Party (7 page)

“Well, yeah, but I mean …” He shrugged.

Well, we’d need one of us four sober to keep Josh from
actually
killing Morrigan if she showed up. Our conversation about her murder was all BS guy talk, but I knew that when a guy gets his heart torn in half, he’s capable of doing a lot of stupid things. And after the way she talked to him tonight, he could snap. Anyone could.

“For real?” I asked Matt. “It’s a party, man.”

“S’cool,” Matt said. “I got his back. But if I run outta smokes, I’m bummin’ off you guys.”

“That’s a deal,” I said, and sank down in the seat.

It was good to know that when things got bad, someone would be there to back you up.

Because that’s what friends do.

M
AX AND ME STOPPED AT THE
C
OFFEE
C
AT AROUND NINE, WHICH WAS OUR FAVORITE PLACE IN JUST ABOUT THE WHOLE WORLD BESIDES THE BEACH, THE BEACH SKATE PARK, AND THIS BURRITO PLACE ON
M
ICHELTORENA AND
S
AN
A
NDREAS
. Max had filled his Lucky 13! card, which meant he got his thirteenth cup of coffee free, so he was all jazzed ’n’ shit, which meant I’d be hearing about his good luck the rest of the night, or until we were both drunk, whichever came first.

“It’s not luck,” I told him as we walked down Anamapu to State Street, holding our boards by the trucks. “You bought twelve coffees, and the thirteenth was free.”

“You’re missin’ the point, Brent. It’s that … I got my Lucky Thirteen
tonight
!”

“So what’s lucky about tonight?” I asked him, but not in a way that made it sound like I cared. Mostly I was checking out the sidewalk and street to see if there was any room for us to skate. We coulda, but it woulda been in an asshole kind of way, and I didn’t feel like dealing with any tourists getting all bent out of shape. Saturday night on State is all crowded. We shoulda taken De la Vina instead of State.

“Tonight’s the night,” Max said, all serious ’n’ shit.

“Tonight’s the night for what?”

“HER,” Max said, like it was all in capital letters.

I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and laughed at him. I knew who he was talking about because there were only about four things Max and me ever talked about: video games, football, the X Games, and Beckett f’ing Montgomery.

Beckett was this hippie chick I had third hour with last year. She always wore long, flowy dresses, sandals, and these … whaddya call ’em … pirate shirts? Peasant tops? Some hippie thing. I always recognized her by the hat she wore: this knitted deal, green, yellow, and red striped. Which was weird, ’cause the girl was white as hell but the hat made her look like some reggae dude. I’d seen her in the library at school sometimes, all hunched over and reading comic books.
Comic books
, dude. What the hell?

Max’d only shared a class with her once, back in sophomore year: biology, second period, first row, second desk in.

Guess how I knew all that.

Since Max had never once talked to her, I didn’t see why tonight would be any different. He’d followed her from a distance for the last three years and never, not even by accident, talked to her.

He did sign her yearbook once: our junior year, her sophomore. And that was only because she’d left it on a table in the library and he’d grabbed it real quick, then put it back before she came looking for it.
Mi amigo valiente
, right?

Max’d seen too many movies where a smooth dude can sweep some chick off her feet with a cocky joke of some sort. Max wasn’t cocky, or smooth. He was just this big dopey skater who’d gone out for football sophomore year but didn’t care enough to bother when he made the team. He coulda been like a linebacker or something, maybe gone to State if Anthony “A-train” Lincoln hadn’t blown the last five games of the season. Max had no, what my dad would call, follow-through. And he’d never
follow through
with this plan of his, but he’d ruin the whole night talking about it if I didn’t shut him down.

“Well, let me know how that works out for you, bro,” I said, and we kept hoofing it to the house where the party was. My mom was using the car, and Max’s folks were both out of town. No big. We both preferred skating most of the time anyway. That was one reason we hung out so much. Max was a monster on a half-pipe, which kinda pissed me off.

“You don’t think I can do it?” Max looked all cranky-ass.

“Uh, no. You had your chance, dude. Three years of it.”

“Bro,” Max said, but I cut him off.

“Let’s get some food,” I said, and took a sharp right into a little pizza joint. It smelled awesome and I was ready to feed.

