Ballads of Suburbia (9 page)

I didn't cry until I called Wes to tell him about it and he told me that he wasn't going to come home for the holidays.

“No,” I bawled. “You have to. I need you. Everything is falling apart.” And I went on to explain about Quentin and me and how Jessica insisted I break it off.

“Jessica's just jealous,” he assured me. “She'll get over it. I'm glad you're with Quentin. You keep an eye on him and Adrian because they need it. You watch over everyone for me until I come home, Cassie. Be the guardian angel.”

Every time I talk to him he says that, “Take care of everyone for me, Guardian Angel.” And I'm trying, but I really don't know if I can do it. I really wish that he'd just come home and I'd have someone to watch over me for a change.

“A
RE YOU GOING OUT AGAIN?”
L
IAM
asked as we microwaved leftovers in the kitchen together on Saturday evening. Our parents were out on a date for the first time in ages. “Didn't you say that there was a concert tonight and I could come?”

I'd shown Liam the Symbiotic flyer when I'd first gotten it and promised to take him to the show to make up for ditching him after school for the past two weeks. I'd been so busy that I'd forgotten to update him. “Sorry, Liam, the show got canceled. That guy Wes, who used to be the frontman, didn't come home like he was supposed to last weekend and the rest of the band didn't want to do it without him. I'm just going over to Maya's. I'd invite you, but I don't think you want to sit around with three sixteen-year-old girls.”

“Not really,” Liam grumbled. He opened the microwave and tested the warmth of the pasta with his fingers. “Get a plate. It's ready.”

We ate our dinner in silence in front of the TV. I could tell Liam was disappointed, but I didn't realize how upset he was until I rose to leave.

“I won't be out too late,” I told him.

“Oh, you're sleeping at home for once?” he replied coldly.

“For once? I've only slept over at Maya's three times—”

“You spent all of last weekend over there. Sorry if I'm having Stacey flashbacks and feel like I'm getting ditched all over again.”

“Liam!” I objected, but quickly apologized after seeing the hurt in his eyes. “I'm sorry. I won't be out too late. I'll watch the end of
Saturday Night Live
with you, okay?” He shrugged, so I gave him a big, melodramatic, Harlan-style bear hug.

“Okay!” he huffed, pushing me off of him, but at least he was smiling.

 

I found Maya and Cass having a cigarette on a bench outside of the Write Inn. Maya'd dyed her hair a darker red and in the faint street light, it looked almost purple. “Do you think Symbiotic should have played tonight?” she asked me as I sat beside her. “Christian really wanted to, but the other guys still look at it as Wes's band.”

“It
is
Wes's band. He started it in eighth grade,” Cass interjected.

“Clearly Cassie sides with them, but I don't know. Wes is gone. He can play with them when he's around, but they can do shows without him. Christian's a good frontman, too. Even Wes says so.”

I shrugged. “I don't know the history and I've never seen the band.”

“Maya hasn't either, but she likes Christian, so…” Cass teased her cousin straight-faced, her amusement evident only in her brown eyes.

Maya dropped her head into her hands and groaned. “Not this again.”

I exchanged a glance with Cass and joined in on the torment, joking, “That's who you ditched me to be with last night! You've disappeared on me at Shelly's two Fridays in a row now.”

Maya looked up quickly, concerned. “You didn't really think I'd ditched you, did you? I would
not
ditch you for a guy.”

“Don't worry. I was so drunk I didn't notice you were gone,” I reassured her with a smile. It was nice to know she wouldn't pull a Stacey on me.

“Good. And yes, I was hanging out with Christian. He's cool, but I couldn't go out with him. He and Cassie have a history.”

Cass choked on the smoke she'd just inhaled. “‘AA history'? We dated briefly the summer after eighth grade and I think he was just using me so he could hang around Wes and get into Symbiotic. I'm over it. When it comes to pursuing Christian, the girl you should be concerned about is Mary.”

Maya brushed that off. “She and Jessica can't spread rumors about my sex life. I'm from out of town, they don't know me.”

“They'll make stuff up. That's what they did to me. According to them I've slept with Adrian, Christian, half the skater boys…” Cass ground out her cigarette with the toe of her boot.

“They said all that about you?” I asked, horrified. “I thought they were your best friends.” Then I remembered the way Maya had scoffed at Mary's claim. “Or used to be.”

