Famous Last Words (4 page)

As we walk toward the patio, I’m like a black-and-white sketch stepping into a living, full-color Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. The girls are poised around the in-ground pool in bikini tops and sarongs, and there’s no shortage of bare-chested guys with six-packs I thought possible only in infomercials. I don’t know what I fear more about parties, having people look at me or not being noticed at all.

“I guess I missed the Evite regarding the island theme,” I say.

Shelby frowns at my maroon Decemberists T-shirt, denim miniskirt, and flip-flops.

“What?” I say. “I wore makeup.” Why am I here? It was all that fire excitement. Damned endorphins—great for a jump start, short on follow-through.

I scan the crowd for signs of Rob McGinty and his girlfriend, Liza. Rob has black hair and icy blue eyes, and I’ve been in love with him since the sixth grade, when he kissed me during spin the bottle. It wasn’t a
kiss
kiss. But still. It meant something. To me at least. When we were young, I thought he liked me, too. We used to walk to school together.

But then junior high happened, and whatever I had going on in sixth grade, puberty stole from me. Add braces and a constellation of pimples to the glasses I already wore, and I became an easy target for insults. Shelby says I’ve always been too sensitive. Even back then, when she was nerdier, Shelby never cared what kids said about her. I tried talking to Rob sometimes, but once, some kids passing by in the hall started barking. I didn’t talk to him at all after that. I was too humiliated. And maybe I expected him to stand up for me. Shelby always did. Still does.

Maybe I’m no longer that awkward seventh-grade girl, but my own metamorphosis from ugly ducking to swan stalled out in the Cornish-game-hen stage. At some point, I decided self-imposed exile was safer than putting myself out there.

“Relax. I bet Rob won’t even be here,” Shelby says, and gives my hand a squeeze.

“I hope you’re right.”

“Let’s get a beer,” she says.

“You know I don’t drink.”

“Maybe you should start. It helps when you’re shy,” Shelby says matter-of-factly. “Drinking and showing cleavage. Remember that for the next party.”

“I don’t
have
cleavage.”

“Two words: Cleavage Cupcakes.”

With honey blond hair and a chest that enters a room a full two seconds before she does, Shelby always gets noticed. Me? I’m more cute than pretty. Despite my pure Mediterranean bloodline, I’m not blessed with olive skin or thick hair like everyone else in my family and most people in my town. I’m not saying I
want
to be overly tan and flaunt an Italian-princess necklace, but it would make things easier. I’m, like, a pasty white, wispy-haired exile in Guidoville. My brown eyes are just that—brown—which may be interesting to the guy who wrote “Brown-Eyed Girl” but isn’t, really, to anyone else. So I don’t think putting gel inserts into my bra is going to help.

Reluctantly, I follow Shelby as she shimmies her way through the crowd toward the keg, smiling and saying hello to people like she’s walking the red carpet. Year after year, I keep hoping the Shelby-tude will rub off on me—a silent wish that for better or worse tethers us together. I hold my breath, hoping it will render me invisible.

“Shelby!” yells a guy standing by the keg filling red plastic cups.

“Hey, Mark,” Shelby answers.

“You look great!” Mark says.

“Thanks,” Shelby says. She puts a hand on my shoulder. “This is my friend—”

But Mark cuts her off, either because he doesn’t hear or doesn’t care. “So Olaf went back to Germany, huh?” he says as he hands Shelby a foamy beer, which she passes to me.

“Yeah, he’s been gone for two weeks. Can I have another one of those?” Shelby asks, pointing to the keg.

“Huh? Oh, yeah,” Mark says. He fills another cup for Shelby.

It’s as if I’m not even here.
Careful what you wish for.

“So … are you two doing the long-distance thing?” Mark asks.

Shelby shakes her head. “We broke up before he left.”

Mark, who doesn’t bother to conceal that this is good news as far as he’s concerned, grins big as he pours himself a beer.

“Hey, come with me,” Mark says. “You gotta check out the hot tub.”

As he pulls Shelby toward the pool area, she glances over her shoulder with a smile, like she can’t help being dragged away.

“Sam, come with us,” she says.

“I’ll wait here for you,” I call after her.

“Sure?”

“I’m sure.”

