Broken Pretty Things by Amber Faye
Chapter 18
“So you hada crush on this one boy but you fucked his best friend?” Ulla asks. I’m pacing up and down in front of the bed as Ulla sits cross-legged on it and Hero swivels around in my desk chair.
“No, no,” I say.
“She wasn’t fucking Cole, because Cole had a boyfriend,” Hero explains for me. “Although that’s a secret and we aren’t really sure how to approach it because, you know, respecting the …” She cups her hands around her mouth and hisses, “Dead.”
“Aha, aha, I understand. Outing someone is one of the worst things you can do,” Ulla says, cracking open another G&T. “Want?” We shake our heads no. “But you never fucked Gunnar?” She pronounces Gunnar like ‘goo-nar’ instead of ‘gunner’, which is incredibly cute, and probably its correct pronunciation, since I think his mom was from somewhere close to Ulla’s home country.
“No.”
“Well, maybe he’s tiny and cannot even use his tongue to make up for it. Put him out of your mind until he makes you come. How about that?” Ulla says. Hero hides her mouth and giggles.
“OK,” I laugh. “No more crush. But I can’t put him out of my mind while he’s tormenting me.”
“We torment him back, then,” Ulla says. “He’s at this party?”
“I don’t know.”
“We do the simple … ‘seduce him, steal his clothes’ maneuver.” Hero is almost hyperventilating she’s trying so hard not to laugh. “He runs around naked. Then he remembers to fear you.” Ulla takes a huge gulp. “Men always forget to fear women over here. Hot women should evoke great fear in a man. That’s the way it should be.”
“Teach me how to live,” Hero slurs. I grin and gently take her drink, setting it down on the desk.
“Operation Humiliate Goonar,” Ulla announces. “He will think twice before interacting with you again. Unless it is to grovel.” She raises her drink to the sky. “The way things should be.”
Hero snatches her drink back off the desk and raises it to the ceiling so quick it slops onto her arm. “The way things should be, hell yeah— Woops.” She licks her arm.
“One thing before we leave: I could fix your hair,” Ulla says, running her fingers through her perfectly layered mane.
I touch mine, self-conscious. “There was a whole thing with food dye, so I dyed it. And then I cut the bottom inch off because of a gum thing.”
“The dye is fine,” she interrupts me. “The cut is wrong for your face.” She touches where my long hair skims my cheeks. “Here. Let me, it takes five minutes.” There’s silence for a minute. “Going to be a cosmetologist,” she adds, gesturing at herself as if it’s something we all should have already known.
“Oh … sure.” I glance at Hero, but Ulla has already grabbed a small bag out of her Mary Poppins purse.
“You maybe need a little more help before you can crush this boy. If he is as scary as he sounds,” she says.“You know your way around a dick?”
I snort. “I mean, I guess. I had sex with a guy a couple of years ago.” My face flames when I think about it, and I will it to stop. It’s been long enough. “It wasn’t good, at all. He spread a ton of lies about me. About how I love it rough and hard because I can’t feel it otherwise. Everyone at school started calling me … ‘Loose ‘n’ Easy’.”
Ulla hacks off some of my hair and my eyes widen as a chunk falls to the carpet.
“Then a bunch of his friends tried to, uh, see if some of the things he said were true.” Now my breath is quickening, my shoulders shaking. “I didn’t want them to.” Hero rests her hand on my arm, listening intently.
“It’s OK, Andie,” she says, blinking hard to try and maintain eye contact. I get the impression that isn’t easy for her, and a part of my heart melts.
“I ran before they could touch me. Those guys confirmed all the rumors so I would have a harder time telling anyone what they did,” I say, rubbing my face. “It took a few years for me to even think about sex after that. When my mom moved me to California, I dated a nice guy there for a few months. We slept together. I guess I wanted to rid myself of thoughts about Gunnar, but I never could. Now that I’m away from that guy, though, I can barely remember him at all. It’s weird.”
“Mediocre men fade from memory faster than good ones. And both fade faster than bad ones,” Ulla says.
