Never Always Sometimes - Adi Alsaid Page 0,46
people to stumble into as the night progressed.
“We may be embracing clichés, but we’re allowed to make them ours,”
Julia said with that mischievous smile. Some were on the bookshelves,
one on top of each blade of the fan in the living room, in drawers and
the microwave and in between the couch cushions. Julia had set out
bowls of chips surrounded by assorted dips. Some of the dips weren’t
actual dips, another experiment Julia had been dying to try for years.
She had set out hot sauces and butter and soy sauce and a little melted
puddle of vanilla ice cream, just to see how many people would dip
their chips into anything that was nearby.
By the time people started showing up, Dave and Julia had crossed
off another Never and toasted with a minibottle of champagne Julia
had nabbed from the wedding she’d gone to the weekend before. They
argued for about twenty minutes over what kind of music to play,
since Julia insisted that she had good party music, and Dave insisted
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that people would not enjoy listening to Fiona Apple, no matter how
brilliant her lyrics were. Julia texted some photos of the setup to her
mom and was checking her phone constantly for a response when the
doorbell rang.
“Welcome!” Julia said to the first group that arrived, three somewhat
nerdy juniors with copycat shaggy hair. “Beer!”
“Uh, thanks,” the taller of them said, though they didn’t enter until
Dave waved them in. As soon as Julia shut the door, Dave could hear
voices on the other side. Dave went back to the door as Julia led the
shaggy juniors to the kitchen, rambling in a fake Victorian English
accent about the glory of the night.
Within an hour, the house was packed. Because it kept him from
looking at the entrance awaiting Gretchen’s arrival, Dave tried to clean up after people, collecting the empty beer cans and the red plastic cups that Julia had purchased entirely too many of. Then Julia scolded him,
telling him that making a mess of her parents’ place was part of the
idea, and that he was robbing her of a typical high school experience.
“Mingle with your people,” she said, snatching the garbage bag away
from his hand and hanging it off the corner of a picture frame, which
instantly tipped and came crashing to the ground. “These people came
for you.”
“They came for the beer.”
“You can’t prove that. Your face on the flyer was just as big as the
word beer was.”
“True. Have I told you how uncomfortable that made me?”
DAVE 153
“Oh, being loved by the masses is so hard,” Julia said, frowning
exaggeratedly. “I’m gonna go make sure Debbie is still mostly white and
green and pink and alive.” She headed for the stairs, sidestepping the
pillow fort that they’d built at the foot to keep people from venturing
upstairs. Almost as soon as she’d turned down the hallway, Dave felt a
tap on his shoulder.
“Gretchen! Hi.” He leaned in to give her a hug, and somehow his
lips ended up on her cheek, close to her mouth, way more sensual than
he’d meant to. It took them both a little by surprise, and nothing was
said for a while. Someone took hold of the music and switched it over
to rap, the bass booming through the house.
“Hi,” she said, her hand going to the spot he’d awkwardly kissed.
She’d done her hair in a braid that hung over her shoulder, exposing
her neck on the opposite side. A trace of collarbone poked out from
her blouse. It was so different picturing someone’s face all day and then being up close to it. It was like the difference between seeing a picture of a beach and stepping onto the sand. “This is insane; there are so
many people here.”
“Oh, Julia and I hired a bunch of desperate actors from L.A. None
of these people are actually teenagers.”
Gretchen bit her bottom lip and looked down at her scuffed
sneakers for a second. When she didn’t say anything for a while, he
said that it was too crowded inside and that they should go to the
backyard. He led her through the crowd, slowly squeezing between
random, isolated dance-offs and couples already making out. At the
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kitchen table, Joey Planko was sitting in just his underwear, organizing some sort of drinking game that involved a deck of cards and a beer
mug in the middle of the table. Girls were sitting two to a chair to join in on the game.
Outside, someone had started a bonfire in the middle of the yard.
Which was impressive and a little worrying, considering that Julia’s
house had neither a fire pit nor firewood. Someone standing by the fire
finished his