and awkward and they thought, “Yes, and...?” For his classmates and teachers, a person’s characteristics were not boxes (or rather, buildings) to place them into; they were colors with which to paint a whole, unique picture.
Now, with the minutes until the showcase ticking away, Kenji watched his fellow CISers (Go, Sea Cucumbers!) and felt a deep appreciation for every single one of them. The ones who hadn’t heard him as they passed and the ones who absolutely had heard him but didn’t pay attention alike. Those few who trickled in with full intent to watch the showcase as well as those who passed by in groups, who heard Kenji enthusiastically beckoning them inside, looked at one another with a shrug, then went to take a seat. Kenji loved every single one of them.
Here was Ludovico, fellow improv lover, who walked through the hallways not as if he had hordes of underclassmen gawking at him, but as if he was still exploring the tiny Sumatran island he’d spent six years growing up on. Ludo moved barefoot through the school, a beatific smile always on his face, like a handsome blond yogi blessing everyone in his path.
And here was Peejay Singh, speed-walking through the hallway past Kenji, headed toward the back staircase near the green room. His friend Diego Cuevas had just texted saying the door was locked, which it definitely should not have been. The back staircase was one of the keys to Peejay’s whole plan. It, along with the basement, was the entryway for the booze, the hundreds of earphones, the DJ equipment, the DJ himself.
* * *
For decades, the CIS lock-in night had traditionally come with a clandestine party organized by a single student. Each year, the previous year’s Partyer in Chief would pick out the one person they believed could best carry on the tradition with both secrecy and flair. If the transient nature of CIS’s student body proved this impossible, it was put to a school-wide vote. That had been the case this year, and Peejay Singh had won overwhelmingly versus fellow senior Jordi Marcos.
Every student knew about the party, and everyone was invited, though many chose not to go, either because they were busy or too frightened of the possibility of getting caught. This despite the fact that no lock-in party had ever been discovered, and no single student had ever faced consequences or questioning related to their nefarious absence. Oh, the faculty had heard rumblings, of course. And each year the teachers bet money on whether the party would be discovered, and by whom, and in which room (like a CIS-specific game of Clue). Usually, the gambling ring itself would be discovered, and the organizing staff member was always the only one to face ramifications. Higher-ups in the administration didn’t condone the partying, and wanted teacher efforts to focus on keeping the students from harming themselves and the school’s reputation, not on profiting off illicit activities.
Regardless, Peejay didn’t want to risk being the first host to get caught. Though he did want to be remembered. In fact, Peejay wanted to throw a party so great that every single CISer attended. He wanted even the teachers to attend, without them knowing it. He wanted the party to set the standard for future hosts, wanted it to be all people could talk about once the night was done.
He looked forward to the winks and high fives he would get at 6:00 a.m. when the doors opened and the buses and parents arrived to take the kids back home for the day. He fantasized about the text messages that would flood his phone throughout the weekend, if not the rest of the year. (Maybe the rest of his life? Peejay sometimes let these fantasies get carried away, imagining a time twenty years or so from the night when he would be contacted by people like Zaira Jacobson or Omar Ng, people who would clearly go on to live not just good lives but impressive ones, remarkable lives full of remarkable parties. “My partying days are coming to an end, and yours topped them all,” they would say, and Peejay would look back on his days of partying and be hard-pressed to find a night that compared to this one.)
Peejay had been waiting three years for his opportunity to host, ever since he was a freshman and his brother, Hamish, had been the Partyer in Chief. That year, Hamish had somehow managed to throw the party underwater.