9 Lana’s Party
Lana’s Party
“How much longer are you going to be?” Sue asked, banging on the bathroom door.
“Just a minute,” I said, touching up my red lipstick.
I looked at myself in the mirror. I was wearing a short black dress Monty had given me a long time ago.
That had been weird for him. He wasn’t the kind of guy you’d call thoughtful.
He had texted and asked me what I was doing that night, and I’d lied and told him I was staying in because I’d have felt weird if he’d asked me to send him a photo from the party and had seen me there wearing the dress.
I smoothed out the fabric with my hands, pulled up my favorite black tights, wiped a spot off my midheel leather boots.
I couldn’t do high heels without putting my life in danger.
As for my makeup… I’d put it on and taken it off three times, and I was only getting less and less secure about it.
I had my doubts about this new lipstick, but if I wiped it off and tried another one, I ran the risk of Sue knocking down the door and killing me.
So I let my hair down and took a breath.
I was ready. Ready as I’d ever be.
So why did I feel so bad? Even with my low self-esteem, I could see I looked pretty good. I tossed the lipstick in my bag. It was time to go. No more dillydallying.
“Are you…?”
I threw the door open before Sue could finish and found her standing there looking the same as ever. The only difference was that her hair was pulled back. In case she got too drunk and had to puke, I imagined.
“You needed all that time just for that?” she said.
“Thanks for the compliment,” I said.
“You deserve it.” I could always rely on Sue to make me feel even worse when I was in a bad mood.
The two of us walked to the living room, where Ross and Will were sitting on the couch bored, arguing about when Naya would be ready.
Will froze when he saw me and said, “Damn, Jenna, you look amazing.”
“You, too, Will. Naya’s going to be drooling all over herself.”
Sue cleared her throat and said, “What about me?”
“I thought you didn’t like people to talk to you,” Will replied.
“You’re right,” she said. “Can we go now?”
I could see Ross had been staring, and I had the sense that maybe he and Will had been talking about me.
For a moment, his eyes were glassy; then he blinked several times and hopped up, clearly avoiding my gaze.
Was he angry about something? The way he looked at Will led me to think so.
As did the way he walked past me without a word, grabbed the keys, and just assumed all of us would follow him out.
He rushed into the elevator, and I squeezed in beside him. On the mirrored wall, I caught him checking me out. Every inch of me, it seemed. From head to toe.
Will yelled, “Time to get drunk!”
“How exciting,” Ross replied. “Everyone gets to get wasted but me, because I have to drive.”
“It’s going to be a long night for you,” I said.
“Whatever.”
He walked to the car and got in the driver’s seat, and I hopped in the passenger side while Will called Naya, telling her we were coming to pick her up.
When we parked, she wasn’t out front, so Will had to go up and get her.
The three of us stayed behind listening to music until Sue grunted with frustration and said, “This is enough. It’s been more than five minutes.
If I catch them fucking, I’ll kill both of them. ”
She jumped out and ran inside, and Ross and I sat there in silent tension.
Which was par for the course for us lately.
It felt like one of us wanted to say something, but neither of us did.
This had been going on for a while. I would look at my shoes.
He would look at me. And the sensation wouldn’t let up.
I was tapping my fingers on my knees and looked up to see Ross watching me.
I smiled, then blushed, then looked away, then thought for a fleeting second what it would feel like if it was his hand on my leg instead of mine, the same way he had touched me before.
I wondered if we would ever sleep together cuddled up again, if that comfort we’d felt with each other would return.
Was I dreaming, or was it hot in that car?
“Is the heat on or something?” I asked.
“No. I can turn it on if you’re cold.”
No, I was hot enough already. I closed my eyes and tried to calm myself down as he offered me his jacket.
Put on something that smelled like him? Feel the same fabric touch me that had touched him?
I wanted to, but I shook my head. That jacket was black leather.
I’d never seen him in it before. It was sexy, and the fact that he’d done nothing to his hair, that it was sticking out in all directions, made him even sexier to me, because it was one hundred percent him.
Our eyes met, and I forced out a sentence, “They’re taking their time. ”
He grinned and said, “It sure seems like it.”
