I know Will would have expected to be here, helping me find the clues. I imagine him saying “Colder, colder—no, warmer” like I was a toddler and gleefully clapping his hands when I got “hot.”
He would have hid it somewhere, though, where the staff wouldn’t clean or look, somewhere a scavenger hunt clue could go unnoticed. Finally, I open the mini fridge, run my hand through the freezer tray, and feel a hard square resting inside a plastic baggie.
I slide it out and hold up the envelope: Clue 3.
“What do you wear to a death party anyway?” I ask, tugging open Penny’s dresser drawers. I begin pulling out clothes and dropping them on the carpet beside my bare feet. Soon, the floor is littered with sarongs, long gauzy dresses, and tribal pants, none of which I could appropriately wear to a party.
Penny lowers her rear end from the downward dog position. “I was planning on wearing this.” Penny’s sporting a long printed skirt and a white knit sweater that hangs off one shoulder. I stare critically at her.
“What?” Penny demands, flipping the magazine closed. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”
I blow my bangs out of my eyes. “Nothing, it’s fine. It’s just…very you. Which of course I love.” I put my fingers to my lips and blow Penny a kiss. Aside from her favorite pair of yoga pants and a bathing suit, Penny has absolutely no form-fitting clothes.
“Okay, I’m going to stick to black,” I say, pulling the outfit I brought from home off Penny’s bed and stripping my shirt off to replace it. I duck to view my reflection in her vanity while I braid my hair in a long plait down my back. “It just seems on-theme, doesn’t it?”
“We’re not going to a funeral, Lake.” Penny pushes her feet off the ground and raises them in a headstand, revealing a pair of bright-blue underwear. The top half of her forehead turns red. “We’re going to the part before the funeral.” I shudder at the reminder. My first death party, an “underground” gathering where someone agrees to die on the eve of someone else’s eighteenth birthday in order to be resurrected the next day. It’s supposed to be a rush for the resurrection holder to have the experience of ending a life, and some death groupies believe that they’ll actually come back more spiritually connected with their killer once resurrected. Since suicide and assisted suicide are strictly taboo, death parties are always hush-hush and the deceased’s untimely demise must be presented as an accident. I can’t believe I’m really going to one.
“Besides, black is so boring,” Penny finishes.
“Gee, thanks.” I fasten a few wisps with a bobby pin. A black cut-off T-shirt skims the waist of my black jeans, exposing my belly button whenever I lift my arms too high.
“Scratch that,” Penny says. “We’ve only got five minutes before Will gets here. You look great.”
Penny returns to upright and comes to stand next to me in the mirror.
“Okay, seriously.” She holds the edges out on her sweater. “Is this not okay?” She turns to the side. “I picked it out kind of specifically for—I just picked it out special,” she finishes in one breath.
I spin from the mirror to face her. “Seriously. You could wear a potato sack and still look like a Sports Illustrated model. Minus the boobs.” I grin wickedly.
Penny crosses her arm protectively over her chest. “Hey!”
I lean over to apply blush to the apples of my cheeks and glance sidelong at Penny. I know that’s not how she meant to end her sentence.
I take a few extra minutes at the mirror knowing that I’ll see Will Bryan any moment too. We both freeze at the sound of a running engine outside. Penny rushes to the window, opens the blinds with her fingers, and peers out. “He’s here,” she says.
It’s just Will, I remind myself. Will is your friend.
But I can’t contain the guilty smile that’s creeping up the corners of my lips. What’s more, I’m horrified when I turn to see Penny wearing a matching one. We both swallow our smiles at the same time.
Penny shakes out the pleats in the long, flowing fabric of her skirt. She turns to me with a now serious expression. Her delicate hand wraps around my wrist. “Lake, are you sure we should be going to this thing?” I can feel my pulse beating fast against her fingers. Because I’m not at all sure.
Outside, there’s the scuff of footsteps on the sidewalk, followed by the doorbell chime. “I don’t know,” I hedge. “But…I think we already are.” I squeeze her shoulder. “Come on. It’ll be fine.”
Together, we traipse to the front door. Standing on the doorstep is Will Bryan. “Your chariot awaits, my ladies.” He grins. A wad of gum is stashed between two rows of perfectly white teeth. A kind of electric energy causes Penny and me to shift our weight too much and knock elbows. He tucks his hands in his jeans pockets and rocks back on his heels, chuckling softly.
Our Will Bryan. My stomach turns itself into a pretzel each time I see the gentle bump at the top of his nose and that sandy-blond hair that hangs down over his ears. My heart tugs. The problem is, I don’t know how Will stopped being just Will and started being Will Bryan, boy whose full name I like to repeat in my head over and over.
Penny takes shotgun in Will’s old Pontiac and I convince myself to feel only the smallest pang of jealousy when I have to crawl into the backseat. I can hardly hear their conversation over the roar of his engine anyway, and after ten minutes or so I tune out and stare through the window at the straight line of dark ocean horizon as it passes.
Finally, Will’s wheels land off the paved road with a thud and I jolt to attention. I sit up straighter now and lean forward to peer through the windshield. Ten minutes earlier we left the coast behind and headed inland, where the terrain quickly shifted from cute beach town to country.
The night sky is black as an ink stain out here. Will guides the car through a grass lot. Bugs dart in and out of the beam of his headlights. At the edge of the line of parked cars, a two-story house sits beside a thick, crooked tree that bends over the roof like a broken finger.
Some kids are streaming into the house, while others mill on the wraparound porch. The closest house appears to be half a mile away.
“This,” Penny says, “is kind of creepy.”
Will leans into the steering wheel to peer out the windshield. “It’s a party.”
“Where someone dies,” I say. I can’t believe the three of us are doing this. On the one hand, I feel a thrill to share the experience together. Our first grown-up party. A death party, no less. It’s wild and dangerous, the kind of thing we’ll be talking about when we’re adults and looking back on our crazy teenage years. On the other hand, the thought of seeing someone die up close is terrifying. What if I get sick? What if I have to look away?