Lucy in the Sky Page 9

  The minute he dropped me off I called Lauren and was like, OMG! Come. Over. NOW.

  Mom was very pleased that I was a.) home early from my date, b.) that Lauren came over and wanted to hang out at our place. (She worries that Lauren spends so much time alone because her mom is in New York.) Mom made us popcorn and then went to bed. Lauren and I went up to my room to watch movies and Lauren had a surprise. She’d brought a pill for us to split. She said it was a muscle relaxer and gave me half. I asked her what it did, and she said, Just mellows you out.

  That little pill was AWESOME. In my body, it was like I’d smoked pot, only my head wasn’t cloudy at ALL. It wasn’t like being drunk. I just wanted to lie really still, and it felt like I was melting into the bed, but I wasn’t tired.

  When I told Lauren all about Mark, she laughed her ass off—especially the part about his necklace and saving it to open up his heart for his wife on his wedding night.

  I feel sort of bad writing that. I mean, Mark is very sweet. I don’t want to make fun of him, but it’s just FUNNY.

  Anyway, I slipped off to sleep at some point and slept like a rock. Usually it’s hard to sleep in my bed if somebody spends the night, but not with that little yellow pill we took. It was like I was sleeping on a cloud in a deep dark cave.

  This morning Lauren went home to write a paper she has due for her British literature class.

  It’s a good thing we’re both very together. See, All Adults Everywhere? Not all teenagers who swallow pills and smoke pot die in car accidents. Some of us are very responsible!

  September 18

  Nothing much.

  Ross was going to come over today and have dinner with us, but his grandma is in town from Boca Raton, so he’s eating at the hotel with his mom.

  I’m all done with my homework.

  I was bored and messing around on my phone, and I read a bunch of the texts that Blake had sent me. I haven’t heard from him much since he left on tour. I felt sort of nervous when I thought about texting him. He’s probably got girls in every town swarming all over him. But I texted him anyway, just to say hi. He texted me back like IMMEDIATELY. And it wasn’t a sex text either. He just said: HOW ARE YOU BEAUTIFUL?

  OH! THE BIG NEWS: Cam asked Astrid to homecoming. It’s so weird that my friend thinks my brother is cute. EW. I mean, he’s a nice guy, and I guess Cam is cute and everything, but I just keep thinking about what a pain in the neck he is sometimes and how he picks his nose in the car when he thinks no one is looking.

  EW.

  September 20

  Ross told us today that Ian invited us all up to his parents’ house in the Hollywood Hills after homecoming to hang and use the hot tub and stuff. Ian’s dad is some big movie producer and he’s scouting locations in Italy until Christmas. Anyway, Ian’s got their big place to himself, and we’re all invited. Astrid and Lauren and I are going shopping for outfits tonight. Homecoming is a pretty casual thing, so Mom put me on a strict budget: $50 toward an outfit. I told her that $50 MIGHT buy me one sleeve of a top. She said that maybe I’d remember this when I got Christmas money from Gramps this year. I told her maybe I’d just have to go topless.

  She said that she’d be happy to give me just $25 if that would make me stop whining.

  GOD!

  I guess I should be glad that I’m getting anything at all. Dad just looked at me and said that I should be grateful. It’s not that I’m not grateful; I just know that Lauren and Astrid will have all-new outfits that will make them look like a kabillion dollars.

  Anyway, Astrid said she’d help me pick out stuff that would work, and Lauren said I could raid her closet for stuff. That’ll be good because she has SO. MANY. SHOES!

  September 22

  Tomorrow is homecoming. It’s going to be so much fun!

  Ryan and Andrew actually took Lauren and me to lunch today. It was sorta sweet. Although, Ryan talks about himself a LOT. It’s not so bad, but it just gets kind of boring. I saw Mark watching me as I walked down the hall with Ryan and Andrew. I smiled and raised my hand in a little wave, and he just shook his head and turned around. I wonder who he’s going to go to homecoming with? He hadn’t asked anybody last week when we went on our date.

  Anyway, at lunch Ryan would NOT shut up about this point he scored in their beach volleyball game last week and how TOTALLY RADICAL the spike had been, and how Andrew had given him the assist. Apparently, they play every weekend down at the beach and won a 2-on-2 tournament.

