Party (11 page)

“Hey!” I heard Morrigan shout as we walked over to Tommy. “Anyone know where Ryan Bru-Brunner is? He’s fuggin’
hot.”

“You’re shitting me!” Tommy said, and went on laughing.

Matt, on the other hand, whirled around, the cords of his neck popping out. “He’s upstairs!” Matt shouted back at Morrigan. “Go fucking find him, bitch!”

Whoa. Never seen Matt like that. He sat down and spat to one side.

“What’s up?” I asked as I watched Morrigan flip us off, toss her phone to Ashley, and dive back into the party. It looked like Ashley was apologizing to Beckett, who took one step back for every step forward taken by Ashley.

“Just sick of it,” Matt said, really pissed. “I know she’s drunk and whatever, but Jesus, I mean …”

“Yeah, you’re right,” I said.

Beckett kept backing away from Ashley and eventually turned and went inside. Ashley, alone, rubbed the back of her neck and went over to where she and Morrigan had been hanging out. She shoved Morrigan’s phone into a black satchel thing on the ground. Then she opened her own cell and dialed. A second later she stood up and went into the house.

“Man,” I said. “Those cats are messed
up.”

“Told ya,” Matt said, and drank about half his beer.

Tommy sat up, wiping his face, as his laughter finally died. “What a night,” he said. “What a
party.”

“You’re hammered,” I informed him, and belched.

That set Tommy off again, and I joined him. A second or two later, Matt started in, too.

“So where’s Joshua?” Tommy asked, blinking rapidly through his laughing tears.

“Taking off,” I said.

“Craptas … tastic,” Tommy said. “That sucks. We’re supposed t’be watchin’ him.”

“Aw, you miss him? Wanna walk him to his car?” I said, and took a nice long drink.

Matt laughed at that, so to retaliate, Tommy shoved me, making me slosh some beer. “Dude!” I said.

Tommy looked all pissy for a sec, but then started laughing again and clinked his bottle with mine. See what I mean? Chicks go all mental. Guys, we drink together and leave it at that.

We had a semi-coherent conversation about where to go this summer to get out of town for a while, but mostly we burped and played Dead Leg. At one point, I saw Ryan come out onto the patio and grab Morrigan’s black satchel thing and go back inside, but none of us called out to him. Actually, we dove behind the little hill to hide, like a prank, which was really dumb since Ryan clearly wasn’t looking for us.

Probably because of all the beer we drank, I completely forgot about the pizza until the cops showed up.

I
T IS NINE O’CLOCK WHEN
I
PULL UP TO THE HOUSE
. It’s a nice neighborhood, nicer than mine. The houses east of State Street are better, more expensive. That is why I live on the west side of State. My mother and father and I all work to support the family, and have only a two-bedroom condominium. One day, I will buy one of the houses east of State Street. Or perhaps a palace on the beach or in the mountains, with enough room for my entire family, even those who must live in Türkiye.

But we’re fortunate to live here. I know this. And although the dark blue Civic in the driveway of this house is polished
and gleams under the streetlights, the light blue Bug is not in as good condition. So these are not rich people. That’s good news.
Zengin
do not tip very well.

I run up the redbrick path to the front door and ring the bell. No one answers, so I ring again. It takes many moments for a tall white woman to answer. I can hear a television turned up loud somewhere nearby in the house.

“Hello,” I say to her, and smile.

She smiles back, folding a newspaper page under her arm and placing a yellow pencil in her hair. “Hi.”

I pull one pizza box from its red insulated bag. “Fourteen eighty-six,” I tell her. I make sure to continue to smile. This is Ata’s advice, and he is right. Customers appreciate it when you smile.

“Okay,” the woman says, and begins to dig through a large feminine wallet sitting on top of a side table.

Then she frowns. I’ve seen this frown before, but I continue smiling.

“Oh dear,” she says, and turns away from me, shouting into the house. “Honey, do you have a twenty?”

Something important happens on the television, because the person she is shouting to cheers
“All right, go, go go!”
very, very loud.

“Jim!” the woman shouts.

“What!”

“I said, do you have twenty dollars for the pizza?”

“What? No!” the man shouts back.

“Oh, that damn ball game, can’t hear a thing,” she says. She turns to me and smiles, embarrassed. “I’m sorry, would you wait just a quick minute for me?”

