Christina eagerly bounced into Karine’s room and Terry closed the door behind them. She sat on the bed and Terry joined her, picking up Karine’s copy of her play, which was propped open on her pillow.
He leafed through it, noticing all the lines she’d highlighted. What had she been complaining about when she’d bitched that her part wasn’t good enough? She totally had a zillion lines. He scanned the book looking for the name Helena
“You gonna go?” he asked without looking up.
“Go where?”
“The play.” He held up the book.
“Oh. Yeah. Totally.”
“Yeah, me too.”
He found one of Helena
And even for that do I love you the more.
I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,
The more you beat me, I will fawn on you:
Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,
Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,
Unworthy as I am, to follow you.
What worser place can I beg in your love,--
And yet a place of high respect with me,--
Than to be used as you use your dog?
And even for that do I love you the more.
I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,
The more you beat me, I will fawn on you:
Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,
Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,
Unworthy as I am, to follow you.
What worser place can I beg in your love,--
And yet a place of high respect with me,--
Than to be used as you use your dog?
What the hell? Was this Helena
Christina inched towards him and tried to kiss him. He pulled away.
“You know what?”
“What?” she asked.
“Never mind,” he said, getting up and dropping Karine’s script onto the bed.
He left the room and walked downstairs, feeling bad for dissing Chrissy but knowing he’d have felt worse if he’d let things go on.
He rummaged through the coats in the front hallway and pulled his on, then stuffed his feet into his shoes. He stepped outside and lit a cigarette, leaning against the wall of the house. A moment later he heard the door open next to him. Karine joined him and took a drag off his cigarette.
“That was quick,” she smirked.
“What?” Oh, she must have meant Chrissy. “I didn’t feel like it.”
“What are you? A pod person now? Where’s the real Terry?”
“Funny. You think that’s all I care about? Just hooking up?” He took back his cigarette.
“Guess not,” she shrugged. “So what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just don’t feel like screwing Christina.”
“I hope she doesn’t get obsessed again. Although, I guess she never really stopped being obsessed. She just stopped being so obvious about it.”
He sighed and handed the cigarette back to Karine. “I don’t wanna mess up her life. She’s just boring is all.”
“I guess,” Karine exhaled.
“Do you ever feel like that?”
“Like what? Like Christina’s boring? Or like Steven is boring?”
“Like everything’s boring.”
“Well yeah actually…”
“I just feel like that all the time now. I’m so bored with everything.” He took back the cigarette.
“Yeah?”
“Look at our lives, Karine. Every weekend we go drinking or we get high. Or you throw a party and we get drunk and we get high. And then we go to school and do whatever it is we do there. And you do your play and I do hockey, which like, why? So I can be bitched out by my fucking coach and told I’m not good enough? And then I go to a party after the game and I hook up with some chick I don’t even like and I get drunk or high or whatever. What is the point?”
“It’s fun?”
“Is it? ‘Cause I’m not having fun. Are you having fun?”
“I guess not,” she shrugged.
“Me neither.”
“We used to have fun.”
“We used to.” He was about to take a drag but then looked at his cigarette. “Fuck! I’m not even addicted. I just smoke because I’m bored.”
Normally Terry flicked away his cigarettes but now he simply held it up in the air and let it drop into the snow below.
“Hey! I was smoking that too!”
“Here, I don’t know why I bother.” He fished his pack of cigarettes out of his coat pocket and handed the entire thing to Karine.
“You sound depressed,” she said with concern.
“I’m not depressed. Just bored. Let’s do something.”
“Like what?”
“Like go somewhere!”
He grabbed her hand and started leading her away from her house. She protested, saying she couldn’t leave her own party but he assured her they’d only be gone for a little while, even though he didn’t necessarily mean it.
They always listened to the music Vani chose and his playlist was known as the winlist. Each time a new song began Vani would perk up and mention it was a good song and they all took turns reminding him that he’d chosen the song in the first place, so of course he thought it was good. The rest of them were indifferent to irritated to appalled by his seemingly random choices but there was nothing to be done. It was what it was.