The distraction worked. Max followed me in and we stood there looking at a menu. Some Arab kid was behind the counter, and he smiled all big ’n’ shit when we walked in.

“Hello!” he said, like all happy or at least pretending real good.

“What’s up?” I said, but didn’t really look at him.

“What can I get for you?” he said. ’Cause of his accent from like Syria or wherever, it sounded like there was a
d
on the end of his
r
’s: “fo-d you.”

“Gimme, uh … a slice of that Monster Meat deal thing.”

He punched it into the register. “Fo-d you?” he asked Max.

“Just a cheese slice,” Max said.

“Veddy good,” the kid said. “Fou-d sixteen.”

We paid cash, and I watched him run the register. Not a lotta kids from the Middle East around here, and he looked familiar. His name tag said
AZIZE
, but I couldn’t tell you how to say it. Also, I didn’t much care.

“Hey, do you go to Santa Barbara High School?” I asked the kid.

He smiled again, all big white teeth. “Yes,” he said. “I will be a senior next year.”

“Oh,” I said. “We just graduated.”

“Congratulations!”

I smirked at him.
Congratulations?
Kinda a stupid word when you hear a kid say it.

“You are going to the party tonight, then?” he said.

“Uh … yeah.
You
going?”

“I am!”

“Oh. Cool. Hey, can I ask you something?”

The kid nodded. What the hell’s he so
happy
about? He had this dork-ass white uniform on and was prolly making, what, nine bucks an hour? Nothing to smile about.

I leaned my board against the counter. “Are you like allowed to drink?”

His big smile dropped a little.

“I’m sorry?” he said, but it came out
soddy
.

“I said are you allowed to drink? You know, beer. Whatever. Isn’t it against your religion?”

I only knew that from movies, so I wanted to see if it was true. There were a few kids at school who said they were Mormon, but that didn’t stop ’em from getting plowed, and other kids who went to church but smoked and drank and cussed and screwed.

“I was not planning on it,” the kid said.

“Oh,” I said back. “So why are you going to a party then?”

“Dude,” Max said, like I was giving this kid a hard time, which obviously I wasn’t. I just wanted to know. Plus, come on, we just
graduated
. It was like a chance to hassle a freshman when we started sophomore year. It’s just how things go. Life in America, man.

“There is someone there I would like to see,” the kid said. He wasn’t smiling anymore.

“Oh, hey, a hookup!” I said. “She hot?”

“Brent, man,” Max said, and punched my shoulder.

“What, I’m just asking! So, is she? Anyone we know?”

“It’s not a hookup,” the kid said, and it sounded like
who-k up
, which kinda made me laugh. I couldn’t help it.

“Brent, shut up,” Max said.

“Okay, okay. Just messing with the guy. We’re cool, right?”

He met my eyes evenly. Kid couldn’t take a joke.

“We are cool.”

Kew-el
.

Funny stuff, that’s all I’m saying.

So I left the kid alone and we got our pizza. Max immediately headed back outside, so I followed him. By the way, I also left a nice tip, and I told Max that once we were back on the sidewalk. I don’t think he heard me.

We ate as we walked, after tossing our paper plates in the trash right outside the pizza place. It took us about ten seconds to scarf the slices.

We were walking past this old black guy who played violin every night on State Street, and I flipped a couple quarters into his open violin case. He nodded and smiled without missing a beat of his song. I don’t care much about classical music ’n’ shit, but that guy was awesome. I think he was playing Mozart or something. He wasn’t having a very good night. There were two quarters shining in the red plush interior near the head of the case, and some other loose change in the body, but that was all.

“So you don’t think I can talk to her?” Max said suddenly.

Here we go again!

“No, I don’t.”

Max looked all hurt and I almost laughed right in his face.

“You don’t know!” he shouted.

I stopped walking. Max stopped, too.

“Yes, I do too!” I yelled back at him. “Bro, you have
never
talked to her! You spent the last three years talking
about
her but never
to
her! How the hell you think tonight’s gonna be any different? And she don’t talk, anyway. To anyone. Why would she even show? Dude, we
graduated
, man! Move on!”

“That’s why tonight’s gonna be diff’rent!” Max shouted back.

“Because you have nothing to lose?”

“Yeah!”

“Desperation,” I said. “What a motivator.”

