Famous Last Words Read online

  But if I know Shelby, and I do, she was going to tell me to wear makeup.

  chapter three

  Weekend Entertainment

  At home, my mom all too quickly gives me permission to go to the party. I watch her pour veggies into a bowl and open the dip we were going to share. Maybe I’ll cancel on Shelby. Mom intuits my mood shift. She looks up at me and smiles.

  “We’ll see Sixteen Candles some other time,” she says. “We can have a John Hughes film festival.”

  Why am I getting flashbacks of her coaxing me through the door of Pixie Preschool? Even without makeup, her almond-shaped brown eyes look extra bright. Perhaps she’s glowing from within at the thought of me getting out and not sitting in front of the TV with her watching classic teen movies.

  That’s the strange dichotomy of me. I love to watch idealized versions of kids my age, and yet, I don’t know how to live among them. It’s not high school I have the problem with; it’s me in high school. I’m like the ugly stepsister trying to jam her big nasty foot into that delicate glass slipper.

  “Keep your phone on, sweetie.” She licks some dip off her finger and then twists her gorgeous auburn curls into a loose bun, just like I’m in the habit of doing. It looks better on her. “And call or text me if you’re going to be superlate.”

  “I will,” I say. My mom and I are in touch constantly, something that might bug other girls my age, but I’ve always been fine with it.

  * * *

  At ten thirty, Shelby’s mom honks out front. With a September birthday, Shelby’s behind me in the driver’s license department. In all other areas, she’s eons ahead.

  “Wake me when you get in so I know you got home,” Mom says as I kiss her cheek.

  “And try to have fun,” Grandma yells from her plush blue recliner in front of the TV.

  She’s watching the news. Like most older people, she’s obsessed with the weather, but she loves those cable talk shows too. Raging liberals, conservative stalwarts—it doesn’t matter to her. She watches them all and has a pretty open mind for a gal her age.

  “Okay, Gram!” I reply, heading for the front door.

  “She’s right. Enjoy yourself,” Mom says. Almost pleads.

  My mom is happy Shelby gets me out of the house. Shelby’s mom is happy I keep Shelby from joining a cult or getting arrested. It’s an arrangement that has been working since Shelby and I both took the wrong bus home on the first day of kindergarten. Our frantic moms, who discovered that they both had five-year-old daughters and no other children, bonded that afternoon, and so did we. Back then, our families had a lot in common. It stayed that way until Shelby’s dad left when we were in third grade. She cried all the time that year, not about him exactly, just in general. I remember I used to carry extra tissues in my backpack, just for her. I’ve never shaken the feeling that, somehow, I’m responsible for Shelby.

  I’m quiet on the drive over to the party. My palms are sweaty. Is it too late to bail? When we arrive at Ryan’s house, Shelby shouts at her mom to keep driving and makes her drop us around the corner.

  Shelby’s mom frowns as she pulls up to the curb. “Embarrassed to be seen with me, huh?” she says.

  “Oh, Ma. Don’t be so sensitive. You remember what it was like,” Shelby says as she puts a hand on her mom’s shoulder and kisses her cheek. “Meet you here later?”

  “Better watch out. Maybe I’ll pull up in the driveway and honk the horn,” Shelby’s mom says with a laugh.

  “Thank you, Diane,” I say. I’ve called Shelby’s mom by her first name for as long as I can remember.

  “Why, you’re very welcome, Sam,” Diane says. Her hint isn’t lost on Shelby.

  “Thanks, Ma. Sheesh.”

  We walk around the corner and follow the music and noise emanating from Ryan Mauriello’s backyard. I bite my lower lip, no doubt removing any trace of cinnamon gloss. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this party,” I say to Shelby as we walk through the gate.

  “You know me. I can talk you into anything. Like that afterparty at Ike’s? The deejay? You thought we’d get in trouble, but it was awesome.”

  “We did get in trouble.”

  “Oh, that’s right, we did. Drew was cute, though, right?”

  Shelby took off with Ike and left me talking to this guy named Drew all night.

  “He was, like, seven feet tall and had on a black T-shirt with skeletons in various sexual positions.”

  “I don’t remember the T-shirt,” Shelby says.

