Chapter Eighteen
Chapter
Eighteen
At most high schools, the most anticipated event of the year is prom.
A chance to get dressed up nice, to spend money on a fancy meal, to dance with the person you’ve had a crush on all semester, to let your inhibitions down, to cry in the parking lot, to make messy mistakes, to make memories that will last a lifetime.
Theater kids have cast parties.
And the closing night cast party for Pippin was going to be at Nina’s gargantuan apartment on the Upper West Side.
During their final performance that Sunday afternoon, word spread backstage that an unofficial rager would commence immediately after curtain call.
Nina’s dad, eternally under-parenting and overly in the Hamptons, was out of town, which meant her digs on West Eighty-Third would be the perfect playground for hyperdramatic kids looking to blow off steam.
Danny punched the numbers on one of the pay phones in the lobby, bracing for his mother’s almost certain rejection, but was surprised at how quickly she’d said yes once she’d learned that it was Nina who had invited him.
“Ten forty-five ferry home,” she’d said. “I’m not askin’, I’m tellin’.”
How many catastrophes began with a bottle of Zima?
Danny wondered. Car accidents, certainly, and lost wallets and drunk answering machine messages that could never be deleted, and definitely more headaches than there were windows in the Chrysler Building.
But Danny had no way of knowing just how much of his life would hinge on the inertia of a spinning bottle.
Danny sat cross-legged in Nina’s living room, staring down at the fingerprint-smudged glass, at its blue label and its long neck drawing an invisible line across the wood parquet floor.
“Ohhhhhh!” the cast of the fall musical moaned with glee.
Danny looked up from the bottle.
“Do it!” Malik whooped.
“Oh my God, but they’ve been playing mother and son!” Tiffany howled. “That’s disgusting-slash-hilarious!”
“C’mon!” Demetrius cheered.
“Do it! Do it! Do it! DO IT!”
Nina rose to her knees, then leaned forward, knocking the bottle aside with a studied casualness.
She lifted her hands, cradling his jaw, her fingers slightly cold against the flustered warmth of his cheeks.
Danny breathed in the warm air that brushed from her nose.
Her lips were smooth and wet and tasted like watermelon lip balm, and when her tongue pushed persuasively into his mouth, he accepted it dutifully.
Even through the sticky haze of cinnamon liqueur shots, Danny’s senses were keenly aware that this was a first for him.
His first kiss with a girl. His first cast party.
His first closing night. His first time doing all the things he’d seen in countless movies and TV shows, but until this moment, could never actually prove happened to teenagers in real life.
And then it was over. Nina’s tongue gently retreated into her mouth and Danny opened his eyes to the sight of his friend, her face just inches from his own, flushed, her teeth chewing the corner of her lower lip.
“Yo! That was hot!” a voice called out.
“Aww, they’re cute,” another squealed.
“Damn. You know that was a long time coming.”
Danny smiled to the wood pattern on the floor, his lips still tingling from the glowing sensation of not only kissing a girl but kissing a girl in front of a room of spectators.
So this is what it’s all about, I guess.
It felt nice, Danny thought, both the kiss and the audience. If this was what kissing a girl was supposed to feel like, then he supposed he liked it. Then he could do it again. Then maybe he was normal after all.
Danny watched as the Zima bottle pirouetted center stage, the star in a ballet of unfettered teenage horniness—mouths danced with mouths, boys with girls, and boys with boys, and girls with girls, guided only by the caprices of a whirling glass vessel.
The mouth of the bottle never pointed in Danny’s direction again, and for that he was thankful, his curiosity far outweighed by his fear of the unknown.
It was during a particularly intense make-out session between Malik and Ricky, “the Leading Player” and a featured dancer, respectively, that the sound of a buzzer rang through the apartment. The doorman, Nina said, announcing that he was sending up a guest.
“It must be Christian!” Nina chirped. Danny’s stomach dropped, Tower of Terror–style.
“Christian?” Danny said. “Who invited him?”
“I did,” Nina said. “Hello-o. It’s my party. Why are you acting weird?”
“I’m not.” Danny gulped. “I just thought it was a Pippin cast kind of thing.”
“Well, it is, but he’s our friend.” Nina raised her eyebrows. “I thought you would be hyped.”
“I am!” Danny tried to recover. “That’s awesome. I’m just surprised.”
Danny’s eyes darted around the room, landing on a bottle of Aftershock, half empty and sitting on the kitchen island.
