Angst (8 page)

Hannah and I have conspired together about what costumes
we’ll wear and I’m really excited for my first Halloween on campus.
Like,
really fucking excited.
Our trip to the mall last week provided us with the
accessories we need to pull off our joint costumes. Apparently Halloween is
something you do not miss out on when you’re a college student, it’s a chance
to get dressed up, go out, and have as much drunk fun as possible. It seems
like everyone I talk to, or overhear in class, is going out on campus this
weekend. And if possible, going out several times. I can’t wait to get trashed,
completely fucked in the head, not myself. The idea is sexy, alluring and so
free from panic that I’m almost in a tizzy. But getting myself there in one
piece is the trick.

I fold my new black skirt and red bustier, placing them in
an overnight bag because I’m not going to get dressed up in my costume yet. I
know damn well that my parents will not approve of my sexy devil costume so
I’ll wait to change into it at Hannah’s dorm room where she will be dressed up
as an angel. As I brush my hair, my stomach clenches in violent contractions
and my hand holding the brush shakes. It’s pre-anxiety, something I always
experience before going out somewhere and I deal with it alone in my bathroom,
trying to tamp it down so that it won’t overwhelm me completely.

 It’s always the same ritual. Getting dressed and putting on
make-up are automatic, easily accomplished after years of practice, leaving my
mind free to zoom between thoughts of sheer terror, my stomach knotted tight. What
if I get to the frat and start panicking and need to leave? How will I escape? We’ll
probably walk there and no one will want to walk me back and I’ll start freaking
and I can’t use their bathroom because then people will know that I’m
disgusting and I can’t walk back on my own at night...on and on. Then I try to
calm myself down, rationalizing with the monster, talking myself off a cliff. I’ll
be okay because I’ll just drink more. Drinking always knocks that shit out of
my head and tonight will be no different. Besides, I can’t let this shit win, I
want to have some fucking fun.

So momentarily I’m able to slow the beating of my heart
until the next terrifying scenario runs through my mind. I try to distract
myself with the detail work of applying black eye liner and wonder what the
night will bring. Will I have a good time? Will I be able to control my
anxiety? Will I meet a hot guy, someone who isn’t an asshole like Brad or a
cheater like Nick? Now that I’m thinking about guys, a thrill of excitement
runs through me, overriding my worries for a moment. I really like getting sexy
for a night out.

Finally after a quick pep talk to calm my racing heart, I’m
ready to leave and go downstairs to say goodbye to my parents. They are sitting
in the kitchen at the small round table, having coffee and dessert after a late
dinner. My dad is big and gruff, still in his work clothes fresh off the
construction site, his soft hearted smile for his only daughter is sincere and
honest and my mother is always casual, cute, and petite, her voice soft and
muted compared to my father’s louder outbursts.

“Where are you off to?” asks my father, getting up to give
me a hug. My parents are affectionate, caring people and I have always been
able to rely on them to help me and take care of me, but they are also strict
and have a hard time letting me go my own way. I smile at Dad, readying myself
for the half-truths to come.

“I’m going to a party on campus,” I reply, pulling away to
pick up my black bag containing my phone and money and check to make sure my
keys are in the bottom, pretending to be preoccupied.

“Are you coming home afterward?” asks my mother, getting up
to stand beside my father, her question anticipated.

“No, I’m staying over with my friend Hannah in her dorm
room,” I recite, avoiding their eyes. I know they won’t like that answer, but
hopefully won’t complain. I grab the bag I had filled with overnight items and
my costume from the couch, so that I don’t have to see their disapproving
looks.

“I suppose that should be okay,” says my mother, looking
wary. “I want you to be careful though and you know you can always call us if
you have a problem.”  My dad frowns, but doesn’t say anything, tugging my arm
to pull me in for another hug.

“Be a good girl,” he whispers, giving me an extra squeeze. I
squeeze him back, smelling the masculine scent of sawdust and outdoors. It’s a
smell that always makes me feel safe. I smile at my parents and am soon out the
door.

Outside I make my way to my car, throwing the overnight bag
in the backseat as I climb into the front. I suddenly feel a rush of emotion.
Guilt.
My parents really care about me and I hate deceiving them. They don’t know that
I’m going to drink and I don’t want them to find out. My eyes tear up, as I
think back to how they’ve always been there for me. They love me so much and
they know everything about me. Well, almost everything. Everything except
Normal Party-Girl Victoria. They have never met her, thank God.

