Aaron Deeter is having the party of the year.
No parents, indoor pool and sauna, a DJ. It will go all night and the entire school, minus losers, will be there.
“I’ll die if we can’t go,” Bernadette says. “Martin can get us some weed, but we need to tell our mothers we’re staying at each other’s houses.”
“Isn’t that kind of an old trick?”
“We’ll have to risk it. Too bad it’s not your dad’s weekend.”
“Because he has zero moral authority and doesn’t care what happens to me?”
“Not true, Mar,” she says. “Well, maybe the moral authority part. Hey, even Faith English is going, and she has the strictest parents in the world.”
“How?”
“She said she’s going to a study-focus slumber party.”
“What, did she spawn from morons?”
Bernadette sniffs. “That’s not the nicest thing you’ve ever said.”
“What crawled up your ass?”
“Never mind. Nothing.”
***
It’s easy to get stoned in a hot tub, and the weed from Martin is excellent stuff. In the sauna it feels even better, though it makes you thirsty. Someone brings beer and chips in there, and you and Bernadette munch and drink and laugh until you can barely breathe.
You can feel all the molecules in every part of the air. So cool.
But hot. Too hot to be cool.
“Which is why I’m going to the pool! Ha HA! I rhyme!” you say to Bernadette.
“It’s about TIME!” she says, and beams at you.
“You’re a genius. You wanna come?”
Some people push the door open and come in. Oh, that cool air is so nice.
Bernadette looks at the newcomers and gives you the peace sign. “I’m cooool,” she says, and laughs. “I’ll come in a, what’s it called, a minute. In a minute.”
“’Kay.”
So sleepy, but the pool is very nice. Cold and floaty and nobody bothers you. Just floating, laughing...
Finally, your feet and hands feel funny, pruny.
Proooonnnneeeeee.
Ha ha.
They’re so pruney, you have to show Bee.
Bee is where...?
Sauna.
Wait till she sees your feet, your hands...
You find the door to the sauna, but it is so heavy. Shoulder against it, and then you are in.
It’s hot, hotter than before.
And what is that?
Oh no. Nonononono.
Something is wrong with Bernadette. She’s melted, she’s red, she has...multiplied!
Holy cow, Bernadette has two heads, four arms intertwined and...
FOUR BOOBS? No, no, this can’t be.
“Mara!” She jumps up.
“Bee! What’s wrong, what’s wrong! Are you...what the—?”
Whoa. Holy shit. The other arms and head and boobs are not hers, they belong to Faith English.
Bernadette is naked, yelling at you. “You’re supposed to be in the pool!”
“S-sorry.”
You stand blinking at them, trying to clear your head.
“Get out!” Bernadette says. “Can’t you see when you’re not wanted?”
“But...”
“Get out, get out, get the fuck out! You’re not wanted!”
Not wanted.
You go. You go and you run, out the doors, into the yard past clusters of people smiling, singing, having fun. Behind the house is a ravine and you run down into it, away from the yelling, away from all of it.
Bernadette has never spoken to you like that before, never ever. Worse, actually, because you saw it in her eyes. She hates you.
And now you’re alone.
Alone again, probably for good.
Alone in a bathing suit with bare feet in the woods.
With a spinning head.
Well, who cares? You lean on a tree and puke out barbeque potato chips. You stay until everything stops spinning and the ground stops feeling wobbly.
You get cold.
Back at the house you find all your clothes except your socks.
Somebody stole your fucking socks.
Bastards.
“You want a beer?”
It’s Aaron Deeter, with his skier tan and rugby shirt.
“Have you seen Bernadette?”
“Think she left. Beer or no?”
“What the hell—why be sober?”
Sensation is starting to return and your feet are freezing.
Aaron hands you a beer.
“Can I borrow a pair of socks? I lost mine.”
“Sure,” he says. “Come with me.”
His bedroom walls are covered with posters of David Wilcox and the Grateful Dead.
