I refrain from asking her if she’s going to lock everyone in, making them come and go through the little windows that are high up near the ceiling.
Something tells me that the two of us are not going to have an easy year.
We had a big fight earlier, when we were making chocolate-chip freezer cookies for the party. She told me that she and Matt were going to do it tonight. I told her that I had finally decided that fifteen is too young. She didn’t like that at all. She changed the subject, saying that I need to find an activity, or a group, or something so that people will know who I am. “Like, you know, I’m known as a cheerleader now,” she said. “What are they going to say about you? And don’t say, ‘She plays French horn in the orchestra’ because, I’m sorry, but that’s just lame.” I shoved some candy in my mouth to stop myself from saying, At least playing French horn takes some talent. Instead I said, “I’m a runner” to which she replied, “Not on a team, you’re not,” to which I replied, “Well at least running is a real sport, not like cheerleading,” to which she replied, “It’s good enough for Regina and she’s Jamie’s girlfriend.”
I almost punched her.
She hasn’t mentioned Jamie in a long time, probably because the last time she brought him up, I still wouldn’t tell her anything. That made her so mad that she started texting someone on her stupid phone right in the middle of our conversation, which she totally knows makes me crazy.
Of course, what she doesn’t know is that there’s nothing to tell about Jamie. Except maybe that a few weeks ago he watched me run laps around the track during tryouts, according to Robert. But now that Jamie and I don’t have study hall together anymore, we never talk. If he makes eye contact with me in the hall, maybe he’ll give me a little nod, but that’s it. I wonder if he’s freaked out by our last conversation. I guess I can understand that—I mean, we don’t even know each other, and I basically asked him how many people he’s had sex with. Dumb.
“Rosie, where’s your costume? It’s almost time,” Stephanie says, coming downstairs to the basement where I’m about to fall off a ladder, hanging fake spiders from the ceiling. She’s dressed as Lady Gaga. Or maybe Katy Perry. I’m not really sure which, since they both like crazy wigs, corsets and stupidly high heels.
“Um, I don’t… I’m not dressing up this year.” As I hang the last spider, I notice the blue nail polish I put on in honor of Halloween is already chipped.
“You have to! Oh, my god! Tracy will kill you if you don’t!”
“I’m not staying, Steph. I’m not in the mood for a party.”
Stephanie sort of shuffles her patent leather platforms around on the floor and then squints up at the orange-and-black streamers that run the length of the ceiling, twisting around each other with the spiders poking through. She takes a single blue M&M out of a bowl on the food table and pops it in her mouth.
Stephanie is truly one of the nicest people I know, which means that she gets caught in the middle a lot. Tracy and I met her in middle school last year, when she moved from southern Illinois with her mom after her parents got divorced. She’s more Tracy’s friend than mine, especially since she started dating Mike over the summer. I’ve wanted to ask Tracy for a while now why she and Matt didn’t set me up with anyone this summer, but I’m not sure I want to hear the answer.
“Are you leaving because Tracy’s mad at you?” she asks.
I have to think about that. Is that why I’m leaving? I think I’m leaving because I don’t feel like having Tracy flaunt her new friends in my face as if I’m not worth anything anymore. And because she’s making a big mistake by having sex with her stupid boyfriend when she barely even knows what sex is. And because he’s a jerk who is probably already doing it with half the girls’ swim team when she’s not looking.
Matt morphed into something gross this past summer. Tracy didn’t notice. But I did.
“Tracy’s mad because I told her I don’t think she should do it with Matt tonight.”
Stephanie shuffles some more and yanks down her purple-and-black striped skirt, which rides up every time she inhales. Or exhales. Or moves. Or thinks about moving.
Am I a prude? I wonder.
“You told her that?”
“I mean, Steph, isn’t fifteen, like, young to be worrying about this stuff?”
“Not really. It seems like everyone has had sex already, except us.”
“Everyone who? Who’s everyone?” I ask, a sick feeling flooding the pit of my stomach. Am I completely behind, and I don’t even know it? Am I totally out of the loop with no idea who’s doing it and who’s not? Part of me shrieks, Who cares? and the other part of me whispers, Chicken....
“Well, like, Tracy says all of Matt’s friends, and, like, most of the cheerleaders—”
“But they’re all—” I stop myself from saying, They’re all older, we’re just freshmen, because that argument has gotten me nowhere, especially in my conversations with Tracy. I guess I’m not supposed to be a freshman. I’m supposed to pretend to be older than I am at all times, I’m supposed to want to do things that don’t even make sense to me yet.
“You know what?” I finally say. “I don’t care what Tracy or her new friends do.”
“Come on, Rosie, Tracy’s your best friend. You don’t mean that.”
“She should do it or not do it, but either way, it’d be great if she’d stop making such a huge thing out of it. Why is it such a big deal?” I listen to my voice falling flat in the unfinished cement basement and realize I sound like a whiny, jealous brat. What is wrong with me?
When I hear Tracy trying to navigate the basement steps in her ridiculous spiked heels, I just know she’s been standing at the top of the stairs for the previous thirty seconds, listening. I’m suddenly very tired of myself. I need a lot more candy if I’m going to make it through this night.
She appears, looking an awful lot like Stephanie. Maybe they’re both supposed to be Lady Gaga or Katy Perry—again, I can’t tell. She takes one look at the table covered with the “spooky” Halloween tablecloth I brought that suddenly looks like it’s for two-year-olds and starts rearranging everything to cover it. She turns, looks right through me and asks, “Steph, did you get the vodka?”
“I almost forgot,” Stephanie says, practically running toward the stairs. Then the doorbell rings, and Stephanie stops in her tracks, screaming in unison with Tracy, “They’re here!” Tracy flies up the stairs behind Stephanie, yelling over her shoulder, “Get dressed, Rose! Now!”
“I am dressed,” I shoot back, but she’s not listening to me. She never is.
I hear the front door open. There’s a lot of high-pitched squealing that makes my ears hurt even though I’m still in the basement. The cheerleaders have arrived.
I need to get out of here.
I can practically hear Tracy’s voice in my head, calling me a snob. She’s always called me a snob, ever since we were five and I told her the Wiggles were dumb. I’m not a snob, I just don’t feel like spending the evening with Tracy’s new best friends.
The entire squad starts making its way down to the basement, and my first instinct is to find a place to hide. But I freeze when I hear Regina’s nails-on-a-blackboard