Cancer

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What do you wear to a major record release party in Vegas? Obviously, I had no idea--and, furthermore, whatever the appropriate outfit may be was certainly not in the small pile of clothing I had packed up and brought with me to Vegas nearly two weeks ago.

I had been too distraught at the time to pack properly, so now I found myself with nothing a but a cheap duffel bag that was only half-full of stuff. I had packed maybe five or six tops and a hoodie, four pairs of jeans, the nice dress I had worn to Dad's funeral, and a couple of handfuls of socks and underwear. As far as shoes went, I had my ratty Converse, a pair of plain black flats, and the heels I had worn with Funeral Dress.

So... Funeral Dress and Funeral Heels it was, then.

Luckily, the outfit wasn't too horribly morbid. It was your average, ordinary, unoffensive little black dress (I had paired it with an old-lady cardigan and black tights for the funeral.) It came down to just above the knee and didn't show much cleavage--though I wasn't quite sure if this was a good or bad quality for this particular situation--but it was stylishly simple and fit me well.

I slipped into the dress and examined myself in the mirror for far too long, eventually coming to the conclusion that I looked...not terrible. Then I fussed over my hair and make-up for even longer in the hopes that if my face looked good enough, it would distract from my lackluster outfit.

"Oh, honey," sighed Mom in exasperation, coming up behind me as I attempted to curl my hair in the tiny hotel bathroom. She took the curler from my hands with authority and picked up where I left off, but with much more confidence and skill than I had. "The back is all droopy," she said chastizingly, as if I had styled my hair poorly on purpose, just to annoy her.

I bit my lip and decided to let her finish my hair for me--I would be ready much faster that way, and I would probably look a lot nicer in the end, too. Plus, it would save me a fight with Mom, which always made me feel really guilty these days because she spent so much of her time crying lately.

But she seemed cheerful enough now as she worked on my hair busily, humming a cheerful tune to some overplayed pop song from the 80's under her breath. After a moment, she asked curiously, "Any particular reason why you're freaking out over this little party so much?"

"Mom," I scoffed, only because I had told her a hundred times already, "it's not a little party. It's the record release party for one of the biggest albums of the year. There will be celebrities there, and paparazzi, and--"

"So it has nothing to do with the fact that this Ryan boy is taking you?" Her voice sounded innocent enough, but I caught the coy gleam in her eyes in her reflection in the mirror.

"Mom," I said, frowning. "It's not like that--"

But before I could explain my odd relationship with Ryan any further, the loud, abrasive sound of my phone vibrating against the desk in the other room made us both jump.

"I gotta get that," I said hurriedly, turning and flitting out of the bathroom so fast that Mom nearly speared me with the hot curling iron by accident. I found my phone amidst all the junk that had accumulated on the desk since we had been staying here and answered it just in time. "Hello?" I said breathlessly.

"Hey, Kels," said Ryan brightly. "You ready to go?"

"Um..." My reflection stared back at me in the huge mirror above the desk, wide-eyed with face flushed, uncertain and unprepared--and anything but ready. "Uh, no."

He chuckled slightly. "Well, I'm parked out here in front of the hotel, whenever you're ready."

"Okay. Be right there."

He started to say something--I hope it was just parting words, because I hung up on him before he could get it out. I was running late. I didn't have time for goodbyes.

-----

"Hi," said Ryan as I got into his car.

"Hi." I smiled back at him and then glanced into the backseat of his car in confusion, but it was just the two of us. "Where's Pam?" I asked politely.

"Oh. She uh..." He paused to scratch his head a little as he started the car and prepared to back out of his parking spot. "She couldn't make it."

There was something so off about his tone of voice that I actually turned to look at him, to read his expression--but of course, as always, his face gave away nothing. Still... I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but there was something stranged about the look on his face, too. He seemed cheerful enough, but underneath it was something like...nervousness?

"Oh. Well, that's too bad," I said, and I sincerely meant it. I had kind of been hoping to see Pam tonight, if only to make it up to her for barging in on her and Ryan the other day and to prove to her that I wasn't crazy.

I waited for Ryan to elaborate on why she couldn't come, but he was silent as he drove through the dark towards the club where the party would be held.

Then I felt sort of bad for asking about Pam. Maybe they had a fight, and he was still upset. Or maybe she just couldn't come for some odd reason, and he was sad about it. Whatever it was, he obviously didn't want to talk about it.

Or, then again, maybe he was just nervous about tonight. That wasn't such a stretch. I was nervous, and I wasn't even the guest of honor--hell, I wasn't even a guest of any consequence. I was sure to be the least famous, least interesting, and least important person there.

