Lucky Girl Page 7

  “Whoa, man, calm down,” Gabe says without moving from where he’s leaning on the kitchen island.

  “We all need to get in the pool,” Cory announces.

  The card guys stop yelling at Jack and everyone shrugs. Half of them are seniors and probably don’t care about this party anyway, but more important, no one ever argues with Cory. Plus, Gabe’s pool is awesome.

  Ha! Awesome.

  It took forever to convince Maddie that she had to wear a bikini under her clothes tonight, just in case. I tried to get her to bring a whole new outfit, like I did—swapping my jeans for a maxi skirt in her car on the way over here was super easy—but that part she refused. Anyway, I totally need to find her and get in the pool now. That would be fun. This party is so fun! I am having the best time.

  I follow Cory through the screened-in porch that leads down from Gabe’s kitchen, stripping my tank top off along the way. I toss it onto one of the porch couches and giggle when Cory turns around to gape at me in my bikini top.

  “What?” I say. “This view isn’t yours anymore, you perv!”

  He makes a disappointed face and shoves the screen door open, letting me through first. “Damn,” I hear him mutter, and I just shake my head. Boys are so obvious.

  As soon as I step out the door, a hot blast of wind throws my hair in my face and makes my skirt flap around my legs. “Uch, why!” I yell, shaking my head until I can see again.

  There are at least five people in the pool, but none of them seem to be Maddie or Ryan. Cory pushes past me and takes a flying leap into the water, yelling something I can’t hear, and as soon as he splashes down there’s a crack overhead.

  The sky lights up with the brightest blast of lightning I’ve ever seen. It lasts for several impossibly long seconds, long enough for us all to stop moving and turn our heads up.

  Everything just turns white. No bolts, no streaks of electricity. Just the dome of clouds, illuminated from within. And a faint sizzling sound that makes the hairs on the back of my neck jump up.

  Then, everything is dark again, and wet. Water hits us so hard, so thoroughly, that for a second I think maybe I fell in the pool.

  “Get inside!” Gabe is yelling from the porch door, but he doesn’t need to tell anyone. I’m scrambling up the stairs, and behind me I hear everyone screaming and splashing and laughing.

  “Oh my God!” Olivia’s voice screeches. “Oh my God!”

  At first I think she’s overreacting—because that’s what she always does—but when I turn back to look out the sunporch windows, I see that the rain has turned into hail, giant balls of ice slamming into the brick pool deck, transforming the pool water into some kind of terrible, frothy nightmare.

  Everyone from outside is huddled and dripping at the windows with me now, all of us silent, as the world outside becomes unrecognizable.

  “Damn,” Olivia says softly. “This is messed up.”

  And that’s when I know it’s the end of the world, because Olivia Thorpe just said something I completely agree with.

  Almost immediately a bunch of people bail. The hail turns back into rain, and for some reason most of the seniors rush out to their cars and drive off, like it’s not still stupidly dangerous out there. Gabe tries to stop a few of them but I hear Tamir Windham say something about how much he loves driving in storms.

  I’m shivering a little in my bikini top, but I’m too distracted trying to find Maddie to bother going back for my shirt. Finally I see her in the front living room, standing with Cory at the windows, watching the storm. He’s got both arms around her, holding her close, gently. Their conversation is low and private. Nothing for me to hear. Nothing I’ve ever had with Cory. Or anyone.

  Something new twists in my stomach. A fresh feeling of jealousy, I guess, that Maddie has everything now. I want her to have everything. She’s my best friend. I just maybe want her to not have everything right now, right in front of me. Without me. A chill reaches all the way to the bottom of my stomach and settles there.

  There’s something sticky and warm, too, wrapping itself around my lungs. Guilt. Because Maddie doesn’t have everything. Not everything perfect, anyway—some of the things she has are problems, like anyone else. Like her parents’ divorce. All her crappy luck with boys up to now.

  And I shouldn’t have flirted with Cory tonight. Those words my mom used to say to Ayla and me all the time pop into my head: “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”

  Before the happy couple can see me, I turn away and edge silently back into the hall.

  In the kitchen I see Gabe talking to Ryan, pointing in my direction. For a second I’m confused until I see that the basement door is open—I guess the party is moving downstairs now.

