Surviving High School (9 page)

He hit the gas pedal, sending the car rocketing forward. Emily examined the door, wondering what the car’s side-impact crash-test rating was and whether it had air bags.

Nine more minutes. Nine more minutes.

The car’s bass continued to blare, and Emily wished she could shut her ears like she did her eyes.

“I love this song!” shouted Phil as they sped down the road. The scenery flew by at what seemed like light speed as he merged onto the freeway, and Emily looked over his shoulder to check the speedometer.

Phil was doing sixty-five. Exactly.

Breathe
, she thought.
It’s okay. Seven minutes.

“I love this song, too!” she shouted, trying to pretend that everything was fine, and Phil cranked the bass even louder.

Kimi frowned and pulled her cell out of her pocket. She scrolled down her contacts list to Phil’s name and opened the “additional information” section. The list of pros and cons popped up, and Kimi added “possible future hearing loss” to the cons column.

“It’s nice to meet you!” Marcus shouted back, turning his head to look at her. “I hear you went to the Olympics!”

Uh-oh. It sounded like some rumors had started to take on a life of their own.

“Maybe in 2016!” she shouted, checking the clock.

Five minutes.

“Right on!” Marcus shouted. “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”

“U.S.A.!” shouted Kimi.

“You’re a funny chick!” shouted Marcus. “When I saw you walking to the car, I thought you looked like a figure skater or something. And then Phil reminded me of that Olympics thing. Now it makes
total
sense.”

Three minutes. Three… Wait. What did he mean “figure skater”?

“So—you, uh, like my outfit?” asked Emily.

“Definitely!” shouted Marcus. “It’s hilarious!”

“Hilarious”?
This wasn’t good.

Emily had seen houses like Ben Kale’s before—megamansions owned by her dad’s friends from his Olympic days, paid for with money from endorsements for shoes or breakfast cereals. She just hadn’t expected the party to be at a place like this.

“I’m definitely getting a house like this when I move out of my parents’ place,” said Phil as he parked next to a row of cars in a grassy field behind the house.

“Better get to work on that platinum record,” said Marcus, smiling.

“I wish,” said Phil. “This place probably costs triple-platinum money.” He looked at Emily and added, “You can let go of the handle now. We’re here.”

Emily uncurled her hand and shook it in the air as the blood slowly returned to her fingers. The four of them got out of the car, and Phil walked around back to pop the trunk. He pulled out a large pan covered in tinfoil, lifted it to check the contents, and smiled.

“What’s that?” asked Emily.

“A pony,” said Phil. “What do you think it is? Ben’s birthday cake. German chocolate. I baked it myself, with the help of a little lady named Betty Crocker.”

“It’s—it’s his birthday?” asked Emily.

“Uh, yeah,” said Marcus, pulling a carefully wrapped gift box out of the trunk. “Hence the birthday
party
. Now come on. Let’s get in there.”

As the four of them walked toward the brightly lit house, Emily looked jealously at Phil’s cake and Marcus’s gift.

“Great,” she whispered to Kimi. “I finally start liking a guy and I don’t even bring him a birthday present. Did I accidentally steal Cupid’s diaper in a previous life or something so he totally hates me, or am I just really, really bad at this?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?” asked Kimi. She put an arm around Emily’s waist and pulled her in for a side hug as they walked toward the massive house. “Don’t sweat it. Ben obviously has plenty of
stuff
already. You just be you.”

The imposing oak doors of Ben’s house stood slightly ajar, and Phil pushed through them without knocking.

They opened to a large central room bookended by two curling staircases headed off in opposite directions. A hundred-piece crystal chandelier hung above a huge expanse of black-and-white-checkered tiles going for almost a hundred feet—all the way to a glass wall through which Emily saw a huge infinity pool, the kind whose edges stretch all the way to the side of a terrace, creating the appearance of water hanging in space.

There must have been a hundred and fifty people there. Emily recognized some of them from the cafeteria’s center table and the few that surrounded it, but there were a few surprises: Deependu Mahajan and Eric Erickson were sitting by
the pool with red cups in their hands, their jeans rolled up and their feet in the water. And Samantha Hill sat in the center of the room, leading a round of Never Have I Ever. The chandelier shone brightly off her freshly shaved head.

