She glances over at me again, this time with a patronizing smile on her lips. “To be honest with you, Eden, I highly doubt he cares what you think.”
I don’t know how to reply. The only thing I can think about is how irritated I feel and how I want to bite back at her. Thankfully, I don’t have to muster up anything, because Meghan slides into the kitchen with a concerned expression forcing creases onto her forehead.
The first thing she asks us is, “Can someone tell me why our friend is vacuuming a coffee table while wearing sunglasses?”
*
We spend two hours prepping Rachael’s house, which I find increasingly pointless the more I think about it. It’s most likely going to end up trashed by the end of the night. We vacuum, we hide Dawn’s knickknacks that Rachael says have been in their family for decades, we mop the floors, we lock her parents’ room. The other three bedrooms—Rachael’s and two spares—are all open, for optimism.
Once the house is declared suitable for a party, we head out to gather in the necessities—alcohol and condoms. We wait outside a cheap liquor store in Rachael’s car as Tiffani makes her way inside, swinging her hips and pouting. Fifteen minutes later, she rushes out with a cart overflowing with a variety of beer and spirits, including the most deathly of all: tequila.
“It was the Indian guy,” she says as we help her load the bags into the trunk. “He asked for my number this time. So I gave him yours, Meg.”
We make a stop by a grocery store called Ralph’s, and we spend thirty minutes pacing the aisles and grabbing whatever soft drinks and chips we can find. Rachael wants to ensure there’s an unlimited supply of snacks to go around. And once we’re completely stocked up on alcohol and potato chips and the car is weighed down so much that it struggles to get going, we agree that we have successfully got everything ready within our five-hour time frame. In fact, it’s only taken us three. There’s time left over for a quick trip to the promenade, and I pick out an outfit for the night with the help of my three friends. Tiffani picks the color, Rachael decides on the style, and Meghan pinpoints the details. I end up coming home with a coral keyhole dress, which is very tight and very short but is apparently up to standard.
“I hope your parents don’t call mine,” Rachael murmurs once we get back to her house and start unloading the car. She has no reason to be worried. Dad and Ella will be ramming nachos into their mouths while watching a messy football game.
“They’re watching the Dodgers game,” I say. “We’re lucky they like football.”
Rachael, Tiffani, and Meghan all stare at me, and slowly Rachael asks, “Eden, you know that the Dodgers are a baseball team, right?”
“Same difference.”
She shakes her head, laughing as she nods across the street. “Go get yourself ready,” she says. “It’s almost seven. I told people to come any time after nine. The same goes for you, Tiff. Me and Meg can handle the rest of this.”
Before we go our separate ways, I agree with Tiffani that we’ll come back just before nine. It’s a rule that if your friend is hosting a party, you must be there before everyone else. Meghan is staying at Rachael’s to get ready. After all, the party is for her.
When I get back into my own house, thirty seconds after departing Rachael’s, I carefully carry my new dress upstairs toward my room. But it’s not long before a brooding figure stops me at the top of the stairs.
“Looks like it’s just you and me,” Tyler says as I near him. It’s the first time I’ve seen him in two days. He disappears often, and Ella doesn’t even question it. Maybe once upon a time she did, but it seems that now she’s just given up on asking for explanations. My dad, on the other hand, is still adamantly trying to enforce rules that just don’t exist in Tyler’s mind. “They’re at the Dodgers game. The Angels are totally gonna lose.”
“I know,” I say. “Can you move, please?”
“Sure.” Surprisingly, he steps to the side to let me by. I furrow my eyebrows at him as I pass, and I even hesitate before I enter my room. He looks tired. “What?”
“You’re coming to Rachael’s tonight, right?” I ask, even though I already know that he is. It seems that he’s a permanent fixture at parties.
“Yeah,” he says. He tilts his head, his eyes slightly narrowed. I can’t quite figure out what sort of a mood he’s in right now. He can go from relaxed to furious and back again within the space of a minute. “You’re gonna be there too, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool,” he says. “What time are we heading over there?”
“What do you mean ‘we’?” I almost snort as I push open my bedroom door, my dress still resting over my arm. “I’m walking across the street on my own. Not with you. You can head on over there, Tyler, any time you want.”