A Step Behind

“Funtastics, bitches! Let’s do this gig!” Marilynne, my friend, yelled. Today was the Saturday before her sixteenth birthday and me, Claire, D, and Lynn had set up a surprise party for her. There were 2 parts; Funtastics, a game place in northern Tucson, and then back to Claire’s house for a pool party and sleepover. (She was the only one with a pool.)

We had blind folded her and made her listen to her screamo music as loud as her iPod would play it so that she couldn’t tell where we were going. We arrived close to one-thirty and had handed D our money and bought our unlimited wristbands. When we pulled the bandana away from her eyes she had covered her face, laughed, and screamed.

We took off running towards the go-karts. Even though the rules clearly stated no bumping, but once six football players rammed the kart Marilynne and I were sharing, we were out for blood. I drifted around the curves of the track as well and as fast as the kart would let me, ramming them from the back and the side before speeding up and away from them. We flipped them off as we passed by. So much for no bumping, eh?

We spent three hours driving on the go-karts and squirting chlorine into each other’s eyes. D had wanted to play golf before we left, but to be honest, I think she was being a sore loser because she had been coming in last between the five of us. We never got to golf, even though we tried. We wanted to but four o’clock had come a lot sooner than we’d thought.

On went the blind fold and in went the ear buds. We made a ten minute stop at Dominoes for four large pizzas, two were pepperoni and two were cheese, and then it was off to Claire’s.

I had been over to her house earlier that day to drop off the cake I had spent all night making and all morning decorating and the giant birthday card the four of us had made her with all of her friends signatures on it.

Claire and I walked in before everyone else to pull the cake out of the fridge and set up the card and light the SpongeBob Square Pants candle that sat beside the hot pink frosted chocolate dinosaur cake.

We brought Marilynne in, sans ear buds, and started signing ‘Happy Birthday’ to her. By the end of the song, she pulled off the blind fold. She cried. I got it all on camera. She had, by her own claim, never been given this great a present, or a birthday as - mm, extravagant, shall we say? – as that.

And then we spent the rest of the afternoon eating pizza, eating cake, taking photos, and swimming. Around two in the morning four of us decided to go outside to work out and then run a mile, while D opted to stay inside the house to sleep.

Great night.