Vani bopped up and down, semi-pacing, semi-dancing as he circled the room, considering his next move.
“Turn it up, this is a good song,” he said off-handedly when the song switched.
Jay rolled his eyes and dutifully turned up the sound on his computer while Vani broke into full on dance mode, doing a combination of the robot and spasmodic lunging movements.
“Quit genuflecting and make your choice, Vani,” ordered Karl.
“Stop!” Vani froze. “Hammer time!”
“Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh…” the rest of them chanted while Vani closed his eyes and shook his groove thing.
It wasn’t surprising really. Usually Terry waited until after they’d hooked up before abandoning her. This time he’d simply sped up the inevitable. It was a long shot anyway. Christina descended the stairs and entered the living room, scanning for Andrew. He was hanging out with Erica and they seemed to be enjoying themselves. Well if Erica thought she would be able to steal him away she had another thing coming.
Christina joined them and asked Andrew to dance. He agreed and they walked to the center of the room while Erica watched. Take that, Erica!
Jay didn’t mind it when the game devolved into random acts of randomness. Karl took the game rather seriously and Vani took it personally but while Jay acknowledged its necessity in his life he still enjoyed the opportunity to do other things, such as play video games, or do karaoke. Of course, he would never admit to a fondness for karaoke, which is why he always relished the rare moments when the game somehow mutated into a dance party.
Vani and Jay were singing along to I Was Made for Lovin You and acting out their version of the lyrics, which mostly consisted of Vani swatting at Jay with a towel. During the chorus, the rest of the gang sang along and shook back and forth like nameless backup dancers.
Because of his jelly jiggling, Willy was, as per usual, accused of being gay, which he denied, perhaps too strongly. The evidence against him was quite damning, culminating in their collective certainty that he wore wife-beaters in his spare time and it was common knowledge that besides actual wife beaters only gay guys wore wife-beaters. Or douchebags. And all things considered it was probably better to be gay than to be a douche. Cerise mentioned that guys in boy bands were also known to wear wife-beaters, which just made the gay/douchebag point all the stronger. Willy, as per usual, carried on with his protest and eventually they accused him of being a homophobic, gay-bashing douchewad. It said a lot about Willy that he preferred this label to that of gaydom.
They eventually merged into a circle and sang along to Fat Lip, each taking their turn to shake spasmodically in the center of the circle. Jay couldn’t help noticing that when Cerise took her turn to shake, the boys stared at her as though in a trance. Thankfully she didn’t notice anything amiss. Jay knew that Cerise was a girl but it was getting a little tiresome that the boys kept treating her like one. Willy especially. His crush on her was so painfully obvious that it was utterly repulsive and Jay was at a loss to explain how Cerise managed not to spontaneously combust from revulsion when in his presence. Of course she’d also managed to go on two dates with Terry Trebifucking-pieceofshitloserIhatehimsomuchsky without vomiting all over herself so clearly she was equipped with a particularly strong stomach, or the same obliviousness that seemed to plague all girls, thus rendering them incapable of detecting douchery when it was encased in a pretty package.
Cerise was now lip synching to The Warrior, and rather enthusiastically miming the lyrics. It was quite a performance and Jay was impressed that not only was she familiar with the song (it had been completely unknown to Jay when Vani had first added it to the winlist) but she knew it so well that she had either previously devised a dance routine for it or was now making it up as she went along. Jay wasn’t sure which possibility was more remarkable. A bit of googling revealed that she was more or less re-enacting the video. Until this moment Jay hadn’t even realized there was a video for this song. Cerise’s knowledge of ‘80s music was clearly superiour to his own.
The song ended and the boys applauded the performance, Willy even being so bold as to request en encore.
“Try to control your erection, Willy,” counselled Vani.
“Shut up!” was Willy’s witty retort.
Naturally they began punching each other and the dance party devolved into a wrestling match. Oh well. So much for karaoke.
Erica had joined them and they were all dancing together. Andrew was probably fantasizing about a threesome but Christina wasn’t about to let that happen.
Steve came along and asked if they’d seen Karine but they hadn’t.
