Gimme Everything You Got - Iva-Marie Palmer Page 0,67

to a disco station, and they poured shots into glasses they’d gathered from all our rooms. As they did, I cleared my throat. “Everyone, just don’t overdo it,” I said.

“We won’t, silly,” Arlene said, but she tossed back her shot before we even toasted and gestured to Dawn to refill it.

“Salut,” Franchesa said. We all clinked glasses like at the restaurant. I swallowed only half of mine.

Donna Summers’s “Bad Girls” came on, and Joanie grabbed a bottle of schnapps and let out a whoop.

“I’m all for enjoying yourself, but keep it down!” Marie said as she bumped hips with Franchesa, who swiveled her own. “Whoa, Franchesa, where’d those moves come from?”

I laughed to myself and watched them dance for a while, imagining what Joe would say about the choice of music. We’d argued about disco’s merits, and I told him that only guys who couldn’t dance didn’t like it. But why was I thinking about Joe at all?

Soon, Dawn was thrusting a can of beer into my hand. “Why do you look like you’re having some kind of dilemma? Schnapps isn’t supposed to make you thoughtful.”

“I don’t know. Dumb guy stuff,” I said. “How they hate disco.”

“Yeah, if they can’t dance,” Dawn said, reading my mind, as Tina and Wendy joined our corner of the room. Tina’s schnapps glass was still mostly full. At least I wouldn’t have to babysit her.

Wendy flung one arm around my shoulders and the other around Tina’s and said, “Do you know my dad wants to take me to Fort Lauderdale this Christmas break?” We shook our heads. Wendy’s parents were going through a divorce way less reasonable than my parents’ had been. “My mom was like, ‘If he does that, I’m taking you to L.A. in the spring.’ But all I want is for both of them to leave me alone.”

“Are you drunk already?” Tina asked her, shooting a concerned look my way.

“A little,” Wendy said. “I went straight for the vodka.”

“I don’t have much divorced-parent advice,” Tina said. “Mine split when I was so young that whatever crap went down at the beginning, I don’t remember. Two vacations doesn’t sound terrible, though.” As she spoke, I gently pried Wendy’s half-full glass from her hand. She was our goalie—she couldn’t get plastered.

“All I got out of my parents’ divorce is a spot in my dad’s wedding,” I said, and sidestepped to the restroom to dump Wendy’s vodka down the sink. Then I rounded the room, covertly taking drinks to dump and returning the empty glasses. If I kept dumping refills, we’d run out of booze without drinking it all.

Dana was especially tipsy. When Arlene asked her, “Why do you like Assistant Principal Lawler so much?” I took the opportunity to steal her schnapps.

Dana, who was perched on the room’s tiny writing desk and contemplating a cigarette Marie had given her, said, loud enough to hear over the rest of the party, “Because she makes her own money and gets to do what she wants.”

“Yeah, as long as Principal Dollard says it’s okay,” Marie said, plucking the cigarette from Dana’s fingertips and placing it in her own mouth.

Marie lit the end of the cigarette and puffed it once, then passed it to back Dana, who took an inhale that was comically deep and led to her sputter-coughing as “Ring My Bell” came on. “Assistant Principal Lawler will be principal someday and she knows it,” Dana slurred as she tried for another inhale. She dropped the lit cigarette on her jeans, then jumped off the desk, sending the cigarette’s cherry to the carpet. Marie stomped on it.

“Someday, sweetie,” she said, patting Dana’s shoulder.

The phone rang. “That’s Todd,” Tina said, springing up and gesturing for Dawn to turn down the music, which had crept to a much higher volume from where it had started. She pointed to me. “Can you check if the coast is clear?”

I pulled back the curtain to look down at the parking lot and saw no sign of activity. A light was on in Bobby’s room and I took that to mean he was somewhere inside it. “We’re good.”

Tina told Todd and his friends they could come up. “Are you gonna go next door and get it on?” Marie asked Tina with a wink.

Tina smirked. “We’ll see,” she said. Then she added, “We haven’t done everything yet.”

This was news to me. I’d always thought the whole long-distance thing was made worth it by sex. “Really?” I said to her under my breath. “I