The Basic Eight (21 page)

The reason my handwriting is so messy is not only because I’ve stayed up all night etc. but because the texture of this cement is making the paper uneven. I’m in the parking lot of the River- town Mall with Gabriel and Natasha, lying on my stomach on one of those big cement planters they have there, with some halfhearted ice plant and lots of candy wrappers in it. The first rays of the sun are shining on them and I can just barely read their ingredients. That’s why I’m writing so big, so I can tell what I’m saying. IT’S BEEN A MAGICAL EVENING.

Day ’n Nite Foto is the only place we can think of where you can get your pictures developed in one hour and that’s open at this one. Otherwise, I swear, we would not be giving our hard- earned money (sweaty quarters, dollar bills crimped into dead origami) to an establishment that not only misspells both
night
and
photo
but uses that most ugly of contractions, the telltale ’
n
. While emptying my pockets to pay for the developing, I almost dumped Jennifer Rose Milton’s earring and Gabriel’s pocketknife, both of which I managed to procure during the evening’s blurri- ness. Gabriel is walking up and down the parking lot right now, retracing his steps and looking for it, but last I checked, Jennifer Rose Milton hasn’t even noticed that one of her perfect ears is

missing

one of her perfect earrings. Kate’s sweater, Douglas’s hat, Lily’s glasses, V ’s scarf, Jennifer Rose Milton’s earrings, Gabriel’s knife, all I need is something from Natasha. Natasha has a small portable radio perched next to her flask, over on the next island, and is smoking a cigarette and doing lazy ballroom dancing steps. Either the radio or the flask would do, but I don’t have to do anything this morning. I can just bask in the glow of this magical evening. I’m hanging out at dawn with Gabriel and Natasha, waiting to see what develops. (Metaphor.)

It made the most sense for us to have it at my house–everyone else’s parents would have been breathing down our necks–so we just went there directly after school. It had been so hot all day that just about everyone took showers and changed into borrowed clothes, which made it weird: all these people wandering around my house wearing my clothes like folks auditioning to play me in the movie.

V , of course, looked positively unruffled after the long hot day and was in the kitchen slicing everything into perfect patterns, and Gabriel had found some old fancy champagne glasses from some parental function during my childhood and was putting on a stark white apron so he wouldn’t get mussed while he washed them out, and Lily came down, looking better in my black top than I do and wearing her new glasses, Jennifer Rose Milton was on the phone to Millie saying she’d spend the night here and simultaneously shouting up the stairs that her turn at the shower was next, and Douglas came down with his hair soaking wet and uncombed, wearing the only thing of mine he could fit into–an X-tra large tour shirt of the Sartres, who were this band we were all into last year for about ten minutes. I had forgotten all about that shirt; it was so big I couldn’t wear it even as a

nightshirt so I kept it up on the top shelf of my closet.
The top shelf of my closet
, that made me think. I bounded up the stairs as I heard a familiar guitar riff down in the living room. Somebody had found the Sartres album and was playing their one hit, “Go Back to Bed.”

When I opened the door of my room both Kate and Jennifer Rose Milton shrieked impulsively. They were both dressed in towel-togas, Kate having just showered and Jenn apparently about to. They were both standing on tiptoe in my closet, peering at the top shelf, but I think I caught them in time.

“You scared us!” Kate said wildly, stalking to the other end of the room and sitting quickly on the bed. Jennifer Rose Milton was looking at me curiously.

“What were you guys looking for?”

Kate whirled around to face me but I saw Jennifer shake her head, just slightly. “Something to wear,” Kate said instantly, and I was filled with relief. I think I could have easily explained away my little collection but I didn’t want to, and plus I’d have to give everything back and start over. “Did you ever give me back that sweater I lent you at the last dinner party?” Kate asked. “You could just give me that back now.”

“I’m pretty sure I did,” I said, opening a dresser drawer. Downstairs I could hear people singing along with the Sartres. “If I didn’t it would be in here. But you don’t want to wear a sweater, anyway. It’s too hot. Here, take this.”

“But this is your favorite shirt. You don’t loan anybody this shirt.”

Natasha stuck her head in the door and raised her eyebrows and her glass of champagne at me. “What are you doing in Flan’s closet?” she asked Jenn, who was on her tiptoes again.

“Look what I found,” she said and my heart stopped. “A camera!” She held up my cheap camera, which I hadn’t used since Italy. “It even has film. Can we use it?”

“Of course,” I said.

“This will be
great
,” Kate said.

