Imagine Us Happy Read online

  At first, I was pretty sure that I had made the biggest mistake of my life. When I signed up for the team, I had anticipated mindless—perhaps even relaxing!—jogs through the suburbs of Connecticut, a couple hours of peaceful trails a week outside of practice, a coach who yelled charming motivational phrases like “Pain is weakness leaving the body!” and “The battle is ninety percent mental!” and stuff like that. What I didn’t realize was that no sane person would ever describe running for ninety minutes a day when you’re already sore from the ninety minutes of running you did yesterday with an adjective remotely close to “relaxing.” Or that I would have to spend hours doing wind sprints up hills to increase “power.” Or that cross-country coaches are basically exempt from the rules of public decency in the name of their sport. I swear, at least one person went home crying every week from sheer terror, and this was the freshman team.

  Which brings us to the last and biggest surprise of all: eventually, I actually...started to love it. Sure, it was exhausting, and I was sore for entire months at a time, and I had to spend fifty dollars on a new pair of shoes after the soles of my old ones literally fell off. But after the initial shock wore off, the exercise, the repetitiveness, feeling myself get stronger with each run—it became something I started to look forward to every day. Running became a time when nothing else mattered but the feel of my shoes hitting the ground, the sound of my breathing in my own ears, the miles and miles of tree-lined roads that flew by over the course of an afternoon. Katie might’ve always been prettier and more social and better at making friends and just plain happier than I was, and Lin—whom we befriended midway through October after bonding over a miserable English group project—might’ve been smarter and more creative and endlessly well-read, and I might have been drowning in more schoolwork than I’d ever had in my life, but none of that mattered when I was running. Because I had the roads. The roads, and the wind in my hair, and a personal best to set.

  10.

  Katie sends Lin and me eight text messages in a row before Ashley’s party on Saturday, each more urgent than the last.

  Katie Brook (10:51 a.m.): yoooo so im thinking we should meet up at like 8 to start getting ready. you guys wanna come to my house?

  Katie Brook (12:30 p.m.): gonna take that as a yes. lin can you bring ur naked 2 palette? i have no idea where mine went.

  Katie Brook (12:31 p.m.): oh yeah and please try and wear something cute...

  Katie Brook (1:42 p.m.): yes? no? are you guys alive?? stella did xc tryouts kill you???

  Katie Brook (1:43 p.m.): how did those go btw?

  Katie Brook (2:57 p.m.): LIN IF U DITCH AT THE LAST MINUTE BECAUSE YOU FEEL THE NEED TO REWRITE YOUR COMMON APP ESSAY FOR THE THOUSANDTH TIME I SWEAR TO GOD.

  Katie Brook (4:00 p.m.):...

  Katie Brook (5:37 p.m.): why am i friends with you guys?

  Stella Canavas (5:39 p.m.): JESUS. YES. WE ARE COMING TO THE PARTY. SEE YOU SOON UNLESS YOUR COMPLETE LACK OF CHILL GIVES YOU AN ANEURYSM BEFORE.

  Stella Canavas (5:39 p.m.): p.s. made varsity.

  Katie Brook (5:41 p.m.): :*

  Katie Brook (5:42 p.m.): CONGRATS OMG.

  Katie Brook (5:42 p.m.): we will celebrate tonight with shots aplenty.

  By the time 7:30 p.m. rolls around, I’m actually feeling pretty solid about going to this party. It’ll be good, I tell myself, to start junior year off on a fun note, to do something other than sitting at home and surfing the web and trying to ignore my mother’s anxious questioning about whether or not I have any “plans” this weekend. The worst-case scenario is that the music at Ashley’s party is insufferable or something, and if that happens, I can just walk the seven blocks between her house and mine. No big deal.

  I put on the closest thing to “party” clothes that I can find in my closet—a tank top, a black skirt and a pair of leggings—and throw some makeup into my bag, figuring that it’s better to let Katie make me look party-ready at her house than to make a mess of my face trying to do it myself. I grab my cell phone, head downstairs and—

  —run promptly into my parents...both of whom I’ve forgotten to inform about the party.

