down the driveway in her slinky dress, waving her cell phone in her hand. I can feel the eyes of the two girls burning through me. “I promised Nana I’d get photos! I need to get photos before you go!”
If I’ve despised my clueless pathetic mother more than in this moment, I can’t remember when.
Max says, “Sure, Mrs. Markham,” and I stand stiffly next to him, trying to smile, while my mother moves her cell phone around, pressing spots on the screen.
“Oh, shoot, hold on, hold on, I’ve got it.” She giggles drunkenly, and I wonder only vaguely if I should invite the others—why not?—in all their stoned glory, to join in.
* * *
When we pull away from the curb, I relax a little. I still feel awkward, but a certain giddy excitement kicks up as the chatter sets in.
The seats in the back of the limo face each other with some legroom in between. A mini bar is built into the door on the far side. Fancy crystal tumblers sit in cup holders, filled with some brown liquid that threatens to slosh over the sides with each turn.
Bo passes the joint to Max, who inhales deeply, and raises his eyebrows at me. I shake my head and look pointedly at the glass divider, then back to him.
He exhales. “Don’t worry. Dean’s brother owns the company. That’s Pete up there. Right, Pete?” Pete waves into the rearview mirror. “We have permission to have a good time as long as we don’t bust anything up.”
“Or puke!” Pete calls.
“Or puke in here,” Max echoes.
Angie, whose short black hair is dotted with rhinestoned skull barrettes tonight, laughs, forcefully blowing out a drag she’d been holding in, and taps my knee, the fabric of my blue dress, with a combat-booted foot, and says, “I don’t really like this shit, either. How about a drink instead?” She smiles at Melissa, whose hair used to be a solid shade of magenta but is now blue with white-blond chunks running through.
“Yeah, same,” Melissa chimes in, and I realize they’re both wearing combat boots with their dresses, one of which isn’t a dress but a floor-length skirt with a T-shirt and black leather bomber jacket. It looks cool, and I feel silly and out of place in my gown and ballet flats.
“I mean, I’ll take a hit or two sometimes, but I’d rather have a rum and Coke.” She passes one of the tumblers to Melissa, and one to me. “Go slow. They’re more rum than Coke, and your boyfriend here says we need to go easy on you.”
“Damn straight,” Max says, throwing an arm around me.
I sip the drink down and lean back against the seat, closing my eyes as my body warms to the alcohol, and let the sounds and smells of the car begin to waffle around me. Spaces open, places for me to sink in and breathe, as if I belong.
“Here goes nothing, chicos and chicas!” Max shouts suddenly. My eyes snap open. The driver has eased us past the ornate gates of the planetarium, tires crunching over gravel as he pulls into a parking spot and unlocks the doors. Max holds up his glass, and the rest of us raise ours, clinking glass to glass, and polishing off whatever liquid remains. “Veni, vidi, vici!” he toasts.
“We come, we see, we conquer!” Dean yells.
“Here come the fucking Proletariats,” they all chime in, Max closing with, “One last time to live it up big!”
SUMMER
BEFORE FOURTH GRADE
“Here we are, Pippi!” Dad pulls open the car door and tugs on my pigtail, and I slide out and take his hand. “Milky Way, here we come!”
Here is the Hager Planetarium, Mom's and my favorite place in the world.
Mom adjusts her hat, checking her reflection in the window, before we head toward the hill that leads to the main building together, her long gossamer skirt floating up like a breeze, Dad’s giant size 12 Birkenstock sandals making their clomping swish-swash noises on the uneven cobblestone path.
“I’m not a Pippi,” I pronounce suddenly. “She has braids and red hair and freckles.” I want to be something prettier, like Mom.
“Hmmm, how about a butterfly? Le Papillon?” He says that last part with a flourish of his hand.
“Who’s that?”
“Not who. A what. It’s how you say ‘butterfly’ in French.”
“Yes, okay, that,” I say, smiling.
Halfway down the hill, Mom lets go of Dad’s hand and skips ahead, stopping to twirl under a cherry blossom tree releasing its last remaining pink petals, arms out,