One of Katy’s eyebrows shoots up and she shakes hands with Zach, clearly impressed.
“I am.” She smiles back. “It’s nice to meet you, finally!” Zach and I have been official for more than a month, but since she only got back last night, having spent the past three weeks with her cousins in Long Island, this is the first time we are all together.
Katy attaches herself to my side and says much louder than she realizes, “Okay, you were right about the smile. My God. But where isthe friend?”
Zach laughs, clearly making out her every word. “Raj said—and I quote—‘I would rather die a slow and merciless death at the hands of one of Van Durgen’s whimpering characters than put on a pair of pants and go to apoolparty when I can playDungeon World 2 andmy mother’s making aloo gobi.’ ”
Zach and I laugh hard and Katy stares at us in fascination, especially at Zach’s smile. She pinches my side just under my rib cage.
“I got, maybe, three words of that, but you two arerevolting,” she says, giving Zach and me her crucially important seal of approval.
Most of the party passes uneventfully. Katy is one of about seven people who strip out of their clothes and actually get into the pool—or rather, she cannonballs in. Everybody else dances and talks, loitering around the pool or on the grass. Some people are even on the roof or the fence.
Usually I’d be trailing behind Katy at a party like this, or halfheartedly conversing with one of her the-yo-ter friends while Katy chats up some guy, gets wasted, or tries to convince me to loosen up. (“If you’re going to New Yawk, you’re going to have to learn how to party like you’re from New Yawk.”) She’s diagnosed me as havingat leasta mild form of agoraphobia, loosely defined as the fear of public spaces and crowds. For once, she might not be far from the truth.
That, coupled with my mom always wanting to know my whereabouts, makes me a not-so-frequent attendee of house parties.
Now, though, Zach introduces me to a few of his friends and then we find ourselves a spot underneath a peeling tree in the yard and lose track of everyone else.
We’re playing One-Up, a game that Kevin, of all people, taught Zach. It’s actually pretty similar to Bigger and Better. You say one thing that scares you, and the other person one-ups you until you can’t think of anything worse. Our first topic is fears.
“Drowning,” I say.
“The dark,” Zach counters.
“Thedark?” I repeat, incredulous.
“Not, like, scared-to-turn-out-the-lights dark,” Zach laughs. “I mean, like,abject darkness.The kind of dark that can swallow something whole. I honestly can’t think of anything worse.”
“Good thing it’smyturn. Hmmm. How to top that? Let me think of something truly scary. Oh, I know!” I say, flicking something off his jeans. “Lint. It’s so terrifying. And, like, fluffy.”
“Fine. Laugh it up,” he says, rolling his eyes. “But I guarantee you that you’d freak out if you could onlyfathomthe kind of darkness in my mind.”
“Okay, this is getting creepy, Zach.”
He laughs. “I’ll put it in a movie someday andthenyou’ll understand.”
Zach suddenly stiffens, his face rigid.
“Shit,” he murmurs under his breath.
“What’s wrong?” I whirl around, following the direction of his eyes. They’re right on Katy, who is leaning over the edge of the pool, still in it, and talking to a girl in a short black summer dress. As we watch, Katy talks animatedly and then gives a little squeal, putting her hands up. The girl, whose hair is midnight black with a big red flower in it, bends down to give Katy a hug.
I’ve seen her before, at one of their community-theater events.
The girl laughs now and steps back, the front of her dress wet from Katy’s hug.
“Do you want to go?” Zach asks very quietly. The girl is moving across the lawn now, toward a group of girls lying on towels on a patch of grass. And they squeal and hug her when she reaches them. One of them pats the flower in her hair.
“Sure,” I say with feigned lightness as we both get up and dust our clothes off. “I’m going to quickly say bye to Katy,okay?”
Zach nods, still distracted, but he’s no longer watching the girl. He’s staring down at his sneakers.
When we leave the party a couple of minutes later, Zach is holding my hand, leading the way so we don’t lose each other. We both say hi to a few people we know as we pass—Zach to people who go to his high school, me to people who go to mine. Mostly band people.
I glance one last time over my shoulder, trying to make out the red flower in the dimming light. I find it in almost exactly the same spot I saw it last, and I notice that she’s a hand-talker. Her hands wave animatedly as she recounts a story to her friends, which has one of them grabbing at her sides and doubling over.
Whatever lightness or end-of-summer giddiness I entered this party with has dissipated.