“I can’t find her,” he whined.
“No one cares, Steve,” said Erica and Christina giggled even though it was kinda mean.
Steven walked off and Andrew followed him so suddenly Erica and Christina were dancing only with each other. They’d danced together probably about a billion times before but it was different now because… well because it just was.
“I’m still going out with Andrew you know,” said Christina with confidence though she was perhaps trying to convince herself as much as Erica.
Erica chuckled dismissively. “Oh really? Looked like you were trying to hook up with Terry earlier tonight. Or did that not work out?”
Christina suppressed the anger that rose up in her throat. Or maybe it was vomit. She was a little drunk, could’ve been either really.
“I’m with Andrew,” she said resolutely.
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” scoffed Erica. “He has other prospects you know.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah, really,” Erica grinned and walked off towards the kitchen.
Christina followed her and they both got beers, which they guzzled defiantly, as though finishing first proved one of them to be the winner of Andrew’s affections. It was poetic justice then, or maybe just law of averages considering Andrew’s ways when they spied something suspicious out the kitchen window. They turned off the lights to get a better view of the front porch and there was Andrew making out with Marla Fitzpatrick.
“I guess he does have other prospects,” said Christina in amusement.
Sure, it was annoying that he was making out with Marla Ugohair Fitzpatrick but it was still satisfying to see Erica get burned.
Jay wasn’t about to let the boys leave without helping to clean up. Tonight had been a particularly debaucherous event and he didn’t want to be stuck all alone with the mess again. The boys started stuffing chip and candy wrappers under couch cushions and Jay berated them for making it worse.
“We’re helping!” insisted Vani, pushing a coke bottle under the couch.
Jay tried to retrieve all the trash stuffed into the couch and put it in the garbage can but four against one was unfair odds. Every time he got something in the trash can they took it out and stuffed it in the couch. He grabbed Cerise and dragged her away from the sofa just as she was trying to hide an M&M bag. She made a great show of placing the bag in the garbage and then when Jay was distracted by Vani, he heard some rustling and spun around to see her taking it out of the trash and putting it back into the couch.
“Attack!” he bellowed as he wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her up.
He slammed her down onto the sofa and she laughed while kicking out her legs to defend herself. He sat down on top of her and bounced up and down while she grunted in agony and pounded her little baby fists against his legs.
“Ok, get off me! I give up!” she finally squealed.
He stood up and declared himself lord and master of the basement and she kicked him in the butt, running upstairs to escape his wrath. He ran after her and tickled her into submission on the staircase and she again admitted defeat.
“Ok, you win! You’re lord and master of the basement.”
“And don’t you forget it,” he grinned.
“Make way, lord and master, we’re trying to get out of your kingdom,” said Karl sarcastically as he stepped over them on his way up the stairs.
Terry took her to a park. Karine looked out the window and wondered what the hell but before she knew it he was outside, running towards the jungle gym. She got out of the car and followed him. They stood over the monkey bars. The snow was deep and the bars only came up to their waists. Terry took her hands and they tried to balance themselves on top of the bars. It was actually pretty fun until they fell in the snow. Terry was laughing but Karine didn’t particularly enjoy the combination of cold and wet. She brushed the snow off of her clothes and lit a cigarette, only to have it knocked out of her lips by a snowball.
“You asshole!” she yelled in irritation.
“You’re no fun!” he said with an eye-roll.
He climbed the jungle gym and went down the slide, which was so short that his massive body actually covered the entire thing. With his feet in a snowbank, he reclined on the slide, looking up at the sky.
“You’re so out of it,” said Karine as she climbed the jungle gym and stood over him.
“I’m so fucking bored!” he yelled into the night.
“Oh, poor baby.”
“This sucks!”
Karine sat down on the slide and swung herself over top of Terry, straddling him. “This sucks,” she mocked him, punching him playfully.
Terry laughed and deflected Karine’s blows. It seemed a good moment to finally make things happen. She smiled and leaned over him, touching his nose with hers. He put his arms around her and she kissed him. He most definitely kissed back.
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