The Secret Society of the Pink Crystal Ball (13 page)

I smile at her. “No, I've got a better one than that.” I shake the ball and bite my lip anxiously. “Will I kiss Jesse Cooper tonight and get to see his hot body?”

“Ooh, that's good,” Samantha says. “But wait, does Jesse Cooper
have
a hot body? I can't tell with the clothes he wears…”

I close my eyes and picture him in the light blue T-shirt. “The hottest.”

Samantha's housekeeper, Lucinda, drops us off in the parking lot outside the Corridor, and I feel ridiculous the second we step out of the car. Everyone is wearing jeans and T-shirts and sneakers. I glare at Samantha as we walk toward the entrance.

“I feel like a hooker,” I tell her, catching a glimpse of myself in a car window.

Before we left, Samantha gave us both smoky eyes and slathered our lips with Juicy Tubes lip gloss in Cherry Burst. She also back-combed my hair at the crown, and, just to make sure that I looked totally fake and plastic, she sprayed it with half a bottle of got2b 2 Sexy Voluptuous Volume hair spray.

“You look amazing,” she insists. “Jesse is going to fall all over himself when he sees you.”

A bottleneck is forming as we get closer to the door, and Samantha looks straight ahead, smiling confidently at everyone without focusing on anyone, seemingly oblivious to the fact that guys are literally stopping in their tracks to look at her. I watch her as she strides through the crowd: her back straight, her long legs looking even longer in the black platform boots that she put on over her knee highs, so that only the pink stripes show at the top. She's achingly pretty.

“Where are you meeting Jesse?” she asks as we wait in line to pay the cover.

“I don't know. He told me to text him when we got here. I just sent it.” I glance around nervously as the crowd thickens. This is not my kind of scene. Everyone looks as if they've come straight from an MTV casting couch: tattoos, piercings, asymmetrical haircuts. Come to think of it, any one of them would have fit right in at my aunt's memorial service. I check my phone to see if Jesse has texted me back yet, and I feel a tap on my shoulder. I whirl around, and I almost bump my nose on a bright green Flamingo Kids T-shirt. I look up and find Jesse's sparkling blue eyes. He smiles at me, and my heartbeat quickens. I feel myself flush before I've even had a chance to think about it.

“Wow,” he says, taking in my outfit. “You look…different.”

“Yeah, well, you know me. Full of surprises.” I feel an elbow in my ribs, and I realize that I've forgotten all about Samantha. “Oh, Jesse, you know Samantha, right?”

“Yeah. Hey.” He nods at her, seemingly unfazed by her hotness, and looks right back at me. “Come on, let's go inside.”

“But what about the line? And the cover?”

He smiles. “Don't worry. Just follow me.” He turns back into the crowd, which seems to have grown even denser in the last minute and half, then reaches out behind him to clasp my hand. The tingling sensation I felt when he patted my hand in the museum comes right back.

“Hold on to her,” he shouts, pointing his chin toward Samantha. “Don't get separated.” I nod at him as I reach for Samantha's hand, and the three of us push our way, single file, through the throng of pierced, tattooed, hoodie-wearing Flamingo Kids fans. My feet get stepped on at least fifty times.

When we finally reach the door, Jesse cuts in front of about twenty people, walking right up to a big, hulking guy sitting on a bar stool. He's got a shaved head and a ring through his lower lip, and if I saw him on the street, I might cross to the other side. But Jesse leans in and the guy hugs him, slapping him on the back two times.

“Hey, man, good to see you,” the scary guy says. “How many you got?”

Jesse holds up two fingers. “Plus two.” The scary guy looks at me and Samantha, and lets his gaze linger on the expanse of bare leg between Samantha's knee socks and the bottom of her miniskirt. He looks back at Jesse and grins.

“Nice work, man.”

Jesse gives him the same crooked smile that he gave to Lloyd when he left us alone in the snack shop at the museum, and whatever it is that's been moving around nervously inside my stomach all night does a double backflip.

Samantha leans in and whispers to me. “You're right,” she says. “He does look cute with his hair like this.”

