The Party

The Party1

I wish I hadn’t gone to the party.  If I hadn’t, then maybe I could have kept the illusion up.  2

“Where the f*** are you?!  I was out there and you weren’t!  I waited for like fifteen minutes and finally went down to f***ing Ventura!”3

“I didn’t know you wanted me to wait outside.” I said softly.  S***, I had screwed up again.  Record third time in one day.  The first two times had occurred with Mom.  My room had been a pigsty (ordinarily this wouldn’t have been labeled a screw up, but when Mom going through a breakup with her boyfriend and throws a fit, it counts) and I wasn’t responsible enough to tell her where the party was and to print out directions and tell her when I wanted to leave to get there.  4

“What, you assumed that I would come to the door and pick you up like Mom?  Why the f*** weren’t you answering your cell?”5

“I didn’t have my purse with me.”6

“Why didn’t you have your purse with you?”7

“Cause it was put in a different room.”8

“God damn it, Shelli, when are you going to learn how to be responsible!”9

“I’m sorry.”10

“Look, get outside right now and I’ll come up and pick you up.”11

“I’m really sorry, Steph.”12

“Yeah, whatever.”13

I hung up the old-fashioned fire engine red phone and walked through the hallway.  I passed the craps table, roulette wheel, the Blackjack, and Texas Hold ‘Em tables as I snatched my jacket and purse from a room on the opposite side of the house.  I thought it would be fun, a casino-themed party the night before confirmation at my table.  If I could have laughed at myself without people staring, I would have.14

I walked outside and waited in the warm night air on the curb as Steph pulled up, Incubus blasting.15

“I’m really disappointed in you, Shelli,” she lectured as she sped off down the hill.  “I pick you up early because you’re not having fun, and you just slap the favor in my face.  You’re lucky I didn’t just leave you and have you try and find a way home by yourself!  You’re helping me buy dinner.”16

I knew she wouldn’t have really left me to fend for myself, but contradicting her would start a fresh wave of anger.  “Fine.”  Dinner could be anything from In-n-Out to California Pizza Kitchen.  Maybe I should pay for the whole thing, just to try and calm her down and maybe make up for this.17

“You do this all the time, you know.  That’s why Mom is always mad at you because you aren’t on top of things.  You don’t think about anyone but yourself.  You don’t answer your cell and you don’t bother to contact me at all!”18

I don’t mention that I had contacted her after twenty minutes, which would have set her off even more.  I probably should have called her after ten minutes, but I was winning at the Roulette table, and who has ever won at the Roulette table?  I realized that I was thinking selfishly.  Damn it, why did she have to right?  I felt tears sting my eyes and blinked them away, not wanting to mess-up my mascara.  “My cell’s broken.”19

“Then you should have gone to Mom and asked her if you could go to Verizon to fix it!  You should have said ‘hey mom, my cell phone’s broken and Stephany has no way to contact me.’  Jesus, Shelli!”20

“I’m really sorry.”21

“You say that all the time!  God, you’re not crying, are you?”22

I sniffed.23

“Well, maybe I should have told you to wait outside.”24

“No, I should have told you to pick me up.  It’s my fault.  God, I’m a horrible person.”25

“You’re right.” She said flatly.26

I almost snorted.  That made me feel so much better.27

“So how was the party?”28

What did she think?  I had asked her to pick me up at eight-thirty when the party ended at ten?  “It sucked.”29

“Why?  Weren’t all of your friends there?”30

I tilted my head back as I answered her question mentally.  Hannah didn’t come because of her choir concert and Madeleine had bailed out on me.  Samantha didn't come and even if she had she wouldn’t have been much company.  She took anti-social to the next level.  That was why I wasn’t really that friendly with her, but she hung around Hannah, so I had to talk to her sometimes.  I wished Madeleine had been there.  She would have been fun.  I could picture her flittering from one table to the other, betting on the same squares I did and losing and laughing about it.  Hannah would have been great, glum when she lost and jumping around and hugging me when she won.  “No.” I answered.31

“Did you talk to other people?”32

I had tried.  I tried to talk to another girl I was acquainted with, Sara, but got out of the conversation when she took me and another girl she was with, a different Samantha, to the back room where our purses were and showed us the vodka she had hidden in her purse.  I found out she smoked two weeks ago when I found her playing with her lighter in the classroom.  I tried to brush it off; lots of people smoked.  It got a little uncomfortable when she asked me if I smoked, and I said no and told her and the group of people we were with that cigarettes made me feel nauseous.  I had always told myself that I wouldn’t be one of those people that followed to crowd to fit in, but if they had ever told me how awkward and lonely it made you feel, I considered tossing common sense out the window.  Sara had laughed it off, though, and said that I probably would never smoke.  I hadn’t known whether to be insulted or complimented.33

But the vodka had been kind of the hint that maybe I wasn’t fitting in their little group.  I had left Sara and the other Samantha to play Texas Hold ‘Em and they hadn’t even blinked. 34

“Didn’t you have friends there?” Steph asked, dragging me out of my thoughts.35

“No.”36

“There was your whole confirmation class there.  That’s what, thirty people?-and you didn’t know anyone?  Didn’t you try to socialize?”37

Yes.  But I couldn’t get past the standard question of ‘did you win anything?’  It’s hard for me to talk to people.  I never have anything to talk about, unlike normal kids.  I felt tears run down my cheek and whispered a swear word in Japanese.  I hate it when I cry.38

“Just don’t talk to me.” I wiped at my tears and turned away from her to look out the window at the restaurants passing by.  We had driven onto Ventura.39

Turned out Steph had wanted take-out at California Wok, the healthy Chinese food restaurant.  We parked in the parking lot and went inside.  She ordered a half order of Chow Mein, $7.85.  I decided to myself that when I got the money, I would pay for all of it.  I wanted to make up about leaving her outside in the car for almost a half hour.40

“When is the Chow Mein going to be ready?” Steph asked the Asian cashier.41

“Five minutes.” 42

We sat down at a nearby table to wait.  43

“Don’t you have any friends in confirmation?” Steph asked me.44

God damn it, why did she have to keep bringing it up?  “I do.  They weren’t there.  I was acquainted with another girl, but I found out that she had vodka in her purse and then ten minutes into the party she went outside with a boy.”  I let her speculate on that.45

“Didn’t you try to talk to other people?” she repeated her earlier question.46

Was she purposely asking these questions to make me feel more like a loser?  “I did.  It didn’t work.  Leave me alone.”  I sniffed.  Damn it, I was crying again, and the Hispanic mom at the table across from us was gazing at me curiously.  Her kids were outright staring with their mouths open a little bit so I could see the partly chewed Chinese food in their mouths.  47

“Didn’t you do something?” Steph pressed me.48

“I had some sushi and sandwiches!  I also won at roulette, all right?  I had a good time playing roulette!” I couldn’t take the kids’ stares anymore.  “I’m going outside.”  I got up from the table and went outside, leaning against the iron railing and inhaling the sweet scent of bushes of jasmine.  I love the smell of jasmine.49

Steph came out a minute later, carrying the Chow Mein in a plastic “Thank You” bag.  I could smell it.  50

“Let’s go,” she said to me, and we walked to the car and didn’t speak for the remainder of the ride.  I sighed.  I thought back to several of my favorite anime series and how the characters I had always liked were the silent, anti-social ones.  My therapist told me that maybe I had identified with these characters because they had some of the same characteristics I did, and I had laughed it off.  My thoughts went back to the confirmation party and now I wondered if she had been right all along.  And how I could try to fix that.51