  Lauren rolled her eyes and interrupted him at one point and said, So, Andy, do you often assist Ryan with his balls?

  They both acted all hurt and were like NO WAY, that’s cold. Lauren said that it wasn’t as cold as she would be if she had to fight to get a word in edgewise all night tomorrow night.

  I just started laughing and told Ryan that I live right up the street from the beach. He smiled at me all bashful, like he was secretly pleased, and said that I should come check out a match sometime. I said that maybe I’d bring Cam down with me next weekend if things went well at homecoming. It effectively reminded them that Cam is indeed my brother, and that sort of shut both of them up for a second. Cam is probably a head taller than both of them and has bigger muscles, too.

  While we were shopping on Wednesday night, Astrid told me and Lauren that Cam and Jason had tossed both of them up against the lockers and threatened to brain them if either one of them caused us any trouble at lunch or at homecoming. I actually don’t mind that Cam is being so protective. Ryan seems nice enough. He actually held the door for me today, but I don’t really know him.

  Mom says that’s what a date is all about: getting to know someone. Of course, she wants to get to know them first, so she made me introduce them to her last weekend after Cam’s game.

  I dunno. Maybe I’m just a dumb girl, but there is something about boys after a soccer game when they’re all sweaty and gross that makes me think they’re really hot. Mark walked up to say hi to my parents while we were all talking to Ryan and Andrew, and he looked really good, even though he smelled pretty bad. Of course, Mom and Dad were all smiley and like HI MARK! as if he was their long-lost son or something. Ryan just looked at me like What. Is. Up?

  AWK-WARD.

  Anyway, Elizabeth Archer is our junior class princess on the homecoming court, naturally, although Ross said it shoulda been this kid in our chemistry class named Raymond. Raymond is SO QUEENY. All the girls think it’s kinda funny in a cute way, but the older guys pick on him a lot, Andrew especially. Cam has told him to lay off several times, but when you come to school wearing eyeliner, there’s only so much Cam can do for you.

  Ross is out, at school, but he doesn’t act any differently than Cam or Mark, or any of the straight guys. He just looks like a cute surfer. Guys like Raymond have it worse, ’cause they just come across as really different from everyone else. Ross will tell you he’s gay if you ask, but he just kind of blends in. Raymond really stands out.

  The worst part is that Raymond has this CRAZY CRUSH on Ross. He asked Ross if he wanted to go the homecoming dance, and Ross was kind, but firm. I can tell it bothers Ross that the guys will start picking on him the way they pick on Raymond. Every time Andrew is picking on Raymond, Ross clears out of there as fast as he can.

  Anyway, Ian is actually going to come to the homecoming game with Ross, and then we’re all going to go to the dance together. I already told Ross that I want to sneak back to the car with him before we go into the dance and smoke a bowl.

  OH! And I have to remind Lauren about another little chunk of Xanax.

  September 23

  Holy. Moses.

  Why do they even HAVE school the day of homecoming. It’s taking FOR. EV. ER.

  And we still have to get through the damn pep rally. Elizabeth Archer is so excited about it, she’s about to explode. I am sitting behind her, and she keeps turning around to wink and smile at me and Ross. Elizabeth is wearing the new cheerleading uniforms she and the squad earned washing car
s in their bikinis over the summer. The skirts are so short they’re almost nonexistent.

  Ross asked me if I wanted to get stoned at lunch, but I told him NO. Under no circumstances do we smoke during school. THAT would make us total STONERS.

  And we’re not stoners.

  We smoke in the parking lot AFTER school.

  He rolled his eyes, and shook his head.

  Then Lauren walked up and said she had a quarter of a Xanax bar for each of us that she’d be handing out right after last period. Ross called her the Fairy Godmother of Pharmaceuticals, and Astrid laughed really hard.

  Oh, crap!

  Mrs. Winslow just called on me because she saw me writing and thought I was taking notes. I had NO IDEA what she was talking about. I haven’t really had to pay attention in a history class in years. Newsflash: American history doesn’t change much after 5th grade. Pretty much, you’ve hit the high points by then.