  “You don’t remember much.”

  “You had a great time. Admit it.”

  It’s true, I did, but I say nothing. Still, my face gives me away.

  “See?” Shelby says, pointing to my suppressed smile. “Your life’s more interesting with me around.”

  Even though Shelby leads me over to the dark side sometimes, part of me does enjoy it. Her confidence is contagious, and her laugh is infectious. When I’m with her, I forget my uptight Sam ways and tap into my inner Shelby. And most times, I manage to keep us both out of trouble.

  As we walk toward the patio, I’m like a black-and-white sketch stepping into a living, full-color Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. The girls are poised around the in-ground pool in bikini tops and sarongs, and there’s no shortage of bare-chested guys with six-packs I thought possible only in infomercials. I don’t know what I fear more about parties, having people look at me or not being noticed at all.

  “I guess I missed the Evite regarding the island theme,” I say.

  Shelby frowns at my maroon Decemberists T-shirt, denim miniskirt, and flip-flops.

  “What?” I say. “I wore makeup.” Why am I here? It was all that fire excitement. Damned endorphins—great for a jump start, short on follow-through.

  I scan the crowd for signs of Rob McGinty and his girlfriend, Liza. Rob has black hair and icy blue eyes, and I’ve been in love with him since the sixth grade, when he kissed me during spin the bottle. It wasn’t a kiss kiss. But still. It meant something. To me at least. When we were young, I thought he liked me, too. We used to walk to school together.

  But then junior high happened, and whatever I had going on in sixth grade, puberty stole from me. Add braces and a constellation of pimples to the glasses I already wore, and I became an easy target for insults. Shelby says I’ve always been too sensitive. Even back then, when she was nerdier, Shelby never cared what kids said about her. I tried talking to Rob sometimes, but once, some kids passing by in the hall started barking. I didn’t talk to him at all after that. I was too humiliated. And maybe I expected him to stand up for me. Shelby always did. Still does.

  Maybe I’m no longer that awkward seventh-grade girl, but my own metamorphosis from ugly ducking to swan stalled out in the Cornish-game-hen stage. At some point, I decided self-imposed exile was safer than putting myself out there.

  “Relax. I bet Rob won’t even be here,” Shelby says, and gives my hand a squeeze.

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “Let’s get a beer,” she says.

  “You know I don’t drink.”

  “Maybe you should start. It helps when you’re shy,” Shelby says matter-of-factly. “Drinking and showing cleavage. Remember that for the next party.”

  “I don’t have cleavage.”

  “Two words: Cleavage Cupcakes.”

  With honey blond hair and a chest that enters a room a full two seconds before she does, Shelby always gets noticed. Me? I’m more cute than pretty. Despite my pure Mediterranean bloodline, I’m not blessed with olive skin or thick hair like everyone else in my family and most people in my town. I’m not saying I want to be overly tan and flaunt an Italian-princess necklace, but it would make things easier. I’m, like, a pasty white, wispy-haired exile in Guidoville. My brown eyes are just that—brown—which may be interesting to the guy who wrote “Brown-Eyed Girl” but isn’t, really, to anyone else. So I don’t think putting gel inserts into my bra is going to help.

  Relucta
ntly, I follow Shelby as she shimmies her way through the crowd toward the keg, smiling and saying hello to people like she’s walking the red carpet. Year after year, I keep hoping the Shelby-tude will rub off on me—a silent wish that for better or worse tethers us together. I hold my breath, hoping it will render me invisible.

  “Shelby!” yells a guy standing by the keg filling red plastic cups.

  “Hey, Mark,” Shelby answers.

  “You look great!” Mark says.

  “Thanks,” Shelby says. She puts a hand on my shoulder. “This is my friend—”

  But Mark cuts her off, either because he doesn’t hear or doesn’t care. “So Olaf went back to Germany, huh?” he says as he hands Shelby a foamy beer, which she passes to me.

  “Yeah, he’s been gone for two weeks. Can I have another one of those?” Shelby asks, pointing to the keg.

  “Huh? Oh, yeah,” Mark says. He fills another cup for Shelby.

  It’s as if I’m not even here. Careful what you wish for.

