“Over? Over where?”
“To my house! My parents are at my cousin’s wedding, so I’ve got the whole house to myself. I’m throwin’ a party. You’re invited.”
“A party?” A party can be a whole lot of different types of things. The last time I heard the word party, it was Trey’s party. It was the last party my brother went to. Possibly the last party he’ll ever go to. So the thought of going to a party doesn’t sound all that great to me.
“Yes, Wing. A party. But probably not like any kind of party you’ve ever been to before.”
My silence speaks for me.
“Wing, don’t worry. It isn’t that kind of party.”
That kind. The kind your brother went to. The kind where people get sloppy drunk and do things that ruin lives.
“Come on, Wing. It’ll be fun. I promise. I’ll pick you up in an hour? You can sleep over. All the rest of the girls on the team are coming.” She pauses, and then the rest of her words come out real fast. “And Annie is coming too. I want you to get to know her a little bit better.”
I think Annie is Eliza’s girlfriend, but I’m not sure. She comes and watches us run sometimes, cheers us on, and after practice she gets into Eliza’s blue car and they drive off together, laughing, always laughing, their heads close, Annie’s braids falling over Eliza’s shoulder. Annie goes to a different school, a fancy private high school. She’s black, about five inches shorter than Eliza and curvy, real curvy, and she’s got a laugh I can hear all the way around the track. She’s got a laugh you wish you could bottle up and wear like perfume whenever you’re feeling sad because it would always cheer you up. Eliza looks at Annie the way Marcus has been looking at Monica since the seventh grade. Friends don’t look at friends like that.
I wonder how I look at Aaron. If anyone can tell how I feel about him by the way I look at him.
I can’t say no to the party. I want to be part of the team and do what the other girls are doing. And it is nice, really nice, that Eliza wants me to get to know Annie. It’s like she cares about my opinion. Like she really does want to be my friend. And that kind of feeling is irresistible. I can’t say no to that kind of feeling.
Eliza lives in a tractor factory out in Castleberry Hill, near the CNN Center. Or what was once a tractor factory but has now been converted into apartments. It doesn’t feel like a factory, but it doesn’t feel like an apartment either. It’s right next to the train tracks, and every time a train goes by the whole building rattles. The floors are concrete, and the ceilings are so high that I wonder how the hell they ever change their lightbulbs. Her family’s apartment unit is basically one giant room, the kitchen and living room and dining room all rolled into one, with two bedrooms and a bathroom tucked away in the back. The windows are so high they’re practically skylights. No one can see in and all we can see is the sky.
In the middle of all the open space is a grand piano. I’ve never seen a grand piano before, and I’ve definitely never seen one at someone’s house. There’s art painted directly onto the walls and there are beanbags in one corner. It is the most ridiculous and the most amazing home I’ve ever been to.
When Eliza and I arrive, she struts (Eliza never walks) straight up to the piano, sits down, and starts to play Christmas carols. Some of the other girls on the team, including Vanessa (who didn’t end up having a baby, not that she told me, but she’s here and a baby isn’t, so I think it’s safe to assume), are already there, and they crowd around the piano and sing.
Annie, wearing a Santa hat, sits next to Eliza, laughing that laugh that makes everyone else laugh too. She whispers something in Eliza’s ear and Eliza starts playing a different song, one that makes all the other girls clap their hands and belt as loud as they can. I want to crowd around the piano too, but it’s like they all have a part and they know the words, and I don’t.
Literally. I’ve never heard the Christmas song they’re all singing.
So I perch on one of the beanbags and try to bob my head along. It’s more of a pop song than a Christmas song. It feels a bit funny to be singing Christmas songs in January, but everyone else is loving it. Eliza’s eyes land on me and she stops playing abruptly. It takes a few moments for the girls to stop warbling along.
“Do you not know this one?”
I shake my head, embarrassed. But it’s more than that. I don’t know how to act here; I don’t know how to do anything but run in circles.