The following Saturday—the night of the big party—was also my birthday. Flo baked my favorite chocolate cake, and she and Dad and Ebbie gave me a few thoughtful gifts. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, and I definitely didn’t need anyone else to know. A little part of me would have been happy to stay at home and watch a movie on the couch, like we usually did.
I asked Dad to drop me at the Keech House of Pizza and told him I was meeting up with Pepper for a slice. I couldn’t risk him all of the sudden deciding to come say hello to the family at the Big House. I went in, watched him drive off, and then walked the rest of the way to Hazard Point, taking Pixie’s short cut through Mulligan’s parking lot.
The first thing I noticed were the cars. Lots of cars. Most I did not recognize. The family’s collection of sedans was lost in a sea of fancy foreign cars. It looked like a Stockholm car dealership with all the Saabs and Volvos—and Meredith’s BMW. What was she doing here?
I was overdressed. Way overdressed. I had gone into town with Dad and finally bought a new dress. What was I thinking? Damn, Scout had me all turned around. I was about to leave to go home to change when Pepper saw me. Oddly, she looked overdressed too—for Pepper that is—in the most wacky way. She was wearing gobs of black eyeliner and a black tank top and a short denim skirt. I don’t know why I noticed, but she had actually shaved her thighs. She had missed a small rectangle of blonde fuzz above her knee.
She was draped across some beer-swilling lunkhead in a varsity lacrosse T-shirt.
“What—did you just come from church?” she asked me, clearly already drunk. And the party had barely started!
“Meredith’s here!?” I half asked, half reported.
“Yeah, she’s just trying to make Pike jealous with that loser,” she said, pointing to the beautiful six-foot-two man that Meredith was wrapped around. “He’s so over her,” Pepper shouted in Meredith’s direction. I debated telling her about the hair on her leg but decided she shouldn’t be anywhere near a razor in that condition.
Pike wandered into the kitchen as if on cue. Pepper put her arm around me and Pike.
“Why don’t you two just go upstairs and make some beautiful blond babies,” Pepper said.
I blushed immediately. I had never seen her like this. I had seen her obnoxious (daily), and I’d seen her drunk (more than once), and I had also seen her both obnoxious and drunk. But this was a whole new level. It was like the part in a movie where the tourist visiting the quiet, quaint village finds himself in an archaic pagan ritual.
“Get a brewski, and come out to the bonfire,” Pepper shouted as she and the lunkhead left the kitchen. I pictured them throwing furniture on the bonfire, hauling Toohey heirlooms out the glass sliders and into the fire pit. “Sacrifice another Chippendale chair,” she’d probably shout.
Just then, I saw two figures run along the upstairs hallway.
“What’s down here? More bedrooms?” one said. All I could think of was the Alden emeralds, just lying there. So I rushed up the stairs.
“Excuse me, may I help you?” That’s what we say around here when we really mean: I am noticing that you don’t belong here. The couple slid to a halt.
“We’re just looking around,” the boy said.
“The upstairs is closed to visitors.” I don’t know what made me think to say that, but it worked.
“Uh, we’re sorry. We didn’t know,” the girl said, and they came back down the hall. I stood halfway up the grand staircase at the landing where it turned, hands on hips, and watched until they got all the way downstairs. I chased Sailor Moon out of Grannie’s room and then locked the door. I am sure there was a key somewhere.
“Brava, my lady.” It was Scout; he stood at the top of the stairs, clapping. “Defending the castle already.”
“Shut up.”
“I am serious. Thank you for doing that.”
“I didn’t want them rummaging around your Gran’s room with the Alden emeralds just lying there,” I said.
“Jeez. Good call,” he said, suddenly sounding sincere. This is what it’s like being part of this big clan, I thought. Someone always has your back.
“Keg’s broken!” came a shout from the kitchen.
“I better get that keg fixed. That’s what a chaperone does, right?” Scout said and winked, grabbed me by the hand, and pulled me along with him down the stairs and into the kitchen. Cheddar rushed by us.
“I’ll do it,” he insisted. The big farm table in the kitchen where we had chopped potatoes for chowder was now filled with stacks of pizza boxes, open bags of chips, and towers of large plastic red cups. Chips crunched beneath my feet as I walked through the room. I leaned against the counter next to Scout. Although I was still mad at him, I didn’t know where else to be. I was afraid of super-drunk Pepper. And I was more afraid of that crowd at the bonfire.
“Come on, Ched, you’re usually handier than that,” Scout said as Cheddar fiddled with the keg. He poured a few cups, then it broke again. And again.
“Aw, come on!”
“I can’t fix it with you all staring at me. Come back in twenty minutes,” Cheddar said.
“What’s the matter? Is it empty? Should I order another one?” Scout offered.
“Absolutely not,” Cheddar said,
“Well, fix it. Flipper hasn’t even had a drink yet.”
“It’s okay, I don’t want any,” I said.
“That makes two party poopers. Cheddar won’t drink tonight either. Maybe you should have gone with Grannie,” Scout teased.
“It’s just not my kind of party. Not how I had hoped to spend the night.”
“What? This is the best party of the summer. Sainte Anne de Part-tay! Only comes around once a year, like Christmas … but without Midnight Mass,” Scout said.
“Yup. But it’s my birthday,” I blurted out, wishing I had stayed home and had too much cake with Dad, Flo, and Ebbie.