I smell my beer and take a tentative sip. Yuck. The taste hasn’t grown on me, but at least I can carry my cup around and make it look like I’m drinking. For a few more seconds, I stand where Shelby left me, not sure where to look or who to talk to. It’s like being left alone in an unfamiliar subway station as the train pulls away. Time to look for the bathroom. I’ll reapply my lip gloss and buy some time before I look for Shelby.

Keeping my head down, I squish through the crowd and try to get beyond the herd as fast as possible. I make it to the concrete patio, where some guys are taking turns drinking beer through a funnel while cheering each other on. I don’t get drinking games. I don’t get drinking. Maybe because I don’t like beer. Wine has always been offered freely at my house, and even though I like it, getting drunk isn’t an option. It would trigger two of my biggest fears: puking and losing control.

I step through the patio door and into the kitchen, which smells like a mixture of beer, sweat, and various colognes. A group of guys and girls are gathered around the granite breakfast bar playing Quarters with what appear to be different types of hard alcohol.

“Hey, girl!” shouts one of the guys. I’ve seen him with Rob. Josh something.

I shift my eyes left and right, trying to figure out if he’s talking to me.

“Yeah, you. Cute girl in the reddish shirt. Don’t look so angry,” he says. “Come play with us.”

So this is my life story. A decent-enough-looking guy starts off calling me cute and then, because I don’t exude the appropriate amount of excitement (I have
no
idea how to flirt—I fully admit this), it quickly turns bad and I become Angry Girl. Angry? Do I look angry? People are always doing that to me—telling me to smile, asking me what’s wrong, when I’m perfectly content. I just have a pouty-shaped mouth, that’s all.

“Uh, I’m just looking for the bathroom,” I say. “Maybe later.”

I even smile with some teeth.

“Whatever. Be that way,” he says.

Another gift. I’m always pissing people off without trying. Typical me. I walk down the hall and into the foyer, looking for a bathroom. When I find the half bath near the front door, the stench of vomit is so strong, I almost get sick myself. I decide to try upstairs. Maybe there’s a bathroom in the master bedroom.

When I arrive on the upstairs landing, all the bedroom doors are closed. I open the first one, and I’m greeted by the site of a bare ass on top of a seminude girl. I quickly snap the door shut as someone says, “Who the hell was that?” Quickly, I abort my bathroom search and dash down the stairs and out the front door. It’s not like I really had to go, anyway.

I circle back into the yard again. Should I bother to look for Shelby or just find some space where I can avoid butts in the buff and angry Quarters players? As I wander through the crowd, I’m trying so hard to avoid making eye contact—or any other kind of contact, for that matter—that I don’t see the rather large guy, who must be a linebacker, stumbling toward me. He slams into my side and launches me into another guy, who, when he turns around, I recognize as Rob McGinty. He looks angry for a split second, then tilts his head and gives me an odd half smile.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble. “I was pushed.”

I’m about to break free when Rob grabs my elbow. “Sam D’Angelo? Are you okay? You don’t look so good.” Super. Just the words I want to hear from our star quarterback
and
class president. The cliché of being Rob borders on ridiculous.

“I’m fine,” I say. “It must be the beer.”

Rob grins. “A lightweight, huh?”

“Are you kidding? This is my fourth cup.”

Rob puts up his hands up in surrender. “I stand corrected. I’m surprised. You don’t seem the type.”

How would Rob know what type I am? For the rest of us, high school is like a sadistic game of musical chairs where everyone competes for a few chances at fitting in. When the music stops, most of us are left standing. But Rob, he doesn’t even have to play the game. And yet he’s nice, which somehow makes it worse. A girl like me could never date a guy like him—things like that only happen in movies, where the plain girl is actually some gorgeous actress without makeup. About an hour and fifteen minutes into the film, the girl buys a new outfit and applies some mascara, and suddenly the prom king is doinking himself in the head for not realizing sooner how hot she is.

“I saw your name in the newspaper,” Rob says out of nowhere.

This gets my attention. “You read the obit page?”

Forget the obit page. I’m just shocked someone our age reads the newspaper.

“My mom spotted it. That’s pretty cool, though. You were always good at writing.”

Wow. Rob noticed my name and remembers I like writing. His compliment is just sinking in when Rob’s girlfriend, Liza, and her friends arrive. Men aren’t dogs, girls are. That’s why they travel in packs. Liza wraps her arm around one of Rob’s biceps. My stomach twists.

“Who’s your friend?” she asks, looking me up and down.

“Uh, this is Sam D’Angelo,” Rob says.

