Page 117 of Down Bad

“Stop squirmin’ out of my brilliant idea and call them up. Billy and Tanner. Mindy and Joel. Oh, Lance! Lance is such a hoot. We don’t gotta go all out. I’ll run to the store and get some snacks, and you can call them up and get them here! I only got so many days in town, Wy-Wy, let’s not let them go to waste!”

“Connie …”

She storms past me in a happy rush, the keys to her rental in hand. “I’ll be back! An hour oughta be enough time. Get them here in an hour. It’s all you gotta do. I won’t even task you with making that killer guacamole you know I love.” The door opens, the door shuts, and a ringing silence fills the air until I hear her car engine.

Just throw a bucket on me already and let me melt.

An hour later, I’m reminded of my sister’s definition of “we don’t gotta go all out”: my table is filled with a buffet of chicken wings, chips, six dips, three bowls of candy, flavored popcorn, and a cheeseboard full of toothpick-stabbed blocks of mozzarella, ham, and four different types of crackers. Lining the counter are bottles of wine, including three brands of sparkling rosé.

I only call up Lance, Tanner (because Billy didn’t pick up), and Joel (because Mindy didn’t pick up), figuring a few regulars will be enough to satisfy my sister’s thirst for the social spotlight.

Yet somehow, Malcolm and Samuel also get roped in, I guess due to Tanner saying something when Malcolm was at the house waiting to talk to his boss Nadine.

Then Bridger and Anthony hear about it through Samuel, who had called to give Anthony an update about a dog or something. Then Cole and Noah hear about it through Malcolm, who already thought the two were invited. They accept Malcolm’s invitation to come despite turning me down the last three times I invited them, always something to do with paper deadlines.

Ethan shows up, too, looking wounded that I didn’t invite him initially (honest oversight), but forgets it the next second when Mindy and Joel arrive with a carrot cake. “Can’t guarantee one of my monsters didn’t stick a finger in the frosting,” groans Mindy, setting it down on the counter. Anthony’s already helping himself to a piece, wearing a t-shirt with his family’s pest control company logo on it. “But at least they’re Carrie’s problem tonight.”

Carrie is Joel’s mom. And I don’t envy her looking after their two monsters. But she’s probably used to it.

The movie never gets started, because my dear sister decides to turn movie night into game night. First up: charades. “Oh, you bet we’re splitting into teams! You and you, with you and you. And all you boys just—Hey, don’t give me that look!—just sit together on the couch. Ethan, darling, go with them. Mindy, no, you’re not gonna wriggle outta this one, I’m gettin’ you back for last time!”

Last time was literally years ago. My sister recalls the sting of defeat like it was Tuesday.

Soon, my living room is exploding with laughter as Connie attempts to act out a walrus, and every single guess of Hoyt’s and Harrison’s gets worse. (Wait, when did those two show up? Hoyt is in his Fitness Zone work polo—looking fit in it too—with his all-smiles-and-muscles boyfriend Harrison next to him, arm around his back, the stitches in his stretched tank top clinging on for dear life. The two are former football players, like Tanner. Did they get the invite from him?) Anthony is keeling over laughing, grasping onto his stoic military vet fiancé Bridger, who just shakes his head and strokes his five o’clock shadow coming in. Lance’s boyfriend Chad is up next, his clue is Homer Simpson, and I don’t even know what he’s doing, but it has Lance and Billy crying, giving up on the game completely, as Connie rapid fires her guesses like a million dollar prize is on the line. She’s wrong every time.

When the game sort of falls apart and no one really cares who won, Connie launches into story hour after Lance asks what in the hell happened to her not-so-fabulous fiancé. Being the shiny new gem of the hour, she tells the whole story to her captive audience of literally everyone, which leaves me crunched up on the end of the couch praying she’s not boring everyone to tears.

But a survey of the faces of my friends says otherwise. They’re all completely engrossed in her story. Even the often-aloof Ethan, curled into his favorite armchair that used to be my dad’s favorite, is glued to my sister’s every word. Mindy, too, who sips her third glass of rosé and can’t seem to wipe the look off her face of “wow, your fiancé was a total jerk”.

“Yep,” Connie concludes, “almost conned into a marriage by a man whose last name was literally Conner. But y’know what? That is what we must learn in life the hard way. Real love ain’t easy, and if the guy you’re into smiles too much, sock him in the teeth ‘fore he builds a second life with his big-tittied secretary.”

It isn’t that funny a punchline, but everyone in the room goes into a round of applause and laughter. Then Lance says something about his ex back in California, Mindy mentions a guy she used to crush on named Steven Baker who cheated left and right, and the room shatters into twenty conversations of lifelong wounds and lessons learned in love.

Under usual circumstances, this is a nightmare.

But for some reason, tonight isn’t.

In fact, I’m having fun. My sister is a surprise blessing, despite her hunger for the spotlight at all hours. Everyone else is having a great time, too. Even Joel, still convinced Lance despises him. Even glasses-wearing, shrinking-into-the-corner-of-every-room Noah, always overwhelmed at crowded social things, is a totally different person tonight, and I’m not even sure I can attribute all the credit to his calming, annoyingly-handsome, extrovert companion Cole.

At one point, Connie starts telling some embarrassing story of something I did when we were kids, and I don’t even mind. I’m even adding to the story, not letting her forget when she rescued me from the evil kids at the playground, I did in fact lose my pants at the jungle gym and never got them back. She’s on the floor howling out, “How could I forget that?!” I sure didn’t.

She asks Malcolm about “cutie patootie” quick-footed soccer-boy Bobby Parker, whose parents Patty and Dale live nearby, and somehow entirely forgot that he and Jimmy got married. “Goes to show how fast you fall out of the loop when you don’t live here no more,” she says. “Next time you see them, tell them I’m owed a hug, both of ‘em, because not coming to this party on account of running a big ol’ gym complex and Saturday’s your busiest night just ain’t an excuse that’s gonna fly with Connie Callahan.”

I go to the kitchen to refill Bridger’s wine and look up when I hear the clanking of metal. For half a heartbeat, I think it’s Diego outside working on the car. But through the window, all I see is the dark house next door, no one outside, no Diego standing at his window glaring at me, just nothing.

Nothing is so much worse than a glare.

I prefer the glare.

Prefer him out there with his nose buried in his dad’s car, fetching his own wrenches from the toolbox I got him instead of tolerating me by his side as I pretend to hand him the right ones.

Should I bring a plate over again like I did that one time?

Or did I go too far yesterday and ruin everything we’ve built?

I let it go, not wanting to rip open my morning’s panic all over again, and help myself to another cracker with a block of cheese before heading back with the wine.

It’s while discussing whether everyone thinks TJ plans to go back to school for the fall semester or stay on tour with his hunky rock star boyfriend (the room is heated and divided in half with Anthony leading one side and Cole the other) that Lance has me pulled aside with his third rum and coke in hand to ask, “Tell me what’s going on with that beau next deau.”