“I gotta use the bathroom,” he said, launching from his spot on the floor, stealthily swiping the bottle of cinnamon liqueur on his way out.
Danny swung the bathroom door shut, his trembling fingers flicking the lock. He reached out, steadying himself on the cold porcelain of the sink, and looked up at his wobbly reflection in the toothpaste-spit-spackled mirror.
Fuckfuckfuck.
In all the hustle and bustle of his show’s closing weekend, Danny had completely forgotten that he’d left Christian empty-handed, without an explanation for why he’d rushed off and lied about the flowers and why he had a mother who could never, ever meet him.
The Next Magazine.
How was he supposed to explain that to Christian?
That even though he was definitely straight, he’d kept a “fag rag” hidden under his bed?
That he’d pretended like it didn’t belong to him?
That, in fact, he’d told his mom it belonged to Christian himself?
Danny cranked the faucet and splashed cold water on his face, trying to slow his drubbing pulse.
“I’ll just tell him that Ma is scared of gays,” Danny mumbled to himself in the mirror, the water dripping from his chin. It wasn’t a lie.
He’ll understand that. We’re super Catholic. I can just say that I freaked. That I was wrong to ditch him. That I’m really, really sorry.
A chug of Aftershock. Danny could feel the jitters slowly seep from his body like water down a drain.
He dried his face and reentered the fray, the party still in full swing.
There were kids rehashing memories from the final performance, kids drinking out of red plastic cups, kids flirting with the sophomore with the newly developed chest, kids rolling joints on countertops, kids turning up the music, kids dancing badly, kids dancing like pros, and one kid wearing a Rent T-shirt with the sleeves cut off and a flannel shirt tied around his waist, sliding off his jean jacket and talking to Nina in the kitchen.
Christian’s eyes locked with Danny’s from across the room.
Shit.
Danny ducked down out of sight. He’d have to stall until Nina was out of the picture.
It was too much to explain to her—that those flowers he had given her on opening night were not in fact from him, but also from Christian.
Hidden behind a group of kids playing a game with quarters and half-empty cups of beer, Danny proceeded to tie and untie his shoelace for what must have been two whole minutes.
Finally, Nina left Christian’s side, dashing across the room to rescue the fake fruit that had been plucked from an etched crystal bowl on the coffee table and was now being juggled between two senior boys.
“Hey, man!” Danny said brightly, approaching Christian in the kitchen, hoping against hope that he’d forgotten about the whole thing.
“Danny,” Christian said in a low, curt tone.
Danny looked around the room. The entire cast seemed to be floating on another planet, one that didn’t have any gravity, or rules, or, thank God, the desire to listen in on two guys chatting in the kitchen.
“So…,” Danny said, lowering his voice. “I’m sorry I had to bounce like that on opening.”
“Bounce like that?” Christian snorted sarcastically. “Oh, is that what that was?”
“Yeah…,” Danny stammered. “Well, I mean—” he started to say, but was immediately interrupted.
“Look, Danny. I get that you’re figuring yourself out, and that you’re eleven miles behind the rest of us because you’re from the Island of Misfit Boys, where people shove each other into lockers instead of talk about their feelings. And that’s fine,” Christian said.
“I didn’t get you flowers ’cause it’s all like that. I was just trying to do something nice for a friend,” Christian continued, his caustic tone threaded with hurt that even a drunk could hear. “And the least you could have done was not make me feel like an idiot.”
“I know,” Danny said, nodding vigorously. “And I appreciate that—it’s just my mom is scared of…and you’re, well…”
Danny swallowed his words, the room and his friend all beginning to look like Jell-O. The initial boost of courage that the swig of Aftershock had given him was now just making it hard for him to remember his lines.
“Like, we’re really Catholic, and she has some family stuff that I didn’t even know about, and I panicked,” Danny said, finally getting the words out. “So I figured I should just leave. But, Christian, I’m so sorry I hurt your feelings.”
“I can’t believe this,” Christian muttered to himself, shaking his head.
Danny searched his friend’s face for signs of the old Christian—the one who’d cackle when Danny had said something stupid, who’d pivot to a joke and say, “You’re killin’ me, Smalls.” But that Christian was in another borough—heck, another state—at this point.
“Listen,” Christian said softly. “I don’t think we should be…whatever we are. Anymore.”
The words crashed into Danny like an M10 bus.
“You…you don’t?” Danny asked, just softly enough to keep his voice from cracking.