As Cool As I Am, page 19
“Where the hell is this party?” I asked. “Lewistown?”
“We’re the party! Right, Tim? Wherever we go.” Justin was going so fast he couldn’t take his eyes off the road for more than a blink, but he did then, his smile glinting in what light there was. He reached his arm out and rubbed my bristly head.
I knocked it away. “Don’t do that!”
They both went quiet.
“It’s something my dad does,” I said, not wanting anything to slow down. “Rubs my head for luck. I can’t stand it.”
Eyes back on the road, Justin said, “Definitely don’t want anybody thinking about their dad here, do we, Tim?”
Tim didn’t answer, just held his hand out with the bottle.
We didn’t get even close to Lewistown. At the Belt turnoff, Justin stood on the brakes, about putting me through the windshield. Even in the cold, with the windows all rolled up, the car filled with the sharp reek of burned rubber. Then Justin swung down the cut leading into town, slapping me up against the side window. The tires did all they could, but we slid on the tight curves, more squealing.
“Justin,” I said, and we shot underneath the one-lane stone railroad bridge, no way of knowing if anybody was coming at us or not.
Then down the main street, one block long, slinging through the turn, over the Belt Creek bridge and out, back to the highway. Don’t think we went under fifty the whole time, except maybe on some of the turns.
We’d been out maybe fifteen minutes, and I was breathing like I’d run the whole way. If one person had stepped in front of us or a car had shown up driving normal. I held my hand out for the bottle. “I think you’ve had enough of this,” I said to Justin, wondering if I should drink it all to keep him from getting any more.
“More is better!” Justin yelled, laughing like it was the world’s greatest line.
He drove even faster on the way back to the falls, and when the schnapps was gone, he handed the bottle back to Tim and lowered my window, shouting, “Fire in the hole!” Tim leaned over me from the backseat, smashing me flat, the wind biting wherever he wasn’t covering me. He whipped the bottle out at some sign I couldn’t see, and Justin shouted, “He shoots! He scores!”
I couldn’t see any of it.
Tim kept yahooing, pumping his fist. I had to shove him off of me. “Jesus,” I gasped. “Why don’t you just crawl up here and sit in my lap?”
Tim started to. Justin shoved him back. They were both laughing like crazy, and I could have sworn Tim gave my shoulder a squeeze. At the edge of town, Justin did his brake-standing stunt again, the car filling with that awful stench.
“Is there really a party tonight?” I asked.
“Yeah. Roehmer’s.”
Roehmer, whoever the hell he was, or she, wasn’t that far from my house. Six blocks, maybe. Seven. When we pulled in, it was already in full swing, the other football players already there, not having taken time off to shoot through the Belt run.
Tim and Justin were in such a hurry to get in that I had to hop not to get left behind, not to have to come in alone like I had with Kenny. But at the door, they hung back, waiting, and when I stepped up, Justin threw his arm over my shoulder, hugging me to him so we could squeeze through the door together. Tim, trying to get in at the same time, got popped through ahead of us. He turned and shrugged an “Oops,” but it seemed he was looking at me, mostly, apologizing or regretting something that had happened.
I tried to step out from under Justin’s arm, but he stepped with me, jostling me back and forth. “You’re a quick one,” he said. Then he pulled me around to face the girls. Jaimie Tilton and her gang. Tim was already off to get beers. It was like they did the same thing, with the same people, every week.
“Jaimie, baby,” Justin called. “You know Lucy. And Luce, this is Britt, and-”
“We know who she is,” Jaimie said. “Kind of hard to miss with that hair. Justin, baby.”
They turned and left as one, nearly dumping Tim’s beer as he swerved out of their way. “What happened to them?” he asked.
“I did,” I said. I wasn’t proud, exactly, but it was kind of cool, discovering there was something in me, some dangerous superpower. Like there was something to that Supergirl shirt I slept in every night. Diamond Girl.
Tim lifted his beer cup. “To the face!” he shouted.