Max pulled out his Lucky 13! card and shook it in my face. “This’s a sign,” he said. “My luck’s gonna change.”

“It’s not luck, that’s my point! It’s about you growin’ the
cojones
that you have failed to grow over the course of our high school career. You bought twelve cups of coffee and got the thirteenth free. That’s not luck, it’s a choice. You chose to buy those coffees. Well, you chose not to talk to Beckett Montgomery for the last three years. If you talk to her tonight, it’s not because you got lucky—ha! Get it? Got lucky?”

“Bro” was all Max said.

“Look, what do you even see in her?” I asked him. “Is it the hat? ’Cause she’s not even
black
, I don’t know if you’ve noticed that. She’s the opposite of black. She’s
pasty
. How do you get that pale living in SoCal?”

“Dude,” Max said.

“Serious, what is it about her? ’Cause that hat, man. For real. Like she’s all Rastafarian. What’s up with that?”

“Man …,” Max said.

“It ain’t luck,” I said.

I could see he was chewing on it. I looked aimlessly around State so I wasn’t staring at him while he thought. The violin guy was laughing now as he played. I wondered if it was because of us. We weren’t being quiet.

“I guess I see what you’re sayin’,” Max said, all slow, like he was still thinking real hard. “But what
I’m
sayin’ is that I didn’t get my Lucky Thirteen last night, or tomorrow. I got it tonight. That
means
somethin’.”

I was starting to get pissed. Tonight was our last night of high school, for real. Graduation was cool and whatever, but pretty much anyone who was anyone would be at this party, and it was prolly gonna be the last time we ever saw them. Graduation was the ceremony; this was like the going-away party. I wanted to chug some brew and maybe see if I could snag a chick, and not talk about Beckett fing Montgomery all night.

“What’re you gonna do? Give her a piggyback ride to your house? You got no car, man. How douche is that?”

“My
house?”
Max said, and his voice squeaked. “I never said anything about—dude, I’m not tryin’ to sleep with her. That’s not what this’s about.”

“You don’t want to sleep with her?”

“No, I—I mean, yeah, of course I … I just mean, not tonight, that’s not the point, that’s not what this’s about.”

“What’s it about then?
Luuuve?”

“Maybe!”

“Yeah, or, uh—lust?”

“Of course there’s lust!” Max exploded. “Yes, I want to do her! She’s totally hot! But not tonight! I wanna get to know her, I wanna know everything about her, I wanna know who she is. I wanna hold her hand and take her to dinner and talk all night long … you know? And … yeah, I like her hat. So what?”

“You’re sad, man.”

Max looked really bummed, and I felt bad. I knew what he meant, of course I did. But for all the talking he’d done about Beckett Montgomery, he’d never said
that
. So this wasn’t your usual hard-on for a babe in bio class. This was like magnetism or something. Which made this situation a lot more dangerous. Like yesterday—I’d heard about this girl Morrigan who’d broken up with her boyfriend because he was like some religious whack-job. I didn’t really know either of them, so it wasn’t a big deal to me. But I’d heard Morrigan’s boyfriend was like totally devoted to her, talked about her the way Max just talked about Beckett. It’s bad news if you think she’s your soul mate, whether she is or not. I didn’t want to see Max go through something like that. I mean, he’s my bro.

I tried to think of something to cheer him back up. He was still looking all bummed out.

“How do you even know she’ll be there?” I asked, trying to sound all reasonable ’n’ shit.

“She will,” Max said. “I know she will. If that pizza guy is going, then why not her?”

“Man, we’ve been to parties,” I reminded him. “Never seen her. Never seen her at anything that had to do with school. She walks in on the last bell, leaves school right after last bell. She’s like mental or something. You know? How do you know she hasn’t joined the Peace Corps or something?”

“I dunno,” Max said. “I just got a feelin’ is all.”

“Because of a free coffee.”

“Because … I dunno, because it’s my last chance.”

“Ya’ll go get that girl, son,” the old black guy said.

Max and me both turned. The guy was kinda grinning, not looking at us, playing his violin.

“Was he talkin’ to me?” Max whispered.

I shrugged. Couldn’t care less. “Let’s go,” I said, and we kept walking down State. I think the old black guy was laughing again.