Portrait of a Girl

Now I've Had The Time of My Life

“Wow,” Emmalee said, as she took a sip out of the brown beer bottle in her right hand, “ I guess I have to give you props for being more open minded that we all thought you were.” Emmalee, was a platinum haired, big breasted, self centered beautiful girl. She had also gone to elementary school with me. When middle school began she had tried her best to be rebellious, and separate herself from her popular cousin Ally. Emmalee however had failed. She had for a long time straddled the line of high school royalty and the skater/punk she wanted to be. It wasn’t until Ally found out that Emmalee had been sleeping with her boyfriend that Emmalee had found herself in the out cast clique that she seemingly always wanted to be in.

“Um, thanks,” I said awkwardly taking a bitter sip of orange juice and vodka from my red solo cup.
Night had finally sat one the tiny cabin in the woods. Cara, Liz, and, Emmalee weren’t the only ones who had found their way to this little soiree. Maggie Newton had also joined us. She had been a new student this fall. She had once lived in New York City, but her mother, after being mugged decided that the city was too horrible of a place to live and found the most rural place she could and moved them here.

Maggie was the sort of girl you would expect to see in New York. She was tall and thin and her long dark hair was broken by platinum streaks. She was a painter or something like that. Her mother was a lawyer and had found it easy to start practicing here. Maggie was loud a boisterous. She had been drinking and smoking long before any Lillian and her friends, I gathered from the conversation at least.

“Nah,” Lillian said, “ I didn’t really start drinking until after James and I broke up.”

“He is such a piece of shit,” Cara said, “Like he dumps you and he stars dating Olivia, like a month later.”

“Yea, he dumped me because he wanted to be single,” Lillian spat bitterly, her green eyes were already glassy and blood shot.

I felt the vodka slowly start to take my body, their voices slowly blended together, as I focused on Lillian and her graceful, movements. The way she tossed her hair when she laughed, the way her fingers continued to flip open and closed her zippo lighter long after her cigarette was lit. My cheeks were flushed, and I felt a bubbly giggly warmth, my arms and legs felt heavier than normal, and the world kept moving just a little but longer after I had stopped.

“Too bad it’s clouded up,” I said looking out the window, “ It would have been nice to go look at the stars up here.”

“Oh my god,” Maggie snorted, “Do you turn in to a poet when you drink?”

I giggled, “I donno,” We all laughed.

“Yeah the stars are really pretty, up here,” Lillian said with a smile.

“So, Lillian, Gabe what are you guys gonna do for prom?” Emmalee asked.

“What do you mean?” I asked not sure if my confusion came from the question or the vodka.

“Last year, Lillian and James, did this whole, Victorian thing, he wore like tails and a top hat and gloves and a cape, and Lillian’s dress was right out of some Dickens’ novel.”

“Oh, Oh, I’ve got it!” Lillian said drunkenly standing, and pulling Liz up with her, “Dirty Dancing!” She said as she started grinding on her.

“Oh shit, that’s a great idea! Preppy Kid can wear like a Mad Men suit, and you in some tea length taffeta dress, with your pearls and so short gloves.”

“And we’ll take my ’57 Chevy!” She said dancing over to me,

“Wait you have a ’57 Chevy?" I asked a little surprised and confused.

“What?” She asked blinking in confusion, “ Yes, I just don’t drive it for obvious reasons… And… where was I…Oh…And, and we’ll have the Dj play that one song… What is that song?” She said looking at me, I shook my head, “Oh I’ve had the time of my life.”

“And I owe it all to yooohoooo!” The rest of the girls joined in, sing songy and off pitch.

“And we’ll learn that dance, and it will be like those wedding choreographed you see all the time on youtube.”

“Is she serious?” I asked looking at Liz and Cara.

“She is right now. If that lasts when she’s sober we’ll just have to wait and see.”

“Oh, hush Liz! You know my best ideas come whilst I am intoxicated.”

“Yeah, if you manage not to get a blurry photo, because of your drunken unsteadiness.”
The room was filled with a harsh bark of her laughter, “So true. Can we play Kings now?” She asked taking a hit off of her cigarette.

“Kings?” I asked confused.

“Yeah it’s a drinking game, with beer,” Lillian said as she pulled the case out of the refrigerator.

“Each card, has a meaning and an assigned number of drinks,” Maggie said helpfully before offering me a cigarette.

“No thanks,” I said.