  “Oh—hi, honey,” my mom says, looking up from the television. My dad just looks confused, which I suppose is a somewhat disheartening testament to my complete and utter lack of social life. I can practically read his thoughts: Stella, out of her room on a Saturday night? What happened to my daughter?

  “Need anything?” my mom says.

  “I was gonna go...um, out,” I say. Then, in response to their blank expressions: “To this...thing.”

  I cringe, because that sounds terrible.

  “Could you elaborate on that, please?” my father says. I try not to groan as he picks up the remote and switches off the television. I might be here for a while.

  “Lin, Katie and I were going to get together and go over together to this other girl’s house. Um, her name’s Ashley? She’s in Lin’s year.”

  “Who else is going to be in attendance?” my dad asks.

  “Um, well, Lin and Katie are coming, as I mentioned, and beyond that... I don’t...really know? Some of the other upperclassmen, I guess. Ashley’s house isn’t that big, so it can’t be too many people...”

  I trail off.

  “I see,” my dad says. He pauses. “Is this the type of party that parents worry about letting their children go to?”

  “Uhhh...no?” I say.

  But he doesn’t look convinced.

  “Oh, let her go, Thomas,” my mom interrupts. “I’m sure they won’t get into too much trouble. Isn’t that right, Stell?”

  “Is there going to be drinking?” my dad presses, ignoring my mother.

  “Umm...” I say. The honest answer is yes, of course there’s going to be drinking. It’s a party for a bunch of bored suburban high schoolers; what else are we going to be doing? But by the time I consider lying, I know I’ve waited too long to speak and the answer is written all over my silence.

  Should’ve thought about this beforehand, I think. Should’ve asked Lin what she’s telling her parents, should’ve worn normal clothes and changed at Katie’s house...

  “Not tonight, Stella,” my father says. Then, in his most lawyerly of voices: “We can discuss this at another time and set a policy for future events, but for tonight—”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” my mom says. She rolls her eyes so hard that for a moment it’s easy to see a flash of myself reflected in her expression. “Stella, promise you won’t drink.”

  “I promise,” I say. “I don’t even want to get drunk. I’m just going because Katie’s really into, you know, socializing, and that kind of thing.”

  “There you have it,” my mom says. “They’re just going to socialize. Nothing wrong with that.”

  “Anne,” my dad says. “It’s not just about whether Stella and her friends choose to drink. It’s about her safety, which is affected by the decisions of everyone else at the party. I don’t want her going to some stranger’s house where a—a horde of seventeen-year-olds boys are drunk and doing God-knows-what.”

  “Ashley isn’t a stranger! We had math together in freshman year!” I say. I leave out the part where there were twelve other people in that math class and Ashley and I did not speak a single time all year. “And it won’t just be boys! Girls will be drunk, too! Ugh, that came out so much worse than I wanted it to.”

  “Stella hasn’t had a fun night out in years,” my mom says.

  “There’s no need to exaggerate, Anne, I’m sure she’s—”

  “No, really—she’s right,” I say. “I haven’t had a night out in years.”

  “After the rough time she had last semester, I think Stella’s earned tonight,” my mom continues. “And besides, she’ll be with Lin and Katie, two very responsible young girls.”

  “Misfortune doesn
’t permit deliberate irresponsibility,” my dad says. He readjusts his glasses, which means that he’s about to go into full-on lawyer mode. That’s the thing about my dad. In moments of emotional intensity, the only thing that changes about him is that his words get, like, an average of six syllables longer. Which was fine when he had to convince Principal Holmquist that I wasn’t a danger to myself or others, but is less fine when my mom thinks he’s keeping me from my one shot at having a normal, happy junior year. “And besides,” he continues, “what are Lin and Katie going to be able to do if their excessively inebriated peers get out of control? They’re a bunch of teenage girls, Anne.”

  “Are Ashley’s parents going to be there?” my mom asks.