“Used to be, I guess.” Cass stared out at the traffic speeding down Oak Park Avenue instead of facing me and Maya. “And they claim they had nothing to do with those rumors. But it all started after Jessica warned me not to go out with Quentin and I ignored her.”

“Well,” Maya asserted, “at least Mary got hers.”

Cass lit another cigarette. “What are you talking about?”

“Kara and I saw Christian freak out on her at the park last week. She ran away crying. And Christian told me last night that he told her to stay the fuck away from him because he'd never go out with someone who treated her friends like she treated you.” Maya grinned at her cousin. “You should've seen it.”

Cass shook her head. “I'm glad I didn't. I would have felt bad for Mary.”

“What? After all she's done to you?”

“I don't blame her. She's always been Jessica's pawn. They've been friends since birth and Jessica's been ordering Mary around since she could talk. Jessica's a bossy only child whose parents don't pay any attention to her. I kind of feel sorry for her, too.” Cass sighed. “We were friends for a long time. As shitty as they've been to me lately, I miss them. It sucked to lose my brother and my best friends in the same month.”

“Cassie…” Maya put her arm around her cousin's shoulders and squeezed her.

Cass accepted the hug for a second before squirming out of it and standing up. “Can we get out of here and talk about something else?”

We instinctively headed in the direction of Scoville in awkward silence.

“Someone say something,” Cass insisted as we approached the tennis courts.

“O-kaaay.” Maya turned to me wearing that smirk of hers. “Kara, if Cassie's got Quentin and I've got Christian, you need someone. Do you think Craig's cute?”

“Are you Harlan now or something?” I groaned. “And no, I don't think Craig's cute. Subject change, please!”

Maya pointed at her cousin. “At least Cassie's smiling again.”

Cass flicked her cigarette to the ground. “I'm smiling because I'm gonna beat you to Tasty Dog and then you're gonna have to buy me a milk shake!” She ruffled Maya's hair and took off running down the hill.

“Cheater!” Maya called after her, telling me, “I'm not chasing her.”

“I feel really bad for her about Jessica and Mary,” I said seriously.

“Yeah, it sucks when friends turn on you—”

“Oh, Jesus Christ!” Cass shouted. She'd halted at the bushes near Scoville's main entrance and we ran to catch up with her.

Two kids rolled out of the shadows and into a circle of mulch illuminated by one of the tall lampposts that stood around the edge of the park. I recognized Quentin's pale face and dark braids, which were matted with twigs. Cass quickly sat him up and brushed the dirt from his hair.

The other boy, whom I didn't recognize, retched violently. Cass shifted Quentin into Maya's arms and went to the guy I didn't know. He tried to push his dark brown hair out of his face, so Cass pulled it into a ponytail at the nape of his neck; it hung halfway down his back. After he finished spewing vomit and wiped his stubbled chin, I realized he was gorgeous.

His pale skin glowed in the moonlight, making the dark ink on his inner arms prominent. “Thrown” was tattooed down his right forearm in Old English-style lettering, and “Away” completed the phrase on the left. He tried to focus his bloodshot brown eyes on me. I should have been disgusted by him, but I'd never felt so instantly drawn to someone. It wasn't just the tattoos that fascinated me. I liked that he looked pure punk with the Misfits T-shirt and the chain wallet and the leather jacket painted with Social Distortion's skeleton logo on the ground beside him, but he rebelled against the stereotypical image with his long, almost hippieish hair. All the other nonconformists still conformed to their subculture of choice. This kid immediately struck me as someone who was completely comfortable in his own skin. I desperately wanted to feel that way.

“Jesus, Adrian, what happened?” Hearing Cass speak his name erased the names of any other boys I'd ever thought about from my mind. I couldn't have scripted a better entrance for my first love, as ripe with impending disaster as the beginning of Mickey and Mallory's romance in
Natural Born Killers.

“Whiskey,” Adrian moaned. Two empty fifths lay in the bushes.

“I know that. You guys showed up half drunk around six, right as I was leaving. Do you remember that?” Cass questioned calmly. She forced Adrian to lean against her instead of lying down in a vomit-drenched spot and looked over at Quentin, asking, “Do you remember that, Quentin?” He slumped against Maya, his eyes closed. “Quentin!”

His eyelids fluttered, but he made no effort to talk. Maya lightly slapped his cheeks. I glanced at Cass, who seemed like she'd handled this type of situation before. She instructed, “Take Adrian.” So I knelt beside him, putting my arms around him for support as Cass had.