“Here.” He hands you a pair of grey wool socks with blue stripes and you plop down on the edge of his bed to put them on.
You take long swigs of beer and try not to think of Bernadette screaming that you’re not wanted. But you hear her, over and over, and it hurts. It hurts so much you would do anything to get rid of this pain.
Bernadette gone.
Nobody left.
Except Aaron Deeter, hovering by the doorway to the hall.
His shoulders are nice and broad and he seems kind of sweet. He has clean socks.
“Have you ever done it?” you ask him.
“Done what?”
“It. Sex. Fucking.”
His face and neck turn red.
Cute.
“Sure,” he says. “Of course.”
“I haven’t.”
He leans on the doorframe.
“Oh,” he says.
“So...you know what you’re doing then?”
“Uh...”
“I mean, d’you sweat and grunt and then come in two seconds?”
“No! Why would you think—?”
“I’ve just heard that’s what usually happens.”
“Well, not with me,” he insists.
“Okay then,” you say, and take a drink. “You want to?”
“Now?” he says, voice cracking.
“Aaron, you’re a teenaged guy, you’re not supposed to turn down an offer for sex.”
“I’m not, I’m not!”
“Good. Just let me finish this beer.” You lay back, roll on your side, and tip the bottle up. You put the empty bottle on the floor beside the bed.
“You might want to come in and close the door,” you tell Aaron, who’s still standing, like a doofus, in the doorway.
“Oh, right. Right.” He closes the door, locks it, and comes to sit on the bed.
You’re about to lose your virginity to a guy with Spiderman sheets. It would be funny if everything inside didn’t hurt so much.
You hope it hurts when he does it. You hope it hurts and goes on for a long time and keeps hurting until it drives out the pain of no best friend, no one home, no one to count on.
Aaron Deeter takes off his clothes and so do you. Music thumps from the speakers outside.
He sweats and grunts and comes in two seconds.
He rolls off you.
“Sorry,” he says.
You barely felt a twinge.
Barely felt anything.
“How soon can you do it again?”
“Again?”
“Yeah, again. You can do it again, can’t you? Here, let me help.”
He will do it again. He will do it until it feels really good or really bad—either will do.
The second time lasts a little longer and you figure out how to move your hips. After, Aaron goes to check on the party and brings back some tequila shots. The third time lasts too long because you are so drunk and sore now and all you want is sleep, not this beer-breathing, sweaty-smelling horse ramming away at you.
You wake around 4 a.m. Your throat is dry, your mouth tastes like ass.
Aaron is gone. You don’t care where or why.
You can’t stay here. You can’t go to Bernadette’s house.
Fuck it. You start the long walk home to Mom’s.
You try to be quiet on the way in, turning the lock slowly, walking on tiptoe to the stairs.
But you wipe out and yelp and suddenly the lights come on and Mom is at the top of the staircase with a baseball bat in her hand.
“Don’ shoot, it’s me,” you say, and try to upright yourself.
“Good Lord. What are you doing here?”
“People keep asking me that. ‘What are you doing here, get out’,” you mutter. “I live here.”
Mom puts the bat down.
“Where is Bernadette?” she says.
“Dunno.”
“You don’t know?”
“She’s gone, Mom. She left.” You start to cry. “Gone! Gone, gone, gone without me. No more Bernadette. Stolen from me.”
You feel Mom’s feet thumping down the stairs, and she comes to stand below you.
“Mara!” she snaps.
“Mm?” sniff, sniff.
“Do I need to call Bernadette’s parents? Or the police?”
“No.”
“Is she in trouble, or did you just have a fight?”
“No trouble,” you mutter. “She’s probably at home.”
“Is she drunk too?”
Uh oh. “Drunk?”
Mom folds her arms under her chest and shakes her head.
“I wasn’t born yesterday, young lady. Don’t think you can bullshit me.”
You hang your head, which feels like the inside of a bongo drum. Another whimper escapes.
“Oh, go to bed,” Mom says. “You’re disgusting.”