Emily breathed a sigh of relief: Nick Brown was nowhere to be seen.

When Phil noticed Samantha’s new look, he set the cake down on a long table filled with desserts and approached her from behind.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about, S-Dawg,” he said. “Can I touch it?”

Samantha turned to him, her eyes blazing.

“You put a hand on me, and you’ll lose it,” she said. She turned back to the circle of players, and Phil took a step away. The group looked expectantly at Samantha. Emily had heard about this game but had never participated: You started by holding up ten fingers, then lowered one and sipped your drink every time you’d done the naughty thing that someone else mentioned.

“Never have I ever… kissed more than one person in a single night,” Samantha said, and several guys in the group groaned and lowered their fingers. Spencer, who had just lowered his last finger, raised his red cup to the circle and downed it in a few gulps.

“We should get a drink,” said Kimi.

“You mean, like, a
drink
?” asked Emily.

Spencer belched loudly and crushed the red cup in his hand.

“Maybe a root beer?” asked Kimi. “As long as it’s in a red cup, no one has to know what’s inside.”

The girls walked over to a table filled with bottles Emily didn’t recognize. Finally, she was able to track down a half-empty jug of milk. She filled a red cup.

“You’re kidding, right?” asked Dominique from behind her (it seemed like she was always sneaking up on Emily). “You came to a birthday party
dressed
as a birthday cake?”

Dominique approached the table, set down her cup, and filled it with cranberry juice. When she picked up a bottle decorated with images of swans in flight and found it empty, she turned to a nearby boy, whom Emily recognized as Amir.

“Find me something to make my drink a little more
interesting
,” she said. “Now.”

Amir took her cup and ran to the kitchen.

Emily sipped her milk and looked Dominique up and down. She was wearing a tiny gold dress that stretched barely from her upper thighs to the top of her chest, so delicately balanced that it seemed the slightest movement would cause a wardrobe malfunction. It was the kind of dress that guys loved and girls hated—unless you were the one wearing it.

“Nice lingerie,” said Kimi.

“Nice polka dots. Did you get called back in time to sell houses in the fifties?”

“I’m not a Realtor! Now why don’t you head back to the Frederick’s of Hollywood catalog you crawled out of and leave us alone?”

“Gladly,” said Dominique. “You’re not the one I wore this
for anyway. He’s still hiding somewhere.” Trying to find Ben, all three girls turned and looked over the sea of partiers.

“Catch you later, Swimbot,” Dominique added. “You really do look great. You know, you should seriously consider accessorizing—with a scoop of ice cream.”

As Dominique turned, Amir came running from the kitchen with her drink in hand. She took one sip, grimaced, and handed it back to him.

“Try again,” she said as she walked toward the central room. Amir watched her go, looking down at the cup in his hands.

“Stupid,” he said to himself. “Stupid.”

“What are you, her butler or something?” asked Kevin, who had just walked up from behind them. Amir turned to look at him.

“I’m just being nice.”

“I’m just saying, there are cooler girls at the party,” said Kevin. “Don’t waste your time with that one.”

“I’m practicing my moves for when my ladylove, Claire, finally visits from Canada,” said Amir defensively.

“Right,” said Kevin. “Your long-term, megahot Canadian girlfriend who would rather spend her Friday nights playing
World of Warcraft
with you than dating the beefcake, lumberjack-looking dudes at her school.”

“You doubt her authenticity?” shouted Amir, his voice’s pitch growing higher. “Take it back, swine!”

“What are you two doing here?” asked Kimi, interrupting their conversation before it became too nerdy to bear.

“I always come to Ben’s parties,” said Kevin. “We go way back—to Odyssey of the Mind days in middle school. He practically taught me how to code.”

“Speaking of which,” said Amir, “I believe I spotted a certain electron-microscope prototype in his dad’s office. Want to take a peek?”

Kevin turned to the girls.

“As sad as it makes me to say good-bye to you, I do actually want to go check that microscope out,” he said. “Maybe I’ll catch you later.”

“Can you believe him?” asked Kimi, not taking her eyes off Kevin as he walked away. “Ditching girls like us to go play with some nerd toy. So lame!”

“As lame as crashing a guy’s birthday party when I barely know him?” asked Emily.

