You can tell how good a party is by the time that the walls start sweating. I’m not an expert or anything, far from it. It’s just something I’ve noticed. Probably because this is the eighth Friday in a row that someone from our school has opened their house to everyone on Facebook. You’d think after seeing the results once they’d think twice, but nope. Here we were again.
From the moisture sliding down the walls, this party was a ten. In fact it was turned up to eleven. The bass was bouncing off the walls, the floorboards squeaking and swaying, threatening to give in well before eleven o’clock approached. As I watched the sea of bodies bounce in front of me, beer spraying everywhere in celebration, I had to rein myself in. Remind myself what I was doing here.
I took a sip of beer. Well, it had been beer to start with, but as I’d slowly siphoned it down my throat I’d popped back to the kitchen a few times and topped the bottle up from the tap. It didn’t taste great, but it kept up the illusion.
That’s the secret, you see. That’s why I’m here at all. It’s all about showing your face. Do that and you’re fine. Ironically, it’s when you’re almost invisible that the trouble starts, because that’s when you become a target. From there they start digging around for stuff that they can throw back at you, personal stuff, the stuff you try to bury, out of reach of anyone, yourself included.
I think I’ve got it mastered now, the balance. I don’t miss a party, even if I have to blag my way in, and while I’m there I get around, speak to as many people as I can. I’m not averse to dancing or anything either, but not if the lads involved are anything like fit. I don’t need that kind of complication. Neither do they.
I just work the room, building on the conversation from last time, giving them a bit more info without ever throwing them anything too juicy, nothing they can latch on to.
God, it sounds terrible, doesn’t it? Makes me sound so cynical. Like the kind of people I hate. But it has to be done.
I’ve chatted to half a dozen people tonight, or tried to. It’s almost impossible to make yourself heard over the music rattling your senses, but I enjoyed what I heard. In fact, maybe a bit too much. I think I drank the first third of my beer too quickly and gave more away than I should’ve. Still, a trip to the tap soon rectified that problem and since then it’s been fine. All in hand.
People kind of know what I am.
The kooky one. The one who loves the cinema, never shy of an opinion on what they should and shouldn’t be watching. And I’m comfortable with that. There’s a cool, a kudos to it that buys me immunity from the harsher kids homing in on this month’s victim.
Looking around the place, I made a call. The house was bulging and I knew it would be forty-five minutes tops before a neighbour called the police in. So I decided to give it another five before sloping off home.
After a quick dance with a couple of girls in my year, I motioned to my empty bottle and walked in the direction of the fridge. They’d never know I was heading for the door instead.
I was only three paces from it when someone got in the way, derailing my best intentions.
Rob Stearn. The best and worst person possible. If there was anyone I could lose control in front of, it was always going to be him. I pulled my shirt sleeve down, keeping everything in place and hidden, before sliding a lick of hair behind my ear. A single movement that made me look both stupid and up for it at the same time.
‘All right, Daisy. You off?’
I heard him, but because of the music made out that I hadn’t, buying some time as he repeated himself.
‘Yeah,’ I yelled in his ear, leaving him to recoil slightly. ‘Got to meet someone.’
‘What, your dad picking you up?’
It was a loaded gun of a question. Answer wrongly and I’d be labelled as a kid on a curfew, enough of a reason for people to start zeroing in. So I pulled on my slyest grin and fired back at him.
‘Not my dad, no. Right gender, but definitely not related.’
The lie stuck to my teeth, but he seemed to buy it, a flash of disappointment in his eyes. He recovered quickly, shoulder-bumping me gently before telling me to have a good night. ‘I’ll see you Monday,’ he added, before disappearing back into the crowd.
Watching him go, I felt a stabbing regret that I’d said what I had, knowing he’d find someone else in there happy to entertain him for an hour or two.
I pulled my coat on, feeling like it weighed fifty kilos, and squeezed through the front door, head down. Nobody seemed to see me go.
The wind slapped my cheeks as I turned the first corner towards home, but I barely felt it. I’d done it again, ghosted through the night exactly as I’d wanted to. A small prickle of pleasure passed through me, but I didn’t listen to it, I just let it pass. There’d be plenty more nights like that to come.