I smile at her gratefully. I know it's silly, but there's nothing quite like getting a seal of approval from Samantha. I just wish Lindsay were here. Samantha and I called her earlier to reenact the scene with Megan at the mall (although we left out the part about how Lindsay should watch her back), and she barely even laughed. She sounded miserable. The new girlfriend keeps trying to get her to talk about boys. Ugh…

Scary guy pulls out three bright orange wristbands that say
under 21
in thick black lettering, and affixes them to our right hands.

“Have a nice time, girls,” he says, winking at us. Samantha winks back, and I have to try really hard to not laugh.

***

When we get inside the club, Samantha disappears to go look for Aiden, and Jesse and I go to the bar to get some Cokes. There's an opening band onstage, and it's so loud that we both have to scream to hear each other. I sigh to myself. I know I'm trying to live a little, but I would so much rather be at a nice quiet dinner.

“It's really cool that you're here,” Jesse shouts. “I was a little nervous to ask you, 'cause I wasn't sure if you'd be into something like this.”

I take a sip of Coke through my straw. “I'm totally into it. I love this stuff.”

He nods, and his eyes look just the slightest bit amused. But I can't tell if it's because he's pleasantly surprised by me, or because he knows that I'm a lying liar who lies. “So, do you ever go down to the pit?”

The pit? Am I supposed to know what that is?

“Um, yeah. I go down to the pit all the time.”

His face lights up. “Cool. Me too.”

Across the room I suddenly spot Samantha, standing by herself and looking crushed. “I'm gonna go grab Samantha,” I tell Jesse. “Don't go anywhere, okay?”

He raises his eyebrows. “Sure. But don't be too long, the band's going on soon and we should get a good spot.”

I promise him that I'll be right back, and when I get to Samantha I put my arm on her shoulder. Her eyes are wet and glassy.

“Are you okay?”

She shakes her head and stares longingly at the corner of the room. I follow her gaze and there's Aiden, right at the end of it. He's trying to steady Trance, who is stumbling in her black heels and holding a beer in her hand.

“Maybe you were right about the ball,” she says, not taking her eyes off of them. “Maybe it really doesn't work for anyone but you. I mean, he didn't even look at me. I got myself all dressed up for him, and he didn't even look at me. He just asked me to get a wet paper towel. For
her
.”

I glance back over at Trance. Aiden is trying to take the beer from her, but she's pushing him away, yelling at him.

“He's an idiot,” I tell her. “There are a million guys in here who would kill for you to just say hi to them.”

Finally, Samantha turns to look at me. She's smiling and her eyes are bright again, as if the hurt she was feeling never even happened. I sometimes wish I could trade places with her, just to understand how it is that she makes everything look so easy. She grabs my hand.

“Come on. Let's go find Jesse. You're on a date, remember?”

***

Jesse leads us down toward the front of the club, and we elbow our way through all of the people crowding around the stage until we're almost at the very front. Everyone is pushed up against each other, so close that I feel like I need to turn my face upward and gasp just to be able to get some air. Somehow, Jesse manages to bend his arm and reach into his pocket, from which he pulls two small neon orange cones.

“You brought earplugs, right?” he asks us.

Samantha and I look at each other. Earplugs? I do a quick inventory of the people around me, and there are bright orange dots everywhere. I smack myself on the forehead.

“Shoot. I think I left them in the car.”

Jesse gives me that same, semiamused smile again, and digs four more orange cones out of his pocket.

“Here,” he says, handing them to us. “I always bring extra, just in case.”

I push them in just as the lights go down and the place erupts into deafening screams. A few seconds later, there's a horrible thrashing sound coming from the stage. I push the earplugs in a little harder, wishing that they were the noise-canceling headphones that my dad likes to take on airplanes. As the lights go back on, I see four guys dressed a lot like everyone in the audience, jumping around on the stage, singing and playing electric guitars and drums. Jesse's whole body is bouncing to the beat, and he's mouthing the words to the song. He sees me looking at him and he grins at me. But part of me wishes the song would just end so I can hear myself think…

The music comes to a screeching halt.

“We are the Flamingo Kids!” screams the lead singer.

Everyone in the audience screams back at him. It's a wall of noise, madness. I look over at Samantha, and she screams too, raising her fist up in the air. The lead singer holds the mic close up to his mouth and yells into it again.