She scores off another wide chunk of hair. Snip, snip, snip. I can’t figure out if I’m drunk or not, because I have no idea why I’m letting her do this within ten minutes of meeting her. She might just be one of those people who has that effect.
“I am done.”
I get up, actually terrified, though I throw out a confident smile as I turn to the mirror. And I’m … shocked.
It doesn’t look bad at all.
I run my fingers through it and more hair flutters to the ground. I’ll clean that up later. It flicks in feathery waves against my cheeks and stops at my shoulders now. The pink streaks look like they were totally on purpose. The cut and coloring works together, and they both work with my face.
“Draws attention to your nice cheekbones,” Ulla says, tugging on a couple of strands from behind me. She is almost a full foot taller than me in those heels. “And long neck.”
“It does!” Hero cries. “You look wonderful.”
My mom yells up the stairs then that Barkley is here for us. The two girls stand on either side of me for a second as we all appraise ourselves one last time.
I am average height for a girl, but compared to these two, I look short and lean. Still, when among beautiful things, things look more beautiful. I’m pretty sure that’s called the cheerleader effect. My eyeliner is on point. I’m feeling proud of the way I look for the first time in a while.
If my old friends are there, I’ll be flanked by two kickass women and a quarterback who all know the truth. They won’t be able to mess with me tonight.
What would change if Gunnar knew the truth?
Would he forgive me? Would he understand? Would Cole be OK with me telling him when he never told Gunnar himself?
Should I suffer because of a dead boy’s wishes?
We all cram into the back of Barkley’s old Audi, giggling and complimenting each other and not saying much of anything at all.
“You all look amazing,” Bark says, adjusting the rearview mirror and winking at me through it.
“We do not need nor wish to be told,” Ulla says, but then cracks a smile that makes Hero and I laugh.
“Well, that’s good to hear,” he says as we speed through the cookie cutter streets of rich Torrent Bay. “Andie could do with more of that confidence.”
Hero mouths, “He likes you!” and I shake my head with a grin. Her observational skills are hit and miss, then. Good to know that she’s not actually a mind reader.
“Let’s make a stop at Rashid’s,” I say.
It’s a small detour, but Rashid’s is the only corner store in the Bay that will sell beer to minors. If you know what to say, of course. Hero brandishes her hundred dollar bill so proudly that I can’t talk her out of paying, and we pull up at Dallas’s cul de sac with eighty dollars’ worth of alcohol in bags.
Cole would always bring a ton more drinks when he arrived fashionably late to a party. He’d lift them up and everybody would scream. It was a ritual.
Just like how Gunnar holding court in some back room, standing tall and talking a room of rapt listeners through some anecdote, was something of a party ritual, too.
I can’t bring Cole back, but I can keep some of his light alive. We’re late to arrive, and I hold up the bags when we walk in through the door.
Fifty people, easy, stop talking and dancing and laughing and turn to the four of us in the doorway. Silence except for thumping music stretches on. They exchange looks, then some guy lifts his hands into the air.
“Hell yeah, party angels!”
The rest of the crowd, including Dallas himself, throws their hands in the air and cheers too. I set down the bags by the door and breathe a few sighs of relief. I don’t really know anybody here, but that’s more than OK.
“Gunnar’s not here,” I whisper to Hero as we take off our coats.
“You can just sense him?” she whispers back with a wonky smile.
I circle my finger through the air. “He’d be in control of the music by now,” I explain.
She rolls her eyes, definitely to be supportive to me, but it stings a little. I always thought his bulldozing and controlling in situations like this was by far his worst quality, and yet I loved it just the same. I miss it.
But I’m glad he’s not here.
“Happy birthday,” I call to Dallas as I pass. He is in conversation with a pretty girl, but he reaches out and squeezes my arm anyway.
“Thanks for coming, Andie.”
“Hey, you seen Emile?”
“Yeah, bro’s chilling out by the pool.” He points vaguely, and I think I remember the way through his house to the back yard.
“Thanks,” I call, and I jerk my head to the back door to signal to Barkley where I’ll be. He nods back, already deep in conversation with three other people. He’s never had trouble with social situations. Hero and Ulla follow me out without a word. Ulla has a solo cup already, and when she takes a long drink, I see a couple of guys gawk up at her.
