10.18

Catherine breathed in deep, and smelled the earthy musk of the still-wet garden. The muffled thump of a dance party beat through the door in front of her. Rosalyn opened her eyes and drew her mouth into a thin line.
"Are we going in, or shall we stand on the doorstep absorbing the popularity?"
Catherine had promised her father that she would check to see if there were parents, check the exits, carry mace in her pocket, and loudly announce to several people that she had AIDs and or gonorrhea to deter any possible sexual offenders. She intended on carrying through on exactly none of her promises. This was her chance to be popular. This night was her night. She had to seize life by the throat and kick it in the crotch. She just had to ring the doorbell. She reached forward and confidently pressed the glowing circle, her portal to instant fame.
She waited. Nothing happened.
Rosalyn sighed and opened the door directly. "Nobody can hear you in there. Let's go."
Catherine had seen teen party movies, but she never expected her life to become one. That's why, until she got to the party, she hadn't ever considered how much she wanted to go to a party where people sprawled over couches making out, drinking unspeakable liquids, and smoking rolled-up pieces of paper with drugs the quality of toenail clippings.
The party was disappointingly too-tame. The Macdonalds were home, and upstairs. Dan Macdonald was downstairs, playing music on his stereo and not even trying to put his hands in girls' shirts. No one was drinking anything or smoking anything. Catherine was very slightly disappointed. She expected mayhem. She wanted mayhem. There was no mayhem.
When Marco walked in, Catherine found the mayhem. Her ears filled with the sound of the blood rushing in her head, shutting out all other noise. Her chest felt full and tight, and it got difficult to breathe. She grabbed Rosalyn's hand and squeezed. His hair was curly and just long enough to cover up his ears just at the top. Catherine tried four times to follow the line of his ear through his hair and had to stop to look away each time. His hair was just the right length for running hands through. She tried to not picture him with her hands in his hair. She wanted very badly to know what that would feel like--what it would be like to pull a man (and not just a boy) a man (not like the boyfriends she'd had) a man be pulled in for a kiss and he just tall enough that he has to bend his neck down and she just short enough that she has to bend her head up, and he just broad enough for the perfect embrace, and she just thin enough for his arms to perfectly encircle her waist--what it would feel like to be perfect. She watched him walk over to the minifridge and rummage through it for a soda. He picked up a glass and poured the drink in and wait for the fizz to die away. Every other person drank from the can, but he drank from a glass. For some reason, this struck Catherine as a very important thing. Marco set the can down on the counter and looked up to survey the room for the first time.
Rosalyn was a good friend.
For Catherine, time froze as Marco's gaze swept to her and paused.
Rosalyn was a very good friend.
He smiled.
Rosalyn gave Catherine's hand a final squeeze and stood up, leaving exactly one free chair in the entire room. Rosalyn was a very good friend indeed.
Catherine licked her lips just a bit. Mayhem? Who needs it? This is just right. Marco walked toward her.
Marco sat down next to Catherine, and her world exploded just a little bit. She didn't let it show. She was collected, but at risk for hyperventilation. She just needed a little more air, is all. Don't judge her.
"You were in my"
"Chemistry class, yes."
"Yeah, I remember you. Brainiac!"
"I don't think so, I mean, I was just average." She hoped the heat in her face and neck wouldn't burn through her skin.
"Ha, fat chance of that. I remember you. You're . . . Catherine, right? Pretty cool."
Catherine hadn't ever prayed for death before, but if she were to begin, this seemed like a good time.
"Hey, I don't think we've ever been properly introduced. I'm Marco."
She shook his hand with the stiff formality of someone who had had taken statistics and knew the mind-blowing improbability of having all of one's dreams come true simultaneously. The thought occurred to her to check outside for her new convertible and personal money tree.
Marco smiled, and Catherine melted in the brilliance of it.

Rosalyn drank three sodas and talked two different boys out of their chairs to dance before Catherine stood up suddenly and turned to Marco. He stopped halfway through his story about dissecting a frog with his dad. He looked up at her, his mouth half open.
"You wanna go outside?" Her question was as sudden as a gunshot in still woods. He seemed to churn through the thought.
"Yes?" It was phrased as a question, as if he wasn't sure if it was an invitation or a polite way to get rid of him. She walked up the stairs and turned around. He blinked twice, set his glass on the end table, and bounded up two at a time. He laughed and grabbed his shoes.
"Out?"
"Out."
"Why?"
"That's for me to know, and you to find out."
"I love a woman of mystery."
She slipped into her flats and walked out into the night and the still-wet garden and the yellow acidpaper streetlights. He followed, hopping on one foot and tying his shoelace. She had no idea where she was going to go, and she didn't care. She had never liked the way people described their emotions: dancing, soaring, twinkling, shining, or any other nonsense. So the way she felt as she closed the door  was not anything of the kind. She felt like a mountaintop stripped of snow by the sun, with a field of flowers flying out through the scree to meet the sun.
Rosalyn had won an eating competition by plowing through the better part of a pizza, and been asked to prom by Dan Macdonald twice before Catherine and Marco got back. They had talked about foreign movies, the best type of car, the oddity of going to school as a profession, the fact that parents made love, the way hopes of teenagers never worked out, and the smell of old books.
Catherine walked halfway down the stairs and pause. Rosalyn saw it, and extricated herself from Dan's predatory pleading. When she got outside with Catherine, she asked the most important question of the entire year:
"So?"
Catherine just smiled.