58I hate myself.
I hate my temper. I hate my judgment. I hate my stupid need to prove stupid Joey Bateman wrong about being a stupid goody-goody and having as much social experience as a stupid middle school girl, which is probably why I keep saying stupid instead of some cuss word with stronger connotations. I hate stupid Joey and stupid Jack and stupid Jose, all three of them with their stupid "J" names.
And most of all, I hate hangovers.
They're stupid.
The first thing I did when I got out of bed that morning was to literally run to the bathroom in order to brush the most unbearable taste I have ever had the misfortune to experience out of my mouth. Vomit really just tastes bad the first time it's in your mouth, but when you don't wash it out, leaving it in there to dry and harden and fester with all the bacteria from the night before…I'm sure you can imagine.
I started to return to my room, feeling much better after brushing a nice artificially minty taste in my mouth, but stopped after noticing that my brother's door was open. I pushed it open slightly and stuck my head in.
"Pat?"
There was a grunt from underneath the pillow.
"Are you okay?"
Another grunt.
"Is that a yes?"
Silence.
"How was the hospital?"
Loud, angry grunt.
"Okay, sorry, just thought I'd ask." And with that I shut the door, satisfied. If he had enough strength to be annoyed with me for waking him up, he was fine
I plodded downstairs to grab some breakfast and to down an entire bottle of ibuprofen for the headache that was about to split my head in two. And not necessarily in that order.
There was a note on the counter that said "Pancakes in the oven", and I decided to grab a few. It was only then that I noticed the green LCD display on the oven. 10:30.
I had to be back at Janet's house at eleven and it took fifteen minutes to get there. I was pretty sure I looked horrible and would need a shower in order to keep my self esteem up at the same level at the Q of H girls. Or at least to look halfway decent.
After wasting five minutes by panicking inside my head and shoving dry pancakes down my throat, I decided to wet my hair in the sink and put in up in a ponytail and headband so that no one would be looking too closely at it. I sprayed on an ounce of this perfume that Andrea had bought me once but I'd never worn, and threw on some old sweatpants and a t-shirt. Now wasn't the time to be fashion-conscious, not when there were $20,000 at stake.
I found my keys in my purse and rushed outside, only to find an empty garage and driveway.
Shit.
"Where is my car?" I whined aloud, hoping that somehow, my nonexistent fairy godmother that I'd been hoping for since I was four would materialize out of nothing and tell me. I then remembered that Joey had given me a ride to the party, and that my car was still in the parking lot of the school.
Which was ten minutes in the opposite direction. By car. Which I didn't have.
I felt like I was about to cry as I looked around my garage for something that could possibly help me with my dilemma, and I kid you not, suddenly, out of nowhere, my bicycle fell over with a clatter against the hard concrete floor.
I do believe in fairies.
Ten seconds later I was putting all I had into bicycling as fast as I could down the road, hoping that ballet had given me enough stamina for this type of thing. I hadn't ridden a bike in about two years, but it came naturally, after a few mishaps that I won't go into. It was an unusually cold morning, and the wind whipped at my face as I pedaled faster and faster.
In my head, I was picturing Juilliard, receiving my acceptance letter, getting the Queen of Hearts scholarship, seeing all my hard work paying off and thinking about how being late to a Queen of Hearts meeting could possible jeopardize all of that. It made me pedal harder and was doing wonders for my headache.
I got to Janet's house, threw my bicycle on the freshly-cut grass that was strewn with beer cans, and raced up to the door where there was a sign that said "Go Around Back." I didn't stop to think if it was from last night or today; I just ran.
I had no idea what time it was as I sprinted to the patio, only to be greeted by the entire group of girls standing around the pool. Their backs were to me and they were listening to Allison Hannon speak about something. I prayed that no one would notice me arriving late and they would just think they missed me while taking attendance.
The patio looked the same as last night, except the food was off the tables and many chairs had been folded up and put away. The entire pool area looked extremely nice and had a navy/brick décor scheme that reminded me of my uncle's house in California.
"We'll be watching those movies next Saturday at our Queen of Hearts sleepover. That's when we'll let you know if you can be inducted or not. Otherwise, you'll have to leave," said Allison, an obviously fake sympathetic smile on her face. She was standing on top of the diving board so that everyone could see her, but at the back, so that she wasn't wobbling over the edge. "Okay? Well then, let's get started. If everybody could make their way into the living room."
There was a rush to do so, as if getting there first meant that they'd be picked for something wonderful.
Little did they know.
