“Couldn’t get a sitter,” the man said. His voice was high and raspy. “Who’s the kid?”
“What is your name, actually?” Virginia said, arching an eyebrow.
“Andrew,” I said. My rib cage started to collapse. My heart thumped in my ears.
“Is that your real name?”
A woman with broad shoulders and a faint shadow of a beard under her makeup entered next. She looked strong and stout, but the longer I looked the more I saw the beauty in her—here a light step, here a brief touch of the hair, here a wide, open smile. Boone said, “Evening, Rhonda,” to greet her.
“Amanda,” I said then. “It’s … I mean it’s not my name, but I always wanted it to be. So, Amanda, I guess.”
“Would you like it if we called you that?” Moira asked. Her dark-ringed eyes bore down on me, but the corners of her mouth turned up in a faint smile.
“I’m not sure,” I said. My chest felt tight but warm and my breathing was shallow. “I think I want that.”
“Well, then, I would like to introduce my friend Amanda to everyone,” Virginia said, squeezing my hand and smiling. My eyes burned suddenly, and when I rubbed my cheek, my hand came away wet. I tried to remember the last time I had been able to cry.
6
Anna insisted on giving me a ride to the party Saturday night. Dad and I had been avoiding each other for most of the week, but he actually looked like he might smile when she picked me up in front of the apartment complex in her family’s green minivan. Maybe the religious bumper stickers stuck all over the van’s backside like wallpaper reassured him I was making friends with the right people.
We pulled up to the house as the setting sun limned the western mountains in red and purple. The house was white and ranch-style and looked like it could be on the cover of Southern Living. A garden overflowed with flowers in full bloom. I knew all of their names: Indian pinks, white rain lilies, Stokes aster, false indigo. Mom had taught me them years before, until Dad found me gardening, and they fought.
Inside, music rattled the floors and kids were packed together tightly, red Solo cups in hand. A keg stood by the entrance to the kitchen, a line snaking around the corner. Chloe and Layla waved us over as soon as we walked in, giving us both hugs. In the last week I’d been given more hugs than in my entire life combined. I was anxious about anyone touching me and my reflex was to tense up and jump away, but once I took a deep breath and relaxed I found that I actually enjoyed it, that momentary contact that said you weren’t alone.
Chloe directed me toward the kitchen, telling the other girls we’d get them drinks—beer for Layla and water for Anna, who didn’t drink. I started to say I didn’t drink either, but then I remembered I had gotten high two days before, and suddenly a beer hardly felt adventurous at all.
When it was just the two of us, Chloe leaned in close. “Thanks again,” she said. “For Thursday.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I told her with a smile.
She tapped her red cup against mine. “You know everybody here talks about how much other people talk,” she said. I was pretty sure that was more words together than I had heard her use all week. “But the more they talk about how shameful it is, the more they do it.”
Behind us, Layla and Anna were fiddling with our host’s iPhone and speakers. They shrieked happily as a new song came on.
“If you ever want someone to talk to,” I told her, “I know how to keep a secret.”
*
Twenty minutes later I sat on a countertop staring out at the sea of people filling the house. Anna, Layla, and Chloe were all talking to other people, so I tried to look busy as I sipped gingerly from my red plastic cup and tapped my heel in time with the Top 40 hits blaring over the speaker. I was unimpressed with beer—it tasted like stale bread and water, and it wasn’t making me feel any different.
“Um … hey,” a deep voice called, almost drowned out by the music and the crowd. I looked up and saw Parker standing a few feet away, a nervous expression on his face.
“Hey,” I said, trying to act nonchalant. Something about his heavy-lidded gaze always set me on edge. “Congrats on the game the other night.”
“We lost.”
“It was still the most fun I’ve ever had watching sports,” I said, shrugging. “Seems like there should be a prize for that.”
“Oh,” he said, looking away. His cheeks flushed red and it occurred to me that he was nervous. I felt guilty all of a sudden, as if just by existing and talking to him I was leading him on. It gave me a strange sense of power, and not one that I liked.
“Can I get you a beer?”
“I already—” I began, but he said, “I’ll go get you one” abruptly and disappeared into the crowd. I let out a long sigh as I watched him go.