  I wait for Ryan. He comes toward me with a What can you do? look on his face, and I shake my head.

  “This is insane,” I say.

  “Just a storm,” he replies, but he puts a hand on my shoulder to guide me down the basement stairs, and it makes me feel a little better.

  “Here,” Gabe says, crowding into the stairwell behind us. He’s handing me something—a sweatshirt. “If you’re cold,” he adds, then disappears again.

  The Richmonds’ basement is gorgeous. Fully carpeted, TV and video game station, bar area, bathroom and guest room—it’s basically like the nicest main floor of a really beautiful house, except it’s just one of four floors in this place. I haven’t been here since last year, when Gabe threw an Oscar party and we all dressed up. I’m not sure why we did that, but it was really fun, especially since my mom let me wear the elbow-length gloves she still had from the 1920s-themed gala at her hospital.

  Now the basement is filled with people huddled in towels, I guess waiting for Gabe to grab their clothes or more sweatshirts from upstairs, I’m not sure. I pull on the hoodie he handed me, but I don’t zip it up. It’s at least three sizes too big and says Creighton across the front, so I guess it’s his older brother’s. Either way it’s not very flattering—but it is warm.

  Olivia seems to have recovered from her panic earlier. She’s laughing at something Marcus is saying, and Annabelle hovers nearby, her eyes darting from Marcus to the TV and back. Someone turned on the news, but no one seems to really be watching it. There’s a local reporter being slammed with rain and wind, all on mute.

  In the pocket of my skirt, my phone buzzes and beeps angrily, and around the room I hear everyone else’s doing the same—Weather Service alert.

  “Shut up, phone! We know it’s fucking raining!” Marcus’s laugh sounds like a bark.

  “Come on,” Ryan says to me. “Let’s call our parents or whatever in case we lose service.”

  The two of us perch on stools at the bar area and start typing. I text Mom OK at party in basement and her Good! Stay there! reply comes so fast that I feel kind of guilty for needing Ryan to remind me to even be in touch.

  “Are you staying?” I ask. Across the basement I see Maddie and Cory coming down the stairs with Gabe right behind them. It looks like the whole party is here now, and the TV area gets a lot louder as the football guys start a video game.

  “I don’t know,” Ryan says.

  I catch Maddie looking around the room in a lost kind of way. The tequila is still giving me a nice swimmy feeling, and this is kind of fun, hunkering down in the basement with just the key people. Except Alex, my brain says, which, great, now I am totally fangirl-ing.

  Maddie spots us and hurries over. She’s dry and fully dressed, not an artfully messy curl out of place. But her lip gloss looks a little . . . absent. She’s waving her arms and talking before she’s all the way across the room.

  “I was stuck with Charlotte for like half the party, and right when she left, all this started happening!” She swings her hands back, indicating not just the basement, but the storm outside, which we can still hear, faintly.

  “I didn’t even know Charlotte came,” Ryan says. “What was she talking about, student council?”

 
“Ugh, yes. She lives like two blocks from here, and to tell you the truth”—Maddie lowers her voice to a whisper—“I think she’s kind of in love with Gabe.”

  Ryan snorts, and Maddie gives him a look.

  “You’re so mean! Charlotte and Gabe would be cute together,” she says.

  “I’m just surprised,” Ryan clarifies. “I thought Charlotte was a lesbian, is all.”

  Maddie elbows me with a smirk. “I thought only people Ryan likes are gay?”

  “Yeah, I thought that was the rule.”

  “Whatever,” he says now. “I was right about that guy at the coffee shop downtown, wasn’t I?”

  “Anyway,” Maddie says, glancing back at Cory, who’s deep into Madden with Marcus and Gabe, “isn’t this crazy?”

  “You don’t want to go home?” I ask.

  “Do we need to?”

  “A bunch of people did,” Ryan says. “But we’re good if you are.”

  She shrugs. “Yeah, whatever. It’s just weather. Plus, I’ve missed the whole party so far!”

  “Are you sure about that?” I say. I’m trying to sound teasing and funny, but it comes out a little shrill, and my hand veers drunkenly as I try to point to where her lip gloss has clearly been kissed off. “I think I see party evidence on your face.”

