Luke laughed again.
Ryan glanced at me and smirked. “Anything is too civilized for you savages,” he told Luke.
Luke and Eddie laughed again. It was easy to see that they were already high on something—something good, I thought.
“You get bored, come see us,” Eddie said. They walked toward the food.
“They’re bad news,” Ryan said. “It’s only a matter of time. Everyone knows they run the drugstore at our school.”
“Do they?” I saw Paulie Marcus pour something in the glass of punch he had gotten for Melanie Roth. I moved in their direction. Ryan tagged along. I poured myself a glass of punch and held it out toward Paulie. He glanced around and then took out a flask and poured some in.
“What is that?” Ryan asked him.
“Vodka. Doesn’t smell as much on your breath,” Paulie told him. “Want some?”
“No. And don’t give her any more, either,” he ordered.
“Hey,” I said. “Don’t tell people what to give me and what not to, Ryan. I like a little of it. You should drink some, too. Loosen up.”
He blushed but shook his head. “We’re going to get Amanda in trouble,” he muttered.
“Oh, please. She knows what’s happening,” I said. “Chill, Ryan.”
I emptied my glass in two swallows.
Paulie smiled but looked fearfully at Ryan, who was a good twenty-five pounds heavier than he was.
I winked at him and put the glass down on a table. “Let’s dance again,” I told Ryan. “You need the practice.”
While we danced, Paulie smiled at me and then poured another good couple of shots of vodka into my glass. I didn’t think I’d ever danced as hard or as well. I could feel the boys undressing me with their eyes, and Ryan looked more and more uncomfortable. Occasionally, I stepped off the dance floor, quickly grabbed my glass, and poured some more punch into it so Ryan wouldn’t know what I was drinking. Paulie refreshed it twice for me.
Ryan looked disappointed with the party. He wasn’t having a good time dancing with me. At times, he looked like he was moving in slow motion. At one point, when Charlie Levine started dancing very close to me, I turned and started dancing with him. His girlfriend, Lois Christopher, was shocked. I nodded toward Ryan. She glanced at him, shrugged, and moved over to dance with him. He looked stunned, but continued to go through the motions. What else could he do? He didn’t want to make a scene. I was the one making scenes.
One song ran into another, and I never stopped. When Charlie was tired, someone else took his place. Ryan finally stepped off and went to the food table to get something else to eat. I saw Rachel Benton, his former girlfriend, approach him and start a conversation. It didn’t bother me at all. I was having too good a time to care. The faster I danced, the more I drank, and the more I flirted and boys flirted with, the more it helped me forget the past weeks of depression. I decided I was through punishing myself. With Mother off my back, that wasn’t going to be difficult to do.
Ryan was too engrossed with Rachel to notice when I slipped off the dance floor and joined Eddie and Luke.
“So whatcha got?” I asked.
“Some very good X,” Luke said.
He held his closed fist close to my hip. I put my hand there, and he deposited a pill into it. Eddie handed me his cup of spiked punch, and I washed it down quickly.
“Let’s party,” I told them, and they both joined me on the dance floor. It was no problem for me to dance with two boys simultaneously.
I was vaguely aware of the time as the party continued, but I tossed it off like a gum wrapper and kept dancing and drinking, and when I felt myself slowing down, I took another pill from Luke. Ryan hovered, looking more and more distressed and lost. Suddenly, I found him annoying. His look of concern was becoming more and more irritating. At eleven thirty, he pushed his way past some kids dancing around me and grabbed my wrist.
“We’ve got to go. You’ve got to be home by midnight. We promised your dad.”
“Forget it,” I said. “Cinderella has left the building.”
“What?”
My laughter made others laugh. Ryan stood there looking foolish.
“Haylee!” he cried, holding his arms out. “I promised I’d bring you home by midnight.”
“Oh, have a drink or something,” I told him. “I don’t have a curfew anymore.”