Page 56 of Fun at Parties
“Are you going to any shows tonight?” I ask. “Maybe that will cheer everyone up.”
She nods. “Maggie Rogers, for sure, if I can rally the troops.”
“Sounds fun.” Then I remember why I came over here in the first place. “If you were a person who liked to be in the middle of the chaos, where would you be tonight? Nate and I are looking for a friend.”
She laughs. “Well, Fixxins is playing later.”
“Fixxins?” I repeat.
“His music is wild. It’s basically dubstep with a country twist.”
A bolt of dread strikes me in the heart, and maybe it’s my imagination, but I’m pretty sure my knees buckle. Not to be overdramatic or anything. It’s just the last fucking thing I need right now is EDM. Why can’t the headliner be one of my pop superheroes? I could rally for that.
Don’t be a baby. Suck it up.
When Nate emerges from the car, he’s wearing a dry version of the outfit he had on before, his usual beach bum special. T-shirt, open flannel, slate-gray pants instead of army green this time.
“Great news. I have a solid hunch where Logan’s going to be tonight.” I turn toward the blond girl. “Do you know what time Fixxins goes on?”
“Ten thirty, I think.”
“Ten thirty.” I choke out the words. “Awesome. Three more hours to kill.”
Nate assesses my hysterical, twitchy smile. “Let’s rest for a bit. Today was exhausting, and we need to conserve energy.”
Yes. Good. Things are better in the car, where we’re shielded from the wind and can barely hear our neighbors bickering about who’s going to clean up the vomit and how the sleeping arrangements are going to be reconfigured now that the Jeep is a biohazard zone. I take the driver’s seat, reclining it as far as it’ll go, and Nate follows my lead on the passenger side.
“Madison is being too nice.” I shiver, still unable to shake the chill from today. “She dealt with the floor mat. Someone else should’ve helped Dave get rid of that nasty blanket.”
Nate changes a setting on the climate controls, and warm air instantly hits me at a better angle. “She’s a peacemaker, and Jackson is an ass,” he says. “It sucks, but it happened, and now they need to deal with it. Him trying to assign blame is only making it worse.”
“Go ahead, tell him. Say, ‘Jackson, it’s time for you to turn that frown upside down.’ ” I illustrate my suggestion with a big, cheesy smile and frame my face with my hands.
He rubs his eyes. “I hate you.”
I roll down his window and lean forward, cupping my hands around my mouth. “Hey!”
He jabs at the door, fumbling for the window switch. But my finger is still resting on the button on my side, and the pane only rises an inch before I press down. The window whines as we battle for control.
“Jackson,” I call out in a stage whisper. “Nate wants to talk to you about your attitude.”
“Quinn,” he groans, but I’m laughing too hard to let up on the button. Objectively, this bit we’re doing is nothing special. But everything is funnier because of our current circumstances. We’re stuck in this shitty field full of misery and we can’t do anything about it, and somehow that turns up the contrast on every scrap of humor we find, making it better and brighter. A slog interrupted by brief moments of joy.
This feeling is…familiar. Weirdly, it feels like college. I usually think about college as a time when I simply chose happiness, rising effortlessly out of the smoking crater Jolee made of my family’s lives. But really, there were plenty of times like this, when all I could do was find a way to laugh if I wanted to keep from crying.
Example: The day the Range Rover got repo’d, I was forced to quit the waitressing job I’d just started because I could no longer get to work. So Bailey and I spent the evening wreaking havoc with a digital jukebox app one of the local bars used. It was meant to allow patrons to select music—except you didn’t have to beinthe bar to pick a song. Which meant drinkers across town had to listen to “O Canada” and “The Wheels on the Bus” that night while we rolled around laughing on the floor of my dorm room.
That first year of college, I got stress stomachaches. I sobbed over nothing every time I had more than four drinks. I compulsively plucked the stubble from my kneecaps because it gave me fleeting sensations of calm and control. Through it all, Bailey was there, turning onepisodes ofDallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Teamand dragging me out for frozen yogurt. Those moments didn’t replace the bad stuff. But they made it survivable.
One thing I may not survive is what Nate does next, while I laugh and refuse to let up on the window: Hepounces.One second he’s flat on his back and the next he’s lying over me, prying my hand off the button. And because I never learn my lesson, I feel shoulders and hands and warm breath and leap instinctively to the foolish conclusion that we’re about to kiss.
“You torture me,” he huffs, and my brain liquefies.
Of course he’s not trying to kiss me. All he does is swing his other arm around so he can roll up the window. When I realize it, I squirm in a hasty effort to throw him off. My back arches, my feet scrabble to grip the floor, and my hips collide with his.
He makes a noise, a littleoof.The car goes silent as the window reaches the top, but he doesn’t move. My limbs feel viscous, so I don’t either. He is shadow and warmth above me, and I can just make out his teeth sinking into his bottom lip in the dim light.
Someone bangs on the roof of the car three times. “Use protection!”