  “So … are you two doing the long-distance thing?” Mark asks.

  Shelby shakes her head. “We broke up before he left.”

  Mark, who doesn’t bother to conceal that this is good news as far as he’s concerned, grins big as he pours himself a beer.

  “Hey, come with me,” Mark says. “You gotta check out the hot tub.”

  As he pulls Shelby toward the pool area, she glances over her shoulder with a smile, like she can’t help being dragged away.

  “Sam, come with us,” she says.

  “I’ll wait here for you,” I call after her.

  “Sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  I smell my beer and take a tentative sip. Yuck. The taste hasn’t grown on me, but at least I can carry my cup around and make it look like I’m drinking. For a few more seconds, I stand where Shelby left me, not sure where to look or who to talk to. It’s like being left alone in an unfamiliar subway station as the train pulls away. Time to look for the bathroom. I’ll reapply my lip gloss and buy some time before I look for Shelby.

  Keeping my head down, I squish through the crowd and try to get beyond the herd as fast as possible. I make it to the concrete patio, where some guys are taking turns drinking beer through a funnel while cheering each other on. I don’t get drinking games. I don’t get drinking. Maybe because I don’t like beer. Wine has always been offered freely at my house, and even though I like it, getting drunk isn’t an option. It would trigger two of my biggest fears: puking and losing control.

  I step through the patio door and into the kitchen, which smells like a mixture of beer, sweat, and various colognes. A group of guys and girls are gathered around the granite breakfast bar playing Quarters with what appear to be different types of hard alcohol.

  “Hey, girl!” shouts one of the guys. I’ve seen him with Rob. Josh something.

  I shift my eyes left and right, trying to figure out if he’s talking to me.

  “Yeah, you. Cute girl in the reddish shirt. Don’t look so angry,” he says. “Come play with us.”

  So this is my life story. A decent-enough-looking guy starts off calling me cute and then, because I don’t exude the appropriate amount of excitement (I have no idea how to flirt—I fully admit this), it quickly turns bad and I become Angry Girl. Angry? Do I look angry? People are always doing that to me—telling me to smile, asking me what’s wrong, when I’m perfectly content. I just have a pouty-shaped mouth, that’s all.

  “Uh, I’m just looking for the bathroom,” I say. “Maybe later.”

  I even smile with some teeth.

  “Whatever. Be that way,” he says.

  Another gift. I’m always pissing people off without trying. Typical me. I walk down the hall and into the foyer, looking for a bathroom. When I find the half bath near the front door, the stench of vomit is so strong, I almost get sick myself. I decide to try upstairs. Maybe there’s a bathroom in the master bedroom.

  When I arrive on the upstairs landing, all the bedroom doors are closed. I open the first one, and I’m greeted by the site of a bare ass on top of a seminude girl. I quickly snap the door shut as someone says, “Who the hell was that?” Quickly, I abort my bathroom search and dash down the stairs and out the front door. It’s not like I really had to go, anyway.

  I circle back into the yard again. Should I bother to look for Shelby or just find some space where I can avoid butts in the buff and angry Quarters players? As I wander through the crowd, I’m trying so hard to avoid making eye contact—or any other kind of contact, for that matter—that I don’t see the rather large guy, who must be a linebacker, stumbling toward me. He slams into my side and launches me into another guy, who, when he turns around, I recognize as Rob McGinty. He looks angry for a split second, then tilts his head and gives me an odd half smile.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumble. “I was pushed.”

  I’m about to break free when Rob grabs my elbow. “Sam D’Angelo? Are you okay? You don’t look so good.” Super. Just the words I want to hear from our star quarterback and class president. The cliché of being Rob borders on ridiculous.

  “I’m fine,” I say. “It must be the beer.”

  Rob grins. “A lightweight, huh?”

  “Are you kidding? This is my fourth cup.”

  Rob puts up his hands up in surrender. “I stand corrected. I’m surprised. You don’t seem the type.”