“It gets really complicated and confusing as the game goes on, most of the time we don’t remember the rules by the time we quit,” Maggie added.

“Yea, I don’t think that we have ever finished a game,” Cara said.

Lillian sat down next to me on the couch and we all scooted forward to the coffee table, “How drink are you?” I asked.

She smiled and said, “ Clearly not as drink as you are.”

“Shit did I say that?”

“Yep. I’m moderately buzzed. I like to take it slow I’m and endurance drinker!” She said with a laugh.

I then noticed that while Cara was shuffling the cards, Emmalee had produced a violently pink glass pipe and a sandwich bag filled with what looked from my vantage point to be oregano but I knew that it wasn’t. Emmalee flicked a lighter and held it over the contents and they glowed red. I watched as she inhaled and held it for a few moments before expelling the smoke in a great puff. It seemed so dramatic to me. I watched as she handed it to Lillian, Lillian seemed more graceful about it. The smoke only trickling out of her nose. Then to Liz, and Kara and Maggie handed it to me, “Um, I dunno.” I said awkwardly recalling what Lillian had said in the car.

“Puss,” Emmalee said, “ Just do it for fucks sake.”

I looked at Lillian, “Do what you want,” She said in a bitter monotone.

So I placed the pipe between my lips and I flicked Lillian’s zippo and held it to the bowl. I inhaled, it tasted awaful and it felt as if my lungs were on fire. But I held it in until I heard Maggie say, “ What a Champ!” And I felt a surge of pride course through me.

I passed it on and it made its way around to me a couple three more times, to be honest I really don’t know how many. Then we began to play Lillian’s favorite game, I only remember the first card being drawn and it was an ace, and that meant ‘Waterfall’. We would all start drinking at the same time and you couldn’t stop until the person on your left did. This was apparently my first experience of a black out.
When I began making memories again I was in the bath room, pissing. My head was clouded and my vision blurred and I felt a panic growing in my chest. I needed to go home. The cops were going to get called on us and I was going to go to jail and there goes my future. This must have been her plan all along! I burst out the bathroom into the kitchen. The tv was on and Lillian lay on the couch smoking a cigarette.

“I need to go home,” I said flatly standing between her an the tv.

“What?” She asked more annoyed than anything else.

“I need to go I can’t stay here.”

“No.”

“Please can you or one of the others take me home please?” The panic growing.

“Gabe, I have three rules for partying with me, which I had hope I wouldn’t have to tell you tonight. Rule 1: I DO NOT drive drunk. Rule 2: I DO NOT drive high. Rule 3. I don’t let my friends to either of those either.”

“Please,” I pleaded.

“Gabe, “ she said swinging her legs around and sitting up straight, “This is why I didn’t want you to do both things tonight. Anyways listen, everything is okay,” She said taking my hand, “ What ever it is you have gotten in you head that is wrong its not. It’s the pot. The world was fine when you showed up here, its fine now and it will be fine in the morning. What ever you think is wrong with you isn’t. You are okay. You may vomit, but you aren’t going to die. Everything is fine. Its all in your head. Have you had water?” She asked standing and walking to the kitchen and opening the refrigerator and handed me a bottle of water, and opened one herself.

“Thanks,” I said drinking it greedily.

“Lets go to bed,” She said turning off the lights and the tv. She took my hand and led me up the stairs to the loft. Had I been in my right mind I may have wondered I she was going to try to get me to have sex with her, but as it was I was drunk, high and very tired, so it never crossed my mind. She pulled some blankets out of a closet at tucked me in, she sat the water bottle on the night stand she placed a trash bag next to me and said, “Here’s that if your gonna vomit and cant make it to the bathroom.” She climbed in the bed next to me and wrapped her self in a second set of blankets, “ Don’t get any idea’s,” She said as she turned of the lap on her night stand.

I lay there in the quiet dark for a moment before I asked, “ What do you guys do in the morning?”

“ First one up starts cleaning, second one up cleans while the first showers, and so on until we have to wake up the last person. Then we pack up, and head to this awesome little diner in town and we get breakfast, if were there in time, if not we get lunch. Then we go home.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“For what?”

“A fun evening.”

“Yeah we’ll see how you feel in the morning,” She said with laugh, “ Sweet dreams, Preppy Kid.”

“Night,” I said as I closed my eyes. And it wasn’t long before I drifted off to one of the most sound sleeps of my life.
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Sorry its taken a while finals and all. Please let me know what you guys think! pretty please with sugar on top! :)