought better and just said, “No, he just wanted to know a bit more about Outkast.”
“Sure, he did,” Brent said, pouring himself another drink while my parents were not looking. “Inez, what was that word you called him, el tarado?”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Inez said and chased Brent out of the kitchen, laughing.
Not long after that my parents went to bed. Brent, Andre and I finished off the champagne, but it was mostly me. I felt rotten. Inez was mad that I was drinking so much and went up to watch TV in the loft. She went to bed without saying goodnight. At two o’clock the guys and I were still up, talking about skiing accidents. Brent looked outside and could see the light from Inez’s room on the trees.
“Her light is still on. She’s still awake man. If I were you, I would have been up there two hours ago.”
I stayed on the couch. I didn’t move. I didn’t go. I didn’t want to be with her.