  “Of course they are.” I actually don’t know whether Ashley’s parents are going to be there, but I figure that now is about the time when I should take a hint from every television show about high school ever aired and just lie. Works on Gossip Girl, right?

  “No,” my dad says.

  “Go ahead, Stella,” my mom says.

  “Anne!” my dad says.

  “What?” my mom snaps. “Stella wants to have a night out, she’s going with two responsible friends, the party will be supervised by adults. There’s no reason for us to keep her here, where she’ll just sit in her room and stew in her own thoughts all evening.”

  Part of me wants to step in and tell my mom that there’s nothing wrong with my thoughts, but then I remember that she’s on my side.

  “Stella does not have to sit in her room and stew in her thoughts all evening,” my dad says. “She could join us. Stella, we are watching the sixth Harry Potter film on ABC Family and Ron has just taken the love potion that Romilda tried to slip Harry—it’s really quite amusing. You are more than welcome to join us if—”

  “Thomas!” my mom says. “This will be good for her. Do you understand what I’m saying? It will be healthy. Normal. Fun. All concepts which you may be familiar with!”

  “That’s not an assessment you can make on your own, Anne,” my dad says. I start to think that I could walk out of the house right now and they’d be so caught up in arguing that they wouldn’t even notice.

  “Really?” my mom says. “Since when have you been in tune with Stella’s extracurricular activities? I don’t see you picking her up from track practice every day, or dropping her off at the mall on the weekends to hang out with her friends, or even having conversations with her when she gets home from school. When was the last time you took an interest in your daughter’s social life?”

  “Okay, well, I’m gonna go now,” I say brightly, as my dad launches into a long lecture about how it’s hard for him because he’s at work all day, but he knows that he and I have a great relationship—Isn’t that right, Stella?—and my mom is misconstruing all of his statements, and he doesn’t see why she needs to get so emotional in the middle of what should be a rational discussion. Neither of them looks up.

  “Well, bye,” I mutter, and I’m not sure whether I feel more relieved or disheartened when I finally slip out of the house unnoticed.

  11.

  “Oh, my God, Stella, I was so worried,” Katie says, answering the door. She ushers me up the stairs to her room, where Lin is perched on Katie’s bed, dressed head-to-toe in Katie’s clothes, examining her eye makeup in Katie’s handheld mirror. Her dark brown hair is in loose curls.

  “Sorry I didn’t text you,” I say. “My parents went insane. Turns out, Dad wasn’t huge on the idea of me running wild at some debauched, alcohol-fueled party full of horny high school boys.”

  “You told them you were going to a party?” Lin says. “Well, jeez, Stella, there’s your first mistake.”

  “Hold still,” Katie says. She pulls her long, purple hair in a high ponytail and grabs her makeup bag off her desk. “I’m just going to do your eyes.”

  “How are we getting to Ashley’s?” Lin asks.

  “A couple of seniors are giving us a ride,” Katie responds, almost too quickly. “Um, Bobby L. and Markus...?”

  My eyes fly open and I swat Katie’s brush out of the way. “The football players? We’re going to get into a car with two football players?”

  Katie blushes. “Yeah,” she says, sounding half defensive, half pleased with herself. “Bobby’s in my bio class and said he wouldn’t mind. He’s cute, right?”

  I groan. “No. No. Nooo, Katie. I thought you were done with jocks after the Christian incident?”

  Katie rolls her eyes. “Just because Bobby gives us a ride to Ashley’s party doesn’t mean I’m going to end the night in some random closet with him. You people have no faith in me. You know, Mariana told Ashley the other day that she was ‘concerned for me’ after she saw that Bobby and I are lab partners this semester in bio? Just because I like flirting, and I’d rather talk about cute guys than, I dunno, the recurrent motifs in Steinbeck’s body of literary work—”

  “Hey!” Lin says. Everyone who’s ever talked to Lin knows that Steinbeck is her favorite author. In fact, I think Lin is counting down the days until I have to read it for AmLit this semester, just because she’ll finally have someone new to harangue endlessly about it.

