I asked, “Where is he?”
Lisa nodded her head in the direction of the living room. “In there, I think. Peek out casually and see if you can see him. But don’t be obvious!”
I leaned out the doorway and scanned my eyes across the living room for Pickford. It didn’t take long to find him as he was a full head taller than the rest of the kids in the room. “Yep. There he is alright. I’ll call him over so you can smooch him. Hey Pick!”
Lisa threw her hand over my mouth, saying, “Shut up, you retard!” and dragged me back behind the kitchen wall.
She still had a hold on my mouth, so I licked her palm.
She pulled away quickly, wiping her hand on her jeans. “Ewww! You’re so gross! What’s your damage, anyway?”
“Um, okay, Heather. Did you just seriously ask me what my damage is?” I cracked up, then added, “That’s what you get for trying to smother me with your freakish paws.”
Lisa held a hand in front of her face, inspecting it for flaws, saying, “Maybe they’re not dainty, but they’re not freakish. You’re the freak.”
“You are.”
“You are, Jerk.”
“Don’t call me Jerk, Oven Mitts.”
“Don’t call me Oven Mitts, Janis Joplin.”
“Yeah, well, up your nose with a rubber hose.”
“Ha! Up your ass with a piece of glass. You’d love it.”
“Yeah? Well, you love Pickford Redy.”
Lisa stopped laughing and looked at me wide-eyed. “Shit. Yeah, I totally do,” which cracked me up all over again.
*
Most of the time, the purposes of a high school party were to socialize, drink and hook up. The latter of which I was reminded of while waiting in line for the bathroom as Coop Benedict tried to stick his tongue in my ear.
Cooper and I had been close friends for like, ever. He was really cute and we’d gone out a few times, but we’d realized we weren’t destined to be the next Bruce and Demi. Sometimes, we’d get drunk and make out, but that night, he was just too drunk and I wasn’t digging his sloppy proposition.
Thankfully, Sargento came out of the bathroom just then and I told Coop he could get in there ahead of me.
He wobbled on his feet for a second and said, “Why don’t we both go in?”
I told him no, that was alright.
He put a hand against the door frame and slurred his next words. “C’mon, Layla. You looso hot in that hibbie shirt. Come in w’ me.”
And then, like I knew he would, he started singing.
I’ll give you one guess what song it was.
“Oh, for crying out loud, Coop. Just take your damn turn in the bathroom so I can get in there. I really gotta pee!”
He finally gave up and closed the door behind him, adjusting the lyrics and singing loudly, “Lay-la... She’s really gotta pee! Lay-la...”
Just as I was shaking my head at that, Trip appeared around the corner. I’d spent the past few hours avoiding him and Tess like the plague. I just didn’t think I could handle seeing them being shmoopy all night.
“This the line?”
“Yep.”
“Who’s the songbird in the can?”
“That would be Cooper Benedict.”
Trip could hear the altered version of my song and asked, “How many times has someone sung that to you?”
“If I had a nickel.”
That made him laugh.
He leaned a shoulder against the wall, crossed his arms and nodded at me. “You know, I almost didn’t recognize you when I first saw you out there. You look really different with your hair like that.”
I didn’t know if “different” was a good or a bad thing. I resisted the urge to check my flat hair in the hall mirror and took a sip of my drink instead. I’d had more than a handful of conversations with Trip already, but I still felt nervous talking to him, wanting to make a good impression, even though I knew it was really stupid to develop a crush on a guy that nine hundred other girls were practically in love with, too. A guy that dated older, beautiful and more experienced girls like Tess Valletti. A guy that was only talking to me at that moment because I happened to be standing there at the time. In my head, I knew this. In my stomach, the butterflies did not.
“So... How are you liking your first Norman party?”
Trip jammed his fists into the front pockets of his jeans and rocked back on his heels. “It’s cool. Everyone’s being really cool.”
“It must be hard to constantly have to go through the trouble of making new friends just to up and leave them all the time.”
“Yeah, you’d think so. But I keep in touch with a few of them. Every now and then, I’ll hitch a ride on the jet with my father when he goes to check on his properties and we get to hang out. Me and my friends, I mean-not my father.”