“Oh,
right
,” she says, and giggles, making it clear she knows what Shelby said to Rob at the last party.

Is fuchsia lipstick toxic? I hope so.

Not wanting to stick around and cause any trouble, I offer an explanation as to why I’m talking to her boyfriend and plan my escape. “Someone pushed me into Rob,” I explain. “Sorry!”

“S’okay,” Rob says.

He looks like he wants to say something more, but I don’t give him a chance. After a quick wave and an apologetic smile, I make a beeline for an open space in the yard. I scan for a location near the fence, where I can observe without additional human interaction. My skin is hot with the embarrassment of bumping into Rob, literally, and having his girlfriend laugh at me.

I admit it, I’m jealous of girls like Liza who always have boyfriends. She and Rob have been together since freshman year, and it seems like no one goes out of their way to insult couples. It’s like they’re living in some U.N.-sanctioned territory—the shaded area of a Venn diagram, where all the circles overlap.

I find an empty lawn chair and wait for Shelby to finish doing whatever with Mark, her latest Y chromosome. I’m far enough away from the crowd and music to hear the chirping crickets and cicadas in the trees behind me. I wonder; do all bugs get to sing? Or is it only the best and most beautiful who hit the suburban sound waves on summer nights? Is there a bug version of me out there, longing to be the lead singer but always ending up in the chorus or, worse yet, silent and unable to find her voice?

I take out my phone so I look busy. I tab to the
Herald Tribune
’s website. It’s not the best, but at least we have one. I think about Rob noticing my byline on the obit page, and my mood lifts. I fantasize about helping Michael prove his mayor’s up to no good. My name could end up on the front page. What if I scored an interview with the elusive Sy Goldberg? It wouldn’t make me a shoe-in for prom queen, but it would be something, wouldn’t it? Perhaps the quiet recognition of a byline suits me.

An hour later, when my phone’s entertainment abilities are waning, I spot Shelby. She stumbles across the backyard, her serpentine path moving in my general direction. When she finally reaches me, she puts two hands on one hip and tries to steady herself.

“There you are! I’ve been looking for you.”

Not that hard, apparently.

“Is your shirt on inside out?” I ask, frowning. It is.

“No!” she says, looking down to make sure, but upsetting her equilibrium in the process. She starts to sway.

“Let’s go,” I say. “I’m done.” I begin to pry myself loose from the plastic lawn chair. My bare legs are stuck from sitting so long. Great. Now I’ll have to walk out of here with a waffle pattern on my thighs.

“Sam, you aren’t mad at me, are you?” she slurs. I sit back down.

“No,” I say. I’m really not mad at Shelby. It’s not her fault I don’t have fun at these things. But I
am
worried about her drinking and what she does once she’s trashed. She turns into a different person, not the Shelby I know. I don’t want her getting a reputation. She’s better than that.

“Good, because you’re my best friend. And I’m so, so sorry I blabbed to Rob. You know I love you. And you deserve a guy like him. Uh, and … Uh-oh, I’m gonna—”

I don’t wait for her to finish her sentence. I rip myself out of the chair like a Band-Aid and move clear of Shelby’s open mouth just in time to watch her projectile vomit splatter the chair where I was just sitting.

“Very nice,” I say. “You’re right. Maybe I should start drinking.”

Shelby slumps down to her knees and starts to cry. Not good. Shelby always starts out crying about one thing and ends up crying about her father. It’s one of the reasons I can never stay angry with her for long. I reach into the small purse I brought with me.

“Here,” I say. “Have some gum. I’ll call your mom.” Without saying a word, I hand Shelby a tissue.

I am so over all things high school.
I can’t wait to get back to work.

chapter four

Book Review

I wake up early Saturday morning thinking of Sy Goldberg.
Maybe I can help Michael find the evidence he needs to prove the mayor has been up to no good,
I think as I tie the laces of my running shoes and head downstairs to the garage, where the treadmill lives. The house is still quiet.

I pop in my earbuds, step on the belt, and adjust the speed. I know if I’m serious about doing a 10k this fall, I’ve got to start training outside. Next time, I promise myself. This is good enough for now. Treadmills and iPhones were made for people like me. Running while hiding. It’s a sport; it’s a way of life. I like the solitude of the garage. When I run, I pretend I’m a different kind of girl. My best ideas and fantasies come to me as I watch the red blip that is me doing laps on my NordicTrack’s screen.