  “It’s nothing,” she says with a grin that definitely means It’s everything!

  “You and Cory smooched, that’s so surprising,” Ryan says, pretending to yawn.

  “Hey!” Maddie smacks his arm. “It was really romantic!” Then she covers her mouth with both hands, realizing how loud she’s talking.

  “I’m happy for you,” I say.

  “Phew!”

  She smiles again, right at me, but the jealousy in my gut just gets more pointy and uncomfortable. Your new boyfriend checked out my boobs tonight, I think of saying. I don’t even know why I think it—it’s so awful. But she looks so satisfied. So proud of herself. So I’ve been to Europe and you haven’t.

  We’re both kind of being jerks, but it’ll pass. I think.

  Ryan checks his phone and says, “Yikes. My dad says there’s a whole clusterfuck of tornadoes headed this way. Even if we wanted to leave, it might be too late.”

  “Your dad said ‘clusterfuck of tornadoes’?” I ask.

  He shrugs, ignoring my giggles. “For once I guess the weather alert meant something. Sounds like everything’s about to get a lot worse.”

  Right then I hear the faint but unmistakable whine of a siren, one of the faraway horns that go off every Saturday morning in the summer for testing. I’ve never heard one in an actual storm.

  When Ayla and I were younger, Mom and Dave would wake us up and take us down to the basement at least twice every spring and a few times in the summer, but now they don’t bother. The warnings are common, but we never get anything but bad thunderstorms. Like we’re getting right now.

  Tornadoes only seem to like hitting tiny towns in the middle of the prairie. Places that already have almost nothing get reduced to rubble every year, while our huge, sprawling city only has to deal with some fallen trees or jacked-up electrical wires.

  But for some reason my stomach goes sideways as we listen to the siren wailing in the distance. I should probably either have another shot or try to throw up the ones I already took.

  Maddie’s looking back at the gaming boys, laughing at the victory dance Cory’s doing. For her, the stupid weather is working out perfectly.

  “Let’s get drunk,” Ryan suddenly declares. He smacks his phone down on the counter next to us and jumps off his stool.

  And that’s when I decide it really is the apocalypse, because Maddie goes, “Yes! Let’s shall,” gives me a high five, and sits down next to me at the bar.

  “Party round twoooo!” Cory howls, and my best friend smiles at me, and something in my chest loosens up.

  “Okay, okay, twist my arm,” I say.

  Maddie puts her head close to mine, holds out her phone, and we take a selfie. “We’re so hot,” she says conspiratorially. “Isn’t it fun?”

  I nod. It totally is.

  9

  AS SOON AS Ryan starts pouring drinks, most of the guys leave the TV and join us at the fully stocked basement bar. All the bottles are in a low cabinet along the wall or a sleek wood-front minifridge. My mom would go on a total rant about how crazy the Richmonds are for leaving alcohol out in the open with teenagers in the house, but of course that’s exactly what makes Gabe’s the ideal party spot. In any weather.

  “Just leave the nice stuff,” Gabe calls. He seems more sober now. Maybe corralling everyone into a storm shelter—even one this swank—is a buzzkill. But after a second he leaves the TV, too, and walks over to join us. “Here,” he says. “I’ll do it.”

  In minutes I’m holding a plastic cup full of what I’m pretty sure is a splash of every different liquor he and Ryan could find.

  “Long Island iced tea!” Gabe says, holding up his cup.

  I try a sip and am surprised that it’s not that bad. It doesn’t taste a thing like iced tea, but it’s actually pretty good.

  Maddie picks up two cups and carries them over to Cory. Now that the game has broken up, Olivia and Annabelle have switched the news back on. The same reporter from before holds an umbrella and squints into the wind. He looks like he’s going to fly away if they don’t let him back inside soon.

  “Remember those pointless tornado drills we used to do in elementary school?” Ryan asks. He already sounds a little drunk, but his face is glowing in a really wonderful way.

  “Yes!” Gabe shouts, slapping Ryan on the arm and then laughing when he stumbles a little to the side. Ryan laughs, too, and Gabe yells, “What the hell was that?”

