couldn’t see my eyes. But I wasn’t embarrassed for her to see me as a puny, tackily dressed child. I couldn’t lose my sense of mystery because, according to Kate, I never had one.
Wasn’t it ironic? I’d made myself a vampire so I could get girls to like me. Now the one girl I cared about didn’t even like vampires. And she didn’t like me because I was moody, mysterious, or scary. She liked me because I wasn’t like that at all.
“Ready?” Luke said to Kate, ready to rip right through the pages.
She said, “Ready, set, go.”
chapter 15
All my high school life, I’ve had this hypothesis that you can’t go to a party unless you have a reason to be there. I’ve never actually been to a real party. I’ve only been to those sweet sixteens where the guy’s mom makes him invite everyone in the class, even the kids who don’t speak English. But I think at real parties, house parties, you have to have a reason to be there. For example, Luke is on the football team. This means that he gets invited to a lot of victory celebrations, especially because he usually is the reason for the victory. Also, he’s very strong. So he’s useful in lifting kegs and breaking open back windows to flee the cops and such. Also, when Luke goes to a party, girls go to a party.
Other guys have different reasons. Often the biggest schmuck in your class will have the greatest house and the most wonderful absentee parents, so he’ll get to throw the parties. That’s a hell of a reason to be at a party—when it’s in your own house. Then there’s the kid who’s got the older brother or creepy uncle who buys the beer; he’s the supplier. Then there’s the kid with all the stolen hip-hop music on his iPod; he’s the DJ. If there’s a kid who’s kind of on the border, a kid who’s a backup on the basketball team, a kid who’s a little overweight, a kid who wears boat shoes without socks, there’s one quality that can endear him to other guys and hot girls alike: “But he’s, like, so funny.”
And girls? No. Girls don’t need a reason to be at a party. Girls are the reason to be at a party.
The week after Halloween, Luke invited Kate and me to a football party in New Rochelle, which was halfway between Pelham and Kate’s town of Larchmont. Every other time that Luke had invited me to a party, I had refused to go. But now everything was different. Now, beyond having my brother as the kickass running back, I had a reason to go. I was bringing a girl.
The party house was huge, right on the water, with a big front porch and big backyard. It was Luke’s teammate’s house. Luke had been there before and showed us around. The party was already in progress when we arrived, i.e., most people were already drunk. There were girls trying to dance in the living room even though they couldn’t hear the music over their own laugher. The tallest one tried to break-dance to a John Mayer song. When her handstand failed, she spilled Smirnoff Ice down her push-up bra. Then she began to cry, and the other girls surrounded her in a kind of emotional huddle.
The iPod DJ was pretty nerdy; he had these thick, black-rimmed glasses that weren’t even hip in the Rivers Cuomo way. Score, I thought, I’m cooler than someone at this party. But, although he looked wimpy, he put up a pretty good fight when a girl lectured him with a pointing finger and a sloshing cup. “You should not play any Chris Brown songs,” the girl told the DJ. “I’m serious. Like, as a woman.”
“I’m sorry.” The DJ shook his head. “ ‘Forever’ is just too good to pass up.”
“ ‘Forever’ was the single that was out when the whole thing happened!” The girl was outraged. “That’s, like, the worst one to pick.”
“Yeah, but I made up a dance to it,” the DJ said. He stood up and popped and locked and dropped a little bit. He was actually a pretty good dancer. I was still cooler than him, though.
On the back porch, guys in black puffy North Face jackets were smoking cigarettes and acting shady. In the garage, the juniors and seniors were playing beer pong. I’d heard some senior guys at St. Luke’s talk about beer pong, and I’m