Abram sinks another shot and then adjusts the Andre Agassi mullet I found for him at CVS, picks a wedgie from the tight jean shorts he borrowed from Heidi, and smiles at me. I text him a half-smiley and then ask Heidi if I can use her phone. Instinctively she hands me the rubber cell-phone flask at the edge of the table, watches as I unscrew the antenna and make a call that tastes like a wrong number.

“Pretty smooth, right?” Heidi says.

“Rough,” I reply through the flames in my throat.

“The next call will be better,” she promises, taking a swig herself.

Half an hour later I’m still here, and Abram’s carefully filling up the cups for rematch number eight. Haven’t seen him this into something that doesn’t matter since the whole being-around-me thing started happening. Here comes Heidi to check on me again.

“Having fun yet?” she asks.

“Getting there.”

I bob my head once to the music for emphasis.

“Abram is such a great guy.”

“Neat, why don’t you date him?”

“Because I like my men five-seven and below, you know that.” Heidi nods downward toward the dwarf licking his chops in the corner. I groan and remind her that the guy is a) grotesque, and b) in a weird relationship with the oblivious girl beside him. She raises her eyebrows like maybe he’s not as off-limits as he seems, mouthing the word hot for extra-unfortunate emphasis. At a loss, I tell Heidi she looks pretty tonight, over and over again in slightly different ways. “Like a tennis player,” I add, and that’s the one she’s looking for, all she’s ever wanted to hear from anyone in lieu of the basketball-player comparison she unfairly gets. “The braid suits you.”

“You mean it?” she asks, flipping it around so I can see it again.

“I do.”

I don’t love the braid, but I like that it’s making Heidi happy. She should be in a Paxil commercial, dancing like she is now, encouraging others to join in on the joy, which of course Abram can’t resist (if you count putting your fists in the air, rolling them around, and relying on your increasingly handsome face as dancing).

Is it really necessary to never make the best of anything just because life dealt me a difficult mom and then yanked her away before I could figure out what to do with her?

ABRAM

JULIETTE: LOOKS LIKE SHE has the world’s most beautiful headache. Lips: Slightly pursed, redder than when I last stared at them. Cause: Mysterious ruby liquid she has been drinking from Heidi’s revolutionary cell-phone flask. Idea: Maybe if I kiss her, she … would not want me to finish that sentence.

Can anyone tell I am thinking these thoughts in my robot voice? I am doing a subtle robot dance right now. I am a bit on the drunker side of the spectrum. I do not use contractions. I love pong! My ass hurts from Heidi, quote, “giving it what it deserves.” I am giving this party an A+.

Juliette

HEIDI KEEPS TURNING UP the music. It’s never loud enough for her until the beats are pounding in my rib cage. Here she comes with Abram; they’re requesting my presence on the dance floor again.

“Please go away.”

They can’t hear me, but that’s the closest I’ve come to saying yes.

Heidi points to her heart like she loves this song. More than the last one? Thought that was her all-time favorite. She pulls me out to the designated dance rug in the center of the room. Without giving me much of an adjustment period, she bends over and rotates her booty around in a disturbing helicopter motion, then twerks me up against Abram. It’s really happening, only wish I could lie to myself that it isn’t. Heidi’s yelling, “Get it, Juliette. Get iiiiiit!” just in case I’m thinking of declining. I put up with it until I feel Abram’s hands on my waist, barely, he would never be pushy about that. He turns me around toward him, snaps his fingers a couple of times, yet doesn’t look stupid. A familiar urge comes over me. This time it involves him.

“I want to go somewhere,” I say.

“Okay, sure … do you remember where I lost my hoodie?”

“No, I mean outside of state lines … for multiple days.”

“Like a vacation?” he asks.

“If that’s what you want to call it.”

He points to himself by way of asking if he’s invited. Somehow he does it to the beat of the music, pulls it off without looking like he’s nailing a boy-band audition. Where does he practice these moves? His sleep? They have to be instinctual.

I nod, tell him he’s invited. He swallows hard, trying not to get too excited, which is another smooth move on his part. He points to the random map of the world Heidi’s dad has framed in the corner of the room, and I put my hands up, shrug, and then halfheartedly raise the roof to the music’s thump, thump, thump. I’m certainly looking dumb, but he sees potential in what I’m doing, tries to mimic it, but not even he can save it. Meanwhile, still in search of her fairy-tale ending, Heidi has waltzed off to dance between the dwarf and his girlfriend, who seem much more interesting when she’s around. In her own inappropriate way, Heidi’s setting a good example for me. That, right there, is how not to give a shit, let alone two of them.

“My family has a house on the beach,” Abram offers. “My mom and I haven’t gone for a while, but my dad was there last—you know that already.”

Yes, I know. My mother was with him; the details were all texted out on her phone.

Should I bring anything special for our “work conference” at the beach, Mr. Morgan?

Just your tennis racquet, Ian Morgan texted back. And don’t pack nearly as many clothes as last time.

Hopefully he packed some better pillow talk.

Perfect, my tear ducts are twitching with a twin set of drunk-girl droplets. My buzz must be stronger than previously denied to Heidi. Is my blood Adderall content too high to be drinking? No, I don’t want that to be it.

“You okay?” Abram asks.

Not even close. I feel dizzy, but I want to show him I have enough mental stability left in the tank to take this trip, stay in a house where our parents slept together, without making it all about them. So I nod. Crack a smile. No teeth, though. Toothiness makes everything weirder. Abram smiles back, also no teeth, taking his antisocial cues from me like they’re normal, yet another positive sign he’s the best possible person to strand myself on an island with.

“Let’s go to the beach,” I say.

He nods like the decision’s less complicated than it really is. “When?”

“Whenever. Or ASAP. Whichever comes first.”

“Sounds good.” He takes my hand and twirls me around to celebrate. When he draws me closer, to his chest, I swear I can smell the ocean on his skin, sea-salty and crisp. Cologne or potato-chip residue? That is the question. Until he asks a better one.

“What do we tell our parents?”

I frown, tucking his wig behind his ears. “We tell them … at the last possible second.”

17

ABRAM

I TOLD MY MOM about our road trip the morning after Heidi’s party, so pretty much right away. Took me the next five days to convince her to hand over the keys to our beach house. As of last night, she still wasn’t blown away by the idea of me driving six-plus hours to South Carolina, with the standoffish daughter of my father’s mistress, to stay alone together all weekend in the same house where they stayed a few months before their deaths. When I put all her least-favorite parts about the plan together like that in a series, I can better see the place of “Are you kidding me, Abram? You want me to call the school and play hooky for you, too?” she’s coming from. Albeit from Juliette’s driveway, at seven thirty a.m. on a Thursday morning, watching as my travel-mate kicks her giant suitcase across the threshold of her front door.