The Last Best Kiss (18 page)

“No,” Lucy says, sitting next to Oscar. “What you meant was that the two of you are in love, and the rest of us are losers.”

“What’s wrong with me?” Eric asks Oscar.

“First of all, I was talking to Oscar, not you,” Phoebe says to Lucy. “And second of all, you know very well I didn’t mean anything like that at all.”

“I just don’t want to spend this entire weekend with you and Eric constantly rubbing our noses in how in love you are,” Lucy says.

“My feelings are hurt,” Eric tells Oscar, who says, “Let it go, man.”

Phoebe’s staring at Lucy. “Are you serious?”

“You’re already doing it,” Lucy says.

“Will you guys excuse us for a moment?” I say. I grab Lucy’s arm and drag her up onto her feet and into the bathroom. I close the door and face her. “I love you, but you’re kind of acting like a crazy person.”

“I was just looking forward to this so much,” Lucy says, and slumps down on the edge of the bathtub. “I pictured me and Jackson lying out on the grass together listening to music, and it was going to be so romantic and magical. And now he’s not here, and it won’t be romantic at all. I’m compromising on my college applications and schoolwork just by being here, and for what? Just to hear some bands with the people I see every day? I don’t even care that much about music.” She plucks at the terrycloth bath mat lying on the edge of the tub next to her. “I wish I hadn’t come.”

“Well, you’re here now, so what’s the point of sulking? Let’s go have fun tonight. If you hate everything about it, I bet your dad would come pick you up tomorrow.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“So what’s the big deal? Either you’ll have a great time and want to stay, or you’ll go home tomorrow. The most you’ll lose is a couple of hours, and who works on Friday night, anyway?” I put my hand on the bathroom knob. “So can you just try to have fun for the next few hours?”

She promises to try, and we leave the bathroom. The guys have disappeared, and the connecting door is closed.

“We’re all getting changed,” Phoebe explains. She’s standing over her suitcase, pulling stuff out. “I sent the twins a text, and they’re going to come down and meet us here. They have wristbands and stuff for us.”

We spend the next twenty minutes putting on our festival outfits. Since it’s already dark out, our goal is to dress warmly and still look good. I put on a pair of satin pants—they’re cut like jeans, but they’re black and shiny and tight—and a fuzzy green sweater that has some swing to it. Phoebe pairs patterned jeans with a silk top and a mannish jacket that she wears with the sleeves partially rolled up. Lucy says she doesn’t see the point of getting all dressed up and throws a cardigan on over her jeans and T-shirt. Despite her lack of enthusiasm, she still ends up looking neat and pretty—I don’t think she’s capable of looking sloppy.

Hilary and Lily show up while we’re putting on makeup and fooling around with our hair. Lily is still wearing the leather corset, but she’s changed from jeans into a short, flippy skirt and cowboy boots. Hilary’s wearing a long, narrow gray sweater over a pair of leggings and low-heeled, soft leather boots that come up over her knees.

“Oh my god,” Phoebe moans when she sees her. “Those boots. I would kill someone for those boots. Several people.”

“I don’t know about people, but she killed at least two cows for them,” I say.

“I did not,” Hilary says.

“Well, someone did.”

“And it was well worth it!” Phoebe says.

“Not to the cows,” I say.

“Did anyone bring condoms?” Lily asks.

There’s a moment of silence.

“Well, there’s a conversation stopper,” Lucy says.

“You planning on needing them?” Hilary asks Lily.

“I just think we should all know where some are,” Lily says. “Semper fidelis, right?”

“Always faithful?” Lucy says. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Be prepared.”

“That’s the Boy Scouts motto. Semper fidelis is the marines.”

“Huh,” Lily says. “You sure about that?”

“Pretty sure.”

Phoebe taps Lily on the arm. “Come with me,” she says coyly, and they disappear into the bathroom together.

“When you think about it,” I say, “‘always faithful’ and ‘be prepared’ imply very different things when you’re talking about contraception.”

“That’s very deep,” Hilary says. “Maybe you should write about that for your college essay.” She gives a glum nod toward the bathroom door. “So I guess this means she expects to have sex with Finn this weekend.”

