Lakewood - Megan Giddings Page 0,3

most of the time when he talks about his brother.”

“He’ll be at the party tonight. You can ask him about it.”

“No one’s brother is as great as Stacy says his brother is.”

Tanya pulled out a dress. “What I’m wearing now with a leather jacket, or this?”

Lena looked down at the letter again. If you are selected for this study, you will be well compensated.

“You are going to come out tonight, right?”

Lena kept her eyes on the letter. She knew if she looked up, her friend’s eyes would be let-me-take-care-of-you soft. She would offer to put on Work Spaces, point to the drawer where their vodka was hidden, start talking about doing face and hair masks. “Yes, we’re going out. And yes, what you’re wearing now with a leather jacket. You don’t want to look like you’re trying too hard.”

“You know what I think?”

“Almost all the time.” Lena folded the letter.

“I think you should call.”

Lena was still wearing the pantsuit Tanya called Your-Honor-I-Plead-Not-Guilty. “Do you think I should wear this to the party?”

“You need a backup plan.”

Lena watched as Tanya held the red dress up against her body. Their room stunk of the black pepper and honeysuckle candles they liked to burn to relax, and to hide the smell of Tanya’s cucumber-scented vaping. Doing a research study didn’t sound any worse than the Craigslist ads she had just been looking at—a secretary position for a notoriously terrible cable company, openings at a new, “innovative” maid service where you had to dress as a French maid and say your name was Simone at every house you cleaned. “I’ll call in the morning.”

They took a shot each. Another. Lena changed out of her pantsuit, put on a shade of lipstick that she couldn’t help calling Schiaparelli, though it was five dollars from CVS, though Tanya screamed, “Pretentious,” every time she did it.

It brought Lena so much pleasure to call colors by specific names, both formal and made up. Klein Blue, Cerulean, Scarab-From-Cleopatra Blue. It made her feel like she was becoming an interesting adult to know things like that, to get pleasure out of the things her brain squeezed onto and refused to let leave.

At the party, music was playing just loud enough to smooth out any pauses in conversations. People were passing around bottles of fortified wine. A girl Lena didn’t know was talking about how her vape pen was the best on the market. Try it, the vapor is smoother, she kept saying. Stacy and his boyfriend were quietly fighting over the playlist. You have ho taste in music, she heard Stacy whisper through gritted teeth. Tanya was texting someone. Lena thought that she could be wearing pajamas right now, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, blowing heat off a cup of tea. Two girls from Lena’s How to Write About Art class asked her if she was staying in Michigan over summer break. They were traveling to Montana to learn about rock formations. Everyone was going to summer camps to teach kids archery and how to be away from home. They were going to Senegal to speak intensive French and cry at Gorée Island. They were interning for their not-rich-but-you-know, comfortable, uncles. College—where everyone was struggling until suddenly it was summer, and all the worries got smoothed away.

“Lena, come meet my brother,” Stacy yelled.

“Sure, sure.”

“This is Kelly,” Stacy said. His brother was average height, bald, but with a very nice smile. He was wearing a black sweatshirt that had neon paint flecked across it. Lena couldn’t tell if it was expensive or just the sweatshirt he might’ve worn while painting.

Lena shook Kelly’s hand. “So, your parents were lazy, right?”

Stacy looked confused, but Kelly smiled wider. “Our mom was lazy. Our dad probably still wishes he could name us good, strong man names.”

After a pause, the conversation started. Kelly was an MFA student in painting out in the Bay Area. He was interested in portraying the environment as it was, as it is, as it should be. Triptychs. Lena was impressed that he didn’t seem embarrassed about his art. She liked that his tone was soft, not loud enough to be overheard so people would think, Oh, wow, an artist is present. People were getting drunk now. Dancing. Tanya was trying the girl’s vape pen and making an unimpressed face.

“I’ve heard so much about you,” Kelly said. “You’re quieter than I imagined, based on Stacy’s stories.”

She looked down at her shoes. “Life’s been. Well, this isn’t a party conversation.” He pulled