"You, take a broom. You, pick up cups. You, get the carpet cleaner," rattled off Janet as girls stepped through the door, pointing her manicured fingers at each one of them. "Congratulations girls, you're on the clean-up committee. Don't like it? Tough." Her voice was even raspier than normal, which I thought was because of all the yelling she had done the night before. She kept giving girls jobs as they filed in. I tried to be in the middle so it wouldn't look like I'd arrived last. "You vacuum, you, cups, you-"
She stopped when she got to me, narrowing her eyes, and I prayed that I looked extremely different from last night, so much so that she wouldn't be able to recognize me, and that she had been too drunk to remember any of it.
"Bathrooms. All of them."
She remembered.
I trudged into the house, repeating the word Juilliard in my head over and over and over so that I didn't punch Janet or do something ridiculously impulsive, and headed to the kitchen sink, underneath which household cleaners were usually kept. Janet's house was no exception, I found. I grabbed some Pine-Sol, a toilet brush and a roll of paper towels. I figured that the toilets were going to be my main problem, due to my experiences last night.
As I passed through the living room, I saw Allison, Meredith, and Janet leading a single girl off the patio and onto the back lawn. I didn't recognize the girl and I couldn't see what was beyond the patio. Was she going to mow the lawn?
I started on the first floor where there were three different bathrooms, only one of which was truly atrocious. Another was hidden in a back corner, and nobody had come across it, thankfully, and the other was only a little dirty, where some beer had been poured down the sink, but the plug had not been pulled up. The entire job took me about half and hour, and when I returned to the main area of the house, I found that the number of girls in the room had lessened significantly. I spotted Andrea in the kitchen, washing dishes in the sink.
"Hey stranger," I said quietly, sneaking up behind her.
"Hey!" she squealed as she saw who it was, throwing her arms around me. "Where've you been? This was an awesome party last night, so much fun."
"Yeah, I know," I said, and her face lit up as she understood. She was about to launch into a description of the entire night just to compare, I could tell, and so I had to stop her quickly. "Hey, do you know where everybody is? It seems like only a third of the girls are here from before."
Andrea nodded, looking outside. "Yeah, they take a girl every few minutes or so. Meredith does it, and sometimes Janet, to make sure we're cleaning everything up."
I frowned. That was weird. "Do you know why?"
Andrea shook her head, looking outside again. "No, but they always take them beyond the patio, and sometimes, we hear screams."
Screams? I was putting my foot down at torture for this entire ordeal.
"Look, she's coming." I looked out the window to see Meredith, a smug smile on her face, step up onto the patio, walk across, and open the door that had been knocked off last night. Someone must have come in the morning to fix it.
She walked inside and looked around at the girls who were still cleaning. The room immediately got quiet. She pointed her finger at a girl who I recognized from the cheerleading squad, and motioned for the girl to come with her. As soon as they left, the noise started up again.
I couldn't even imagine what they were doing out there. Was this part of the scholarship contest? Was it a scavenger hunt? And why would they be screaming? It didn't make sense.
I was done with my given job, but there were still some girls who were hopelessly trying to move the sofas and stereo back to where they belonged. I decided to give them a hand, thinking it probably wasn't to my advantage to be caught loafing around and not working. We managed to get the sofa back into the middle of the room and the entertainment system in the corner beside the fireplace. I hoped that was where it had been before, or else there would be a lot of screaming going on once Janet set foot back inside her house.
Three more girls were taken while we were doing this, and soon there were only five of us left. There wasn't really much else to do in the house, but we all kept busy, wiping a table with a rag over and over again or stacking and unstacking dishes, so that when Meredith came to pick us, it would look like we were working.
It was just as I was putting some leftover chips in a cupboard that I received the finger. I tried to not look too eager or curious as I walked out of the house, following Meredith, who didn't say a word to me. My heart was pounding rapidly, yet my mind was calm. I could take whatever they wanted to throw at me.
Except for rocks. That would hurt.
We stepped off of the patio and I saw the entire group of girls lined up, just as before, their backs to me. There was something bright yellow and shiny on top of the green grass in front of them, and it was long and flat. It reminded me of the Slip n' Slide that I used to have when I was a kid.
We approached the group, and I noticed that many of the girl's hair and clothing were wet. Some were discolored, and they smelled absolutely awful. The girls were standing uncomfortably, as if they couldn't wait to get out of their clothes and take a shower.
We rounded to the head of the group, at one end of the big yellow thing. It was a Slip n' Slide, as I'd suspected, and it was shining with water. On the other long side of the slide, opposite the girls, stood Allison with a clipboard and Janet with a garden hose in her hand, ready to spray at any moment.
"Name?" called Allison, her pen and clipboard ready.
"Lucy Baker," I said loudly, trying to make my voice sound steady. Did we just have to go down the Slip n' Slide? That didn't seem too bad.
"Okay, Lucy, one moment please," said Allison, and she stepped back to converse with Janet. Janet kept her beady eyes on me the entire time, and the longer they talked, the wider her vengeful smile grew.
