“Wine’s good, though,” he said, finally.
“I can’t tell,” I said. “It all tastes the same to me.”
“Huh,” he said.
“I’d die for a beer right now. Literally die.”
He smiled. “Right. So—Connor tells me you’re studying engineering.”
“Yep.”
“Sounds hard.”
“Yep.”
“Enginerd. You ever heard that one? That’s what we used to call engineers. I mean, not all of them. And not you, obviously. Only—”
“I get it,” I said. Just for the hell of it—because it was, like, polished and jumping with strength, the sort of dark brown that reminded me of boys back home—I stroked his right biceps. I could maybe do this, I thought, wondering how much wine it would take. More than I was willing to put in me.
“Cheers,” I said. Tilted my wineglass back, and swallowed.
While I was drinking, something caught my eye. I turned to focus on it. On the far side of the bluff, Van’s voice had come up. She was talking to Connor. I couldn’t make out the words. But I could see his weight shift. Leaning with his chest out, like he owned her space. But those things never worked on Van. Instead, she finished her glass of wine in one pull. After she got it all in her mouth she looked at him straight and spat the wine into his face. Then she placed her glass on the nearest cocktail table and walked back into the tent.
I started walking after her. “Stay,” I said back to Sean. “Or go to him. Whatever.”
It was much hotter in the tent. As if something large was sleeping just above the crowd. And it was starting to smell, in some corners, a little like armpits. Everyone’s voices inside were excited. I found Van by the snack table. She was stacking cheese on crackers and chomping them down. Plus holding another glass of wine.
“You spilled your wine out there,” I said. “On Connor’s face.”
She laughed. “I guess I’m clumsy when I drink wine.”
She crushed crackers and cheese into her mouth. “Think it was a good idea to come here?”
“If you wanted to be fancy, we could have just gone to something fancy in the city,” I said. “Swing-dance clubs downtown.”
“Do I look like I swing-dance to you?”
“You do right now.”
She shrugged, crunched another cracker sandwich. “We’re going to leave school one of these days, probably faster than we think. All over. We’re supposed to be women out in the world—office heels and bank accounts. I don’t know.”
“Are you kidding me?” I said. “Talking to Sean is like talking to a crash-test dummy. I’ll stay in school and get another degree.”
“But he has good arms, right?” Van asked.
My turn to laugh. “Right?” I said. “They’re, like, lickable. I want to rub my— Aren’t you lactose-intolerant?” I asked, watching her pinch more cheese into her mouth. Cracker dust stuck to her lips, even after she took a sip of wine.
“Kaui,” she said, as if tired, “just eat some of this ridiculous food with me and have a fucking glass.”
* * *
FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER we were in the bathroom. Van was bending at the waist like she’d been punched in the gut. I was struggling to get the zipper down on the back of her shorts.
“You have to hurry,” Van said.
“It’s caught on all this thread, Van, I’m trying,” I said.
She shuddered. Slapped my hands away. Started backing up toward one of the bathroom stalls. “Oh God,” she said. “This toilet is going to get it. So are my shorts. God, I’m going to shit all over myself.”
“Just let me,” I said.
She doubled over again. Her eyelids clamped down. “Hurry up!”
She looked at me quick. There was a flex of panic in her face and she backed all the way into the stall. Still doubled over and stress-breathing. I knew I had about ten seconds. She was fumbling with the zipper. Gritting her teeth. As she shifted and struggled her calves flexed. I stepped into the stall with her, smacked the door closed, hitched one of my legs up on the toilet’s valve—it was one of those weird metal things, like a miniature fire hydrant—and jerked down on the zipper on her shorts. It burned sharply in my thumb but didn’t move. Van groaned.
“There’s, like, a turtle head coming, Kaui, it’s going to be all over me in a minute—” I clutched at the shorts’ waistband and pulled down as hard as the fabric would let me. Something ripped and the shorts got below her knees and Van slammed herself down on the toilet seat and the volcano in her guts erupted. I flinched, banging my elbows against the stall door.
“Can’t you just—” I started, but there was nowhere to go, and Van grunted and let loose again. Wet sounds crackled out of her bottom. She was pressing her hands against the sides of the stall and panting as the food jetted out of her in one endless run. I was still holding on to her legs, where the shorts had stopped. I wanted to cover my nose, to back away, but it was already over. Van shook with laughter. A stench steamed oppressively out of the toilet.
“Oh my God,” Van gasped. “I don’t even smoke, and I feel like that deserves a cigarette.” She laughed. I did, too.
“How was the cheese?” I asked, tears in my eyes, although it was hard to know what from, the stink or the laughter. “Worth it?”
“Worth it,” Van said, forearms on her knees, hanging her head. “Definitely worth it. God, my ass smells terrible. Who knew.” I let go of her shorts and stood. From up there I could see the hunch of her back. Gentle knuckles of spine. The big and small of her breathing. Her shorts puddled around her ankles, the explosion of shredded fabric and mangled zipper track. Just then the main bathroom door groaned open, followed by the sharp clack of a pair of high heels. Whoever the woman was, she didn’t make it far. After a few seconds the heels retreated. The roar of the party came up, then swung back to silence with the closing door.
“Exactly,” Van said, as she wiped. “Run for your life.”
But we did need to leave. “Let me try this zipper,” I said. I squatted again, and when I shifted my weight, my left knee, the purple-brown spatters of scar on top of my dark-brown skin, that knee pressed against her shin. I left it there. Van had finished wiping. I tried the shorts, their zipper, but after a few pitiful jerks I gave up. The wine was letting me know how much of it I’d really had. My head throbbed from the effort of pulling and I let my skull roll forward onto Van’s shoulder. Then sideways into the scoop of her collarbone. We paused. Breathing: my head, her neck. I lifted my head slightly and our ears touched; our necks, hers damp. I lifted my head, knowing what I was moving for. My lips drifted across the small hairs on her cheek and then into her mouth.
Sweat stippled her upper lip. She opened her mouth slightly, me, too, and we pressed ourselves together. Her lips were way softer and more foreign than I thought they’d be and there was a short wet flash of our tongues meeting, thick and warm with spit, plus the cooked pocket of our breath. I prickled, all over my face. Our lips stayed together. Pressed harder. Then we disconnected.
Soon we were single file on the dusty road away from the parking lot. A purple dusk was coming. We put our thumbs out into the yellow beams of headlights coming from behind, stripped off our shoes, and walked backward so we could see the faces failing to pick us up. Eventually a car whined to a stop alongside us.