Carter
“Oh glorious day,” Bodhi says as we pull up to the curb in front of a large yellow house. “I can’t believe we’re gonna get
to go to this. Amir says the parties here are epic. That’s what he heard, I mean. He’s never been. You have, though.”
“Seriously?” I say. “I’ve been to a party here?”
“Well. Maybe,” Bodhi says. “I, um, don’t know for sure. Probably not, actually. I think I’m thinking of someone else.”
“Hmm, all right. Because that wasn’t shady or anything.”
“No, I just—I got confused. Let’s go, they’re probably waiting for us!” Bodhi throws open his door and bounds out of the car.
I get out too and meet him at the trunk, pop it open.
“Just look at those beauties,” Bodhi says, staring at the two kegs we just picked up from Vespucci Liquors, gleaming even
under a rapidly darkening sky.
“Hi!” a voice calls. There’s a girl standing on the front porch, pretty and solid, with long black hair and glittery eye shadow,
wearing a light blue sweater. She looks vaguely familiar, but I’m not sure why. “You need help bringing those in? You’re Amir’s
people, righ— Oh, come on.” The girl suddenly drops the facade of politeness. “Bodhi? You’re the hookup?”
“Uh, well, yeah. I mean, me and . . .” He points to me. “Shana, this is my friend Carter.”
Shana puts her face in her hands and sighs. “Good to meet you, Carter,” she says with a forced smile, like she’s reading the lines of a play she doesn’t want to be in. “Bodhi, would you mind coming over here to speak to me? Privately?”
“What’s going on right now?” I ask.
“Nothing, nothing, don’t worry about it,” Bodhi says, gently closing the trunk before hard-patting my shoulder like he’s smacking
a mosquito to death. “I got this, baby.”
As he walks across the front lawn to Shana, I’m suddenly able to place her: She’s Lindsey’s friend. I mean, Maggie’s friend. After I randomly waved at the runner girl earlier in the week, I decided to consult the yearbook. Her actual name
is Maggie Spear. Shana is the one Maggie’s always walking with in the hallway.
And I’m willing to bet that whatever Shana is ripping into Bodhi about right now, it involves Maggie. I wish I could hear
what they’re saying. Shana’s doing most of the talking—big, dramatic gestures accompanied by a sharp, hushed whisper that
keeps me from hearing any of the words. She sounds more like a sprinkler system than a person.
“I didn’t!” Bodhi says. “I really didn’t!”
She does some more aggressive whispering, and Bodhi responds, his voice quieter but still loud enough to understand.
“Well, if we go, the kegs go too.”
More whisper attacks.
And then Bodhi is nodding. “I know. Of course. Of course. It won’t be a problem, dude, I promise.”
Shana says a few more things and points to him and makes the universal gesture for slit throat across her own neck before
stomping inside and slamming the front door shut behind her.
Bodhi trots back across the lawn like a happy puppy, as if he hasn’t just spent 180 seconds in a super intense conversation that ended with his life being threatened. “Okay, we can roll the kegs around the house to the backyard and then—”
“What was that about?”
“Huh?” Bodhi asks. “Oh, you mean the—with her over there? Nothing big, she just, uh, didn’t want us at the party because . . .
we’re not seniors. But I convinced her it’s okay. So we’re good!”
“That’s seriously the reason she flipped out at you? Because we’re not seniors?”
“Well,” Bodhi says, clearly thinking really hard even though he’s trying to make it seem like he’s not, “yeah. Ageism is rampant,
I guess. Pretty messed up when you think about it.”
“This is about Maggie, isn’t it?” I ask. “Maggie Spear?”
Bodhi coughs twice. “Muggy? Who’s Muggy?”
It’s so obvious he’s lying I want to laugh in his face.
“Really,” Bodhi says. “Muggy Sphere? Who is that?”
“Dude, come on! Maggie. Spear. The cross-country girl who was in that photo I took. The one I waved to earlier this week. You thought her name was Lindsey?”
“Ohhhh,” Bodhi says. “That Maggie. I thought you said Muggy Sphere.”
“Yeah, okay. So obviously I have some history with this girl or something, and— Is she gonna be at the party? Is that the
problem?”
Bodhi’s eyes go wide for a split second. Then he regains his composure and his mask of skepticism. “Bruh, how the hell should
I know if Maggie Steer—”
“Spear.”
“If Maggie Sphere is gonna be at this party? Yes, I vaguely knew that was her in the picture because I know who people are at our school. Because I’m on yearbook.
So it’s my job to identify fellow students, get it?
But it’s not my job to track my classmates in their social life to parties and shit—”
“I know it’s not your job to track people! I’m just asking if that’s what Shana was over there hissing at you about. Should
I not be here or something?”
“Well, yes, because you’re a soph—”
“Right, right, because I’m a sophomore. Okay. Fine. Should we take these kegs to the backyard?”
“Definitely,” Bodhi says.
I open the trunk back up.
“Oh, last thing.” Bodhi puts an arm around my shoulders. “Shana doesn’t want us staying here before the party officially starts.”
“Doesn’t it start in, like, twenty minutes?”
“Something like that. But she thinks, like . . . if we’re there when people first arrive, they’ll see we’re not seniors and think it’s not a cool party and leave. I respect that.”
“You mean if we’re here when Maggie arrives, she’ll see me and—”
“Look, it’s not my rule!” Bodhi shouts. “It’s Shana’s! And it’s her house! So the alternative is skipping the party, which
I know you wouldn’t want.”
“I mean, honestly, I’d be fine to not go to this.”
“WE HAVE TO GO!” Bodhi’s hands clutch his baseball-capped head in a panic. “We’ve worked so hard to get here, and I am not
giving this up! And you aren’t either!”
“Okay, okay,” I say. “Calm down.” I nod at a guy across the street who’s glaring at us from his mailbox.
He death-stares a second longer before grabbing his mail and walking up his driveway.
“So we’ll drop off these kegs and go hang out somewhere else for a while.
It’s all right. Everything’s totally all right. ”
Bodhi takes a few deep breaths with his eyes closed before giving me a hug. “Thanks, man. This party really means a lot to
me.”
“Yeah. I’m getting that.”
We work together to heave the kegs out of the trunk one at a time and roll them on their side into Shana’s backyard.
They’re incredibly heavy.