I drive to campus and meet the girls at Hannah’s dorm room. It’s
a chore to get myself inside because my stomach is clenched and I feel like
vomiting, but soon I’m up the stairs,
I don’t do elevators
, and once
inside I am surrounded by clothes, make-up and girls who are giggling and
laughing as they put on their scandalous costumes. Everyone is still primping
except for Hannah’s long-legged, auburn haired friend Kayla who happens to have
a few bottles of hard lemonade. She offers one to me and I jump at the chance
for some sweet pre-game.

Thank God, something to lessen the anxiety
. I start
pouring it down my throat, trying not to make it obvious that I’m guzzling. I
feel like every day I’m constantly reminded that I have a problem and I don’t
want a problem anymore.
I want to be NORMAL!!

While I rummage around in my bag, Hannah starts to put on
her costume and I watch as she slips into her clingy white spaghetti strap
dress and small white wings. Hannah makes a perfect angel with her fair
coloring and a halo that is a headband with a circle of gold held above with
nearly invisible wires. She grabs her plastic gold harp from the bed and poses
in the mirror, her curly hair framing her face in waves.

“How do I look?” she asks, her reflection grinning at me
like a trampy, yet somehow innocent beauty queen.

“You look like a hoe-bag angel!” I state with a laugh,
reaching over to pull my costume out of my overnight bag. I’m wearing a short
black fake leather skirt and a red bustier with a sweetheart neck line and a
very nice push up bra to show off the goods. I also have a pitch-fork and a
clip-on pointed tail. I stand in front of the mirror and pull on my tight
skirt, black thigh-highs and knee high black boots. Then I swipe dark red
lipstick on my lips and turn around to pin on my tail. Hannah and I stand
together in the mirror our arms about each other’s waist.

“This is awesome,” I say, turning sideways to admire my fake
tail and finally remembering to grab my sparkly, blood red horns and position
them on my head.

“Yeah that completes the look.” I grin at my reflection and
give myself a saucy wink that has Hannah and I laughing.

#######################

We’re on our way to the frat, strutting down the tree lined
Main Street toward downtown. There are people everywhere, passing us by in a shit
ton of different costumes and now and then we openly laugh out loud at
ridiculous and skanky stuff we see. There’s a dude yelling and weaving, clearly
already drunk, in a hotdog costume and another guy is running to catch up with
him, yelling for him to wait, in a too large banana suit. He keeps tripping
over the front of the banana almost falling. Then we hear the hotdog guy yell,

“Fuck you banana-man!” And we can’t help but laugh at this
funny shit.

And now comes a group of girls as cheerleaders with pom poms
and finally another tall thin girl rushes by staring at her cell phone in a
tight reddish-orange tube dress that says Solo Cup on the front and “wanna play
flip cup?” on the back. She does a double take at us and finally yells, “Hey,
Kayla” as we pass, asking where we’ll be later.

“ATO, betch,” Kayla yells back as the girl waves.

“There will be so many fucking hot guys tonight,” says
Hannah as she’s momentarily distracted by a guy walking by in a tight football
costume. She shivers in her slinky white dress, a coat thrown over her
shoulders, in the chilly October weather. “See, that was just a preview,
girls,” she says smiling over her shoulder at me and Kayla.

“I’m so f-in excited,” I say, already feeling a slight buzz
from the lemonade. “This will be my first frat party!”

“No shit, Victoria!!” says no-nonsense Kayla, who’s dressed
up as a cowgirl, her plaid button up shirt opened to just below her breasts
showing plenty of tanned skin, her auburn hair in pig tails. She’s got an added
slutty costume bonus, the words “I ride the big ones” scrawled on her chest in
magic marker. “I can’t believe you haven’t been to one before! We’re gonna have
to show you a good time tonight at ATO.”

“Hells yes, and they’ll be dancing too, we’re gonna shake
our asses!” says Hannah.

“Plus beer and hard alcohol and I hear that it ‘always snows
at ATO’,” says dark haired pixie cut Celeste, pulling on the strap of her
bright orange halter top that goes with her 80’s hooker costume, “We’re going
to initiate you, you betch!”

