“Too much. Obviously.”
“Am I gonna have to call an ambulance?”
The girl bristled at the question.
“I just puked. I’m hardly even drunk anymore.”
Liz remembered the phenomenon from her own drinking days, the sudden bleak sobriety that follows the purge. She knew girls in college who carried little bottles of mouthwash in their purse so they could return to the party and get wasted all over again. She’d done it herself, once or twice.
“Can you stand up?”
Jenna gave a tentative nod and took hold of Liz’s proffered hand. It wasn’t easy to get her on her feet; she was either denser than she looked or drunker than she claimed.
“What about your boyfriend?” Liz asked. “Was he drinking, too?”
Jenna wobbled a bit, using the wall for balance.
“I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“Come on,” Liz said. “I saw you with him. When you snuck in?”
“Who, Quinn?” Jenna made a hocking sound in her throat, then swirled her studded tongue around her lips. She didn’t look too happy about the taste in her mouth. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
“All right, whatever. I’m just trying to—”
Jenna leaned closer to Liz, as if sharing a secret.
“You know who his girlfriend is?” There was an odd sort of pride in her voice. “Mandy Gleason. Can you believe that? Quinn’s fucking Mandy Gleason. They’re dancing together right now.”
Liz had never seen Mandy Gleason, but she’d heard of her. Her beauty was common knowledge, the gold standard for Gifford girls. She was smart and athletic, too, captain of the tennis team, headed for Dartmouth in the fall. Lots of people said Dana reminded them of Mandy.
“Oh,” Liz said. “So you and Quinn aren’t…”
“She’s his girlfriend,” Jenna explained matter-of-factly. “I just suck his dick.”
She made a brave attempt at a smile, as if to say, That’s how it is and I’m cool with it, but it didn’t work, and she burst into tears. Liz held her while she sobbed, wishing there were something she could say to salvage the girl’s graduation night, a little adult wisdom that would take the edge off her pain, maybe put things in perspective. But when she did finally manage to speak, she found that she was crying, too.
“It hurts,” she heard herself whisper. “It just hurts so much.”
A SUBTLE odor of vomit clung to Liz for the rest of the night, like a badly chosen perfume. It was unfortunate, because the Chilling Station grew increasingly popular as the party wound down. Exhausted kids began trickling in around four-thirty, occupying the couches and chairs, the army cots and the hammock, and then, when all the furniture was spoken for, just giving up and stretching out on the floor like travelers stranded in an airport. There was something sweet about the way they curled up together, bodies innocently touching, heads resting on laps or shoulders. Even the ones who kept their eyes open didn’t have much to say. They seemed content to just pass the time, surrounded by classmates, silently marking the end of an era.
By then Liz was pretty tired herself — light-headed and achy in her joints — but she did what she could, offering bottled water and energy bars to the new arrivals, making small talk with the handful of kids she recognized, mostly from Dana’s soccer team. It was the busiest she’d been all night.
She might have enjoyed herself more if she hadn’t been so worried about Jenna. Liz wasn’t sure if she’d done the right thing, letting her sneak out of the party and walk home half-drunk in the predawn darkness, but that was the girl’s choice. She just wanted to get the hell out of the building, to put high school behind her once and for all, to not have to look at Quinn and Mandy or put on a happy face for a bunch of people who didn’t like her and wouldn’t even remember her name in a couple of months.
Liz felt guilty about lying to Officer Yanuzzi as well, telling him that Jenna was having severe menstrual cramps and needed to lie down for a while. He was suspicious — asked Liz twice if the girl needed medical attention — but Liz had kept her arm tight around Jenna’s shoulder, insisting that everything was under control, that she would take care of it.
It’s been really nice talking to you, she told him, trying to dismiss him and apologize at the same time.
Same here, he said, a bit grudgingly. Guess I better head back.
As soon as he was gone, Liz opened the fire doors and led Jenna through the vestibule to the emergency exit.
You take care of yourself. Liz touched her lightly on the shoulder. Go straight home, okay?
Jenna nodded and stepped outside, into the chilly night. Liz remained in the doorway, following the girl’s slow, unsteady progress across the athletic fields until she was lost to the darkness.
THE SCHOOL bell rang like an alarm clock at six A.M., bringing the All-Night Party to its official close. The kids in the Chilling Station stirred slowly, stretching and rubbing their eyes, then rose and shuffled off toward the main exit. Liz took a moment to straighten the furniture and check the area for lost objects before joining the zombie procession through the hallways.
It was a shock to step into daylight, birds chattering away, the nighttime chill already receding. Even now, the kids didn’t want to leave. They lingered en masse outside the building, engaging in a round-robin of high fives, friend hugs, and weepy farewells. Feeling lost and invisible among the teenagers, Liz searched the crowd for adult faces, but none were in sight. She wondered if the other volunteers had used a different exit or were maybe still inside, toasting each other with cups of fresh coffee. Either way, they hadn’t bothered to include her in their plans.
Smiling and apologizing, she wove through the thicket of young bodies, making her way toward the parking lot. She had almost completed her escape when a glimpse of a shirt — two overlapping lacrosse sticks against a field of gray — made her stop and turn her head. It was Quinn, his arm draped around the shoulders of a girl who could only have been Mandy Gleason. He looked sleepy and happy, utterly pleased with himself, a golden boy on a summer morning.
You little shit, she thought.
Some part of her brain was telling her to be sensible, reminding her that a high school kid’s love life was none of her business, but she was already moving toward him, pushing her way through the bystanders, not bothering to excuse herself. Quinn noticed the commotion and seemed to realize she was coming for him. He let go of Mandy and turned toward Liz, scowling like he’d already been accused of something.
“What?” he demanded, at almost the same moment she slapped him across the face. The blow was harder than she’d intended, and much louder. It cracked in the air like a handclap, a teacher’s demand for silence.
“What the fuck?” cried Quinn.
“That’s for Jenna.”
Mandy stared at Quinn with a look of almost comical bewilderment. “Who’s Jenna?”
“Nobody,” he said, like a sullen little boy. “This bitch is crazy.”
“Jenna’s his other girlfriend,” Liz explained. “The one he treats like shit.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Quinn scoffed. The imprint of Liz’s hand was already blooming on his face. “She’s just a slut.”
Liz looked at Mandy. She was as beautiful as everyone claimed, perfect skin and clear blue eyes, long legs, and a tiny waist.
“Trust me,” Liz told her. “He doesn’t deserve either one of you.”
SHE HUSTLED across the parking lot, her cheeks burning with shame and regret. As satisfying as it had been to wipe the smugness off Quinn’s face, she knew she’d made a mistake. An adult couldn’t hit a kid, even if it was just a slap and the “kid” was more or less a grown man, a high school graduate who outweighed her by forty pounds. She’d heard of teachers getting fired for lesser offenses, coaches getting arrested or sued or publicly humiliated. At the very least, she’d have to apologize to Quinn and his parents, to take responsibility for her actions, to pretend he was nothing but an innocent victim.