Hearing her say it so bluntly makes me breathe in sharply with sudden discomfort. I turn the sound into a cough. And croak out, “You really think they’re there?”

“This will be the turning point,” she says. “We’ll be outside, in the dark, listening to music, people making out all over the place . . . A lot will be happening tonight.”

“Just not to us,” Lucy says, and Hilary and I both give equally miserable nods.

Phoebe and Lily come out of the bathroom smiling. The rest of us leave the room without saying another word.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

fourteen

T
he twins’ father has sent a limo. Inside there are brackets set into the car walls that Oscar says would normally hold liquor bottles, but not when there are underage kids being picked up.

It’s funny—it’s never really sunk in before how much richer Hil and Lily are than the rest of us. My dad’s a lawyer, and Lucy’s parents are both psychiatrists, and I don’t know what everyone else’s parents do—oh, right, Finn’s are scientists—but basically we’re all
fine
(more than fine—lucky and privileged), but the Diamonds are on a whole different level. I already knew they had a huge house and, you know,
staff
, but today the limo and the van and the hotel rooms all make it clear they’re rich beyond anything I realized before. I honestly don’t think I’d feel jealous about that, except that right now Lily is snuggling next to Finn in the limo, and the thought occurs to me that she has
everything
. And that seems unfair.

Rows of small lights—colored dashes—outline the limo’s windows and doorways, blinking and changing colors, pink to blue to violet to green. They’re mesmerizing, and I’m gazing at them in a dazed trance for a while before I realize everyone else is watching me.

“They’re
pretty
,” I say defensively, and everyone laughs.

Hilary pulls out a schedule for the festival and starts to plan our evening.

“There are three stages,” she begins. “North, South, and Galaxy.”

“That’s all?” says Oscar. “There are like seven stages at Coachella.”

“I’m so sorry this isn’t as big as Coachella,” Hilary says icily. “Would you like the limo to drop you off right now, so you don’t have to suffer any longer?”

“Whoa!” he says. “I’ve been stabbed by the sarcasm sword.”

She scowls at him. “I just don’t want to hear the word
Coachella
again this weekend, okay? This is its own thing and it’s its first year and it has to build and sometimes things are better when they’re smaller and everyone says Coachella isn’t what it used to be, anyway, and this will probably be bigger and better than Coachella one day.”

“You just said
Coachella
like three times,” Lucy points out to her.

“You also aren’t making sense,” Lily adds. “I mean, you said it’s better when festivals are smaller, but you also said this will be bigger than Coachella.”

“You know, he’s your father too,” Hilary says hotly. “You act like this festival doesn’t mean anything to you.”

“Are you kidding?” Lily says. “I’m thrilled to be here. I’m beside myself with joy.”

“She’s so happy, her hair turned pink,” Finn adds.

“It’s Kool-Aid!” she tells him happily.

“Excellent,” he says, playing with the strands. He seems to have gotten over his earlier annoyance about having that hair in his face. “If we start dying of thirst, we can dip your hair in water and drink it.”

“If you have water to put the Kool-Aid in, why couldn’t you just drink that?” Eric asks.

“Hold on,” Hilary says, looking up. “How did you get it so bright if it’s only Kool-Aid? That doesn’t work on dark hair.”

“I bleached the ends,” Lily says.

“You told Mom it was temporary!”

“The color’s temporary. Just not the bleaching.”

“She’s going to be pissed.”

“When
isn’t
Mom pissed?”

“Good point,” says Hilary. “Now can we please focus on tonight?” She goes on to list the three bands that will be playing right around the time we get there, and we all agree that we want to see the one playing the North Stage. They have a hit single on the radio right now.

“Okay, then there’s no one good for like an hour or so,” Hilary says, peering at the schedule. “That’s when we should get something to eat. Dad said the food at the stands is pretty bad, and we should come join him in the VIP section—he has a chef cooking just for him and his friends. After that we should see Rock Basic at the South Stage and then—”

“You know,” Lily says, “we don’t have to have every single minute of this weekend planned out in advance. We could try to be a tiny bit
spontaneous
. Or does that make you feel all funny inside?”

Hilary throws the schedule at her, but it falls short. Lucy picks it up and hands it to Hilary, who throws it at Lily again, but Finn blocks it with his forearm. Protecting her.

