A Toast to the Good Times - By Liz Reinhardt Page 0,21

into tiny pieces of white confetti. She doesn’t look up. “C’mon. I know for a fact most girls love talking about what an asshole I am. Try it. I bet you’ll like it.”

She shuffles her little pile of torn-up paper to the side and looks right at me, her mouth set in a flat line. “Do you remember the night before Thanksgiving, senior year?”

My brain shuffles through the hazy memories of those long-gone high school years, and I do draw up some blurry mental images of a huge smokey bonfire, the smooth, heavy weight of a bottle of liquor I pilfered from my father’s bar, the feel of Toni’s curves pressed against me in the freezing late fall air.

“That was the night Jagger had that huge party. The year his parents went on that cruise and left the house to him over Thanksgiving break.”

I relax back against the persistent dig of the springs through the torn pleather of the booth seat, remembering that smoky, hazy, fresh-air-fueled feeling, the one I can’t quite put my finger on in the midst of all this stress and stupidity I have to deal with in my annoyingly adult present. It was that feeling of being purely free, of having nothing to worry about except exploding into the best time, staying out under the dull stars as long as we could manage to keep our eyes open, drinking until our heads spun, crashing on some random bed or couch, or, if we were drunk enough, in some tub or on the bare floor.

“I was planning on sleeping with you that night,” she says, her hands folded tightly on the scratched, dull laminate.

“Excuse me?” The memories of debauchery fall away, and I attempt to replace some of the chaos with even one clear image of her from that night: what she was wearing, some moment we shared, some quiet, secret opportunity that got interrupted.

But I’ve got nothing.

“I was planning...to...um, to fuck you.” She tries to make it sound all brazen, but she looks totally uncomfortable with her word choice. “I was planning to drag your hot ass into one of Jagger’s guest rooms, and I had these tiny little lacy underthings on...I covered myself in this powder, this sexy powder that was all sweet because it was made with honey or something and you’re supposed to be able to lick it off.”

She tries to laugh at herself, but the sound that comes out of her mouth is too shaken and cracked to register as anything close to a real laugh.

“Toni.” I slide my hands across the laminate and she drops hers, still folded tight, into her lap and away from my touch. “What happened?”

“Wow.” She looks up and takes a deep breath. “You really don’t remember?”

I’m still so shocked by her announcement, I have no clue what my face looks like, but she must be able to read the truth in my blank look.

She lets out a long breath that seems to deflate her a little. “Wow. So, this was kind of what I was afraid of, but I had this really stupid minute where I believed that maybe I was so wrong, and I was just remembering things...like, with all the mixed-up emotional crap of that night...”

A few long, awkward seconds tick by.

“You should tell me.”

I watch her press her long blonde hair back, and that gorgeous face, so sure and brave on the train, suddenly looks stripped of any confidence.

My neck burns when I realize I was the one who stripped all that beautiful strength away.

That I started doing it when we were in high school, and I’m still the one who does that to her now.

I suck.

I sucked yesterday and I suck today and, apparently, I’ve been sucking hard since I was a stupid teenager.

“You were only a little drunk. I thought it was no big thing. You’d tried to get me to sleep with you when you seemed so much drunker. But I guess that night was just a whole new level. Anyway, I got all ready...um, meaning I got almost naked...and you were, uh, supposed to meet me in this room. And I waited, like, forever. Finally the door opened, but it was Dominick and that Tracey girl, the one from Sparta he’d had a crush on forever? And they were all embarrassed, and I was wearing, like, half a foot of lace and some edible powder...”

She ducks her head so her hair curtains her face and hides her features.

Not that