“What I think will be
great
”–Natasha imitated Kate’s voice with a snarl–“is when people will learn to stop peeking in each other’s closets!”

“I–” Kate started but Natasha was gone; I heard her laughing downstairs already. The music got turned up. Jennifer Rose Milton handed me the camera and her towel slipped a little bit. What I’d do to have breasts like that. Kate put her head in my shirt like an ostrich in the sand, and I went downstairs. Any uneasiness was instantly dispelled; Natasha and Douglas had found last year’s yearbook and were cackling over this ugly picture of Mr. Dodd with a sombrero over his head for the Festival Interna- tionale. Gabriel put a piece of bread with tomato and feta in my mouth and I nearly swooned it was so good. He looked so sweet grinning at me like that that I took a picture and everybody got into picture taking. Half the roll was gone by the time Jennifer Rose Milton came downstairs in a pale red dress I can’t fit into anymore because I’m such a tub. “Tub,” it says “tub.” You can’t read it because the cement I’m writing on is sort of bumpy. I no- ticed she hadn’t bothered to put her earrings back on; she must have left them on my dresser or something.

We tossed the camera to one another and we’d each snap one and toss it to the next person, taking pictures of practically the same moment from totally different angles, never holding the camera longer than a few seconds like it was some enormous game of paparazzi hot potato. Finally I corraled everyone onto the couch for the photograph.

Take it out now; hopefully the publishers have complied with my wish to have a copy in each book. How odd that you can look at it now, when I’m sitting around watching the sun come up, waiting to see what the photograph looks like. Although in my mind’s eye I can see it quite clearly: Kate, leaning on an armrest rather than sitting on the couch like a normal human being, pla- cing herself above us and looking a little smug. V right next to her, fingering her pearls, looking better than everyone else with her perfect makeup, better than Natasha even, and that’s saying a lot. Lily and Douglas, snug on the couch, Lily between Douglas and me. As usual. Douglas was talking to Gabriel about something and didn’t want to stop his train of thought just for a stupid pic- ture so he’ll probably have an impatient look on his face. Plus it’ll be weird to see a picture of him when he’s not wearing a suit. Gabriel, his black hands stark against the white apron, squished into the end of the couch and looking uncomfortable. Beautiful, beautiful Jennifer Rose Milton standing at the couch in a pose that would look too formalized for anyone else who wasn’t as beautiful, and stretched out luxuriously beneath us all, Natasha, one long finger between her lips and batting her eyes at me. I can’t wait to see it.

There in the picture, I miss you all so much.

We ate thick squares of imported chocolate with whole hazel- nuts in them, and licked our fingers afterward. Gabriel licked mine until Natasha made a gagging noise and he stopped. Meanwhile, Douglas was opening and shutting cupboards, his face flushed from champagne and expectation. Somebody finally switched off the Sartres and put on some melodramatic string quartets, Lily probably. I rose unsteadily from the floor where I had been leaning against Gabriel and letting him give me little neck kisses while we all chattered away, but by the time I

reached Douglas he had found all the necessary equipment: a small pasta strainer, a box of sugar cubes, a steel bowl and a dainty little saucer.

“This isn’t the way we did it before,” I said.

“I heard about another way,” Douglas said. “A better way. In fact, we took
way
too much last time. We could have seriously fucked ourselves up. This time we ingest a tiny amount, and it tastes better, too.” He put everything on a tray, along with the leprechaun bottle, and walked grandly back into the living room.

Winnie: Often, teenagers start on the path of absinthe addic- tion when they try it at a party. In a party setting, particularly with a strong peer group, it’s practically impossible to resist.

Peter Pusher: Nonsense, it’s very possible to resist. I think it’s wonderful that little Flora here resisted.

Flora Habstat: I didn’t resist. Peter Pusher: Oh. But if you had–

“And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for,” Douglas

announced, and waited for everyone to remove the stray pieces of feta and bread crumbs so he could put the tray down on the coffee table.

“What’s all this paraphernalia?” Lily asked.

“Yeah, I thought you guys just drank little shots.” Kate picked up the saucer like she was shopping for antiques and suspected this one was fake.

“As it turned out, those little shots almost killed us,” I said. “Really?” V said. “And now you want us all to try it?”

“Oh, I
love
this,” Lily said.