“Of course, ma’am.” My cheeks are beginning to hurt, but I won’t stop smiling. If I’m fortunate, she will find her
yirmi
and give me the entire bill for making me wait.

“Oh, great, thank you …,” she says, and peers at my name tag. I don’t like my name tag, mostly because it’s attached to my white shirt, which is tucked into my white pants. This uniform makes me crazy, but it’s part of the job, so I don’t complain. Ata says I was lucky to find a job, and he’s probably right.

“Ah-zee-zee?” the woman asks.

“Ah-zeez,” I correct her politely.

“Oh, I’m sorry …”

“It’s no problem!” My cheeks are burning now.

The woman sets her wallet down on the table inside the door, and I put the pizza box on top of the red bag because it’s beginning to burn my hands. The woman walks down a hallway, calling.

“Morrigan!” she shouts. “I need that money I gave you this afternoon.”

Morrigan? I know that girl. She is very … spirited, Ata would say.

The woman turns a corner, but I can hear her knock on a door. “Morrigan?” she calls again. “Morry, I need that twenty. We ordered pizza. Morrigan?”

I am running late now. I need to get back to the pizzeria for the last part of my shift, which is attending to the counter,
filling orders for carryout. Kabara—my boss—will not be happy if I’m late. Neither would Ata if he knew. My father wants me to be sure to bring honor to our family by working hard, and even though it’s been almost five years since we left Türkiye, I still want to make him proud of me.

“Morrigan!”

The woman is gone for several minutes. I hear doors opening and closing down the hall. Suddenly she comes around the corner and rushes into a room just beyond the front door, the room where the television is on. The hardwood floor squeaks loudly beneath her bare feet.

“She’s gone!” the woman yells.

I hear the man’s voice. “What?”

“Morrigan is gone, Jim. She’s not in her—would you turn the TV down for just one minute?—she’s not in her room, she’s not in the bathroom, she’s
gone!”

“Oh, for hell’s sake,” I hear the man say, and then he appears, barefooted and wearing plaid shorts and a T-shirt. He does not look at me at all as he goes down the hall calling Morrigan’s name. The game has gone to a commercial for large, manly pickup trucks:
Made in America
, a deep country-western voice says,
because it matters
.

I didn’t know when I drove here that this was where Morrigan Lewis lived. There must be one thousand people named Lewis in Santa Barbara, how should I know that this was her house?

I don’t care too much. Morrigan has never spoken to me at school, so I am not exactly upset she is not here.

Mr. Jim Lewis is gone for several more minutes. The woman, Mrs. Lewis, comes back to the door looking very, very angry.

“Um … I’m sorry, we’re having a bit of, um … trouble here, do you take credit cards?”

“Of course, ma’am!” Even though I smile for her, she doesn’t seem to notice. I get the strong feeling my tip will not be very large.

I trade her card for the pizza box, which she takes and dashes away with, probably to the kitchen. By the time she comes back, I’ve already run the card through my portable machine and have a receipt and pen waiting for her.

Mr. Lewis comes back from the hallway. “Well, where is she?” he demands from Mrs. Lewis.

“Well, I don’t
know
, Jim, obviously!”

“Why is the screen off her window?”

“What?”

“I said why is the screen off her window, were you cleaning in there?”

I am ready to get in my car and go, but I need Mrs. Lewis to sign the receipt. I wave the pen. “Ma’am?”

“What? Oh.” She takes the pen and receipt, scribbles her signature, then hands the pen back to me. “No, I wasn’t cleaning in there, you think she’d let me into her room?”

“So she snuck
out?”
Mr. Lewis shouts.

“Ma’am?” I ask politely, because I need the receipt she has just signed.

“Oh, god, she probably went off with Ashley,” Mrs. Lewis
says. “She went to that party.” She then swears, using the name of God again.

“What party?” Mr. Lewis says.

“Jim, I swear, do you not hear a word she says to you?”

“Me?”

“Ma’am,” I say again, a little louder. I’m now many minutes late for the last part of my shift.

“Look, it’s simple, call Ashley,” Mr. Lewis says.

That must be Ashley Dixon. I know her, too. But like Morrigan, I’ve never really spoken to her. I believe she is an acquaintance with Beckett, a girl I know from school who shares her comic books with me. Beckett has mentioned her before, but only in passing.