“Oh shit, I really hope that hot guy I made out with last
week is there tonight. I think he’s a brother,” says Kayla with a grin. “I want
to get in his pants soooo bad. Maybe he’ll let me ride his big one, if I’m a
good girl,” she says with a loud laugh. “Oh yeah…and it always does snow at
ATO,” she replies with a wink.

“You’re such a boozy, drugged out skank,” says Hannah, point
blank, pretending to be totally serious and Kayla laughs again with a smile.

“What does ‘it always snows at ATO’ mean,” I ask, clearly
I’m not up on the frat lingo yet.

“It means they always have coke somewhere in that place,”
says Kayla, totally matter of fact.
Ok, then, sounds rowdy
.

“You know, it’s like, ’their balls are always blue at Sigma
Nu,’” she says with another loud laugh, “Those guys are not attractive, poor
fucking sods.”

We’re nearing downtown and the frat now and can hear the
music thumping, the bass beat moving through the ground, gaining strength, and
people are already crowding the path and porch to the front door of the large,
brightly lit, brick house.

“I love this song,” I say feeling looser by the minute as my
hips start to sway to the music. This is going to be a fun night. Tonight I can
pretend that I’m normal, that I don’t have a problem that haunts my every
waking decision. And maybe, just maybe, I can find some hot man to grind myself
on.

We wait in the line for a few minutes and finally climb the
steps to meet a frat brother at the door who checks us over before admitting
us. It seems that we make the cut and he points to where we need to go inside
the old house.

As we walk through the front door, two clearly drunk guys
start to whoop and cat call as soon as they see us, eyes roving over my
scandalous bustier top and tiny skirt and Hannah’s slinky tight white dress.

“Oh yeah, sexy devil and angel,” says one guy from
underneath a pimp’s fedora. “I’d like to get in between you two sexy bitches.”

Hannah and I smile at each other and walk down the hallway
toward the door to the basement, strutting like we own the world. As we pass
the different rooms, all stuffed with party-goers, I notice that the frat is…
disgusting
.
It’s dirty, trash everywhere, but no one seems to mind because there’s a shit
ton of alcohol flowing. Apparently this is a true “guys” house.
Nasty! But
who gives a fuck?
Everyone I see has a Solo cup, beer or a shot glass in
hand and from the noise emanating from the basement, there’s a rager going on. I’m
definitely ready to partay.

“We look hot,” whispers Hannah as we pass a group of girls
in various costumes who give us side eye glances, their stuck-up, withering
expressions raking over us.
Feast your eyes, girls
, I think, feeling
pretty damn good.

As we make our way to the stairs leading to the basement, I
can’t help but overhear a conversation between a half-naked Little Red Riding
Hood and a slutty pirate wench with a large grey plastic cutlass.

“Did you see Jared and Andy McKinley?” asks Little Red
Riding Hood with a sneer, adjusting her white thigh high stockings.

“No, what are they dressed up as?” replies the slutty wench,
swiping her cutlass through the air, the clueless blonde of the two.

“Oh my God, you won’t believe how hot they look. They are
dressed up as Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer from Top Gun.”

“You mean like flight suits or camo or something?” asks the
pirate wench, watching her sword swipe through the air, almost sloshing her
beer from her red Solo cup in the process.

“No, the volleyball scene. Neither of them is wearing a
shirt, all they have on is dog tags, sunglasses and shorts. They’re soooo
fuck-worthy,” says Red, looking like she’s about to swoon. Just then her
friend’s beer spills onto her leg and she jumps back. “Jesus, Jess, watch your
fuckin cup, bitch…you fuckin spilled on me!” she shrieks, glaring at her
friend.

I barely notice this last display because the name Jared
McKinley is pinging around in my mind and suddenly I feel high. Isn’t that the
name of the guy from the store a few weeks ago? Isn’t it? Intrigued, my pulse
rate spikes sending hot adrenaline flowing through me. I need to catch a
glimpse of these hot guys and see if this Jared is the same hottie from the
store. He must be, how many hot Jared McKinley’s can there be in the area? And
if Hot Jared has a brother…
OMG
.