She eventually finished the beer and went to the keg for another. She spotted Kaylyn across the room. It was a friendly face, someone to talk to, but the stupid rumors—no matter how baseless they were—kept her from approaching. She didn’t want to hate Kaylyn because of dumb lies told by people who were jealous, but the rumors at least gave her pause.
Around midnight, arm wrestling broke out at the dining room table. Jake Levy challenged Curtis Moretti (No. 8), the quarterback, and the crowd gathered to cheer and jeer. Their arms flexed, their wrists curled, their faces broke into dual sweats. Curtis had an odd face, she decided, sniveling and a bit rodenty, especially when he peeled a lip back in exertion like that. He shaved his whole skull except for a little cap of brown on top. He wore a tank top, so she could see all the muscles in his body go taut. His lat muscle jutted out from his side like a sleek tumor.
The night hammered on. The beer was making her light-headed and warm. At some point, she wasn’t sure when, she went back for her third. Kaylyn approached her at the keg.
“Here, tilt the cup or you’ll get all the foam,” she said. Tina did so, and the golden fluid streamed down the side with only a small white cap. Kaylyn dipped an index finger in and stirred. “Party trick.”
“Is Rick here?” she shouted.
The older girl bounced her eyebrows twice. “Nope. And wouldn’t you know, I’m actually having fun.”
“You don’t have fun with him?”
“No, I do. Just not at things like this.” She stirred her hand around the party. “He gets jealous about everything, especially the older guys. So stupid. Boyfriends are the absolute worst.”
She tittered at her own comment and sipped. Tina did the same.
“You look kinda miserable,” Kaylyn observed.
“Oh, I’m fine.” She looked around. Brent Brandon (No. 27) had gotten on one knee to take the hose end of a beer bong in his mouth. His neatly moussed hair had a loose strand. “It’s just, like, absolutely crazy in here right now. We’re yelling to hear each other, you know?”
“Welcome to the life of dating the team.”
“Rick’s a starter—he should be here, right?”
Kaylyn was so beautiful. Even now as she wrinkled her face into the expression of someone who’d just smelled rotten eggs, she still glowed. Her freckles added some lovely component to her fluorescent eyes, which reminded Tina of the smattering of green in the stained glass windows at her church.
“He doesn’t get along with these guys. Your boyfriend makes him uncomfortable. He’s sort of a closet nerd, you know.”
“Todd?” she asked, confused. She was two years younger than 56 and often helped him with his homework.
Kaylyn laughed. “Nuh-nuh-no.” She laughed some more. “Rick. Rick’s a math nerd. He can do crazy calculations in his head. What I mean is he’s like a secret brain. I guess that’s why he hangs out with rich preps like Ben and Ashcraft.”
These rumors about Kay and 56 simply could not be true, she decided. Where had she first heard them? Probably from Stacey, who was obviously jealous of her. If 56 was cheating on her, it meant Kaylyn was cheating on Rick, and that just seemed absurd. And yet the image of 56 and Kaylyn in the hall stayed with her, so that she could almost hear that gristly sound as his fingers kneaded strands of Kay’s hair together.
She was roused from this unpleasant pit of jealousy by the sound of someone crying out, “Strow, no! Don’t do it.”
They both turned to see Ostrowski empty a twenty-four-ounce can of malt liquor to the brim of the beer bong, held by Brent Brandon. He then took a knee. The crowd had differing opinions of whether or not this was a good idea.
“Back up, faggots,” he told them.
By the time he sucked down half the liquid, Tina thought he would finish. He did in fact succeed, but the last of the foam had no sooner vanished than he was buckled over, hands on knees, vomiting like a garden hose when you put your thumb over the nozzle.
People screamed and stumbled backward to avoid the spray, which was hard to do given the pressure with which the liquid exited him. Watching it, Tina felt like she might hurl. People were streaming outside when Kaylyn grabbed her arm.
“C’mon, this place is going to smell like ass.”
They pushed past all the revelry and found themselves in what must have been Mrs. Ostrowski’s room. The bed was made, a flower duvet stretched over crisp sheets and half a dozen throw pillows. Tina sat while Kaylyn wandered over to the bookshelf, which had only books on CD.
“You’re lucky,” she said. “Todd’s a good guy. He’s going to be the biggest deal to come out of this place maybe ever.”
“I hope so.” Jealousy flared. What had Kaylyn done with him? She’d never asked 56 if he was a virgin. She hoped so but realized there was a chance he wasn’t, maybe even a chance she was staring at the girl he’d given it to.
“My friend Hailey—you know her?”
“Kowalczyk?”
“Yeah, so she’s like a little feminist, right? But you know it doesn’t matter what your opinions are— If you can, you’ll always date a football player.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I overheard these girls in the hall—you know, Goths and skanks, typical, just talking all this shit about fucking jocks, fucking preps, and it’s like, you dumb bitches, you don’t even know what those categories mean. You got that from every fucking tired, bullshit high school movie. You’re just using that to make yourself feel better about your inability to actually talk to anyone and get to know them. It just drives me crazy.”
It was strange hearing such volatile language come out of Kaylyn’s beautiful mouth. She held a hand to her breast.
“Like I’m some rich girl? I don’t fucking think so. My dad’s been on disability since I was five. He walks around town looking for people who need their lawns mowed or their houses painted because if he gets a real job that check goes away. It all drives me crazy,” she repeated.
Tina surmised that this was what it was like to be drunk: because all of this actually made a lot of sense. Kaylyn ran her fingertips—nails painted a bright pink—over Mrs. Ostrowski’s audiobook collection, her long-haul-trucking companions: Tom Clancy, Joel Osteen, and Danielle Steel. Tina sipped.
“I don’t think I’ve ever drank this much,” she said.
“Ha, better get used to it, you ho. You want something so the hangover’s not so bad?”
She did. Amid the bubbling anticipation of the night, she still feared her mother would know she’d been drinking when she got home the next morning from her “FCA sleepover.”
Kaylyn groped in the coin pocket of her jeans and withdrew a small round pill. “It’s just a vitamin, like B12 and stuff. It’ll definitely make you feel better tomorrow.”