“No … no, I’ll just call Morrigan, find out where she is,” Mrs. Lewis says, and starts to close the door. She has not looked at me once since going in search of the twenty.

I put my hand on the door to stop her. “Ma’am, I apologize, but I need to take your receipt, please.”

Mrs. Lewis stops and turns to me as if I’ve magically appeared on her doorstep. Then she shakes her head and stretches out her hand.

“Oh, I’m sorry, here,” she says, then closes the door without saying goodbye.

I hear both of Morrigan’s parents shouting instructions at each other even as I turn to run back to my car.

“Here, give me the phone.”

“Jim, what if she doesn’t answer? How will we find her?”

“Oh, she’ll answer. You
bet
she’ll answer!”

I wonder if I’ve done the right thing. I know exactly where Morrigan is, if she has indeed gone to tonight’s graduation party. I have the directions in the pocket of my shorts at work, in my locker. Should I have told Mrs. Lewis that? I hesitate at the door, listening.

“Morrigan! Where the hell are you?” I hear Mr. Jim Lewis shout.

“Jim, please calm down,” Mrs. Lewis says, and then they must walk away because I can’t hear them any longer.

I head back down the redbrick path. It’s none of my business, and I do not need to be known as a
gammaz
, a tattletale, when school begins again in September. Some reputations are bad no matter what country you live in, and being a
gammaz
is one of them. I have trouble enough making friends. But in September I’ll be a senior. Perhaps it will be easier then.

I get to the pizzeria and check the receipt. No tip.

Annoyed, I relieve a coworker at the counter who is looking quite bored. It’s a slow night for a Saturday. He is happy to leave the counter to me and smoke a cigarette beside the garbage bags in the alley.

The door opens and I pull on a big smile, ready to greet the customer. I’m surprised at who it is.

“Hey,” Beckett Montgomery says as she approaches the counter.

I’m embarrassed to be seen in my uniform, working, but I try to hide it. “Hi, Beckett,” I say. “How are you?”

“Oh … okay. I didn’t know you worked here.” She sets her woven purse on the counter.

There are no other customers. And my boss and two coworkers are in the back. I have time to talk.

“Yes,” I say. “Did you want something to eat?”

“I thought I’d grab a slice of pizza. You sell pizza here?”

I laugh. “I think so,” I say, and she smiles just a little bit. That makes me proud.

“Oh!” I say. “You know your friend Morrigan?”

Beckett blinks. “Morrigan Lewis? She’s not my friend exactly … why?”

“I just delivered to her house. I think she sneaked—or snucked?—out of her room to go to the party tonight.”

“Really.”

“Her parents are … pissed off.”

“Wow.”

“But—she is not your friend?”

“Well … not … really. She’s friends with a—an old friend.”

“Ashley.”

Beckett looks surprised. “You know her?”

“No. You have mentioned her before. In the library.”

“Oh. I didn’t realize.” Beckett looks at the floor for a moment, then up at me. “So, hey, are you going? To the party?”

I laugh again. “Who isn’t!”

“Me.”

“No? How come?”

Beckett shrugs. She is a pretty girl—a very pretty girl—but there is no romance between us. That’s okay. Ata will not allow me to date a girl who isn’t Muslim anyway. That’s a problem in Santa Barbara. When I go to school in Los Angeles after
graduation next year, where there are more people like me, I hope it will be better.

“I don’t know anyone,” Beckett says. Her voice is soft. A whisper.

“You know me!”

“Yeah, but you’re cool and junk.”

“You think I am cool in this uniform?”

“No.”

We both laugh again. It is not loud, but feels nice.

“But you read cool comics,” Beckett says.

“As do you,” I remind her.

That is how we met, back in November. We were both in the school library reading comic books. I was reading
Incredible Hulk
, and she was reading
Batman
. We often have fun arguments about which superheroes would win in an imaginary fight, especially those from different publishers. Bane versus Wolverine, for example.

“The new Batman movie looks good, doesn’t it?” she says.

“It does. I am looking forward to it.”

“I wish they would’ve done the Hush series, though. That was awesome.”

“I remember. You made me read it in one sitting! I was late to math class.”

“But it ruled, didn’t it?”

“It was very good. Perhaps they will still make a movie out of it.”