So fifteen minutes and a lot of hair adjustments and bitchy remarks later, we arrive at the party, which appears to be in full swing. There are several people loitering in the front yard and more arriving, the music loud and echoing as we step out of the car, which Meghan has managed to awkwardly squeeze into a spot between a beat-up truck and a convertible. We grab the booze, and I end up carrying in a pack of Twisted Tea and a bottle of vodka, and suddenly I feel like an alcoholic. I bet the neighbors are peeking through their blinds with the cops on speed dial. It’s so obvious that we’re all minors. I have no idea where Tiffani, Rachael, and Meghan got any of this from or how they managed to get it, but like every other teenager in this country, they must have their ways. There are always ways.
“Hey, Tyler!” a voice yells across the lawn. A shorter guy with a buzz cut and a Budweiser in his hand approaches him, and they greet each other with a fist bump. “Glad you could make it.”
“Yeah,” Tyler says. He nods to the case of Bud Light under his arm. “Kitchen?”
“Yeah,” the guy says, jabbing a finger out toward the house. “Dump it and come join us.” Tyler disappears inside, greeting a number of people on the way, his steps uneven.
“Hey, Austin!” Tiffani says to the same guy—the host of the party. I tag along behind her, with Rachael and Meghan by my side, and I can’t help but feel entirely out of place. I don’t know any of these people, yet here I am, turning up at a party and praying that no one will notice the stranger among them.
“Enjoy yourselves, girls,” Austin says, and there is so much lechery underlying his tone that it makes him repulsively gross. “Nice dresses.”
“I know,” Tiffani says. She rolls her eyes over her shoulder and down to her ass, biting her lip. But I notice. “By the way, Eden’s here too.”
“Eden?” Austin’s eyes drift past her, darting from Rachael to Meghan and then finally to me. “Crashing my party, Eden?”
Before I can drop dead right there and then, Tiffani steps forward and presses her hand flat against his chest. She leans in close by his side, murmurs, “Eden is Tyler’s stepsister,” and then leans back to fix him with a hard look. “And you don’t want to get on the wrong side of him, so…”
Austin’s expression immediately falters, and he takes a step back, replacing the smirk on his face with a wide smile. “Welcome to the party! Turn up or go home.” He raises his beer to the sky, whistles for a moment, and then walks away.
“You heard him,” Rachael says. She unscrews the cap of a bottle of vodka she’s holding in her hand and takes one huge gulp, drinking it straight without her features even shifting. She must do this a lot. “Turn the hell up!”
The sky darkens, and Tiffani leads the way inside, and I’ve figured by now that she’s the alpha female of the trio. The trio of friends plus me, the tagalong from Portland. And with being the tagalong come anxiety and nerves and the awareness that I’m not welcome here.
The house is pretty much packed from one wall to the other, be it with bodies or cases of beer, and it is very, very hot. The music is loud, and the alcohol doesn’t seem to be in short supply. The majority of the people here are already tipsy, if not wasted, and there are only a few who are still standing steady. By the time we weave our way through to the kitchen, Tyler is already gone. His box of beer is lying among the overflowing collection of alcohol that covers the table and every countertop. Used shot glasses decorate the floor, and I carefully step around them before sliding the pack of Twisted Tea and the vodka onto the edge of the table.
“S’cuse me, Rach,” a male voice says from behind us, and when I glance to my right, there is a guy moving Rachael to the side by guiding her with his hands around her waist. “I was wondering if you’d show up tonight.”
“Trevor!” Excitedly, she throws herself into his arms and pecks his lips.
Trevor moves around her and fetches himself a beer as she gazes at him the way a three-year-old gazes at a puppy.
“Boyfriend?” I mouth to Meghan, but she shakes her head.
“Catch up with you guys later!” Rachael yells, despite being right next to us all. “Have fun, Eden!” The two of them head out of the kitchen together, Trevor with a beer in his hand and Rachael with the vodka still in hers.
“Rachael’s a total lightweight,” Tiffani says while lining up two new shot glasses, her back to us. “She’s been drinking cocktails since the second she turned up at my place.” True, Rachael did slip out to the kitchen every so often while we were getting ready. Until now, I thought she was just making excessive toilet trips.
Closely, I watch as Tiffani fills the glasses with tequila. “Who’s that Trevor guy?” I ask.
“Her party fling,” she answers in monotone, as though it’s no big deal at all. “They hook up at parties and that’s all it is. Okay, here.” She twirls around, her lips quirked up into a huge grin, and she hands me a glass of Cazadores tequila. I glance at Meghan for help, but she shrugs and holds up her car keys.
I’ve tasted tequila a couple times before, back home in Portland with my limited group of acquaintances, but it didn’t do anything for me besides leave a sour, bitter taste in my mouth. “Oh,” I say as I study the glass. It’s filled to the brim. From the corner of my eye, I notice Tiffani licking the back of her hand. “Oh?”
Meghan laughs softly and rolls her eyes as she reaches for the random saltshaker lying on its side on the countertop. She passes it to Tiffani. “Have you done this before?”
“Tequila?” I ask.