He makes it back to his driveway in twenty-six steps and one small leap over the boxwood bush that separates our houses.
I zombie-shuffle to the front room and flop down on the couch. I’m more thought than flesh; a thousand questions flop down with me and make the room shake like an earthquake is running right through it. New Boy has been living next door for a week and my circuits are fried from trying to figure out what he’s thinking. I mean, I watch MTV, so I knew this was a thing. Boys and girls: same species, two completely different planets. But this teamed with my super-ability to overthink – it’s just too much. I don’t like this feeling of always messing up. I don’t like that scrutinizing has tripled in productivity since he moved in. I know it’s me, my issue, my problem, which is why I decide I’m going to avoid him from here on out.
It’s Wednesday. As promised, Dr Reeves drops by for a coffee. She stays forty-five minutes. We talk about what I’m eating and how I’m sleeping. I decide not to tell her I spent yesterday in my pyjamas, building castles out of cookies and spit.
After we’re done discussing Mom, the weather, what the world would look like without worry, she reminds me how to breathe, which is much easier to forget than you’d think.
She’s gone approximately six minutes before I hear the squeak of the letterbox.
Neighbour,
Impromptu Eric Rhodes Day party at my house Friday night, 7.30 p.m.
Hope you can make it. Parent-free place! There will be beer!
Thank you, Jesus, for weekends.
Luke
Oh. God.
This is not good.
This. Is. Not. Good.
Beyond the fire and brimstone, everyone has their own idea of hell. Shopping, doing tax returns, fish-nibbling-at-your-feet spa treatments, or having to spend an eternity surrounded by people who click pens.
I screw up the neatly folded note I just found on my doormat and hurl it down the hall. I stare at it, lying in the middle of the floor, a ticking time bomb loaded with perfect handwriting. Then of course I stomp over, snatch it up, and dunk it in the trash, because I can’t handle both impending party and mess stress right now.
I do laps. Walk in circles around our kitchen, being careful not to step on the pale beams of light the mid-morning sun is throwing through the window.
A party. With beer. Next door. This is my hell. We are at DEFCON 1. I can’t think of anything worse. Oh no, wait. Yes, I can. A party with beer next door and me being home alone.
There are going to be people from my former high school fifty yards away. Tons of people. Flooding out of his front yard and into mine. I know my high school career was shorter than the lifespan of a fruit fly, but what if someone remembers me? What if someone remembers this is where I live? What if they want to come over? What if they want me to come out?
My head is about to explode and decorate the kitchen with pieces of petrified brain.
Drunk teens spewing vodka shots in Mom’s rose bushes, trashing the street, probably getting high. The police will come. I saw something like this unfold in a movie once.
‘Norah. Norah!’ A familiar voice infiltrates my cyclone of despair.
‘Mom?’ I look down at the phone receiver in my hand, Mom’s tinny tones still emanating from it.
I don’t even remember dialling.
‘Mom. Mom.’ I jam the phone against my ear. ‘Mom. He’s having a party Friday night. What do I do?’ If she were here, I’d be clinging to her shirt collar.
‘What?’
‘It’s Eric Rhodes. There’s going to be beer.’
‘Sweetheart . . . Eric Rhodes is . . . dead.’
‘What? No.’ Frustration makes me flap. ‘I know that.’ Eric Rhodes, the founder of our small town, has been dead about a billion years. This coming weekend is something we do to celebrate his birthday. No, not we. Not I. Not ever.
My tongue is twisted up, feels ten times too big in my mouth. It’s probable I’m not making much sense. Panicked, not to be confused with intoxicated, though the two often present as something very similar.
I take a breath. ‘The new boy next door,’ I say like a kindergartener learning language. ‘He’s having a party Friday night. He invited me. There will be beer. He said that, wrote it on the invite . . . in perfect handwriting.’
‘You got asked to a party?’ my mom exclaims in a voice that implies she’s going to magnet my invite to the fridge door the second she gets home. She’s completely missed the point.
‘Mom.’
‘Right. Sorry. They’ve got me on some crazy painkillers over here. An hour ago I swear I was floating above my bed.’ She giggles.
Oh. This is so not good. Well, at least not for me. For her it sounds pretty euphoric.
‘Mom, you’ll be home by Friday, right?’ Oh God, please let her tell me she’ll be home by Friday.
Pause. Longer pause. My hair is going grey.