Cass leaned over Quentin and shouted his name at the top of her lungs. His eyes opened with a jolt. “Where did Jessica go? Where's everybody else?” Cass demanded.

“Left,” Quentin stated, his eyelids drooping.

Adrian stirred in my arms and said, “I have my car.”

“What? They expected you guys to sober up and drive home!” Cass's skin flushed with fury. She rifled through the pockets of Adrian's coat and pulled out his keys. “You guys keep them talking,” she told Maya and me. “I'll get Adrian's car and we'll drive them to my house.”

She rose and found herself facing Jessica and Mary. Craig stumbled up behind them, just slightly less drunk than the two boys on the ground. Cass tried to shoulder past Jessica, but Jessica grabbed her by the wrist. “Where ya going, Cassie?”

Cass squared herself and raised her fist.

“Go ahead! You know my parents are both lawyers,” Jessica quipped.

Cass emitted a sharp cackle and wrenched her arm away from Jessica. “Do
not
call me Cassie. Only family calls me that. You're not even a friend anymore.” Her tone was low at first,
but then she screeched in Jessica's face, “You left them here to die!”

Jessica closed her eyes to the sound and wrinkled her petite nose. “We did not! We were hungry, they were too drunk to come, and we told them we'd be back.”

Cass pointed at Craig. “And he drove? Between the three of them they drank two bottles of whiskey!”

Craig interrupted, laughing hysterically as he rushed toward Adrian and Quentin. “They're still so wasted!” He collapsed beside Adrian and tugged him out of my arms. “Dude, what did you do?”

Adrian moaned the same response he'd given Cass, “Whiskey,” even though Craig clearly knew, having indulged himself. Adrian turned and attempted to meet my gaze again. One eye pointed in one direction, one in another, like a broken doll's. “Who is she?” He reached for me with a limp hand.

“That's Kara. Kara and Maya.” Craig gestured to my right, where Maya still cradled Quentin.

Adrian slurred at me, “Maya, you're beautiful.”

“No, dude, that's
Kara.”
Then Adrian puked again and Craig almost dropped him, exclaiming, “Sick!”

Cass glared at Craig, reprimanding, “Jesus, sober up!” She shook her head and said, “Fuck this. I'm driving them to my house.”

“No!” Jessica objected. “We're taking them back to my house.”

In a whirlwind of dreadlocks, Cass lunged toward Jessica so violently that Mary took a step back. “And what are you going to do with them there? Let them choke on their own vomit while you guys hang out in the rec room? My mom was a nurse, she'll know what to do.”

Jessica scowled. “Your mom's a psycho. She'll just feed them an entire bottle of aspirin. Isn't that what she took at your party a few months ago?”

My jaw dropped. I expected Cass's well-posed fist to meet with Jessica's pretty face. Instead, Cass blinked twice and started walking toward the hill. Mary dodged out of her path.

But Maya wasn't nearly as collected. She set Quentin down and grabbed Jessica by the shoulders, working her fingers close to Jessica's throat. “You say one more word about Cassie, I'll smash your face so bad your jaw will have to be permanently wired shut. I doubt your lawyer mama'll give a shit 'cause she'll be so glad that someone finally shut you up.” Maya shoved Jessica into the bushes, breaking branches with a loud crack, before stalking off in the same direction as her cousin.

I took one last look at Adrian, the boy who I'd come to think of as my soul mate, his face resting beside a puddle of puke, and went after my friends. I found them on the playground. Cass sat on a swing, blowing smoke rings into the night, and a few feet away, Maya leaned against the building that housed the bathrooms. She muttered, “Sheep in wolves' clothing. That's what my grandma would call them.”

“Is she okay?” I nodded in Cass's direction.

“Give her a few minutes. She'll go back to check on them. Unlike Jessica, who only cares about herself, Cass treats her friends like family.”

I thought of Liam when she mentioned family. I couldn't believe I'd ditched him for this. Aside from Maya and Cass, the kids at Scoville Park suddenly seemed just like everyone else at high school. Maybe they looked different, but like Maggie Young's crowd, they backstabbed their friends for petty reasons and drank too much on the weekends for the hell of it. Why had I wanted to be a part of that?

I told Maya, “It's kinda late, I'm gonna go home now. Tell Cass…” I trailed off, having no idea what I actually wanted her to tell Cass.

“I'll tell her you'll see her here on Monday,” Maya finished for me.