“Dang, what’s the champagne for?” Leah asked.
“For all of you! Once I make my announcement,” I said. “Anyway, I’ll just get right into it.” I tapped my hands on my desk to simulate a drum roll. “I got into Harvard!”
I expected a chorus of congratulations, but Alex, Leah, and Eunjin just stared at me in confusion.
Alex broke the silence first. “Like, graduate school? A master’s program?”
“No, no. I only applied to law schools, you obviously know that. Harvard Law! My dream school!” I beamed.
Both Alex and Leah glanced over at Eunjin. She cleared her throat.
“Oh. Wow. Well, first of all, congratulations! Uh…I thought that you had gotten rejected?”
“Nope, nope!” My smile dropped a little bit from the lack of conviction in the first congratulations I had received tonight, but I beamed again, stretching my lips even wider this time.
“Turns out it was just a mistake! They called me today and told me.”
“Like, the admissions office called you?” Eunjin asked.
“Massachusetts number and everything?” Leah asked.
“Why are you asking so many questions?”
“No, no. We’re happy for you. Obviously. We’re just…surprised. Surprised, but in a happy way!”
“Yes, yes.” Leah nodded. “We’re so so so happy for you. And we know that you deserve it. More than anyone I know.”
“Yes, congratulations!” Alex said.
“I just…I’m just coming from a place of being your friend and having never heard of something like this happening before,” Eunjin said. “Just want to make sure it’s not like a scam or something. I’m totally sure it isn’t, that’s not what I’m saying. Just want to be absolutely sure.”
I frowned. “Um…you are all acting so strange. I invited you here to celebrate. We should be partying.” I held up the bottle of champagne by the neck. “I should be popping the cork right now.”
“Yes! Yes, you should,” Leah said. “You know what, let’s forget about all this and just celebrate.”
“Hey! I saw that.” I pointed at Leah and Alex. “You two just exchanged a look.”
“We exchange looks all the time. Nothing to do with you,” Alex said.
“No. That was alook.”
I was angry now. Did they think I was stupid? They obviously exchanged a look, exchanged information that they wanted to withhold from me at my own celebration, at my own party, right in front of my face! I didn’t want to yell and cause a scene, but there was no outlet for my fury except for the visions I could conjure in my own mind. I imagined holding the two of themby their hair and crashing their heads together, then knocking their heads against the wall until they both passed out. During their slumber perhaps their brains could marinate over why they had been wrong to exchange that look, that look that was communicating that I was crazy. I was not crazy.
“You know what?” I said. “Never mind. You guys should just go.”
“What? Liz, I promise we didn’t mean whatever you think we meant. We want to celebrate with you. We’re all so happy for you,” Alex said.
“No, it’s fine. I just want to be alone now. The moment’s over.”
I avoided their eyes and waited for them to leave. I hoped they knew they fucked up; I hoped that they would both lose sleep over it.
“Do you want me to stay?” Eunjin asked, as though she were not also complicit in ruining my night.
I shook my head. A few seconds later, I was alone.
—
The champagne was nonalcoholic. Also,it wasn’t technically champagne; it was prosecco. So really just sparkling juice. If any of my friends had asked me about it, I would’ve told them that I had felt so great doing dry January that I had extended my period of sobriety to March. I popped the cork and poured some into one of the plastic champagne flutes that I had purchased just for this occasion, and drank it on my bed. I always liked carbonated drinks, the way that it kind of hurt when they slid down your throat, like tiny little knives stabbing your insides over and over again. I finished off my glass and tried to swallow it all at once, tried to maximize the stabbing sensation.By glass two, I was feeling drunk. The nonalcoholic champagne tasted almost identical to normal champagne, or at least close enough that it could elicit the same dizziness by sheer association. My face even seemed to grow warm. I pressed the bottle against my skin, letting it leave a damp spot on my cheeks.
