“Hey, doll.” She kisses my cheek, wipes away the lipstick print with her thumb, then crawls behind me to sit in back.
“Where are your parents?” I ask, looking pointedly at the cigarette dangling between her index and middle fingers. I keep the window cracked.
“My mom has a show in the city tonight.”
“You’d better be careful with that thing,” Phil says in his dad voice as he turns to eye Sara-Kate and her cigarette.
“Have I ever burned or otherwise desecrated your precious car?” she says, holding it just outside the window so the smoke and ash will blow behind us in the wind.
“Just watch where you hold it, okay?” Phil heads toward Klein’s, which means the houses grow larger with each street we cross. The yards become more spacious, the cars in the driveways more luxurious.
Sara-Kate blows two perfectly circular smoke rings out the window, then pushes her round face between the seats. “Thanks for driving, Philip.”
“No problem, Sara-Katherine.” He turns his head slightly to give her the side-eye.
“But it’s not Katherine.” Her perpetually sunny face twists into a pout.
“And it’s not Philip.” He pauses as we drive by my favorite house in Ashland Hills: all white and three stories high with a flat roof, sturdy columns, and a long balcony off the second level. “Not unless you’re my mother.”
But he doesn’t hide his grin fast enough when I look over.
Klein’s parents are always on some type of vacation or business trip, and his parties have become an institution. He hires actual DJs from Chicago and these things generally last all night and the cops never break them up because his family has more money than anyone in Ashland Hills.
His street is already lined with cars, so we have to park on the next one over. My parents would flip their shit if it ever got back to them that I’d thrown a party this size. Not that I ever would. Mom and Dad are pretty chill on a day-to-day basis, but when something big goes down, they take action fast. Attempting to pull off a party like Klein’s would land me at least a monthlong grounding. Probably more.
Ellie Harris is sitting on the front steps as we walk up. She leans her head close to Lark Pearson, looks at us, and throws her head back in laughter. I don’t know what Hosea likes about her, because I haven’t found much. She’s pretty enough, I guess, in a manufactured sort of way. Good highlights and perfectly glossed lips; the kind of girl who’s never in public without full makeup. I wonder if Hosea has seen her without makeup.
She takes a delicate sip from a bottle of hard cider. “Hi, Phil.”
“Yeah, hi, Phil,” echoes Lark. Her eyes are rimmed with so much liner, it looks like someone punched her.
Phil pauses for a couple of beats to see if they’ll acknowledge me or Sara-Kate. They don’t. Lark whispers something to Ellie and this time they both laugh. Ellie giggles as she tips the bottle back for another drink.
“Excuse us, ladies,” Phil says, and damn does he know how to make a polite word sound like something he found in a toilet.
He holds the heavy front door open for us and closes it firmly behind him.
We step into the room off the foyer where everyone dumps their coats. It’s the maid’s sitting room, small and plain but comfortable, with a cream-colored suede couch and matching love seat, a bookshelf of hardcover classics, and a sleek television mounted on the far wall. Phil stows our coats in the closet on wooden hangers instead of draping them over the couches like everyone else. “We don’t know where their shit has been,” he mumbles as he hangs his thrifted brown leather jacket.
“You know, Lark was in my study hall last year and she was really nice to me,” Sara-Kate says, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “She’d always tell me about the big makeup sales.”
“Blame Ellie Harris.” I shrug off my black peacoat and hand it to Phil, who’s waiting, hanger in hand. “Everything she touches turns to bitch.”
“And the first round goes to Theo,” Phil says, nodding with an eyebrow raised in appreciation.
Klein is one of the first people we see as we walk back out to the foyer. He’s standing near the bottom of the spiral staircase with a drink in one hand as he surveys the crowd, practically holding court. Just in case anyone forgets this is his house and all. Phil rolls his eyes.
“I still can’t believe you fucked him,” he says as he tugs at his denim vest with the frayed edges.
“I didn’t.” I give his vest the once-over. It’s actually an old denim jacket with the sleeves cut off, but whatever. “And you’re friends with him.”
“We’re tangential friends.” We step into the living room. Sara-Kate by my side, Phil facing us. “Like, one step beyond acquaintances.”
Leo Watson squeezes by us in his Wranglers and signature brown Stetson, pauses for a second to make a face at Phil’s black skinny jeans. I don’t think he has much room for judgment, considering he dresses like he works on somebody’s ranch.
“I think the number of times you’ve gotten high with someone directly correlates to your level of friendship,” I say to Phil. “You and Klein are one hit away from buying matching bongs.”
“Bullshit.” But he takes off his glasses to wipe them on his shirt and he only does that when he doesn’t know what to say.
I tilt my head to the side as I look at him. “Three words: winter formal afterparty.”
Sara-Kate bursts into giggles and I’m next. We’ll use any excuse to bring up what happened.
Winter formal is the dance at our school. Few people take homecoming seriously besides the athletes and student council, and prom is so overhyped that I wonder how it ever meets anyone’s expectations. But winter formal is smack in the middle of the school year, a couple of weeks after we return from break, when everyone is looking for something to beat the post-holiday slump that falls in the dead of winter. Plainly put, it’s the night when the entire school gets dressed up and shitfaced, all under one roof. I’ve been with a date only once, and that was with Klein, my freshman year. I went stag with Sara-Kate and Phil when we were sophomores, but it would be fun to switch it up this year, if there was actually someone I wanted to ask me. Someone available.
Last year, Phil got wasted on airplane bottles of gin and we found him in the Andersons’ game room with Klein: arms around each other, straight-up kumbaya bro-love in front of the Indiana Jones pinball machine, and we couldn’t tell how long they’d been in there. Seeing the two of them get along so well would have been disturbing if it hadn’t been so funny. I swear I heard the words best buddy slurred back and forth a few times. Of course Phil denies it and I honestly don’t think Klein remembers any part of that night, let alone the end.
“Whatever, Theo. It’s still not the same as hooking up with him.”
“It was a couple of times. There was no sex. And it was, like, a million years ago, so I’d appreciate it if you’d stop bringing it up.”
I glare at him, but it’s not my full-on death stare. Murderous looks don’t go with my new sweater. I’m so flat that most sweaters look ridiculous on me, but my mother brought this one home last week and it’s perfect. Fitted with a deep scoop neck and made from soft cashmere the color of eggplant.
“Not a million.” Phil won’t let it go. “Freshman year. Two.”
“Maybe you need to get laid and stop fixating on who I didn’t sleep with two years ago.” I look to Sara-Kate for support. “Right?”
She holds up her hands, shakes her pale purple head at us. “I am so not getting into this. Now let’s go find some booze. Mama’s thirsty.”