“Sure. When it’s over. Whatever. That’s fine,” she said, deliberately obtuse, not completely understanding why. It was easier to hate him, to drive him away, she thought, than to find out he’d been fucking with her. She hated how dramatic she was being, but couldn’t stop. They made their way back through the crowd into the house to the sound of Jacob doing his best sullen Morrissey impression out of the crackly speaker: “There are times when I could have muuuurdered heeerrrr.” Betsy found a spot on the stairs so she could look out over the crowd and hide at the same time. She wondered if they could actually play or if they would just tune the instruments until people gave up and left or fell asleep.
She glanced at the thermostat on the wall. The air-conditioning was set at sixty-five, but the room was airless and suffocating. The crowd was a raggedy mix of hippies, skaters, punks, and general-purpose slackers. They were people who, if they lived in a real city, would have the luxury of avoiding one another, even hating each other. Here, the population that qualified as bohemian or, that new word, alternative, or marginal in any way, was so small that they had to band together as kindred, disaffected youth. Though in Weird Bobby’s case, calling him “youth” of any kind was a stretch. It was Gainesville, summer of 1990, and less than a mile down the street there were a dozen steroid-addled assholes sitting on a fire truck permanently parked in the front yard of their frat house, draining a day-old, half-empty keg of Bud Light and rating women as they walked by on the traditional scale of one to ten. So from Betsy’s angle, Weird Bobby’s party, full of wasted, misfit strangers, and the ironic and wildly inappropriate song set Jacob put together, was better than her other options. She sat on her perch and watched. Across the room, she spotted Louise and Not-Louise huddled against the wall, laughing conspiratorially. Betsy watched as Anna slinked through the crowd and let her shirt slip off of her shoulder like she didn’t notice, and Channing stumbled her way across the room in a long skirt that hung low on her jutting hips, scarf wrapped just so. Eventually, Teddy climbed the stairs and took a seat next to her.
“You know, people can actually see you here,” he said.
“They can?” she asked. “I thought that weed that strong must give you superpowers. I was praying that mine was invisibility.”
“Good one,” Teddy said, as he reached out and clinked his beer bottle against hers. “I’m always torn between X-ray vision and the power of flight.”
They sat together for a while and listened to Jacob’s Neil Young whine, howling “shot her dead, I shot her dead” over and over. Betsy felt relieved to be partially hidden on the stairs, safe with Teddy, that internal voice, the one that was out to destroy her, silenced for the time being.
“I thought you would have graduated by now?” said Betsy.
“Nah, I’m on the five-year plan,” he said. He had to shout to be heard over the music.
“I’m out of here in December,” said Betsy. “No idea where to, though.”
“I say just pick a spot on the map and go. Get out of here. I hear Seattle’s cool? Maybe Chicago? Where else?” he said.
“Maybe New York? All of those places feel way too far away. Way too cold. But you never know. Right now, I’d be happy just to go to a place where a shirt and shoes are required for service. I’d be happy to be in a town that wasn’t turned upside down by a serial killer, too,” she said.
Predictably, Channing made her way over to the percussion section and was shaking a tambourine in time to a messy cover of “Dig It Up” by the Hoodoo Gurus. “My girlfriend lives in the ground,” growled Jacob. She did a kind of spinning dance move that made Betsy feel nauseous just watching. Then, as if the party wasn’t a complete disaster already, the front door opened and in stumbled Mack, clearly smashed, with a ball cap pulled low over his eyes. He searched the room from the doorway and when he saw Betsy on the stairs next to Teddy he pointed at her hard and shouted, “Outside!” which was barely audible over the music. Gavin didn’t see anything.
“Shit,” said Teddy. “You can just ignore him, you know.”
“I’ve tried it before. Doesn’t work,” she said, and steadied herself on the stair rail as she stood up. If Channing’s spinning got the pukey feeling started, Mack’s grand appearance sealed the deal. Betsy tottered down the stairs and ran out of the front door to throw up in what was left of the landscaping on the far side of the driveway near a woody patch that separated Weird Bobby’s place from the house next door. She rinsed out her mouth with the remains of her Corona and spit, as delicately as possible, fearing any stragglers outside who saw her in the bushes might not find the whole situation very refined. By the time she looked up, the front yard was empty. She was alone, except for Mack, who was looming in front of her. Even in silhouette, backlit by the porch light, it was clear that he wasn’t merely wasted. He was belligerently, blindly wasted. She steadied herself against a tree, ready for the fight.
“Is this some kind of joke?” he shouted. “You and Gavin?”
“As of this morning, I didn’t think so. Now I’m reconsidering.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“There’s nothing going on,” she said.
“It looks like you’re staying in his house, Betsy. There’s something going on or you’re a bigger whore than I thought.”
Teddy walked out onto the front porch.