“Hey! Don’t you
dare
compare yourself to those geeks,” said Kimi. “Who cares if you don’t know him that well? Ben has totally been giving you, like, you know, signals.”

As she spoke, Kimi took her BlackBerry out of her pocket, created a new file for Kevin Delucca, and in the cons column wrote
Lonely nerd
.

“You’re starting a file for that guy?” asked Emily. “He doesn’t seem like your usual type.”

Kimi shrugged. “Most guys at school have a file. I like to be thorough.”

A few minutes later, Kimi went off to find Phil, leaving Emily by herself. She was standing against a wall, looking over the
sea of faces and hoping to see Ben Kale, when a voice to her left said, “There’s an unexpected sight. A Kessler at a party.”

Emily turned to see Cameron Clark, a drink in hand, looking down at her. She hadn’t realized until now just how tall he was—six foot two at least. His tight black shirt showed off the elegant
V
of his chest, and girls all around the room kept glancing his way. Emily stared up into his cold blue eyes, speechless.

“Your sister—she wasn’t the type to make it out much,” he said, sipping from his cup.

“Yeah,” said Emily. “Well, I’m not her.”

“I know.” He looked down at her, studying her face. “Sara and I used to swim together almost every morning. I guess she never mentioned me?”

Emily shook her head.

“Sara was like that,” he said. “Quiet. Good at keeping secrets.”

Emily was about to ask Cameron what he meant when a tall blond girl approached and stumbled into him. She wrapped an arm around his torso to steady herself, and Emily felt a sudden, unexpected wave of jealousy.

“I thought you were going to tell me about that—uh—something. Over in your car?” the blond girl said, not so subtly.

Cameron took another drink.

“Good talking to you,” he said, looking over at Emily. “But as you see, I’ve got promises to keep.”

He took the girl by the hand and led her out the front door and away from the party as Emily looked on.

Secrets
, he’d said.
What did
that
mean?

Emily looked around the party hoping to spot Kimi, and saw her close to the center of the room, standing awkwardly near the juniors and seniors, who were still playing their drinking game. Steeling up her nerve, Emily walked over and stood beside Kimi.

“Never have I ever… sucked a toe,” said a Gothy girl named Dinah, and the circle said a collective “ewww” before falling silent as Spencer lowered a finger and sipped from his cup.

“Gross,” said Hannah, whom Emily knew from the swim team.

“How do you even bend your feet that far?” asked Amanda. “You must be
so
flexible!”

“What?! No, I mean, it wasn’t
my
toe, it was—” Spencer stopped himself from saying more. “Never mind. I took my drink. Next question.”

“Looks like we have a couple of new recruits,” said Samantha, patting the couch next to her and looking at Emily and Kimi. “I’m hoping you’re not as innocent as you seem, or this could be a bad night for the rest of us.”

The girls took a seat, even as Emily continued to scan the room for Ben. The group looked expectantly at Kimi, waiting for her to take her turn.

“Never have I ever… gone skinny dipping,” she said,
looking out at the pool, and almost everyone else in the circle lowered their fingers and sipped their drinks.

“Maybe we can fix that later,” said Zach Reynolds, one of the senior football players, before his girlfriend, Hannah, elbowed him in the ribs. The group turned its attention to Emily, who stared out across the room, not paying attention. Where was Ben? Had he gone to sleep early again, like at his last party? What if he—

“Em,” said Kimi in a loud whisper, “your turn.”

“Oh, uh, right,” said Emily. “Never have I ever—”

What
had
she done? Been on a date? Made out with a guy? Gone to a dance? Held hands?

None of the above.

But probably best not to advertise any of that. She decided to avoid the topic of sex and romance altogether.

“—eaten a gummi bear.”

Everyone laughed.

“What about gummi worms?” asked Spencer, and Emily shook her head. “Gummi rings? Gummi fish? Gummi dinosaurs?”

“No, no, and no.”

“You poor, deprived girl.”

The rest of the group lowered their fingers and sipped their drinks.

“Okay,” said Spencer. “I’ve got one. Never have I ever kissed a guy.”

“Lame,” said Samantha. “That’s cheating. You can’t be gender specific like that.”

“I didn’t make the rules,” said Spencer. “I just exploit the loopholes.”