  “That doesn’t mean I’m some stupid girl who doesn’t know what she wants. Or, for that matter, what guys want. Plus,” she adds, “just because someone is an athlete doesn’t mean they’re an asshole. So everyone just chill.”

  “I dunno,” I say. “Christian—”

  “Christian is an asshole who happens to also be on the baseball team,” Katie says. “He is an asshole and an athlete. Two independent facts.”

  Katie steps away from me, takes the mirror out of Lin’s hands and passes it to me. “Done.”

  “It looks—I look—older, I guess.”

  “Yes,” Katie says. She sounds faintly amused. “That’s the point.”

  Katie takes the mirror away, tosses it onto her bed and sits down in front of me. She looks me in the eye with huge, perfectly mascaraed eyes. “Look, Stella,” she says. “Promise me that you’ll be open-minded tonight. About, you know, people.”

  “I’m open-minded!” I say.

  “Uh-huh,” Katie says. “Which is exactly why you think Bobby is an asshole even though you’ve never spoken to him before. Just because he likes to play football after school, which, I might add, we go and watch!”

  “True,” Lin says. “No one hates the football players when they’re on the field winning.” I take a pen off Katie’s desk and chuck it in her general direction.

  “I just don’t want you to have a bad time tonight because you’ve already written everyone who’s going to be there off as stupid, you know?” Katie continues.

  “I haven’t written everyone who’s going to be there off as stupid!” I say. “I’ve just written off the party as a whole as stupid. There’s a difference.”

  Katie does not look amused, but her phone vibrates before she can reply. “They’re here,” she says, and she sounds pretty damn grim for someone who is about to attend a party.

  12.

  The first word I would use to describe Ashley’s party is loud.

  The second word I would use is:

  LOUD.

  The only sound that comes close to matching the aggressive dance-floor pop blaring through Ashley’s speaker is the chorus of thirty drunk kids singing along in the living room while swaying back and forth, making out or both. In that last category falls Ashley herself, who is wrapped around her boyfriend, clearly oblivious to the picture frames that have been knocked off the table and onto the ground, the drink Markus just accidentally spilled on her carpet and the game of beer pong being played across the top of her piano.

  “So,” Lin says, turning to look at me. Katie has disappeared into the crowd with Bobby, but the two of us still haven’t taken five steps inside the actual house. “You wanna leave?”


  “We can’t leave,” I say. “We promised Katie we’d stay and try to have fun.”

  “What?” Lin shouts. Unfortunately, my attempt to repeat the sentiment gets drowned out by the onset of the chorus of Kesha and Pitbull’s “Timber,” and the sound waves that come out of my mouth are promptly quashed.

  I shake my head instead, grab Lin’s hand, and pull her into the kitchen, where fifteen or so seniors crowd around a table stacked with beer, vodka and bottles of soda. The music is quieter here, but the trade-off is that the room smells like every ounce of marijuana in central Connecticut has been smoked in this room. The seniors, I now see, are passing around a pipe.

  “Might as well reap the benefits of this shitshow, right?” I say, grabbing two beers off the table and handing one to Lin. We walk over to the side of the room, where all of the chairs from the table have been relegated, and sit down.

  “Cheers to that,” Lin says, opening her beer. I follow suit.

  The last and only other time I’ve gotten drunk was at a party that Katie threw—because, let’s be honest, who else would invite me to a house party?—while her parents were out of town celebrating their twentieth anniversary. That ordeal turned out to be a massive disaster, because:

  1) I got way too drunk after taking four shots in a row with Lin to celebrate her ridiculously high SAT score and ended the night throwing up in Katie’s bathroom;

  2) Lin got way too drunk and ended the night crying because of her ridiculously-high-but-not-perfect SAT score;

  3) Katie got way too drunk and invited Christian, her asshole ex-boyfriend, to come to the party at quarter past midnight; and

  4) Katie’s parents ended up finding out about the entire thing, anyway, because some imbecile got so drunk he BROKE THE CHANDELIER IN THE FOYER.