Loving Emily (2 page)

“Six wives,” she says. “The way you remember what happened is: divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived.”

Someone bumps into me from behind, saying, “Sorry, dude.” I don’t even turn my head. Emily has these incredible black eyelashes. Her eyes aren’t exactly gray or exactly blue, but more like gray-blue, the most amazing eye color I’ve ever seen.

“He sounds like quite a guy,” I say. “You would think the word would have gotten around he was a bad bet.”

“It did, but when you’re king, you have a lot of options.”

“I guess so.”

Not only is Emily hot, but she’s smart. She’s wearing something loose on top that slips down a little to one side. My eyes follow the curve of her neck and shoulder.

“Have you been to England?” I ask.

“No, but there’s this program where you spend the summer studying at Oxford.” She sighs a little. “I would die to go.”

And I would die to kiss the side of her neck where it meets her shoulder. I look into her eyes, and it feels like we are the only two people on the beach. Surprisingly, the band is playing a sort of good song, kind of an uptempo thing. Emily glances in the direction of the dance floor.

“You wanna dance?” I figure I can get by with my one-step-to-the-right-one-step-to-the-left all-purpose dance move. We dance our way through a few songs, smiling whenever our eyes meet, but finding it too hard to talk over the music.

Then, the band transitions to a slow song. Not sure what to do, I hold out my arms in dance position and say “Shall we?” in what I hope is a suave manner. A second later, one of my hands is holding hers and the other is on her waist, and we’re rocking back and forth to the music. There’s probably six inches of space between us, but that’s okay.

I can hardly believe I’m doing a slow dance with Emily. “Great party,” I say.

Emily looks doubtful. “You think? It really isn’t me.”

Okay, so it
is
pretty cheesy, but on the other hand, I can’t complain when I’m here with Emily in my arms. “Why are you doing it?”

“To make my Great-Aunt Lydia happy. She’s a member here and paid for the whole thing.”

The fact that Emily’s not into this party makes me like her even more. Now there’s only about three inches of space between us.

“That’s pretty cool of her,” I say.

“She’s sweet.” Emily’s hair brushes my shoulder. “She always tries to give us things that my dad hates to accept.”

“But he said ‘yes’ to the party?”

She gives a sad nod. “Kind of a waste, don’t you think?’

“At least we’re out on the beach.” My arm somehow finds its way around her, and she moves closer to me.

“I know!” She looks up at me through her black eyelashes. “That’s what I was telling myself: at least we’re not in some horrible banquet room.”

“I was gonna go take a walk by the ocean. It’s a beautiful night.”

“If it weren’t my own party, I’d go with you.”

We’re dancing really close to each other now. Her hair is right there, so near my face that I could brush my lips against it. Her eyes are these gray-blue pools, and I’m swimming in them—no, I’m drowning in them.

A loud thud, followed by the sounds of people yelling and swearing, plates and glasses breaking, and a couple of screams. The band’s singer stops in mid-lyric.

A voice says, “Get up, dickhead.”

Unfortunately, I know the voice.

It’s Michael.

I’ve seen him high at a party before, but never like this. He must have been worse than I thought earlier, or done some heavy consuming in the parking lot, or both, because he can barely stay on his feet now.

He’s laughing at Chase, who is sprawled out on the sand. A folding chair is lying on its side. Not only did Chase take down the chair when he fell, he managed to pull a tablecloth half off one of the dining tables, sending plates of food into people’s laps and on the ground. The kids who’d been sitting at that table are wiping salsa and guacamole off their two hundred dollar jeans.

“Dude!” Michael is shaking his head at Chase. “You’re such an asshole!” They are both laughing hysterically. For a moment, anyway, until Michael gets this weird expression on his face and projectile vomits into the sand.

“Gross!” “Ew!” A big space clears out around Michael. He glances up, catches sight of me standing next to Emily, and starts to wave. You would think he’d look embarrassed, but no.

“Ryan! Get over here, man.”

“He’s a friend of yours?” I can tell from Emily’s voice that this is not earning me any points.

“Uh, yeah.” This would not be the time to tell her he’s been my friend since kindergarten—my best friend, in fact.

“Ryan!” Michael is waving to me to come.

