Tonight the Streets Are Ours

“You should go because I’m going,” Arden said, which seemed like it should be reason enough. Wasn’t that the point of being in a relationship? Having someone to hang out with on Friday night? “I bet we could have some alone time there,” Arden had added. She kissed him, trying to hint that “alone time” could involve more things that were similar to kissing. Supposedly boys were very horny and were more likely to do things when those things might involve making out.

Arden’s boyfriend, however, seemed to be the exception to that rule.

“Why do you even want to go, anyway? Since when are you friends with that group?”

Arden didn’t have a particularly good answer to that question. She was just curious, she guessed. Curious about what life was like outside of the bubble of her and Chris’s theater friends, who were all the sort of kids who participated in class and went home in time for their eleven o’clock curfews. There was a whole other high school world that was coexisting with her own, and it seemed like that world should be thrilling and vibrant—the exact opposite of her high school world in every way.

Plus, didn’t everybody want to go to cool kids’ parties? Wasn’t that just a generally understood rule of adolescence?

“I’ll think about it,” Chris had said. That was how they’d left it.

Now, Arden took a Cool Ranch Dorito from a giant wooden bowl, pulled out her phone, and texted him. UR FAVORITE CHIPS R HERE. U COMING?

He did not text back immediately. Maybe a particularly rousing round of improvisational comedy was going down.

Lindsey stood up from the couch. “I just saw Denise go into the kitchen. I’m going to go get a drink and say hi or whatever while I’m in there.”

Arden stood, too. “Want me to wingman you?”

Arden and Lindsey had spent a lot of time debating whether Denise was a hundred percent straight or possibly bisexual, and, if the latter, whether Lindsey should ask her out or no. Denise’s mere choice to attend this party pointed to “likes guys” with a high degree of certainty; however, Arden reminded herself, everybody could have a different reason for being here tonight.

“I’ll be okay,” Lindsey said.

Arden just looked at her.

“I’m going to be like twenty feet away from you. What kind of trouble could I possibly get into? Chill.”

Lindsey squared her shoulders and went off to casually brush shoulders with her crush. Arden headed outside to the empty patio so she wouldn’t just be sitting on the couch looking obviously alone, which was pathetic.

Arden stood with her back to Matt’s house and looked out over the landscape, the two-story houses and two-car garages eventually giving way to mountains in the distance. The trees were barren, the stars stark against the sky. Arden checked her phone for a response from Chris. Nothing.

This shouldn’t make her feel so sad. She didn’t have to spend every weekend night with Chris. So he was busy. So what? She was busy, too. And anyway, she wasn’t alone. She was here with Lindsey.

When they were in elementary school, Lindsey and Arden liked to imagine that they would live together when they got older. They planned to buy a house someday. Maybe they would run a bakery out of their shared kitchen. Maybe they would live on a farm, like Lindsey’s family used to, and she would feed the chickens while Arden tended to the zebras. (Their imaginary farm obviously had zebras.) Maybe they would adopt some children. Maybe they would marry identical twins and the four of them would live in one big mansion together. One time Lindsey suggested that she and her twin husband could get a separate house, across the street from Arden and her twin husband, and Arden was like, “I don’t see why that would be necessary.”