Maggie
“Come,” Shana says, pulling me by the arm, “we need to check on the snack table.”
“Do we, though?”
We’re an hour into the party, and the bass is bumping, and the beer is sloshing, and the rooms are filling up, and it’s seeming
like it’s going to be even more insane than the October one.
But Shana’s being a weirdo. She’s all jumpy and anxious—this is the fourth random task she’s brought me along for out of nowhere.
“Mags, let’s go see who just walked in.” “Should we make a new playlist?” “Oh shoot, come with me. Need to make sure the bathroom
is clean.”
I’m sorry, but mid-party toilet tidying is not something we’ve ever done before, nor do I think it’s necessary. If you’re
looking for an immaculate bathroom, maybe don’t go to a high school house party.
“Yup,” I say once we’ve arrived at the snack table. “They’re still snacks.”
“Yeah, but—” Shana puts down her red Solo cup so she can slightly re-angle the bowl of tortilla chips, shift over the salsa
a few millimeters, and grab a paper towel from the kitchen to wipe clean some smudges and crumbs before adjusting the gigantic
basket of now-cold mozzarella sticks.
“Are you okay?” I ask, taking a sip of gross-tasting beer from my cup.
“Yeah, why?” She swaps the positions of the chips and salsa.
“Because you seem to have lost your mind. Why do we keep bouncing from room to room like lunatics? These snacks do not need
us. Are you even having fun?”
“Me?” Shana asks, finally looking up from her frenzy of reorganization. “Of course! Do I not seem like it? Woooo!! Party time!!”
Shana throws her arms in the air and accidentally knocks the entire basket of mozzarella sticks to the ground. “Dammit.”
“Is one of your exes here or something?” I ask as we kneel on the ground, picking up gelatinous sticks of breaded cheese.
“Bella? Meagan? Phineas? You can tell me.”
“No, no, none of my exes are here. Especially not Phineas. Blech. I just want things to look good. That’s all.”
I’m considering the slight emphasis she placed on the word my when there’s a roar of laughter and hooting from behind us in the family room, the very room we left minutes ago. I step toward
the noise like a moth to flame, and as Shana shouts, “No, Mags! Wait!” the puzzle pieces slide into place—she hasn’t needed
my help, she needs me to switch locations, like I’m one of the bowls on that goddamn snack table—until, with a horrifying
click, I understand exactly who it is I’m going to see inside this impromptu ring of chanting, cheering, intoxicated peers.
Not Shana’s ex.
My ex.
There’s Carter, doing the worm in the middle of the room, undulating his body across the Demirs’ family room rug as everyone
shouts his name and says he’s funny as hell. His routine doesn’t end there, transitioning into some kind of handstand thing,
where he kicks his legs into the air like a donkey, followed by a roll onto his back, crunching his legs in and trying to
spin around like a turtle.
I’ve seen him do moves like these before, back when I found them hilarious and charming, but now I just find them gross.
Carter’s eating up every bit of attention, and he’s obviously drunk, which I hate, and of course twerpy Bodhi is here too, leading the cheer squad along with those hyenas Amir and Robbie and WHY ARE THEY AT THIS PARTY?
“I’m sorry, Mags,” Shana says, appearing at my shoulder. “I’m so sorry. He’s not supposed to be here.”
“So you thought you’d just keep migrating me through the party all night every time he got close?”
“I didn’t know what else to do!”
“Why is he even here?”
“Well,” Shana says, her face tightening like she’s preparing for me to scream at her, “it turns out Carter was our beer hookup.”
“WHAT?”
“I didn’t know! Really! This guy Amir was the hookup—he found me by my locker and said he heard I needed kegs and that he
could take care of it, and I said, ‘Sweet,’ and that was it. But it turns out he was working with Carter!”
“Why are you surprised by this? We’ve seen Amir and Carter together multiple times in the past two weeks!”
“We have?”
“Yes!”
“That’s interesting.” Shana brushes a hand through her hair, what she always does when she’s nervous. “I guess whenever we
see Carter, I’m too focused on getting you to a new location to actually notice who he’s with.”
The crowd flips out as Carter starts twerking. Good god.
“This is my guy!” football captain Chris Colasurdo shouts.
“This is bad,” Shana says. “And I apologize. I’m gonna have to murder Bodhi. I told him he was only allowed to be here if he made sure Carter was never in the same room as you.”