“I guess I better help him out,” I mutter and slink over in their direction, trying to ignore the puzzled look she gives me. As I walk up to them, Michael crooks an elbow around my neck, leaning on me. He reeks of Jack Daniels and vomit.

“Jeez, Michael!” I try to unhook him from my neck, without success. “Get off me!”

I’ve never seen him this crazy and out of control. How could he do this to me at Emily’s party? “Dude,” I say in his ear, “get it together!”

I put out my hand to Chase, who ignores it. Like the genius he is, he attempts to pull himself up using the tablecloth on top of him, thereby sending the other half of it sliding off the table and onto him, along with a load of plates and half eaten burritos.

Emily rushes forward, sending out a dirty look that includes me. Or maybe it doesn’t. Maybe that’s just my paranoid imagination.

“Get up,” she says.

Chase rolls on the sand, his shirt riding up so that we are treated to the sight of his beefy belly. I would bet the two of them are on a lot more than just Jack Daniels. Michael’s pupils are the size of poker chips.

“I said get up.” Emily’s tone of voice says
Don’t mess with me
.

I finally peel Michael off my neck, but he wobbles and almost falls. I grab his arm, holding him up and trying to think how to show Emily I’m nothing like these two.

Meanwhile, Chase looks up at her from the sand. “Nice ass.” He goes into more fits of laughter, and even Michael laughs a little.

A thundercloud passes over Emily’s face. She grabs a pitcher of virgin margaritas from a nearby table and, with all the speed and fierceness of a good tennis serve, upends it over Chase’s head. People start to point and laugh as more and more sand sticks to the wet parts of him—which is most of him.

This girl’s going higher and higher in my opinion, while I’m sure I’m falling like a rock in hers.

“Hey!” Chase makes a weak grab for her legs, but he’s just trying to save face.

She sidesteps him and picks up a bowl of salsa. “Leave.
Now
.”

Two security guards suddenly appear and pull Chase to his feet. A man who I guess is Emily’s dad looms up beside her, then moves in on Chase and the two guys. He has this uptight, clenched-jaw look to him that makes me think I wouldn’t ever want to piss him off.

Chase tries to take a step and falls down again, causing everyone to spin in his direction. I’m still holding Michael’s arm, but now I notice how green he is. “Emily!”

She turns back to me.

“I’m gonna get him out of here, okay? Before he hurls again.”

“Thanks.” She gives me an uncertain smile and looks me up and down, like she’s trying to figure me out.

Why did Michael have to be such an idiot tonight? I help him up the steps, get him inside the club, and look around for someplace private. Seeing a door marked “Stairs,” I pull him through it into a service stairwell.

I half-carry him up a flight of stairs, then stand there with him, catching my breath. When he tilts sideways, I ease him onto the stairwell floor, then sit next to him. We are silent for a few minutes. Michael leans back against a wall, his eyes closed, while I think about Emily.

If it weren’t my own party, I’d go with you.
I can almost hear her voice.

“Ryan?” Just saying my name seems like it’s hard work for him.

“Yeah?” Memories of what happened three years ago come back to me: Michael lying cold and pale on the ground, my terror that he was going to die.

“You know Chrissie? From the club?” He means the tennis club, where we play together twice a week. Michael gets out the words slowly.

“What about her?” I ask. She’s maybe twenty. She cashiers at the Pro Shop and teaches lessons to the kids. Chrissie’s really hot, but kind of a ditz, I always thought.

“I had sex with her.”

Random thoughts roam my brain. Chrissie’s a grown-up. A drop-dead beautiful grown-up.

“Once. In the Pro Shop. At the club.”

Michael having sex is nothing new. He’s way ahead of me on that score. The word “sex” brings me right back to thoughts of Emily, to me with my arms around her, her gray-blue eyes looking up at me. Before I have time to say anything, Michael doubles over.

“I’m gonna be sick.”

Grabbing a metal trash can, I shove it at him just in time. Maybe I can go talk to her for a minute before we leave. Just to check in and make sure she’s not mad at me.

When he’s done, I set the can in a nearby corner. It stinks, but we may need it again.

“You’re not driving home,” I say. “I’ll take you.”

But he’s got something more on his mind. “Hey, Ryan?” He’s still struggling to get the words out. “I gotta tell you …something … kinda bad.” He looks around, as if he thinks he’ll find someone in the stairwell with us, listening in. “Don’t tell… anyone else, okay?”