It doesn’t take long to spot Emile’s fiery red hair. He’s in colorful board shorts and a tank top, shifting from foot to foot and laughing, telling a long story to a girl who looks disinterested. He sees the two beautiful girls beside me, and kind of looks like he’s short-circuiting for a second as we all walk straight up to him. Then he gives me a polite smile.
“Emile,” I greet him. “I was hoping to get a chance to talk to you.”
He jerks his chin at me. “Got my text?” He flicks his eyes around, communicating that we shouldn’t talk much more about this stuff here.
“No, actually. Aurelia smashed my phone before I could read it. Can I get your number?” I flash a smile to the girl with short black hair he was talking to, who’s still standing beside him. She glances at him, quizzically, but he doesn’t pick up on it. She wanders away to the hot tub.
“Someone special?” I ask as he taps his details into my new old phone.
“Girl from English.” He raises his eyebrows. “Big crush. I’m nosediving out here.”
“You are too eager,” Ulla says quickly, folding her arms. When Emile blinks up at her it makes me think of David and Goliath.
“Well, sometimes women like interest and—” I begin.
“Not in this stage,” she says firmly. “Women, at first, they want a man other women want. Did you catch her look when beautiful Andie asked for his number?” Emile shakes his head, already hanging on her every word. She definitely has that effect on people, then. “They want what is desirable to others. At their core, people just want to win.”
“Right,” Emile says. “Right.” He hands my phone back, thrusting it into my chest as he looks up at Ulla. Whatever he wanted to tell me is temporarily forgotten. “So what’s step one?”
“Come here, let me introduce you to jealousy,” Ulla says, her voice suddenly low and devious. Hero and I let our mouths hang open as she bends over to close the four-inch gap in their heights and kisses Emile like they’re on their honeymoon. The boy gets into it quickly, finally closing his eyes and grabbing her waist. His kiss becomes hungry. Then it threatens to become obscene.
“He’s opening his mouth so wide,” Hero whines in my ear. “Is it supposed to look like that?”
“I literally cannot look away,” I whisper back.
“Nice one, short stack. Daddy finally paid your favorite porn star to hang with you at parties?”
That lazy drawl, the low chuffing laughter after an insult. I don’t have to turn around to know that it’s Logan speaking. The two of them break apart, and Ulla folds her arms, staring past my shoulder at him. When I turn around, he’s still laughing at his own joke.
“Logan,” he says, his eyes on Ulla, but his hand gesture sweeping to include Hero and I. “I don’t think I’ve met you lovely— What the fuck.” He’s tripped up when his eyes lock on mine. My unimpressed stare. “Nearly didn’t recognize you, Killer,” he says smoothly. “New look, new friends.” He half smiles. “Still a whore, though.”
I feel good about myself, and for a few hours today I actually had fun. So I just ignore him completely.
It works, because he moves swiftly on. “Damn,” he chuckles as he appraises Hero. Her face goes a hot red and she crosses her arms over her cleavage window. A surge of protectiveness fires through me, but just as quickly, Logan moves on to Ulla. “You know, if you’re looking for a good time, I can do more than bite your ankles.” He laughs, that annoying smug chuffing sound that used to make me laugh too.
“Dream on, fuckass,” Ulla responds firmly. A couple of people around cry ‘Ooooh’. Logan’s eyebrows twitch. He’s used to being rejected and can take it in his stride, but we can all tell this feels different. I’m here, so there is an air of non-casual competition. And he is realizing that he’s in the middle of whatever game his team started, and he just lost them a couple of points.
“Can we get ‘Dream on, fuckass’ printed on t-shirts?” Hero asks, turning and effectively closing Logan out of the circle. “Serious question?”
I take in a breath to calm my nerves, because Logan being here means he’s probably not alone. And I might be paranoid, but I think the music just changed.
Logan must be heading back inside, because Ulla roars loud enough for half the party to hear her: “This small orange man is the only one who has ever satisfied me!”
Emile flushes bright red, but then he beams.