you into their program. He said he’s been watching your performances for years, and you’ve always left him spellbound.” She paused. “He said he’s tempted to finally fire or replace the judges who failed to recognize your talent.”
I nodded, saying nothing. I never told her that I purposely butchered all five of my Juilliard auditions. I played Bach like a beginner, acted as if I’d never heard of the late Pablo Casals, and fumbled my way through the advanced sheet music.
“How about we celebrate your performance with dinner?” My mother raised her glass. “We can toast to Juilliard’s epic loss.”
“Kate and I have plans tonight.” Sarah Kay sat up, looking somewhat panicked. “Solid, unbreakable plans.”
“Oh, really? What are they?”
“The Walton sisters invited us to a private party.” She shot me a ‘please don’t out me’ look. “We missed the last one, and I would hate to miss another.”
“Well ...” My mother tapped her chin, the answer evident with her smile. She was delighted whenever we hung out with anyone whose wealth was comparable to ours. “I suppose that’s alright. Be back home by midnight.”
“What? That’s way too early for the weekend.” Sarah Kay crossed her arms. “The Walton sisters always throw a party that we never want to leave, you know? Can we at least get five a.m.?”
“You’re seventeen years old, Sarah Kay.”
“Kate is twenty.” She pouted. “She wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”
“Four a.m.” She relented, and then she continued to wax poetic about the Juilliard guy groveling.
I shook my head at Sarah Kay, silently seething and wanting to strangle the life out of her. It always amazed me how well she concocted her lies, how she could effortlessly spout bullshit and drag me into her poor life decisions.
We hated the Walton sisters down to their marrow, and they hated us in return. Nonetheless, we all made a compromise in mutual loathing: Whenever we wanted to do something that we knew our parents would never approve of, we used each other as alibis.
In Sarah Kay’s case, that ‘something’ was almost always a weed-smoking, alcohol-chugging, Stateline party with people who lived the regular lives we envied.
Smiling, Sarah Kay wrote a few words on a paper napkin and slipped it to me.
Party starts at 10 & Ronnie is picking us up.
Please dress like it’s a HALLOWEEN PARTY and not a TEA PARTY.
You’re welcome for this amazing-ass night, in advance!
―SK
P.S. Now that you’re single, you should try to get fucked tonight ...
Or at least find a guy who can make your panties wet. :)
Hours later ...
I PRESSED MY BACK AGAINST the wall, watching Cinderella grind against Batman under flashing red and white lights. I’d rolled my eyes so many times tonight, that I decided it was better if I just pretended this was all a temporary nightmare.
I was witnessing all the signature marks of a Stateline party, mentally checking each item off the list. There was blaring loud music that shook the walls of the abandoned warehouse, a huge bonfire outside that was feet away from the lake (the drunken skinny dipping always started at midnight) and enough weed smoke in the air, that we all were probably high as hell by proxy.
Thanks to the heat from inside, my curls were frizzled to the point of no return, and I was more than ready to peel off my pink (and very slutty) Playboy bunny costume.
Slightly tipsy, I snatched a few more Jell-O shots from the makeshift bar and made it through a ten-time repeat of Lil’ Wayne’s “Lollipop,” before checking my watch.
It was only eleven thirty, and although I knew that there was no way Sarah Kay was leaving this party early, I needed to know exactly when I could count on heading back home.
I pushed my way through the princesses and the superheroes, cut past the cartoon characters and the unicorns, and found her getting groped and kissed in the corner.
“Hey.” I tugged the tail on her kitten costume. “Sarah Kay?”
“Ugh.” She spun around. “What, Kate?”
“I think I’m going to hang out by the bonfire for a while.”
“Um, okay?” She looked confused. “Do I need to show you where it is, or will you be able to find the giant orange flames all by yourself?”
I rolled my eyes. “What time are we leaving tonight?”
“Three o’clock, probably.”
“Mom said be back by four. It takes two hours to drive back home.”
“So? We’ll have Ronnie speed down all the back roads, and it’ll only take one.”
“Something wrong, babe?” Her boyfriend, Ronnie, pulled off his