“Took you this long to realize it? What a disgrace, Kingston. You’re gonna hurt that poor boy’s feelings,” Grayson said.
“I’ll try to keep better track of asses, Grayson,” Rosemarie said.
“Thank you. Show some interest, y’know?” he said. He unbuttoned his jeans and leaned down to kiss Ada. “Come on, baby girl,” he said to her. Ada stood and took off her hoodie.
Silas smacked the door open. “Why are you still dressed?” he asked Kasey with fake surprise.
“Because you are,” she said.
“Not anymore,” Silas said, taking his shirt and shorts off quickly.
The girls, including Sparrow, stripped down to their undies and left their clothes on the porch. The air was night-cool, the moon an almost-full pearl. The crickets were singing loudly. The light wandered across the black-as-nothing, splashing water. They took off slowly at first, then they were runningrunningrunning through the cool grass. As the wind whistled in Ada’s ears, she knew she would always remember this, always remember exactly how she felt on prom night with everyone together with the perfect weather and the perfect sky, and she couldn’t figure out exactly why those good, perfect things made her a little sad, but maybe it was because she knew that as soon as she’d realized how perfect the moment was, it was already ending. She promised herself she’d let the rest of the night stretch out like gum. Everyone would stay awake and watch the sun come up. Make the night last forever.
Grayson was next to her in his underwear, holding her hand. Caroline and Kasey were holding hands too. Silas was ahead of them and Ada laughed when he kicked his boxer shorts off before jumping into the lake.
When Ada was naked in the cool lake water, hugging Grayson around his neck, kissing him, she opened her eyes to look out into the yard and saw Rosemarie and Sparrow with their arms around each other, swaying to the music she couldn’t hear. Awash in moonlight.
*
By 3 a.m., not only had Rosemarie and Sparrow kissed—for the first and second time, thanks to a lazy game of spin the bottle started by Sparrow’s date, Frankie, on the porch—but people who had only just dried off were running down the hill, splashing into the lake again.
“Don’t drown!” Ada yelled through her cupped hands, feeling like it was good luck to say it.
Ada and Grayson snuck off to his bedroom to have sex and take a shower together. They’d been having sex-sex only since Christmas, but she and Grayson never had sex in her house. In Grayson’s bed, in Grayson’s bedroom, in the Castelow lake house, she could be the Ada who let him take off her panties in the dark. The Ada who let him touch and kiss her everywhere while she touched and kissed him everywhere before they stepped into the coolness of his bathroom and rained off each other’s smells.
Mr. Castelow popped in once at the party to talk to his sons. Ada saw him as he was leaving, and he’d even been kind enough to sit and talk to a girl who was on the front steps crying. Ada heard it was about spin the bottle, but she couldn’t put the pieces together and was too buzzed and sleepy to even try. When Mr. Castelow was gone, the girl came back inside with her friends and laid her cheek against the cool creek rock of the fireplace while one of her friends petted her hair. The big antlered head of the whitetail deer Mr. Castelow had put down years ago hung above them, its dark, glassy eyes staring out at nothing.
Now most of Ada’s crew was in the living room, dancing, lying across the couches, drinking, and eating. More light beer and mini bottles of whiskey. Gummy bears and cold pizza. Spicy chips and chocolate cookies. “Hot in Herre” by Nelly was pouring from the speakers again. Sparrow and Frankie disappeared to one of the bedrooms, and Rosemarie was lying on Leo’s chest on the couch. Ada couldn’t wait until she could talk to Rosemarie alone about the Sparrow kiss. It was the first time Rosemarie had ever kissed a girl, and Sparrow wasn’t just a girl to Rosemarie—she was the girl and Ada was happy for her friend. Kasey was across Silas’s lap with her eyes closed, and Caroline was in the kitchen with some people, rooting around in the freezer for Popsicles.
“What was up with Trey Foxberry acting like a normal human tonight? Or at least for the fifteen minutes he was on the dance floor with us?” Ada asked the room.
“Who did he go to prom with?” a girl asked.
“I don’t know,” Silas said, shaking his head.
“Why don’t we, like, know anything about him?” Kasey mumbled. Ada had thought she was sleeping, but Kasey sat up and leaned against the arm of the couch.
“I don’t know,” Silas repeated. “I’ve grown up with the kid my whole life, but we’ve never been friends. He’s a dick.”
“He is a fucking dick,” Grayson chimed in, his voice deep and sleepy.
The Castelow boys got along with almost everyone, so the ease with which they fell into calling Trey Foxberry a dick was telling. No one in the room challenged them on it.
“I’ve never said one word to him, and we had three classes together last year,” Kasey said.
“His dad’s a dick too,” Grayson said. He explained how Mr. Castelow didn’t like Mr. Foxberry and how they’d played on the high school football team together.
“Caroppenheimer?” Rosemarie said loud enough so Caro would hear her from the kitchen.
“Yo,” Caro said, swishing her red ponytail out and peeping around the corner.
“Come and tell us more about dancing with the devil,” Rosemarie said. Ada was buzzed, not drunk, and so was Rosemarie. She could always tell from Rosemarie’s voice first, how it crackled like a sparkler.
“Trey Foxberry,” Kasey clarified.
“I knew who she meant,” Caro said. She walked into the living room with her right hand spread wide, five raspberries stuck on the tips. She sat on the rug in front of them and ate the one off her thumb. “I don’t know why he asked me to dance. Maybe it was a dare.”
“Oh, please! Why are you doing that? No one has to be dared to dance with you! Quit it,” Ada said.
“I’m sorry! I mean, I never talk to him. Right place, right time, I guess. Or wrong place, right time. Or right place, wrong time,” Caroline said.
“Or wrong place, wrong time,” Rosemarie and Ada said together.
They’d already talked about it as soon as they got to the lake house, but that was hours ago and now it was late enough to begin going over everything again in joyful, painstaking detail.
When they were finished, they came to the consensus that yes, absolutely, it was undeniable, and their years and years of research proved it—Trey Foxberry was indeed a colossal dick.
2019
9
Kasey
Kasey had spent the past few days having breakfast at Caroline’s and lunch at Rosemarie’s and dinner at either Ada’s or Plum Eats. Caro always brought sweet treats to Rosemarie’s, and Ada never showed up at Caro’s place without something delicious.
Last night after stopping by Duke’s house to visit and have cherry pie with him and his wife, Kasey caved and spent the night with Caro in the mansion because Trey was out of town and Caro begged her to. Even though her ridiculously overpriced hotel room was going to sit empty for a night, Kasey couldn’t say no. Caro seemed like such a little girl in that moment, pleading in the same way she used to beg Grandma Mimi to ask Kasey’s mom if Kasey could stay one more night when she’d already stayed two. Rosemarie had slept over at Caro’s too, and Ada had hung around until she could barely keep awake.