Justin downed his automatically. I followed suit, not automatically, but because I could feel the eyes on me. Everyone’s. As I tilted my cup farther back, squinting when the beer stung my throat, I saw the girls all lined up together, glaring at me. I wished I’d had time to get dressed for this. One of Mom’s drop-dead outfits. Not my skanky old sweatshirt.
Justin tipped his head forward, his cup empty. Sucking in some air, he smashed his empty cup against his forehead.
That, for some reason, struck me as the funniest, stupidest thing I’d ever seen. Somebody busting a flimsy plastic cup against his head to show how tough he was. I burst out laughing. Justin turned to look. The girls were on me like stink.
I reached a hand up behind Justin’s head and pulled his face down to mine. I tongued his tonsils. There was beer dripping off his forehead. It got in my eye, burning. I couldn’t stop laughing. I had to break it off.
“Whooee!” I cried.
“ ‘Whooee’ is right,” Justin said. His arm went back around my shoulders. He wasn’t letting me go anywhere.
Tim stood before us, looking as dumbstruck as the girls. I grinned at him. “To the face!”
“Right,” he said, and held his hand out for my cup.
Justin and I walked around some, Justin yucking it up with his buddies now and then. He didn’t introduce me to anyone after Jaimie, and I wondered how long ago they’d been together—or if they still were—if I was going to end up with a knife in my back. He kept his arm around my neck, hugging me in tight every few minutes, as if to make sure I was still there, that I hadn’t slipped away while he attended to his social duties.
Tim found us with another round, and they yelled, “To the face!” at the same time.
The third round I got it out first, and they smiled in surprise. They lifted their cups, saying “To the face” without shouting it, welcoming me into their camp.
We threw back our beers. My stomach churned with it, but I smashed the cup against the top of my head, feeling the cold trickles wind through the maze of my stubble.
Tim wandered away with the surviving cups, and I wondered how long this would go on. Could go on. I pictured Jaimie Tilton heaving me out the door this time. Her and her friends putting the boots to me out there in the cold. Kenny would be so proud.
I watched Tim go, thinking he was one of the nicest guys I’d ever met. For no particular reason. Just a good guy. Funny. But when I saw somebody start talking to him, I hoped he’d stay there all night instead of making it back with another round for the face.
Leaning against a doorway, I shook my head, trying to clear it. I rubbed at the beer in my hair. The Jaimie girls still glared at me from across the room, trying to shred me with their laser vision. Get me to burst into flames.
I looked around for Tim but couldn’t see him anywhere. Making sure Jaimie was watching, I stuck out my tongue and licked the rim of Justin’s ear. Over his shoulder, I mouthed, “Take a picture, it lasts longer,” and blew the girls a kiss.
Justin pushed me into the doorway. He bent down and started kissing me hard. Jaimie looked like she might cry or throw up. Maybe both.
Keeping one eye on her, I slid my hand down onto Justin’s ass, spread my fingers, and pulled him tight to me. Not that he needed any pulling. He was already trying to split me in half against the corner of the door jamb.
“Easy there, T. Rex,” I murmured. “You’re breaking my back.”
He eased up the tiniest bit. His hand was inside my coat, grabbing and kneading.
“Everybody’s watching us,” I said.
“Let her watch.”
“Her?”
“You know who I mean.”
“Well, hell,” I said. “Then let’s give her a show.”
I popped the top button of Justin’s pants before he’d quite heard what I said, shot the zipper down. He pushed against me, but not like before: this time just to keep himself from mooning the whole party. “Whoa, Lucy!”
“This isn’t what you wanted?” I reached like I was going to grab his thing.
“Let’s find someplace,” Justin breathed.
Jaimie ran from the room, her girls flocking after her.
I got my hand away from his pants. It was like this kind of joke.
“Lucy, um, let’s.” He pushed away from me, trying to hunch, to keep his letter jacket covering him while he rezipped. People were smiling. Justin propelled me down the hallway. I let him. I looked back, checking once for Tim, hoping he hadn’t seen any of this.
Justin found a bedroom. Pushed open a door and charged in. He was that kind of guy, that kind of luck falling all around him. If he needed a bedroom, believe me, there’d be one right there.