I sighed gloomily at the thought. Why, oh why, had I ever agreed to this? It would be so awkward and downright embarrassing, probably, being in that room full of gorgeous, perfect celebrities. I would most likely humiliate myself if I actually had to talk to any of them. It was mortification waiting to happen.

"Ryan," I groaned. "Why did you even invite me?"

"Because I like you."

He said it with just a little too much feeling, and, though I had almost instantaneously forgotten his previous odd tone, I suddenly found myself searching his face for answers again.

Ryan must have noticed my confusion, because he shifted awkwardly in the driver's seat and locked his gaze on the road ahead of him (though we were currently moving sluggishly in an extremely constipated flow of evening traffic in Vegas) instead of looking at me. "I mean, you're my friend. I've known you a long time. Why wouldn't I invite you?"

"Because I'm boring and fat and extremely non-famous. Plus," I added, "I've been living in a hotel room with my menopausal mother for the past two weeks, and right now I'm wearing the same dress I wore to my dad's funeral because it's the only one I've got."

"That's not true," said Ryan, frowning in disapproval of my self-deprecation. He glanced at me sideways, and I knew he was checking to see if I really was wearing Funeral Dress. "You're not fat, anyway," he muttered.

"I am compared to all the scene queens that I'm sure will be there," I said bitingly. "They're like a bunch of overgrown stick-bugs in cheap wigs and neon make-up."

"Don't be mean."

"And they have no boobs because they're so skinny," I ranted. "And everyone thinks they're so wonderful and so stylish and so pretty and perfect and scene--"

"Kelsey--" Ryan began.

"--but really, they're all just trashy whores with no originality."

He turned to stare at me with a slightly awed expression. "I never knew there was so much hate in you," said Ryan, blinking at me a few times in wonder.

"Yeah, well..." I growled. I turned to look out the window so I didn't have to face him as I realized why I had said all those things. "I guess after the whole Audrey Kitching thing with...with Brendon, I sort of held a grudge."

I expected him laugh or sigh or at least say something, but Ryan didn't react at all. He just kept staring straight ahead as the traffic finally started to break up a little.

The rest of the ride passed in silence. He didn't make conversation, and neither did I; I was too busy worrying about what the hell I would say to Pete Wentz when I was inevitably introduced to him at some point or another. Unless he couldn't make it out to Vegas for some reason...that could happen, too...

I was so lost in my frenzied thoughts that I didn't even notice that we had arrived at the club until Ryan walked around and opened my door for me.

"Oh...thank you," I said in a dazed voice, stumbling out of the car clumsily.

His wide hand caught my arm just above my elbow and steadied me. He smiled, and for a moment I thought he was just going to say, "You're welome," or, "No problem." But instead, he said, "You know, Audrey Kitching's not that bad. She's actually pretty cool. None of that shit with Brendon was her fault."

It was clear by the way he emphasized the her that he did believe it was someone's fault.

But I couldn't form a rational response to that, or even figure out exactly what he was implying by it. I could only stare open-mouthed and blink at him in completely bewilderment.

For his part, Ryan just continued to smile pleasantly as he walked off towards what looked like the backdoor of some club I had never been to. "We're gonna be late if we don't hurry up and get inside," he explained sheepishly. "And I was supposed to be here early..."

I shoved my confused thoughts of what he had meant by the Audrey Kitching comment to the back of my mind. I was going to need my wits about me tonight; I could worry about his talking in riddles after I got home again. So I hurried to catch up to him, and soon we were walking side-by-side.

"We're going in the back way?" I said, mostly to distract myself from thinking of anything else than this damn party.

"Yeah," he said casually, shrugging. "I didn't think you'd want to squeeze past the photographers. They can be brutal."

We reached the back door and he held it open for me. I stepped inside and found myself in a dimly-lit backroom that didn't look anything like the clubs in the movies were supposed to. A sign on the plain white-washed wall directly in front of me read in bold print NO CAMERAS.

I laughed as I thought of what conclusions people might jump to if they saw pictures of me (wearing Funeral Dress, no less) showing up at this party with Ryan. "Good idea. I can just see the gossip blogs now... By morning, half the country would be convinced that I'm pregnant or we're getting married."

"Or both," said Ryan. "That seems to be the trend with most celebrities nowadays."

"Shhh!"

Ryan and I both jumped and gasped a little at the sudden, loud hissing noise coming from the open doorway behind us. We whirled around in perfect synchronization and our reactions were instantaneous and the polar opposite of one another: while Ryan relaxed and smiled, I choked on a large gulp of air and nearly fainted.

"Keep your voice down," said Pete Wentz loudly, beaming, "Pete Wentz might hear you."