“I’ll tell you what you’re looking at: three hot bitches who are invited to a very exclusive party. What do you see, Briar?” Daisy asks.
“Virgins who can’t drive!” she shouts, quotingClueless.
I snort, clutching my side, the act of walking suddenly becoming very complicated.
“Whatever,” one of them mutters.
We finish our cotton candy booze on our walk. The buzz is alive and well and I am feelinggood. As we approach the house, I notice flower boxes on the front windowsill. “Oh! Hang on a sec,” I call as I skip to the window and swipe some dirt aside before planting my phone among the pansies.
“College guys with landscaped flower beds?” Daisy asks. “I’m impressed.”
“It’s so their mommies and daddies can make the house pretty on the outside and probably ignore the absolute debauchery on the inside,” Briar tells us, her tongue stumbling over the worddebauchery.
I pat the soil where my phone is sticking out like a budding flower stem. “I’ll be back for you,” I whisper. “You’ll be safe here.”
Daisy’s head drops down over my shoulder, her chin hooked there as she giggles. “Is there a good reason why you’re burying your phone in dirt?”
“A very good reason,” I confirm.
I lead the charge with the card held above my head as we walk to the front of the house where a line is accumulating. Not only does the card get us out of the cover charge, but it also helps us skip the line when a guy wearing nothing but a moving box—and I meannothing—waves us through.
We take a self-guided tour through the house and find that the main floor rooms are divided by activity. The living room is for lounging and lazy making out that is likely the prequel to something more. The formal dining room is home to a very intense beer pong tournament. The kitchen is drinks central. There are also about forty Taco Bell tacos and a few half-eaten pizzas up for grabs. The patiois reserved for recreational drug use. And the formal sitting area is where the DJ and a writhing sea of bodies can be found. It is every college movie I have ever seen and I am giddy, which might have more to do with my dwindling sobriety.
We find ourselves with cans of spiked sparkling water and Briar, the most bullish of us in such a large crowd, leads us through limbs and torsos with our hands locked together like a pre-K class on a field trip until we find a small alcove near a speaker. Our hands are marked with X’s to show we’re under twenty-one, but we have encountered zero resistance from the guys policing the coolers full of booze.
“It didn’t occur to me that when you party with rich kids, all the booze is free,” Briar says in an uncharacteristically cheerful tone.
“Every bar is an open bar,” I shout back at her. “The oyster is your world!”
After a few minutes of us clinging to the walls, a girl wearing scraps of an IKEA shopping tote stops by with a plastic bag of sealed lime green shots. “GHB-free shots for the ladies? Three dollars each!”
“You’re an angel,” I tell her.
“And an entrepreneur,” Briar says with admiration.
Daisy hands her a twenty and scoops up six shots. “Keep the change, baby!”
IKEA bag girl taps her nose. “I am but a humble woman-owned small business,” she announces. “Just because the booze is free doesn’t mean it’s clean. No unsealed beverages for you ladies. Understand?”
“Yes, Mommy,” I tell her.
She gives us each a kiss on the cheek and is off to the next group of girls like the safe party fairy she is.
“Cheers?” Daisy asks as she passes around the lime-green liquid-filled shot glasses that bear a striking resemblance to communion cups.
“Are we each taking two right now?” I ask.
Briar laughs. “I didn’t come here to pace myself!”
I shrug and peel back the plastic seal on one of the cups before holding it out for a toast.
“Does this make us an official friend group?” Daisy asks. “We need a text thread.”
Briar shrugs. “My general policy is no new friends, and I’m pretty opposed to group activities.”
“You would have to have friends in the first place in order for that to be your policy,” Daisy tells her sweetly.
“You are vicious,” Briar says with a great deal of respect.
