“That’s true.” Greg tugged my ponytail. “Once there were Indians.”
It was almost nine when we turned onto the Hodsons’ long drive. The house was set so deep into its parcel of land that the lights of nearby houses were pinpricks. I was bursting with an unprecedented, cocksure bravery, and when we parked before the darkened mansion, castlelike and hulking against the glittering lake, I would have bet anything—a million dollars, my future, more—reaching into the hanging planter and brushing aside fallen ivy leaves until my fingertips struck the icy tail of the key, that I was making the right choice.
I turned, grinning, my skin dampening around the metal. They’d remained in the cars, not really believing that I would pull it off, that this adventure was ours. I remember them in that moment as if looking at a painting, their faces stained with yellow car-light, their features beautifully indistinct. I loved them so fucking much, all of them, even my stupid fucking liar brother who had not come there out of concern for me.
“Trick or treat!” I yelled. Marlena’s phrase, but that time, it tasted like mine.
“You bitch!” Marlena shouted, jumping out of my brother’s car, and then we were all action, hauling Jimmy’s beer from the trunk, rushing the door as soon as I clicked it open and the house burped its fusty no-one’s-home smell, dried leaves and petals crushed in your palm and the chemical lemon of my mom’s homemade wood cleaner.
Inside, Greg and Ryder tore through the house turning all the lights on, pounding up the stairs, calling to each other like children to come see this, can you believe it? I found them wrestling in the westernmost bedroom on the third floor, Ryder pressing Greg’s head into the carpet and screaming at him to smell it, smell it good and hard. Ryder rolled off Greg and collapsed beside him, their boy chests straining their Tshirts. “Freaks,” I said. Greg flipped over and approached me on all fours, a growl spinning in his throat. He tackled my shins so my legs buckled, tipping me across his back until my head dangled between his knees, and then I was on the floor too. That’s what Marlena and Tidbit and Jimmy walked in on, the three of us flat on our backs on the carpet, laughing our asses off, staring up at the skylight and marveling at the luxury of stars you could see clearly from inside.
We started the night in the basement, where the bar overlooked a room with deep leather sofas, a pool table, and a TV that spanned the length of an entire wall. Because the house was built into the side of a hill, French doors opened onto the backyard. I propped them wide, to let in the air, which finally, long after sunset, had begun to feel like June. A few steps toward the beach, an antique-looking chimney thing made out of blue tile squatted in the middle of a circle of benches so buttery-soft I couldn’t believe they were really wood. Marlena wanted to play bartender, and lined up the most dazzlingly named bottles on top of the bar—Hennessy, Bombay Sapphire, Limoncello. She uncapped them one by one and sniffed the opening, then poured a little of each into a snifter and sipped, forcing Jimmy to taste this or that. He was sweet with her, gentle—always nearby, his attention eddying around her.
That’s when I knew, really and truly, that the thing between them was not only definite but probably there to stay, and in fact was accelerating right before my eyes, like a time-lapse video of a sapling growing into a full-blown tree. No, I wanted to say. No. I sat on one of the bar stools beside miserable Ryder, who knew, I realized, too, and watched my brother pass my best friend a clean glass, take down a bottle of Maker’s Mark from a place too high for her to reach, laugh with the most complete joy I’d ever seen when she made a funny face after tasting the Limoncello. Everything was about to change—I would be left behind, discarded by both of them, sidekick forever. It had been building all along, since the day I met her; it clicked into place with a twist of sadness, the opening notes of my first heartbreak.
Marlena slid one of her improvised cocktails to each of us. She held her hand out to Ryder, wiggling her fingers, and he dropped a pill into her palm. His mood was now unreadable. He took a gulp of his drink and then spat it back into his glass. “That’s the worst thing I’ve ever tasted.”
I agreed.
“I like it,” Tidbit said loyally, tipping her head onto Greg’s shoulder. Ryder grabbed a bottle of Grey Goose and poured it into a new glass, until the glass was almost full.
“Wow,” said Greg. “That is seriously foul. I should get that on video. I feel like people would really be impressed to watch someone drink that.”
“Just shots, my friend,” said Ryder. “Just all at once.” He edged a cigarette out of the pack in his pocket and headed for the backyard. I followed him. I didn’t want to watch them, either. Outside, Ryder unearthed a bag of charcoal from under one of the benches, emptied it into the chimney, and drizzled the mound of stones with some of the vodka in his glass. He tossed in a match and the coals roared, blinding us for a second before the chimney calmed it into a normal little fire.
“You trying to kill us?” said Jimmy, appearing in the doorway. “That’s a really great idea. Definitely do the most noticeable thing possible so that the neighbors definitely see.”
“Chill out, big man. It’s fine. It is all good.” Ryder was already on his way to very drunk. I could see the alcohol working in him, dulling his fear, his anxiety, his paranoia or whatever it was that had been making him so weird lately. He was an erratic drunk, easily angered, but he had his moments.
“Don’t do it again,” said Jimmy, shutting the French doors on us.
“Your brother sucks,” said Ryder.
“Yep.”
“Dayton’s the fastest way to get here, right?”
“Yeah, why?”
He sent a text, then looked from his phone to me, his face aglow with firelight, his birthmark sweet.
“You won’t be mad?”
“That depends.”
“The Mapletree isn’t safe anymore. I’m low on cash and I have five tabs of E to unload, and then that’s it, I’m out. I can’t keep these pills on me. Just seemed like a safe place. It’ll take ten minutes, not even.”
“Jesus, Ryder. What are you thinking?”