  “Here, kids, just curl into a ball, cover your head, and wait for the End Times,” Ryan says in a teacherly voice.

  “Don’t worry about that whole section we just did about Joplin,” Gabe says in the same official tone. “You guys are probably not gonna die in this soulless hallway outside the principal’s office!”

  I laugh and watch as Marcus and this guy Eric wander back to the PlayStation, arguing with Olivia over the remote. I notice that Maddie and Cory have disappeared, but it doesn’t bother me. The strange cocktail in my hand is making it easy to not care about things.

  “You know what they made my little sister do?” I ask. My voice comes out too loud, but Ryan and Gabe just look at me expectantly.

  “This sounds like a messed-up story.” Ryan makes a show of resting his chin on his hands, waiting for more.

  I wave my hand at him like it’ll help me explain. “They made her whole school have these, like, emergency drills. For shootings.” I snap my fingers as a new thought occurs to me. “Like what happened to Alex! Except all these little kids would have to make barricades out of their desks to practice for, like, a crazy gunman coming in and trying to kill them all.”

  Gabe nods like he’s heard about this, but Ryan looks kind of sick.

  “Seriously,” I add for emphasis.

  “High schools do that, too,” Gabe says. “I bet you anything Midcity will start this year.”

  For some reason this makes me laugh, and both boys give me weird looks. I want to explain that it’s not funny-funny, it’s just . . . I don’t know. I guess Ayla’s okay, even though she hid in a closet with all the other second graders . . . but I can’t say anything because my brain is starting to disconnect again. Balloon brain, I think. Hashtag.

  Snort.

  “Messed up,” I hear Ryan say, and it makes me giggle again. I toss my head to the side to see if my brain wobbles—I think it does!

  “I’ll have another, bartender.” Ryan’s voice is very far away. Or right next to me.

  “Sure,” says Gabe. “But, um. We’re out of vodka. I think there’s some back in the pantry, can you help me find it?”

  “You’re the boss, bartender.” Ryan’s laugh sounds weird, but I’m having a hard time focusing on his face. He and Gabe
wander off, and I spin around on my stool, just once before I decide that’s not such a good idea.

  Oh! I could go upstairs! There’s totally a bottle of vodka in the kitchen. And my shirt! I should put on my shirt. Good, this is good. I’ll just run upstairs while no one is watching. Good good good.

  The other side of the basement door is both a lot quieter and a lot louder than the basement. No people, no PlayStation, but still there’s a definite roaring in my ears—or wait, that’s outside. It’s roaring outside! Like a bunch of lions!

  I giggle to myself and tiptoe down the hallway toward the kitchen. Don’t wake up the lions! I think, then giggle some more, because duh, they’re obviously super awake already. Just listen to them!

  Stopping at the kitchen island, I look around the room. Why did I come up here again? I should have brought someone with me. It’s kind of creepy. The clock over the stove says 2:07, and I wonder what kind of conniption fit my mom’s going to have when I get home so far after curfew. No, wait, I’m not going home, I’m going to Maddie’s. No, not Maddie’s, I’m—my shirt!

  Another roar shakes the house and there’s a snapping sound that’s louder than any noise I’ve ever heard in my life. My hands hold on to the cold tile of the kitchen island in front of me and the rest of my body goes perfectly still, suddenly sure that something much scarier than lions is about to rip into the house.

  And then all the lights go out.

  An hour passes. A minute. A second.

  I’m too scared to move or breathe or scream. My brain floats around in my head.

  But from downstairs I hear lots of screaming—and laughing, and something crashing to the floor. It all feels as far away as the moon, though, compared to the wind still rushing around the house.

  I wonder if we’re in the air. Maybe the Wicked Witch is riding by on her bike outside, laughing at me.

  Don’t think about witches, I tell myself, squeezing my eyes shut.

  I just need my shirt. If I can just get my shirt, everything will be okay.

  Still holding on to the island, I edge my way around one sharp corner toward the back door. My eyes are starting to adjust, finally, and now I can see that it’s still surprisingly light outside—there’s a glow coming through the back porch windows. I don’t know how, but by the time I reach the doorway, I can sort of see.