  I better put this away. The last thing I need is for it to get confiscated. Jeez.

  I CAN’T WAIT FOR TONIIIIIIIIIIGHT!

  September 24

  I don’t even know where to start. I’m in real trouble. Serious. Trouble. Last night was a complete nightmare. I am so scared. I don’t even know who to talk to. I want to go tell my mom all about it right this second, but I can’t. I’m so afraid that she’ll never let me leave the house again. I can’t even write about this. I’m crying so hard, I can’t see what I’m writing.

  Later …

  Lauren just left. She came over to make me feel better. I love her so much. I know I’ve only known her for a couple of months, but I don’t really remember my life without her. I don’t know how I would’ve made it through the day without her. She gave me another little chunk of Xanax, and I’m finally feeling relaxed for the first time all day.

  Mom must think I’ve lost my mind. She thinks I just had a bad date.

  Jeez. That’s the understatement of the year.

  I’m too tired to even think about writing all of this down now, but I will first thing when I get up tomorrow. I need to write it down. I want to. Something about writing it down will make some sense of what happened last night.

  I hope.

  September 25

  It’s Sunday morning. I’m feeling better today. I was just lying here in my bed, and I felt the fear flood into my stomach again, like the fog that hides the sun on June mornings. I know I just have to keep moving this pen across the page, but everything in me says that if I tell the truth about what happened Friday night, that’ll make it real somehow, and I don’t know if I can even face the memory in my head, much less watch the words come out of the pen and onto the paper in this journal.

  It started out easy, and bright. The pep rally was crazy, and then Lauren passed out the Xanax, and Ross, Lauren, Astrid, and I all headed over to Lauren’s place to order food and get ready for the dance. Lauren’s dad is out of town this weekend, so she mixed us up some cosmos as soon as we got to her place, and by the time we’d had one, the food had arrived and the Xanax had kicked in. We ate and then started getting ready.

  We laughed until our mascara ran and we all had to do it again. That’s what I mainly remember about getting ready: laughing.

  Ross was SO FUNNY. He’d only had one cosmo ’cause they’re too girly, but he’d smoked a whole bowl of pot himself, then finished all of our leftovers while we all got ready. He was ready to go in like two minutes. He had a new polo and a pair of skinny jeans that looked like he was melted and poured into them. He lay down in the Jacuzzi tub in Lauren’s HUGE bathroom and cracked jokes while he smoked pot and we straightened our hair. Well, Lauren and I straightened; Astrid curled. There were lots of hair ironing devices.

  Then finally we were ready and Ross let out a low whistle, and then we spent like 20 minutes taking pictures of each other in various configurations. Of course, then Andrew and Ryan showed up, and they’d brought beer that Andrew had nabbed out of his dad’s beer fridge in the garage. Ross smoked them out and had a beer, and the three of them seemed to bond or something. At one point Andrew told Ross he was okay for a homo, and Ross told Andrew that he was not bad for a breeder, and the two of them collapsed on the couch laughing and blowing pot smoke all over the place.

  At that point Astrid looked at her watch and herded us all out the door.

  For some reason, stepping outside made me realize how hard the Xanax had hit on top of the cosmos. All of a sudden I was floating, but it wasn’t as clean as just Xanax or a muscle relaxer. I’d only smoked one hit of pot, but on top of two cosmos and the pill, I was a little foggy, and as we crowded into the elevators at Lauren’s condo, I wobbled a little on my heels. I was glad that Ryan had big arms. He smiled at me when I was teetering toward the wall, offered me his arm, and asked if I was okay.

  I smiled and said that I was fine. He raised an eyebrow and said, Oh, I can see you’re fine. You’re the finest girl I’ve ever taken to a dance; that’s for damn sure.

  I blushed HARD when he said that. Then Lauren said, God, Andy, your friend RyRy is a total cheese ball.

  And then we were laughing again.

  Ian joined us in the stands at the game. He looked great, and Ross got that big goofy grin on his face when they sat down together next to me. The crowd was WILD. We all were. The air was crisp and you could smell the ocean from the soccer field. Elizabeth Archer cheered right at Ross during the big halftime routine. Then as the junior class princess she was escorted across the field by Jason. Astrid snickered when she saw this and said that Megan Archer wouldn’t give Jason the time of day, so he was escorting Elizabeth to homecoming in hopes of showing up on her radar.