He drove me backward across the room until we hit a bed, me going down, smacking my head against the headboard. Hard enough I saw stars. Him on top of me.
“Goddamn,” I said.
Maybe he hadn’t rezipped. Maybe he’d been holding his pants together. Otherwise, I don’t know how he could have gotten them open again so quick. “And you said I was fast,” I tried, but he wasn’t up for much more in the way of jokes. He was all over me, all hands, all hot, beery breath, whisker scratches, all this weight driving me down.
“Easy there,” I said. “I still have my coat on.”
He started shoving my coat down off my shoulders. Got it around my elbows before it snagged, more straitjacket than coat. He tried again, but he would have had to start over at the cuffs. I mean, think of the time that would have taken.
Instead, he shoved my sweatshirt up. Unlike Kenny, he knew his way around women’s underwear. He had my bra open before I could wriggle the sweatshirt off my face.
And then. You’d think I was a cow. That he was after some speed- milking record.
“Justin,” I said.
“Man,” he breathed. “You’ve got the greatest tits.”
“Wow. Gee. Thanks.”
He never stopped. With his unoccupied hand, he lifted me up at the waist and peeled my jeans and panties down to my ankles in a single swipe. If they hadn’t been mine, it would have been a move to marvel over.
His tongue jammed down my throat at the same time his finger shoved into me. I tried to spit out the one and squirm away from the other. I started to bite down to let him know I was still there, that I was part of this, too.
He pulled back.
“For Christ’s sake,” I said. “I can’t even move my arms.”
He waited a second. For me to explain the problem, I guess.
“I mean, where’s the fire, Justin?” I tried to laugh, but my throat was burning, dry and tight. “My hands are going numb.”
He started pumping away with his finger again. I’d won ten seconds.
“That is pretty sexy,” I said, trying to close my legs, to reach down and stop his hand.
He shoved his finger as far as he could.
“Quit,” I said. “That hurts.”
He shifted his position. His weight. He was straddling me, but up above my legs, making me think I might have a chance.
“Justin,” I said.
“If you put this in your mouth, maybe you won’t have to talk so much.”
He was waving it at me. His magic wand.
“Put it in your own damn mouth,” I said. Brilliant.
“Suit yourself,” he answered.
He slipped down, getting his knees between mine, opening me up like a clam. Then he drove into me like there was something down there that had to be killed, stomped and beaten to death. Some terrific evil he was sworn to destroy. It was like falling under a pile driver.
I kept hearing that “Suit yourself.” Like I’d made some kind of choice.
I closed my eyes, tried to think of Kenny, of our supersonic death spin at the top of the jungle gym. The room spun. That was about as close as I could get. I had to open my eyes before I threw up.
Justin started this groaning moan, “Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh,” keeping time with his awful thrusting. I couldn’t help thinking of Dad. Mom.
Then Justin went all spastic, his hips jerking and quivering, shooting into me. I closed my eyes, listened to my molars grind.
He lay down on top of me. Squishing me. Like we might whisper things to each other now. Nice things.
Still pinned inside my coat, my elbows burned. My hands tingled, asleep. He lay there catching his breath. His hand went to my chest. I think if I’d had a sword, been able to cut off his whole arm, his hand still would have crawled toward my boobs.
“Wow,” I gasped. It sounded too real, too impressed, but I had to swallow to get it out. I swallowed again. “Don’t feel bad,” I said. “Nobody’s any good their first time.”
Justin gave a tiny, unbelieving laugh. “What?” he asked.
“I mean, it’s not like you’ll never get any better.”
He sat up with a grunt. A fuck-you, a laugh, I couldn’t tell which. “My first time tonight. Is that what you mean?”
“I don’t know where you’re going to get any seconds.”
He waved his arm, barely visible in the dark. The whole party, he meant, his whole world. At least he didn’t point at me.
He stood, pulling up his pants, gingerly tucking in his limp, wet thing.
Even before I saw that, I was afraid I was going to throw up. I’d been afraid ever since he’d been pile-driving into me, sloshing all that beer back and forth.