The situation was so uncomfortable, I felt like my jaw was wired shut even though all I wanted was to fill that unbearable silence. Everything I thought of saying would only make the weirdness between us worse. So I was grateful when he finally declared, “I’ve never seen you in a dress before.”
Thank God. A neutral subject.
“Yeah. Fall and winter, you know, they’re not really the season. But since it was a party, you know…”
“I’ll have to make sure you get invited to more parties,” he interrupted me.
As I looked up to see him grinning, I asked myself for the first time how many of those jokes of his were really jokes. Because even if he seemed relaxed, he hadn’t stopped staring at me, and that made me feel utterly on edge.
“It’s actually the first time I’ve worn it,” I said. “Mon—I mean, Mom gave it to me. I’ve never seen you in a leather jacket, either.”
“I used to wear it in high school.”
“So you were a classic bad boy, huh?”
“I wouldn’t want you to think that,” he said.
“Change my mind, then. Tell me what you were like. Did you talk back to your teachers? Did you go out with all the girls? Did you get in trouble? Were you in lots of fights?”
He smiled like a little angel. “I didn’t talk back to my teachers, I’ll have you know.”
“Oh, so it was only girls, problems, and fights? Funny, you don’t really look the type.”
“And why not?” he asked.
“I don’t know. You’re just so…” I cut myself short when I realized I was about to say wonderful . Thank goodness I stopped myself just in time. “So calm.”
“I wish you could ask my parents what I was like back then,” he responded. “I don’t think ‘calm’ is the first word that would come into their minds. I ran my dad’s car into a wall one time and totaled it.”
“Are you serious? Did you get hurt?”
“Well, let me correct myself. The car ran itself into the wall, technically. I wasn’t inside.
I had just turned sixteen and I wanted to impress my friends, so I took Dad’s fancy, mega-expensive sportscar to pick them up and we parked on a slight hill.
I accidentally left it in neutral when we got out, and we didn’t notice anything at first. But then it started rolling and we weren’t strong enough to stop it.
We just had to stand aside and watch the disaster.
Dad lost his mind. He sent me to this military camp the whole summer with all these juvenile delinquents.
The camp counselors were total psychos who made us exercise out in the sun all day. I did come back with abs, though.”
“And to think I got pissed the time my parents took away my phone.”
“Wow. That’s harsh. What did you do?” he asked.
“Listen: if I tell you, you can never, ever tell anyone else. And you can’t make fun of me for it. Jesus, I can’t believe I’m even admitting this. Well, whatever. I was fifteen years old, OK? And there was this guy I liked, an older guy. I think he was seventeen. Really, really handsome…”
“Don’t make me jealous, now!” he interrupted.
“And the thing was…I wanted to do something to get him to like me. But I was still too scared to really try anything physically. So I was flirting with him and stuff, and uh, one day he sent me a photo of, like, his…”
“His dick?” Ross asked. I felt myself turning bright red as I said yes and then I finished the story.
“And so I asked my friend Nelle, who had already lost her virginity, what to do, and she told me I had to send him something back, and so I… Well, I started to, but my brother Spencer caught me before I could.”
He was dumbstruck. I had taken for granted that he’d laugh in my face. But he just said, “Wow. So your own brother caught you naked.”
“Not quite naked. Just topless. And he tore my phone out of my hands and started shouting at me while I threw my shirt on in a rush. Mom heard us, and of course Spencer told her everything. They took my phone for a month. And my other brothers, the twins, found out, too, and they were in the same class as the poor guy. They’re pretty, um, forward, and I think they made it clear to him he was not to have any further contact with me. ”
Ross laughed and said, “I can’t believe it.”
“My first romantic failure,” I murmured.
“It’s better than my camp story.”
“You promised you’d never tell, Ross. If Naya comes up to me joking about it, I’ll know it was you and there will be hell to pay…” I went to give him a friendly slap, and he caught my wrist.
“I won’t tell. I will make fun of you for it for the rest of your life. Anyway, you shouldn’t complain so much about your love life. I’m sure if you’d sent the damn photo, it would have gotten around your school, and you’d probably have way more guys than that one dude and Mason hot on your heels.”
“His name’s Monty, not Mason. And there were other guys who were into me. Worse ones, I’m sad to say.”
“Worse than Mason? Do tell!”