  We won the game, and Cam joined us after he had showered and changed. Astrid went walking up to him in her impossibly high heels that made her almost come to his chin. He bent down and kissed her softly on the lips. Ross punched him in the shoulder and said that he didn’t care what the two of them did behind closed doors, but he didn’t want them flaunting their lifestyle choice in his face, which made Cam laugh so hard he snorted.

  We didn’t want to be the very first ones at the dance, so we walked to the back of the parking lot and took turns sliding into Ian’s gigantic Land Rover to smoke a bowl. Then Lauren dragged me and Astrid into her car so that we could touch up. LAST LOOKS EVERYONE! she yelled. She said that’s what they say on movie and music-video sets before they shoot the scene so that the makeup people know to dab powder and fix hair.

  When we were in her car, she passed around a silver flask she said her dad keeps in the kitchen and never uses. It was filled with cosmos. Naturally.

  Then we headed into the dance.

  And we DANCED.

  It was hilarious. Ian is SUCH a good dancer, and he’s 20, so he doesn’t give a crap about what high school kids think of him. Every girl in the place wanted to dance with him, and every guy in the gym wanted to BE him because every girl wanted him, but when there was a slow dance, he pulled Ross in, and held him close, and flipped off anybody who gave him a dirty look.

  That’s what I want. I want somebody who has my back.

  Ryan was an okay dancer, but he was REEEEEALLY stoned and had slammed a couple of beers in the parking lot, so he smelled sort of skunky. Still, it was fun. He kept telling me how sexy I was and how I was making him crazy. He tried to press his junk up against me every 30 seconds, and I just let him. It was fun watching him get all red in the face.

  Then I’d drag him over and make him dance with Ross and Ian and me. Lauren did the same thing with Andrew, and by the time we’d been in the gym for an hour, we’d danced ourselves as sweaty as Cam was when he’d walked off the soccer field.

  And then we were leaving. Cam and Astrid hadn’t moved apart from each other in like an hour, and Ian was trying to take his shirt off, which is against dress code at the dance, and Ross had to drag him out into the parking lot, laughing, and I looked at Lauren, and she said, Let’s blow this joint. And I said, A JOINT sounds GREAT!

 
Lauren went over and tapped on Cam’s shoulder. He finally came up for air with Astrid, and he said they’d meet us at Ian’s dad’s place.

  I shoulda gone home right that second.

  Crap. Now I’m crying again. And Mom just called up the stairs. We’re driving up to have lunch at my grandparents’ house. I’ll have to finish this in the car.

  Later …

  It’s too hard to write while we’re driving. I can’t tell if it’s the butterflies in my stomach or the motion of the car. Either way, it’s making me a little sick.

  Later …

  I feel better now that I’ve eaten. I think I was just hungry. Grams made a big pot roast with all the trimmings. She had this giant yellow cake with fudge frosting, like the ones you see on the commercials for Betty Crocker, only this one didn’t come from a mix: She made it from scratch. It’s Cam’s favorite dessert. I had a very small slice. It was good to see Cam smile again, even if it was about cake. Sometimes he seems so easy. All it took to put him in a good mood again was food.

  Cam dragged me into the kitchen with him to do the dishes so that Grams and Gramps could hang out with Mom and Dad for a while. Actually, it was so he could talk to me about what happened at homecoming. At least he’s not yelling at me like he did on Friday.

  It all happened so fast after we got to Ian’s parents’ place, which is this HUGE house in the hills. The whole place looks like it might teeter off the side of the hill with one stiff wind and we’d wind up crashing down the hill into the big strip of trendy nightclubs below.

  The view took my breath away. You could see downtown to the left and all the way to the edge of city and the beach on the right.

  Ian and Ross beat us there because Lauren wanted to stop and get cranberry juice so that we could make cosmos just in case they didn’t have the right mixers. Ryan was driving because Andrew was totally tanked. He’d slammed like 3 of the beers he and Ryan brought during the dance. He kept whinnying like a horse and trying to slap Lauren’s butt. Lauren was not amused.