Allison nodded one last time to Janet and stepped forward. "Lucy, we are going to ask you to take a ride on this Slip n' Slide for us. In your clothes. For Queen of Hearts."
I could do that. Juilliard, here I come.
I took a few steps back, ready to get a running start. "If you could wait until we say go please," said Allison, raising a hand and flashing me a smile. I was confused. What were we waiting for?
Janet strode up to the Slip n' Slide and started dumping a number of things on top of it. She squirted barbecue sauce from one end to the other. She splashed apple cider vinegar in various places. She sprayed hairspray on top of everything, and she poured an entire jar of pickle juice onto the slide, letting it slosh over the other "ingredients" and spread to the farthest corners.
Once she was done, she tossed the bottles aside onto the grass, looked at me with unparalleled ferocity and quietly said "Go."
I had no choice but to do it. I didn't hesitate for a second. I took my running start and dove into the slide, my arms outstretched, trying not to let the stench get to me. I felt the barbecue sauce squish between my fingers, the pickle juice splash up into my hair and face, and the sickeningly sweet smell of the hairspray just made me remember that I would be as sticky as a cinnamon roll once the mixture got a chance to dry.
I heard a number of gasps from the girls and wondered if I was doing it wrong. This was how I remembered doing it as a girl.
I continue on into the grass, freshly cut, I believe, so that I had glass clipping sticking to me as I got up and turned to the council for approval, barbecue sauce sliding down the side of my face. Allison nodded at me and motioned for me to go stand with the other girls, which I did, hurriedly wiping the slime off with part of my sleeve that had not been affected. Janet proceeded to hose down the slide, just as Meredith brought out another girl.
"I can't believe you went on your stomach," whispered a girl who was standing next to me. Her straight hair had been plastered to her head by something, and she looked like she was freezing cold in just a tank top and shorts.
"Didn't you?" I asked, confused. I wasn't aware there was any other way to do it.
She shook her head. "We all were too squeamish, and so we went sitting down." I couldn't even imagine how that must have looked, or what your butt must have felt like as it fell to the ground. "She went on her back," said the girl, pointing at a girl slightly to our left. It was Kate, and she was looking incredibly bored.
The last few girls came out, none of them as daring as I was, and oddly, none of them got the amount of "ingredients" that I did. One girl actually refused to do it, and Allison told her that while she still might be in Queen of Hearts, she was removed from the competition. The girl just shrugged and left, indifferent.
Once everyone had completed the task, Allison announced that they'd all be doing it again. On their stomachs.
There was a loud groan throughout the group, except for me, because, well, I did it once, I could do it again. Allison also proceeded to announce that they would put nothing on the Slip n' Slide before we slid, which made some people relax.
"That doesn't mean, however, that we can't put things on it while you are sliding."
Ah, the catch. I mentally prepared myself to be stoic when I was splashed head to toe with barbecue sauce.
This time, we were instructed to go one after another instead of waiting. They said that they would throw things out at random, and if it happened to land on you, well then so be it. One girl just walked off when they said this, not even bothering to tell anyone. I heard her muttering something about her brand new Uggs being ruined.
When my turn came, I felt something cold and slimy go into my hair and down my neck and then a huge splash of a liquid, probably pickle juice, was thrown over my torso and legs. After I was done, I reached up to feel the slime and brought it in front of my face so I could see it: Barbecue sauce.
When everyone was done, we all went back to stand on the patio while Janet checked the house. When something wasn't done properly, she would pull girls inside to do it for her. Finally we were all let go and told that the Q of H sleepover was next Saturday night.
After a twenty-minute excruciatingly uncomfortable bike ride home, I threw my bike onto the lawn and trudged inside, not looking forward to explaining to my parents why I was covered in shit. I opened the front door, and walked inside, only to find Drew Cook sitting at my kitchen table, papers spread around him in an organized manner.
My heart plummeted into my stomach as I realized that I had forgotten about the "study date".
Drew looked up with a calm expression on his face to acknowledge my presence, but that soon morphed into surprise and confusion as he saw what I was wearing and the various stains that I had acquired.
"Don't ask," I said sharply, closing my eyes and kicking myself mentally as I walked past the table.
"I wasn't going to," said Drew, shaking his head and returning to his work.
"I'll be down in a sec," I said, although I knew full well that it would take more than a sec to get me cleaned up from this mess.
I jumped in the shower and hurried as fast as I could, because I knew that Drew was downstairs waiting for me. I threw on some sweats and a t-shirt, brushed my hair through, grabbed my work materials, and rushed downstairs.
"I'm really sorry about that. I completely forgot," I said as I sat down at the table.
"It's alright. You were obviously otherwise occupied," he said with a slight smile on his face. "Does your head feel any better?"
I nodded. The hot shower had done wonders. "How did you-"
"I just figured," he said with a smile. "Alright, let's get to work.
