Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self - By Danielle Evans Page 0,80

at least give me something. Much time as I spent in this dumb-ass school.”

I got used to her mood swings and went along with them. It was easier than arguing, and I didn’t object much anyway. When Libby Carlisle got named prom queen, Geena launched into a ten-minute tirade on how she was the ugliest, bitchiest, dishwater-blondest excuse for a prom queen she’d ever heard of.

“Don’t worry about Libby Carlisle,” I said. “Libby Carlisle is about to encounter the unpleasant reality that the world does not revolve around her ass, and when she finally accepts that reality she’ll need Valium and an exotic lover to get through her boring and frustrated life.”

Geena laughed. “That’s why I love you, CeeCee. You’re so full of shit.”

Geena stopped coming to school altogether. She wasn’t going to graduate anyway, so there wasn’t much point. I went to the obligatory senior class events and showed up for the final exams that teachers administered halfheartedly. The rest of my time was spent camped out on Geena’s living room floor, watching bad talk shows and soap operas. Geena was getting animated again by the prospect of end-of-year parties. Prom was too expensive, but April was having a semiformal in her backyard the same night, and we were excited enough about it. Geena and I went dress shopping at what everyone called the Ghetto Mall, though you knew by who was talking whether or not they meant it affectionately. I liked the dress shop, its awning unpretentiously proclaiming DRESSES, its owner a chatty Vietnamese woman who was good at eyeballing women and knowing what size they needed, even if they argued with her about it. I spent an hour eyeing the intricate beadwork of the Quinceañera dresses, lined up in the window like cakes with brightly colored icing, before settling on something slinky and black. The day of the party, Geena curled my hair and put red lipstick on me, sashaying around the room in her own deep-purple strapless sheath.

“Damn, CeeCee. Remember what a geek you were when I found you?”

“I’m not a puppy.” I pouted. “You didn’t find me. And anyway, I’m still a geek. So there.”

I stuck my tongue out and fell back on her bed.

“Well, you’re a hundred percent better than you were,” she snapped back, curling her eyelashes in the cracked full-length mirror on her wall. “And sit the hell up before you smash the curls I just put in your head.”

I don’t know what we were expecting the party to be like, but it was just like every other party we’d been to since freshman year, except nobody was wearing jeans. The music echoed all the way down the block and the lawn smelled like a weak mixture of beer, weed, and vomit. The smell and the heat clung to everyone there, but all we could hear was laughter. On the back porch lay a pile of abandoned heels, shawls, jackets and ties: girls had realized how uncomfortable it was to be beautiful, and the few boys who’d bothered to take the semiformal status of the party seriously had found themselves outnumbered and done a quick ruffling of their appearances.

On the front lawn, Vi was trying to teach two freshmen how to dance cumbia, the beat from Jay-Z blaring inside the house throwing off the rhythm she was counting out. Inside, people danced on beat, some pressed so close together it was hard to tell one body from another. Others skipped the dancing all together; all of the bedroom doors were locked and April was more than happy to tell us who was in each of them. She was also slightly tipsy, and melodramatically complained about the red stain spreading across her living room carpet: someone had spilled a punch bowl full of Alizé. It smelled sickly-sweet and looked like blood.

Geena and I ended up in the garage. We could only stand around and look superior for so long before we just looked stupid.

“So,” said Geena, taking a sip of her wine cooler, “you going to graduation tomorrow?”

“I have to go,” I said, taking a bigger swallow of mine than I intended. Stray drops of pink liquid trickled down the front of my dress.

“Right.” Geena nodded. “I ain’t going. They’re just gonna gimme a fake piece of paper that says I didn’t graduate and would I like information about some damn GED programs.”

I swallowed again. “I have to go,” I repeated. “I’m the valedictorian.”

Geena laughed. “Like you haven’t been waiting your whole life