“Aaron? He likes me, but it’s not like that. He looks like a thug.”
“Sometimes the bad boys are the sweetest ones. It’s the nice ones you can’t always trust.” Her eyes were angry as she took another toke.
“Did you date a lot of bad boys when you were my age?”
“Bad ones, good ones, all kinds.…” She was quiet for a minute, picking at the label on her bottle. “There was one. Troy…” She smiled. “Shit, we’d go at it for hours in his truck.” She took a couple of hard swallows of her drink.
“What happened?”
“He moved.” She looked sad, then shook her head, making her hair ripple. “Fucking men, anyway.” She laughed, but it was kind of bitter.
“What about my dad? Was he a nice guy?”
Crystal’s face went still. She took another swallow of her drink before answering.
“Billy? Yeah, he was a nice guy.”
“Mom never talks about him.” I used to ask her about him all the time, wanting to know every detail, but Mom didn’t know much, other than his name was Billy Wilson and that he was blond—I got my height and hair from my grandfather—and he’d been into skateboarding and books. They met when he was camping for a couple weeks in the town where she grew up. When she found out she was pregnant, he was already gone and she didn’t know how to find him. It upset her to talk about him, so I eventually stopped asking.
I hoped Crystal would share something else, maybe some little fact that Mom had forgotten, but she was just staring at her bottle, rolling it in her hands.
“I used to wish she’d meet someone nice,” I said. “So I could have a dad, you know? But it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.” Once I’d saved up enough for my equipment and could make more money doing real events, I was going to hire a private detective to search for my father. I didn’t want to tell Crystal about that—she was cool but I had a feeling she might tell my mom.
“I don’t know, Sky,” she said. “Having a dad isn’t always a good thing. He might not be who you imagined.” She passed me the joint.
“Maybe he’s a jerk, maybe he wouldn’t even want to meet me.” I took a drag, let the smoke out. “But I have this fantasy that he’ll come watch me DJ. I’ll see him in the crowd and he’ll have this proud look on his face, and I’ll just know it’s him.” I looked down at my pinkie finger, which bent at the top toward the one beside it. It was curved like that on both hands. I used to be embarrassed when I was little but I was used to it now. Clinodactyly, it was called, and I must have inherited it from my dad because my mom said no one in her family had it. I’d asked her, but she said she couldn’t remember his hands.
I glanced up at Crystal. She was also staring at my finger, her eyes shiny.
“You okay?” I said.
She met my eyes. “Your mom just wishes she knew how to find him for you but she can’t. She feels bad about that. Maybe go easy on her.…”
I’d never really heard Crystal worry about someone else’s feelings before.
She stood up. “Come sit in the bathroom with me while I do my makeup.”
*
The bar was packed, the dance floor jammed with bodies, but Crystal got me a seat up at the bar where I had a great view of the band. I’d been worried I might get busted at the door, but Crystal had lent me a pair of her booty shorts and a sexy top that actually made me look like I had boobs and did my makeup so I looked older. She just walked in all confident and introduced me as one of her friends. No one asked for my ID.
We’d agreed I wouldn’t drink at the bar—just in case we did get caught—but she kept me supplied with Red Bulls and we went outside a couple of times on her breaks to smoke a joint. The guy she’d told us about at dinner showed up and she introduced me. His name was Larry, and I didn’t like him or the way he checked out Crystal’s butt every time she turned around, but she kept giving him flirty looks. His head was shaved, so I figured he was the guy who’d driven her to the gym. He also had this habit of licking his lips every time he took a sip of his drink, which was gross. He kept trying to ask me questions, but I pretended I couldn’t hear him.
When Crystal was done, we headed back to her place. I drove because Crystal had had a couple of drinks at the bar. Larry came too, and the three of us sat around smoking another joint—and drinking. Crystal and Larry were really pounding them now, when they weren’t busy flirting with each other. I felt like the third wheel but I couldn’t go home—Mom thought I was at Emily’s, and anyway I was too stoned and a little drunk.
I sat on the chair while they got closer on the couch. Larry’s hand was around my aunt’s waist, almost climbing up her shirt. She laughed and pushed him away, but I could tell she was into it. I stared at my drink, my face hot.
“Hey, Skylar, do you mind if we disappear for a bit?” Crystal stood and grabbed Larry’s hand to pull him up.