“Look,” he says quickly, before anything else can get thrown. He points toward the window. “We’re here.”

We all press our faces to the glass as the limo drives us past the security lines at the entrance. They’re pretty long, and I ask Hilary if the festival’s sold out and she says not quite but close. “Next year it will be impossible to get a ticket,” she says. “You’ll see.”

The limo circles around the edge of the festival grounds to the back, where it drives through a private VIP entrance. A couple of security guards stop us, check the driver’s ID, glance into the back to check our wristbands, then wave us through. The driver lets us out soon after that. The girls and boys have to separate into different lines, because we still have to go through a metal detector and have our bags checked and get frisked. The girls’ line is staffed by female security guards, and the guys get males. It’s much less crowded here than it was at the general entrance, and the guards are polite and unrushed.

One of them pulls a water bottle out of Phoebe’s hippie-style bag. “If I take a sip of your water,” the middle-aged guard asks jovially, “will I get a surprise?” Phoebe manages a feeble shake of her head but without a lot of conviction.

“Your call,” says the guard, dangling the bottle from her fingertips. “I can take a sniff or just toss it.” Phoebe’s mouth opens and closes silently. “Let’s toss it, shall we?” the guard says, and drops it in a wastebasket before waving Phoebe on.

“What was it?” I whisper to her, once we’ve gotten through the line.

“Twenty bucks worth of vodka,” she moans.

“You’re lucky you didn’t get thrown out.”

Oscar retrieves his backpack from the table and joins us where we’re waiting to regroup. “That was the most sex I’ve had in months,” he says, nodding toward the businesslike guard who frisked him and who is now quickly and efficiently patting down Eric.

“You really need to get out more,” I say. “And also? Me too.”

Once everyone’s safely through, we explore the VIP area for a little while. It’s completely dark out now, but the space is well-lit. There are tents and tables scattered all over a wide grass field, with a line of food stands and open bars at one end. Hilary forbids us to buy any food, because she says we’ll be eating in an hour, anyway, and that food will be free and much better. Lily tries to score a drink at one of the bars, but the hot, tattooed bartender shakes his head at her wristband and shrugs regretfully.

“The red bands mean we’re underage,” Lily says when she rejoins us. “And he says they’ll be fired if anyone sees them slipping us booze. I’ll just have to find someone with a blue band to buy me a drink.”

“Please don’t get us all in trouble,” Hilary says.

Lily opens her eyes wide. “I would never . . . !”

“Lily
is
trouble,” Finn says with a grin.

She winds her arm through his and pulls him close. “You are going to know the true meaning of that statement before this weekend is through, I promise you.”

“I can’t wait,” he says.

That’s funny. I can.

* * *

We emerge through another set of security gates onto the actual festival field, which is wide and uneven. Two stages mark the north and south ends of the field, with the larger Galaxy Stage about equidistant between them, on the eastern side. They’re all outdoor stages with no tenting. I’m glad it isn’t supposed to rain this weekend.

We head toward the North Stage, snaking our way through groups of other people, most of them around our age. When we reach the stage, we decide to sit on the grass way in the back—it’s crowded up front, but the speakers are loud, and we can hear just fine from far away, and we’re all in the mood to relax.

I lean against Oscar and close my eyes and let the music throb through me for a while. When I open my eyes again, the first thing I see is Lily up on her feet, dancing, swaying her bare arms up in the air in time to the music. A guy walking by—shirtless with sagging pants that reveal skinny hips—calls out, “Go, leather dancing girl!” and she gives him a thumbs-up and flashes a grin at all of us.

Phoebe and Eric curl up together and start kissing. They’re not alone. A lot of the people who have chosen to sit this far from the stage are couples who are making out.

“I feel left out,” says Lucy, who has crawled over to sit with me and Oscar. “Where’s
my
hookup buddy?”

“I’m willing to service you both in any way that will help,” Oscar says gallantly.

“Even though we don’t have penises?” I say.

“I’ll make do. I’m a good friend.”

There’s no encore—“That’s because they need to stick to the schedule,” Hilary informs us—so we all get up and make our way across the field, back to the VIP area, so we can eat with the twins’ father.