He has
more
bad news for me after ruining Emily’s party? “
What?”
I only halfway hide my impatience.

He groans, bending over, holding his stomach. “Man, I feel like crap.”

“I’m taking you home,” I say, but then I look at my watch. The party’s almost over. For all I know, Emily thinks that I’m shooting up with Michael in the stairwell, or off trashing a bathroom with Chase. If I want to talk to her, it has to be now.

“Listen, Michael, I need to go for a few minutes.”

“Why?” He slurs out the word, looking confused.

“Lemme go out and see what’s happening,” I tell him. I look at my watch again. “I’ll be back soon.” Michael can wait a couple of minutes. It’s the least he can do, after the way he screwed things up for me out there.

“Nah, dude, I don’t … feel so great.” Michael does look pretty bad. “Can we just go?”

“I wanna say good-bye to Emily.”

“Stay here, man. Please. I’m not doing so hot.” He reaches out, and for a moment his grip tightens hard on my arm.

I shake him off and start down the stairwell. “I’ll come back for you.”

“Hey,
Ryan!”

“What?”
One last time, I turn back.

Using all his energy, Michael lifts his arm and gives me a salute. His eyes burn a hole in me. They are an intense green.

“Soldier Rock!” he says.

Instant flashback. I’m eleven years old again, standing on the top of Soldier Rock with Michael, looking down.
You can do it, Ryan. You’re a beast.

Fast forward to the present. I’m back in the stairwell with Michael, thinking of Emily. Whatever’s bothering him can wait.

“Hang in there, man. I’ll be back soon.”

He’s safe here. I’ll just be a few minutes.

I run down the stairs and outside to the party area, where servers are carrying off tables and chairs, and the band packs its equipment. I finally find Emily in the middle of a knot of kids. It seems like every single member of the junior class has to discuss the Chase-Michael mess with her and say goodbye and thank her—all in slow motion, no less.

“Ryan!” It’s my surfing buddy, Jonathan Takahara. Jonathan is this interesting combination of hard-core surfer dude and major Science Geek. He’s looking pretty rad in a white shirt, dark gray jacket, and thin red tie. “Man, what was up with Michael tonight? Who was that dude he was with?”

I guess Jonathan hasn’t met Chase yet, since school only started two weeks ago.

“It’s a new guy who got Michael back into drugs over the summer. He’s an asshole, if you ask me.” I glance Emily’s way. There are only about three kids left talking to her.

“How did Michael meet him?”

“Their dads know each other. Chase’s dad called Nat about investing in a film.”

“How come he didn’t call
your
dad?” My father’s higher on the Hollywood food chain than Nat is.

“I don’t know, but I wish he had.” Then Chase would have called me, and I would have kept Michael away from him.

Finally, there’s an opening in the crowd around Emily. “Gotta go,” I say.

“Later, man.”

I beeline my way over there.

“Ryan! Are you leaving?” Emily asks.

“Soon. Hey, I’m really sorry about what happened. Those guys totally messed up.”

“Yeah, they did,” she says in a level voice. She gives me that searching look again.

“Michael’s not usually like that,” I tell her. “He was into drugs really bad when we were in middle school, but then he cleaned up his act for, like three years. It’s just that—this summer—well, he kind of fell apart again.”

She listens to me, her face serious. “He needs help. A
lot
of help.”

“I guess he does. He’s waiting for me now. I’m gonna drive him home.”

Now she almost looks admiring. Maybe it’s the light. “Smart. You’re a good friend to him—I can tell.”

“Oh, I don’t know…” My face goes hot from the compliment.

“My friend Chloe was telling me Michael’s usually really nice. She likes him.”

“A lot of girls like him,” I say, then wish I hadn’t. “I mean, he’s pretty hot, and all.”
Shut up Ryan.

Emily shrugs. “He’s not my type.” Her eyes drop down, then up to meet mine, and her cheeks turn this watermelon pink. It looks good on her.

“
Really?
So, who
is
your type?” I lean in toward her, while she blushes some more.

She laughs and shakes her head. “I’ll tell you some other time.” The eyelashes flutter down and up again, making my breathing stop. “If you’re nice to me.”

I want to ask,
so is there going to be another time?
But her father is waving to her to come. “Emily, step on it!”