We worked for the rest of the afternoon on the project, sometimes stopping to take breaks when he wanted to check the score of a football game or when my mother came down and started talking to us about nothing in particular. 3/4ths of the way through, she made me stop and take my dog for a walk. Drew offered to come with me, and I said that would be fine.
"I know you were at a Queen of Hearts thing," he said slyly, a knowing smile on his face as we walked down the street on the cold blustery Saturday. My hands were shoved into my pockets, despite my gloves, and I had a scarf wrapped four times around my neck.
I said nothing.
"I mean, you might as well admit it. They're notorious for doing stupid stuff like that. And Janet loves pickle juice."
"You can smell it?" I couldn't believe it. I thought the shower had gotten everything off.
"No, but I could. The entire concept… it's just stupid." He said, getting back to the subject of Q of H. "I don't understand why you're doing it."
"I've got my reasons," I said defensively. I didn't see why people couldn't just accept it and move on.
"No, but I mean the whole thing. Queen of Hearts, partying last night, Joey Bateman." As soon as I heard his name, my heart jumped and started beating rapidly. I could feel my cheeks flushing, and I hoped that Drew would just think it was the cold air.
"What's wrong with Joey Bateman?" I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
"He really just doesn't seem like your type."
I stopped. "What's that supposed to mean?" We were getting into stereotyping again, and I recalled only too well where that had gotten me last night.
He stopped as well when he realized that I had. The look on his face told me that he wanted to say something but he didn't think he should. My silence indicated that he could, but proceed with caution.
"I just…I…I don't want to see a girl like you getting mixed up with a guy like Joey." His name made my heart jump again, but when I realized what he was saying, it calmed down a bit. "I've known him for years, and he's just apathetic about life. He doesn't really care, he let's his impulses and urges decide things for him, and it doesn't matter if it hurts someone else."
I started walking again, refusing to believe this. Sure, I knew Joey was carefree, but he hadn't done anything to me yet. It made me hopeful. Maybe I'd changed him. Maybe I was special enough to him that he wouldn't be like that anymore. I wanted to say that to Drew, but I knew it was ridiculous and he'd just laughed at me.
"Well thank you for your concern, but I can take care of myself," I said, my tone as icy as the wind that pushed us back towards my house. He shrugged and followed, recognizing the futility of trying to reason with me.
We worked on the project for another hour, trying to finish up so that we wouldn't have to do it in the coming weeks. I was really surprised by Drew's work ethic and the level of creativity he had when it came to writing the paper or putting together a poster board. By the end of the day, we had finished a rough draft for the ten page research paper and we had started an outline for the contemporary piece in the style of William Shakespeare.
"Hi Luce," I heard a voice behind me say. I turned to see Patrick, home from football practice. He had a t-shirt on that was soaked through with sweat and his hair was plastered to his forehead.
"Hey Patrick," said Drew, turning around in his chair. "Football practice?"
When Patrick realized that Drew Cook was in our kitchen, talking to him, he smiled like a little kid, but then tried to cover it up by being "cool". "Yeah, we've got a big game against West Madison next week."
Drew nodded. "They're pretty tough. If you ever need any pointers or anything, or you just want to throw the ball around, I live just next door. Don't hesitate to ask."
Patrick smiled even wider when he heard this. I could imagine him thinking about what he'd tell the boys on his team. "Cool! Thanks so-"
Suddenly, without any warning, his eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed onto the ground.
"Oh my god," I said, getting out of my chair as quickly as I could. "Mom! Dad!" Drew was already out of his chair and kneeling by Patrick, trying to revive him. I ran around the house, calling for my parents, but to no avail. "What's wrong with him?" I asked Drew, my heart racing. Patrick was just lying there on the ground, and I couldn't tell if he was breathing or not. "Did he hurt himself when he fell?"
"I don't know," he said, a worried look on his face. "But I think we've got to get him to the hospital."
"Oh my god," I said frantically. I had no idea what to do. "I don't have my car, it's at school."
"Go get mine. My keys are on the table. It's in my driveway. Hurry," he said. That one word made me sprint out of the house as fast as I could. Was it really bad and he just wasn't telling me? I darted across the lawn connecting our two houses, threw myself in the front seat of his truck(it was unlocked, thankfully), and I pulled the car out of his driveway and into mine.
Drew was already standing outside, Patrick in his arms. He carried him over to the car in a few long strides and set him in the back seat, climbing in with him. "Can you drive us there?" he asked calmly yet hurriedly.
I nodded, my hands shaking terribly, and pulled out of the driveway.
A/N: Okay, so I'm back. I know I never really left, but it's taken me a while to get this thing up. In any case, thanks so much for sticking with it if you're an old reader, and if you're new, thanks for making it this far. Reviews are very much appreciated. Happy Thanksgiving!