“Come on,” Natasha said carelessly. “We’re young.” “Precisely my point,” Lily said. Gabriel wanted to say some-

thing but just looked at me instead. “I think I’ll hold off on this absinthe thing until I’m ninety-five, so if I
die
–”

“Nobody’s going to
die
,” Douglas said. Natasha snapped a picture of him, just as he said that. “Flan’s exaggerating, as usual. I’ve just since heard that it’s not exactly the recommended amount. But the way we’re doing it now, it’s perfectly safe.”

What it felt like then. What it feels like now, in the parking lot. This self-conscious carelessness of being a senior. Maybe, gener- ations ago, young people rebelled out of some clear motive, but now, we
know
we’re rebelling. Between teen movies and sex-ed textbooks we’re so ready for our rebellious phase we can’t help but feel it’s safe, contained. It will turn out all right, despite the risk, snug in the shell of rebellion narrative. Rebellion narrative, does that make sense? It was appropriate to do it, so we did it.

“How many of us are there?” Douglas asked, counting out sugar cubes.

“Yes, let’s see…” Kate theatrically wrinkled her brow. “What’s our nickname again? The Basic Four?”

“Oh,” I said. “It’s such a relief to just have
us
here. Just us at a dinner party.” I stretched out my legs and found Natasha’s stretched out legs. We intertwined like kelp.

“It really is,” Lily said seriously.

“Just
us
,” I said, “without, oh, I don’t know–” “Lara Trent,” Douglas said.

“Or Adam,” Gabriel said, and everyone giggled. Kate mock- glared at him, briefly.

“Or Flora Habstat,” Natasha said. “Or Jim Carr.”

“Or Frank Whitelaw,” Jennifer Rose Milton blurted out. Everybody looked at her. It was suddenly quiet, except for the string quartet.

“
Really
?” Kate asked.

“We’re having a little tiff,” JRM said primly. She looked into her champagne glass like she had dropped something into it. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“Then you
shouldn’t
,” V said, smoothing Jenn’s hair. Douglas took a fork and chimed it on his champagne glass.

“Suppertime!” he said, and poured the absinthe onto the sugar cubes, where it turned them the color of fancy mints. Douglas caught Lily’s eye and moved his eyebrows, just slightly; she went over to the stereo for perfect drug music. All
that
and they still communicate like lovers. Douglas gingerly took each sugar cube and put it on the little saucer. The last one plopped down just as the harpsichord started. Some classical music–Bach, I’m pretty sure. We all giggled like schoolchildren as we passed around the cubes, each taking one. When V said, “Take the first one you touch,” everyone laughed too loudly. Then we all lounged back and let it take effect.

In some ways it reminds me of the sunrise itself. One minute it’s dark. Then you perceive a vague light in a scarcely delineated direction, and before you know it the whole world is rippling with light, and soon it’s blazing and you can see everything. The harpsichord was playing one of those fugue things, which usually sounds a little to me like somebody playing any note they want to but this time around I could not only hear each voice and each melody but I could expand on it: Kate’s brash laughter working in counterpoint to the left hand (right hand? left

hand, I think) of the harpsichordist, and then Lily was reading something out loud from Hattie’s class, Poe I think, but then we all got distracted by the food and just ate and ate and ate–I have this vision of V standing in front of the open refrigerator door bathed in the light like she was being abducted by aliens, reaching in with both hands and putting everything edible onto the counter: cold pasta, and lemons, spicy mustard spread on crack- ers, an old jar of maraschino cherries, and pickles, and suddenly Douglas was holding one of the pickles and explaining to all of us the right way to hold it in our mouths and everyone laughing so loud and blushing so red it was like being in the middle of an enormous gardenia. Suddenly we were noticing that the Bach CD was skipping all over the place, showering us with little harpsichord shards that hit me like hail before turning off and replacing itself with cha-cha music, with Natasha leading an enormous conga line up the stairs, all around the bedrooms with everybody taking a turn stepping into the bathtub for a special solo dance–Gabriel’s stiff and awkward, Douglas’s surprisingly lithe, Lily’s wild and hulalike, Natasha’s insanely sensual, Jennifer Rose Milton’s spectacularly elegant, V doing a mock minuet with her palms outstretched like something painted on the walls of the pyramids, with Kate just putting her hands on her head like antlers and saying “I’m a moose! I’m a moose!” and then we were all saying it, skipping downstairs saying “I’m a moose!” which made me wonder what time it was so I looked at the digital clock in the kitchen but I pressed the reset button by mistake and spent what felt like the rest of the weekend watching the bright red numbers go zipping by. People were taking turns blowing bubbles out of a plastic bear so bright blue it felt like a postcard sky of a national park. V was