“Do you know where the bathroom is?” I asked, sitting up, wrestling my jacket up to my shoulders, flexing my fists, trying to get the blood back into them. “That was so romantic I have to puke.”
He cracked open the door and shrugged. I could see by the light seeping in behind him. He hesitated, then closed the door. The light winked out. I thought he was gone.
Then, out of the darkness, he said, “You tell anyone, I’ll kill you.” He was invisible after the moment of light. Dangerous.
“Tell on you? Fuck, Justin, you didn’t steal my homework.”
“Nobody’d believe you, anyway. They won’t even care. They-”
“One word to my dad, your life span’ll be measured in seconds.”
“Everybody saw you out there. They…”
I stared into the darkness, having at least that quaver of fear in his voice. “Really,” I said. “I have to puke. Do you know where-”
He opened the door, slipping back out into the sound and the light.
Seeing him in the light made the bile surge into my throat. I stood up fast, but my jeans were bunched around my ankles. My bra scratched in my armpits.
“You fucker,” I moaned, trying to pull up my pants, knowing I was going to throw up right then, before I had a chance of getting anywhere.
I did. Right beside the bed. It came out like I’d turned a spigot. All at once. Everything.
I straightened shakily, wondering if there was more to come, but knowing that I’d emptied myself. I pulled up my pants. Rehooked my bra beneath my sweatshirt.
Creeping to the door, making sure he’d shut it, I felt for a light switch. I’d have to try to clean this up as best I could.
The light blinded me at first. When I could see, I wished it had been permanent. There was a huge Spider-Man poster on the ceiling. A Buzz Lightyear bedspread, with Justin’s stain darkening Buzz’s white elbow.
My puke was puddled around a pair of slippers. Power Rangers.
That’s when I started to cry, which, with everything, was a total surprise, something I hadn’t beeji even close to before.
Where was this kid? Who were these people? What on earth was I doing here?
I flipped the light off and ran out the door into Tim.
He stopped me, holding me by the arm. “Hey, Luce. You okay?”
I shook my head. “Got a little too funny for my own good. Joke gone bad.”
“What?”
I looked up at him. “I got to go, Tim. Your friend Justin. He is a world-class prick.”
It seemed like maybe that wasn’t the first time he’d heard something along those lines.
“I don’t mean that in the good way,” I said, pulling my arm away from him.
“Wait, Lucy.”
I searched frantically for the door. “Who in the world lives here, Tim? Where are they?”
“I don’t know. Some sophomore. His parents are gone.”
I made it out the door, Tim still standing there, raising his voice, asking again if I was okay.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I tried to run home, but it was more of a stagger. Some stretches it was hard just staying on the sidewalk. I didn’t want to open my eyes, see anything around me. I switched to alleys after the first block, embarrassed by the streetlights.
I went in through our back door. No lights left on. Either Mom had forgotten, or she wasn’t home yet herself. All that emergency overtime.
I picked up the phone and, for the first time in years, had to fight to remember Kenny’s number. I didn’t know what time it was. Midnight, maybe. She didn’t sound asleep, though.
“Please,” I said right off. “Please let me talk to him.”
There was a long silence. A collecting of breath or patience. “He’s not here.”
“Please. I need to talk to him.”
“He’s not-”
“I really need to, Mrs. Crauder, you don’t-”
“Lucy, he’s not here.”
The way she said my name, like there was no reason to be my enemy anymore, I was all of a sudden crying all over the place. “Please let me talk to him. Please. Please.”
“I can’t.”
I screamed. No words, just a scream. Then, “God, you fucking bitch! Let me talk to him!”
She’d hung up. Maybe during the scream.
I still had my coat on, my shoes. I stormed out the door for Kenny’s.
Their front window was almost dark, the light shifting with the TV’s flash. I couldn’t fight my way through her. Instead, I walked to the back of the house, around Mrs. Bahnmiller’s black windows. I tried to picture the inside of the house, the kitchen. Kenny’s bedroom. I tapped at a window, whispered, “Kenny.” He’d told me he’d crawled through here before.