“We love our fans! And we
really
love all of you brave souls down here in the mosh pit!” He points to all of us standing just below the stage, and I can feel the color draining out of my face as I realize that this is what Jesse meant when he asked if I like to go down into the pit. “Just be careful, please! We don't want anyone getting trampled tonight!” With that, he runs over to the drummer and jumps up into the air. “One, two, one two three four…” The drummer taps his drumsticks together and the amplifiers explode once more, causing everyone to start thrashing themselves against each other, their hoodied heads moving in time to the music.

Um…did he just say
trampled
?

I start to feel panicky as someone steps on my foot and someone else elbows me in the back.
Oh my God
, I think. I can just see the headline:
girl with highest gpa dies in mosh pit: didn't even like punk music.

***

The music, by the way, is horrible. Not that I would ever admit this out loud (in fact, I would deny it even if under threat of having my fingernails pulled out with a pair of pliers), but I would take Barry Manilow over this any day of the week. Jesse keeps stealing glances at me, though, presumably to see if I'm enjoying myself, so I just keep smiling and dancing. (Well, not dancing exactly, but moving as much as one can possibly move when one is sharing six inches of floor space with sixty other people…and basically trying to appear as if I am actually here for the music, and not, in fact, because I want to impress a cute guy.)

After a few more songs, Jesse taps me on the shoulder. I stop my pretend head-banging to see what he wants. His mouth is moving, but with the noise and the earplugs, I can't hear the words. It looks like he's saying “do you love me?” but that can't possibly be right. I mean, it is only our first date.

“What?” I shout.

“Do. You. Trust. Me?”

Ohhhh. Do I
trust
him? That makes more sense. Actually, that doesn't really make sense at all. Why would he ask me that now? Why would he ask me that here?

But it's too loud for questions, so I just nod. He smiles, then bends down. I feel his hands around my calves, but I can't see what he's doing because there are too many people swarming around us, filling the space that his body had previously occupied. The next thing I know, I feel myself being lifted up off of the ground. Jesse is hoisting me up by my legs, and then some random guy with a hoop stuck through his eyebrow grabs hold of my shoulders, and the two of them raise me up so that I'm lying down above them, parallel to the ceiling.

“What are you doing?” I scream. “Put me down!” I scream it at them over and over, but they can't hear me because everyone else is screaming too.

Someone else is holding my legs now. I turn my head from side to side, still yelling desperately, when I spot Samantha and Jesse. They're looking up at me, smiling, as if they could care less that I'm thrashing around like a scared caged animal. I watch, helpless, as Samantha reaches into her purse and pulls out her cell phone.

“Stop moving!” Jesse yells.

He balls his hands into fists and crosses his arms in front of his chest, indicating that I should do the same. From the serious look on his face, I understand that he's trying to help me. I realize suddenly that no matter how much I scream, I'm not getting out of this. I swallow hard and lie still, crossing my arms just like he did. Jesse nods reassuringly.

“Just relax!” he shouts. “Trust the crowd!”

I peek at the swirl of body piercings and tattoo sleeves and crazy hairdos. I'm supposed to trust
them?
Terrified, I try to shake my head at him, but I'm momentarily blinded by the flash from Samantha's camera phone. I blink and blink, and when my eyes clear, Samantha and Jesse are no longer in my line of vision, and I'm slowly making my way above the mosh pit, as hand after hand grabs onto my legs, my butt, my back, my head. I breathe deeply, trying not to think about what would happen if they dropped me.

Just relax
, I repeat to myself.
Trust the crowd
.

I close my eyes and concentrate on relaxing, and the first thing that comes to mind is my aunt Kiki. She would have loved this. Actually, she probably did this. Probably more than once. And in spite of the terror, I can't help smiling as I picture her lying on her back, screaming with joy as people pass her along, relishing the idea that total strangers would care enough to keep her safe. And just like that, my shoulders unstiffen, my neck untenses, and I go with it.

I open my eyes and look out, and it's like being in the treetops, except that all of the trees are actually people's heads. I turn my head to the other side, toward the stage. I have a perfect view. The guitar player is on his knees, his head bowed down, and I can see the sweat dripping off of his shaggy bangs as he plays. The lead singer is jumping around like a maniac, his eyes closed, and I wonder how it is that he doesn't bump into anything.