“How is that even remotely realistic? This house doesn’t have enough rooms.”
“I know! But we really needed the kegs. Want me to tell Carter to leave? I will. I’ll tell him he has to leave.”
“No, no,” I say, my fiery indignation simmering down into resignation. “If you tell him to leave, it just makes a big thing
of it, and everyone will wonder what happened, and he’ll wonder what happened, and it’s not worth it. I’ll go.”
“You can’t go!” Shana says. “I need you here!”
“Shana.” I take her hand. “You’re such a good friend. And I appreciate the anxiety spiral you’ve sent yourself down to protect
me. But this isn’t your fault.”
“It sort of is.”
Now Carter is bringing other people into the dance circle, doing a flirty tango thing with Tatiana Robinson that I wish I
could unsee.
“It sort of is, yes, but my point is I love you, and we’re both going to have more fun if I get the hell out of—”
“Paging Dr. Demir,” a voice interrupts from behind us. “Paging Dr. Spear. You’re both needed in the emergency room, stat.”
There’s only one person who would greet us in such a bizarre way.
“Marigold!” Shana shouts, giving our old friend a huge hug.
I definitely wouldn’t have recognized her based on appearance—her shoulder-length light brown hair is gone, replaced by a closely shaven scalp with a light blue faux-hawk spiking up from the top.
It’s kind of insane but also feels more her than any of her previous looks.
“What’s up, kiddo?” Marigold says. She turns from Shana and wraps me in a hug. “Oh, my sweet Maggot, how have you been?”
“I’m okay,” I say. “Still hate that nickname.”
“Sorry about that.” She leans in closer to whisper into my ear. “But I come bearing a gift.”
I notice the tall, very attractive guy standing behind Marigold on the threshold of the kitchen. In all the Carter chaos,
I completely forgot about the setup guy.
But, seeing as I must leave the premises, this timing is not ideal.
“Shana, Maggie,” Marigold says, raising her voice to be heard over the music and the still-ongoing dance circle, “this is
my compatriot, Chord Ramirez. He is a stellar human being.”
“Hey,” he says, leaning in to shake our hands, which is when I realize that, besides being superhot and a few inches taller
than me and dressed in a fuchsia button-down shirt made of a fabric so nice that it shimmers, Chord also smells very good.
Like a very manly tea.
“Hi,” I say. Behind him, Shana nods at me with her eyebrows way up, like, Wow, yes, you need to make out with this guy. Stat!
“Wild party, huh?” Chord asks with a dash of irony, gesturing over to the crowd now jumping up and down to the music, randomly
chucking a big couch pillow back and forth in the air like a beach ball.
“That’s one word for it,” I say.
“I haven’t been to a high school rager in so long,” Marigold says. “They’re so cute!”
“Condescending much?” Shana asks.
“No, I really mean it! Look at them bouncing around over there like adorable schoolchildren.”
“Maggie, right?” Chord says, giving my arm a gentle touch just below the shoulder that sends a small chill ricocheting down
my vertebrae.
“Yes,” I say. “Me Maggie.”
“Would you mind showing me where the beverages are at?”
This is too much. Yes, Chord is a good-looking man-boy with a thin layer of stubble that I would be intrigued to run my hand
over, but Carter is fifteen feet away and drunk in the other room, and none of this feels right. “Actually, I’m about to head—”
Shana’s eyes go wide as she mouths a silent WHAT?
I see her point.
I don’t know if I’ve ever stood next to a guy as put-together as Chord, let alone kissed one.
“To the place where the beverages are!” I say, finishing the sentence with way too much gusto. “As I, too, am in need of another.”
I take a few giant gulps from my beer. It is a mild torture that ends with me coughing for fifteen seconds after some of the
beer goes down the wrong pipe.
“You all right?” Chord asks with genuine concern.
“I am,” I say once I can speak again. “I am all right, Chord Ramirez.”
I lead him through the kitchen to the back door. As we step outside onto the patio where the kegs are, there’s a loud thud
from the family room behind us. This is followed by a chorus of Oh!
“Well, that didn’t sound good,” Chord says.
“No, sir,” I say, handing him a red Solo cup and trying to pretend we’re on a small island far away from everything and everyone
happening inside Shana’s house. “It most certainly did not.”