  How would Rob know what type I am? For the rest of us, high school is like a sadistic game of musical chairs where everyone competes for a few chances at fitting in. When the music stops, most of us are left standing. But Rob, he doesn’t even have to play the game. And yet he’s nice, which somehow makes it worse. A girl like me could never date a guy like him—things like that only happen in movies, where the plain girl is actually some gorgeous actress without makeup. About an hour and fifteen minutes into the film, the girl buys a new outfit and applies some mascara, and suddenly the prom king is doinking himself in the head for not realizing sooner how hot she is.

  “I saw your name in the newspaper,” Rob says out of nowhere.

  This gets my attention. “You read the obit page?”

  Forget the obit page. I’m just shocked someone our age reads the newspaper.

  “My mom spotted it. That’s pretty cool, though. You were always good at writing.”

  Wow. Rob noticed my name and remembers I like writing. His compliment is just sinking in when Rob’s girlfriend, Liza, and her friends arrive. Men aren’t dogs, girls are. That’s why they travel in packs. Liza wraps her arm around one of Rob’s biceps. My stomach twists.

  “Who’s your friend?” she asks, looking me up and down.

  “Uh, this is Sam D’Angelo,” Rob says.

  “Oh, right,” she says, and giggles, making it clear she knows what Shelby said to Rob at the last party.

  Is fuchsia lipstick toxic? I hope so.

  Not wanting to stick around and cause any trouble, I offer an explanation as to why I’m talking to her boyfriend and plan my escape. “Someone pushed me into Rob,” I explain. “Sorry!”

  “S’okay,” Rob says.

  He looks like he wants to say something more, but I don’t give him a chance. After a quick wave and an apologetic smile, I make a beeline for an open space in the yard. I scan for a location near the fence, where I can observe without additional human interaction. My skin is hot with the embarrassment of bumping into Rob, literally, and having his girlfriend laugh at me.

  I admit it, I’m jealous of girls like Liza who always have boyfriends. She and Rob have been together since freshman year, and it seems like no one goes out of their way to insult couples. It’s like they’re living in some U.N.-sanctioned territory—the shaded area of a Venn diagram, where all the circles overlap.

  I find an empty lawn chair and wait for Shelby to finish doing whatever with Mark, her latest Y chromosome. I’m far enough away from the crowd and music to hear the chirping crickets and cicadas in the trees behind me. I wond
er; do all bugs get to sing? Or is it only the best and most beautiful who hit the suburban sound waves on summer nights? Is there a bug version of me out there, longing to be the lead singer but always ending up in the chorus or, worse yet, silent and unable to find her voice?

  I take out my phone so I look busy. I tab to the Herald Tribune’s website. It’s not the best, but at least we have one. I think about Rob noticing my byline on the obit page, and my mood lifts. I fantasize about helping Michael prove his mayor’s up to no good. My name could end up on the front page. What if I scored an interview with the elusive Sy Goldberg? It wouldn’t make me a shoe-in for prom queen, but it would be something, wouldn’t it? Perhaps the quiet recognition of a byline suits me.

  An hour later, when my phone’s entertainment abilities are waning, I spot Shelby. She stumbles across the backyard, her serpentine path moving in my general direction. When she finally reaches me, she puts two hands on one hip and tries to steady herself.

  “There you are! I’ve been looking for you.”

  Not that hard, apparently.

  “Is your shirt on inside out?” I ask, frowning. It is.

  “No!” she says, looking down to make sure, but upsetting her equilibrium in the process. She starts to sway.

  “Let’s go,” I say. “I’m done.” I begin to pry myself loose from the plastic lawn chair. My bare legs are stuck from sitting so long. Great. Now I’ll have to walk out of here with a waffle pattern on my thighs.

  “Sam, you aren’t mad at me, are you?” she slurs. I sit back down.

  “No,” I say. I’m really not mad at Shelby. It’s not her fault I don’t have fun at these things. But I am worried about her drinking and what she does once she’s trashed. She turns into a different person, not the Shelby I know. I don’t want her getting a reputation. She’s better than that.

  “Good, because you’re my best friend. And I’m so, so sorry I blabbed to Rob. You know I love you. And you deserve a guy like him. Uh, and … Uh-oh, I’m gonna—”

  I don’t wait for her to finish her sentence. I rip myself out of the chair like a Band-Aid and move clear of Shelby’s open mouth just in time to watch her projectile vomit splatter the chair where I was just sitting.